Economic and social situation in the south_

During the 260 years of alien rule in North China, the picture of South
China also was full of change. When in 317 the Huns had destroyed the
Chinese Chin dynasty in the north, a Chin prince who normally would not
have become heir to the throne declared himself, under the name Yuean Ti,
the first emperor of the "Eastern Chin dynasty" (317-419). The capital
of this new southern empire adjoined the present Nanking. Countless
members of the Chinese gentry had fled from the Huns at that time and
had come into the southern empire. They had not done so out of loyalty
to the Chinese dynasty or out of national feeling, but because they saw
little prospect of attaining rank and influence at the courts of the
alien rulers, and because it was to be feared that the aliens would turn
the fields into pasturage, and also that they would make an end of the
economic and monetary system which the gentry had evolved for their own
benefit.

But the south was, of course, not uninhabited. There were already two
groups living there--the old autochthonous population, consisting of
Yao, Tai and Yueeh, and the earlier Chinese immigrants from the north,
who had mainly arrived in the time of the Three Kingdoms, at the
beginning of the third century A.D. The countless new immigrants now
came into sharp conflict with the old-established earlier immigrants.
Each group looked down on the other and abused it. The two immigrant
groups in particular not only spoke different dialects but had developed
differently in respect to manners and customs. A look for example at
Formosa in the years after 1948 will certainly help in an understanding
of this situation: analogous tensions developed between the new
refugees, the old Chinese immigrants, and the native Formosan
population. But let us return to the southern empires.

The two immigrant groups also differed economically and socially: the
old immigrants were firmly established on the large properties they had
acquired, and dominated their tenants, who were largely autochthones; or
they had engaged in large-scale commerce. In any case, they possessed
capital, and more capital than was usually possessed by the gentry of
the north. Some of the new immigrants, on the other hand, were military
people. They came with empty hands, and they had no land. They hoped
that the government would give them positions in the military
administration and so provide them with mean