Jin dynasty (266–420)


The Jin dynasty or the Jin Empire, officially Jin, sometimes distinguished as the or the, was an imperial dynasty in China that existed from 266 to 420 AD. It was founded by Sima Yan, eldest son of Sima Zhao, who had previously been declared the King of Jin.
There are two main divisions in the history of the dynasty. The was established as the successor to Cao Wei after Sima Yan usurped the throne from Cao Huan. The capital of the Western Jin was initially in Luoyang, though it later moved to Chang'an. In 280 AD, after conquering Eastern Wu, the Western Jin ended the Three Kingdoms period and reunited China proper for the first time since the end of the Han dynasty.
From 291 to 306 AD, a series of civil wars known as the War of the Eight Princes were fought over control of the Jin state which weakened it considerably. In 304 AD, the dynasty experienced a wave of rebellions by non-Han ethnicities termed by exonym as "Five Barbarians". The "barbarians" went on to establish nonpermanent dynastic states in northern China. This helped to usher in the Sixteen Kingdoms era of Chinese history, in which states in the north rose and fell in rapid succession, constantly fighting both one another and the Jin. Han-Zhao, one of the northern states established during the disorder, sacked Luoyang in 311, captured Chang'an in 316, and executed Emperor Min of Jin in 318 AD, ending the Western Jin era. Sima Rui, who succeeded Emperor Min, then reestablished the Jin dynasty with its capital in Jiankang, inaugurating the .
The Eastern Jin dynasty remained in near-constant conflict with its northern neighbors for most of its existence, and it launched several invasions of the north with the aim of recovering its lost territories. In 383 AD, the Eastern Jin inflicted a devastating defeat on the Former Qin, a Di-ruled state that had briefly unified northern China. In the aftermath of that battle, the Former Qin state splintered, and Jin armies recaptured the lands south of the Yellow River. The Eastern Jin was eventually usurped by General Liu Yu in 420 AD replaced with the Liu Song dynasty. The Eastern Jin dynasty is considered the second of the Six Dynasties.

History

Background

During the Three Kingdoms period, the Sima clan—with its most accomplished individual being Sima Yi—rose to prominence within the kingdom of Cao Wei that dominated northern China. Sima Yi was the regent of Cao Wei, and in 249 he instigated a coup d'état known as the Incident at the Gaoping Tombs, the Sima clan began to surpass the Cao clan's power in the kingdom. After Sima Yi's death in 251, Sima Yi's eldest son Sima Shi succeeded his father as regent of Cao Wei, maintaining the Sima clan's tight grip on the Cao Wei political scene. After Sima Shi's death in 255, Sima Shi's younger brother Sima Zhao became the regent of Cao Wei. Sima Zhao further assisted his clans' interests by suppressing rebellions and dissent.
In 263, he directed Cao Wei forces in conquering Shu Han and capturing Liu Shan, marking the first demise of one of the Three Kingdoms. Sima Zhao's actions awarded him the title of King of Jin, the last achievable rank beneath that of emperor. He was granted the title because his ancestral home was located in Wen County, on the territory of the Zhou-era state of Jin, which was centered on the Jin River in Shaanxi. Sima Zhao's ambitions for the throne were visible, but he died in 265 before any usurpation attempt could be made, passing the opportunity to his ambitious son Sima Yan.

Western Jin (266–316)

Founding and unification

The Jin dynasty was founded by Sima Yan, who was known posthumously as Emperor Wu. After succeeding his father as the King of Jin and regent of Cao Wei in 265, Sima Yan declared himself emperor of the Jin dynasty in February 266 and forced the final Wei ruler Cao Huan to abdicate. Emperor Wu permitted Cao Huan to live with honour as the Prince of Chenliu, and buried him with imperial ceremony. Under Emperor Wu, the Jin dynasty conquered Eastern Wu in 280 and united China proper, thus ending the Three Kingdoms period.
Following the unification, China entered a decade of peace and economic prosperity, with accounts detailing the extravagant and outlandish lifestyles of the aristocracy. Internally, Emperor Wu upheld promigeniture by decreeing that his eldest son, Sima Zhong, posthumously known as Emperor Hui, would succeed him to the throne, despite his apparent developmental disability. To protect his heir and dynasty, he empowered his princes and dukes by appointing them to important military and administrative positions. Meanwhile, a few officials also began expressing concerns regarding the growing population and treatment of the various non-Han peoples that had been resettling in northern China for centuries.

