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China Era of Disunity
The collapse of the Han dynasty was followed by nearly four
centuries of rule by warlords. The age of civil wars and disunity
began with the era of the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu, which
had overlapping reigns during the period A.D. 220-80). In later
times, fiction and drama greatly romanticized the reputed chivalry
of this period. Unity was restored briefly in the early years of
the Jin dynasty (A.D. 265-420), but the Jin could not long contain
the invasions of the nomadic peoples. In A.D. 317 the Jin court was
forced to flee from Luoyang and reestablished itself at Nanjing to
the south. The transfer of the capital coincided with China's
political fragmentation into a succession of dynasties that was to
last from A.D. 304 to 589. During this period the process of
sinicization accelerated among the non-Chinese arrivals in the
north and among the aboriginal tribesmen in the south. This process
was also accompanied by the increasing popularity of Buddhism
(introduced into China in the first century A.D.) in both north and
south China. Despite the political disunity of the times, there
were notable technological advances. The invention of gunpowder (at
that time for use only in fireworks) and the wheelbarrow is
believed to date from the sixth or seventh century. Advances in
medicine, astronomy, and cartography are also noted by historians.
Data as of July 1987
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