court.

Huan Wen's power steadily grew in the period that followed. He sent his
brothers and relatives to administer the regions along the upper
Yangtze; those fertile regions were the basis of his power. In 371 he
deposed the reigning emperor and appointed in his place a frail old
prince who died a year later, as required, and was replaced by a child.
The time had now come when Huan Wen might have ascended the throne
himself, but he died. None of his family could assemble as much power as
Huan Wen had done. The equality of strength of the Huan and the Hsieh
saved the dynasty for a time.

In 383 came the great assault of the Tibetan Fu Chien against the
south. As we know, the defence was carried out more by the methods of
diplomacy and intrigue than by military means, and it led to the
disaster in the north already described. The successes of the southern
state especially strengthened the Hsieh family, whose generals had come
to the fore. The emperor (Hsiao Wu Ti, 373-396), who had come to the
throne as a child, played no part in events at any time during his
reign. He occupied himself occasionally with Buddhism, and otherwise
only with women and wine. He was followed by his five-year-old son. At
this time there were some changes in the court clique. In the Huan
family Huan Hsuean, a son of Huan Wen, came especially into prominence.
He parted from the Hsieh family, which had been closest to the emperor,
and united with the Wang (the empress's) and Yin families. The Wang, an
old Shansi family, had already provided two empresses, and was therefore
strongly represented at court. The Yin had worked at first with the
Hsieh, especially as the two families came from the same region, but
afterwards the Yin went over to Huan Hsuean. At first this new clique had
success, but later one of its generals, Liu Lao-chih, went over to the
Hsieh clique, and its power declined. Wang Kung was killed, and Yin
Chung-k'an fell away from Huan Hsuean and was killed by him in 399. Huan
Hsuean himself, however, held his own in the regions loyal to him. Liu
Lao-chih had originally belonged to the Hsieh clique, and his family
came from a region not far from that of the Hsieh. He was very
ambitious, however, and always took the side which seemed most to his
own interest. For a time he joined Huan Hsuean; then he went over to the
Hsieh, and finally returned to Huan Hsuean in 402 when the latter reached
the height of his power. At that moment Liu La