China

The Shiliuguo (Sixteen Kingdoms) in the north (303–439)

The term Sixteen Kingdoms traditionally denotes the plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that from 303 came to rule the whole or parts of northern China. Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks (such as the Xiongnu, possibly related to the Huns of late Roman history, and the Jie), the Mongolians (Xianbei), and the Tibetans (Di and Qiang). Most of these nomadic peoples, relatively few in number, had to some extent been Sinicized long before their ascent to power. Some of them—notably the Qiang and the Xiongnu—actually had been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall since late Han times.

China in the Six Dynasties period (c. 500)China in the Six Dynasties period (c. 500).E. Reischauer and J. Fairbank, East Asia:The Great Tradition, copyright © 1958 and 1960 by Edwin o. Reischauer and John K. Fairbank, published by Houghton Mifflin Company

The barbarian rulers thus set up semi-Sinicized states, in which the foreign element constituted a military aristocracy and the nucleus of the armed forces. Since they lacked experience in administrative matters and since their own tribal institutions were not adapted to the complicated task of ruling a large agrarian society, they had to make use of traditional Chinese ways of government. In doing so, they faced the dilemma that has ever since confronted foreign rulers on Chinese soil: the tension that existed between the need to preserve their own ethnic identity (and their position as herrenvolk) on the one hand and on the other the practical necessity of using Chinese literati and members of prominent Chinese families in order to rule at all. In spite of various and sometimes highly interesting experiments, most of these short-lived empires did not survive this tension. Significantly, the only one that proved to have more lasting power and that was able to unify the whole of northern China—the Tuoba, or Bei (Northern) Wei (386–534/535)—was largely Sinicized within a century. In the late 5th century the court even forbade the use of the original Tuoba language, dress, customs, and surnames. This policy of conscious acculturation was further symbolized by the transfer of the Bei Wei capital from the northern frontier region to the ancient imperial residence of Luoyang.

Thus, toward the end of the period of division, the north had become more homogeneous as the result of a long process of adaptation. The most important factor in this process may have been the rehabilitation of the Chinese agrarian economy under the Bei Wei, stimulated by fiscal reform and redistribution of land (c. ad 500). The landed gentry again became the backbone of society, and the rulers of nomadic origin simply had to conform to their way of life. Another factor was the perceived intrinsic superiority of Chinese upper-class culture: in order to play the role of the “son of heaven,” the leaders of the barbarian court had to adopt the complicated rules of Chinese ritual and etiquette. Likewise, in order to surround themselves with an aura of legitimacy, the foreign conquerors had to express themselves in terms of Chinese culture. In doing so, they invariably lost their own identity. History has constantly repeated itself: in this respect the 4th- and 5th-century Jie and Tuoba were but the forerunners of the Qing, or Manchu, rulers in the 19th century.

In the early 6th century the Wei was divided between the Sinicized court and a faction of the nobility desperate to preserve its Tuoba identity. Soon after 520 the Wei empire disintegrated into rival northeastern and northwestern successor states. Northern China again became a battlefield for several decades. The Bei (Northern) Zhou (557–581), strategically based in the rich basin of the Wei River, reunified the north (577). Four years later Yang Jian (better known by his posthumous name, Wendi), a general of mixed Chinese and barbarian descent (but claiming to be a pure-blooded Chinese), usurped the throne and founded the Sui dynasty. In 589, having consolidated his regime, he crossed the Yangtze River and overthrew the last of the Chinese dynasties at Jiankang. After almost four centuries of division and political decay, China was again united under one central government, which, in spite of its short duration, would lay the foundation of the great Tang empire.