followed was that of the conflicts of the Chinese with the populations
on their northern borders.

Chapter Seven

THE EPOCH OF THE FIRST DIVISION OF CHINA (A.D. 220-580)

(A) The three kingdoms (220-265)

1 _Social, intellectual, and economic problems during the first
division_

The end of the Han period was followed by the three and a half centuries
of the first division of China into several kingdoms, each with its own
dynasty. In fact, once before during the period of the Contending
States, China had been divided into a number of states, but at least in
theory they had been subject to the Chou dynasty, and none of the
contending states had made the claim to be the legitimate ruler of all
China. In this period of the "first division" several states claimed to
be legitimate rulers, and later Chinese historians tried to decide which
of these had "more right" to this claim. At the outset (220-280) there
were three kingdoms (Wei, Wu, Shu Han); then came an unstable reunion
during twenty-seven years (280-307) under the rule of the Western Chin.
This was followed by a still sharper division between north and south:
while a wave of non-Chinese nomad dynasties poured over the north, in
the south one Chinese clique after another seized power, so that dynasty
followed dynasty until finally, in 580, a united China came again into
existence, adopting the culture of the north and the traditions of the
gentry.

In some ways, the period from 220 to 580 can be compared with the period
of the coincidentally synchronous breakdown of the Roman Empire: in both
cases there was no great increase in population, although in China
perhaps no over-all decrease in population as in the Roman Empire;
decrease occurred, however, in the population of the great Chinese
cities, especially of the capital; furthermore we witness, in both
empires, a disorganization of the monetary system, i.e. in China the
reversal to a predominance of natural economy after some 400 years of
money economy. Yet, this period cannot be simply dismissed as a
transition period, as was usually done by the older European works on
China. The social order of the gentry, whose birth and development
inside China we followed, had for the first time to defend itself
against views and systems entirely opposed to it; for the Turkish and
Mongol peoples who ruled northern China brought with them their
traditions of a feudal nobility with privileges of birth and all that