China

The Dong (Eastern) Jin (317–420) and later dynasties in the south (420–589)

During the entire medieval period the lower Yangtze region—the former territory of Wu—remained the stronghold of a series of “legitimate” Chinese dynasties, with Jiankang as their capital. In 317 a member of the Jin imperial family had set up a refugee regime at Jiankang, consisting mainly of members of the exiled northern aristocracy. From the beginning the Jin court was completely at the mercy of the great landowning families. Government in the Chinese south became a kind of oligarchy exercised by ever-changing groups and juntas of aristocratic clans. The so-called Six Dynasties were politically and militarily weak and constantly plagued by internal feuds and revolts. (The six were actually five—Dong Jin, 317–420; Liu-Song, 420–479; Nan [Southern] Qi, 479–502; Nan Liang, 502–557; and Nan Chen, 557–589—and all but Dong Jin are also known as Nanchao [Southern Dynasties] in Chinese history; the earlier kingdom of Wu, 222–280, is counted as the sixth dynasty.) Their annihilation (in 589) was postponed only by the internal division of the north and by the protection afforded by the Yangtze. To the very end, their opposition to the north remained alive, but occasional attempts to reconquer the ancient homeland were doomed to failure. The final reunification of China was to start from the northern plains, not from Jiankang.

Although politically insecure, these dynasties were characterized by cultural brilliance: in literature, art, philosophy, and religion, they constituted one of the most creative periods in Chinese history. They reached their highest flowering under the long and relatively stable reign of the great protector of Buddhism, Wudi (reigned 502–549), the first emperor of the Nan Liang dynasty.