385-550
2. Liu-Sung 420-478
3. Southern Ch'i 479-501
19. Northern Ch'i (Chinese?)550-576 4. Liang 502-556
20. Northern Chou (Toba) 557-579 5. Ch'en 557-588
21. Sui (Chinese) 580-618 6. Sui 580-618

Chapter Eight

THE EMPIRES OF THE SUI AND THE T'ANG

(A) The Sui dynasty (A.D. 580-618)

1 _Internal situation in the newly unified empire_

The last of the northern dynasties, the Northern Chou, had been brought
to an end by Yang Chien: rapid campaigns had made an end of the
remaining petty states, and thus the Sui dynasty had come into power.
China, reunited after 360 years, was again under Chinese rule. This
event brought about a new epoch in the history of the Far East. But the
happenings of 360 years could not be wiped out by a change of dynasty.
The short Sui period can only be described as a period of transition to
unified forms.

In the last resort the union of the various parts of China proceeded
from the north. The north had always, beyond question, been militarily
superior, because its ruling class had consisted of warlike peoples. Yet
it was not a northerner who had united China but a Chinese though, owing
to mixed marriages, he was certainly not entirely unrelated to the
northern peoples. The rule, however, of the actual northern peoples was
at an end. The start of the Sui dynasty, while the Chou still held the
north, was evidence, just like the emergence in the north-east some
thirty years earlier of the Northern Ch'i dynasty, that the Chinese
gentry with their landowning basis had gained the upper hand over the
warrior nomads.

The Chinese gentry had not come unchanged out of that struggle.
Culturally they had taken over many things from the foreigners,
beginning with music and the style of their clothing, in which they had
entirely adopted the northern pattern, and including other elements of
daily life. Among the gentry were now many formerly alien families who
had gradually become entirely Chinese. On the other hand, the
foreigners' feudal outlook had influenced the gentry, so that a sense
of distinctions of rank had developed among them. There were Chinese
families who regarded themselves as superior to the rest, just as had
been the case among the northern peoples, and who married only among
themselves or with t