Decline

Emperor Wu died in 290, and Emperor Hui's ascension began the War of the Eight Princes. In 291, Emperor Hui's wife, Empress Jia, seized power and began ruling the empire behind her husband's throne. Under her rule, the affluence of the aristocracy went unchecked, and corruption ran rampant within the government. She and her family were overthrown in a coup in 300, but a series of civil wars soon broke out between the Sima princes for the regency of Emperor Hui, devastating most of northern China and the imperial military.
The short-lived unification of China came to an end in 304; that year, the Cheng-Han and Han-Zhao declared their independence from Jin. The Upheaval of the Five Barbarians carried on the chaos from the War of the Eight Princes, as uprisings and famines continued to erode Jin authority in the north. In 311, the Jin capital Luoyang was sacked by Han-Zhao forces under Liu Cong, and Jin emperor Sima Chi, posthumously known as Emperor Huai, was captured and later executed. Emperor Huai's successor Sima Ye, posthumously known as Emperor Min, was then also captured and executed by Han-Zhao when they seized Chang'an in 316, marking the end of the Western Jin. The surviving members of the Jin imperial family, as well as large numbers of Han Chinese from the North China Plain, subsequently fled to southern China. These refugees had a large impact on the lands they moved to—for example, they gave Quanzhou's Jin River its name upon their settlement there.

Eastern Jin (317–420)

Establishment

After the fall of Chang'an and the execution of Emperor Min of Jin, Sima Rui, posthumously known as Emperor Yuan, was enthroned as Jin emperor in 318. He reestablished the Jin government at Jiankang, which became the dynasty's new capital and marked the beginning of the Eastern Jin period. Since one of Sima Rui's titles was the prince of Langya, the newly established northern states, which denied the legitimacy of his succession, sometimes referred to his empire as "Langya".
The Eastern Jin period saw the peak of menfa politics. The authority of the emperors was limited, while national affairs were controlled by powerful immigrant elite clans like the Wang clans of Langya and Taiyuan, the Xie clan of Chenliu, the Huan clan of Qiao Commandery, and the Yu clan of Yingchuan. Among the people, a common remark was that "Wang Dao and Sima Rui, they dominate the nation together". It was said that when Emperor Yuan was holding court, he even invited Wang Dao to sit by his side so they could jointly accept congratulations from ministers, but Wang Dao declined the offer.

Wars with the north

In order to recover the lands lost during the fall of the Western Jin, the Eastern Jin dynasty launched several military campaigns against the northern states, such as the expeditions led by Huan Wen from 354 to 369. Most notably, in 383, a heavily outnumbered Eastern Jin force inflicted a devastating defeat on the state of Former Qin at the Battle of Fei River. After this battle, the Former Qin—which had recently unified northern China—began to collapse, and the Jin dynasty recovered the lands south of the Yellow River. Some of these lands were later lost, but the Jin regained them once more when Liu Yu defeated the northern states in his northern expeditions of 409–416.
Despite successes against the northern states like the Battle of Fei River, paranoia in the royal family and a constant disruptions to the throne often caused loss of support for northern campaigns. For example, lack of support by the Jin court was a major cause of Huan Wen's failure to recover the north in his expeditions. Additionally, internal military crises—including the rebellions of generals Wang Dun and Su Jun, but also lesser fangzhen revolts—plagued the Eastern Jin throughout its 104-year existence.

Mass migration to the south

The local aristocrat clans of the south were often at odds with the immigrants from the north. As such, tensions increased, and rivalry between the immigrants and southern locals loomed large in the domestic politics of the Jin. Two of the most prominent local clans, the Zhou clan of Yixing and the Shen clan of Wuxing, were dealt a bitter blow from which they never quite recovered. There was also conflict between the various northern immigrant clans. This led to a virtual balance of power, which somewhat benefited the emperor's rule.
Special "commanderies of immigrants" and "white registers" were created for the massive amounts of northern Han Chinese who moved south during the Eastern Jin. The southern Chinese aristocracy was formed from the offspring of these migrants. Particularly in the Jiangnan region, Celestial Masters and the nobility of northern China subdued the nobility of southern China during the Jin dynasty. Southern China overtook the north in population due to depopulation of the north and the migration of northern Chinese to southern China. Different waves of migration of aristocratic Chinese from northern China to the south at different times resulted in distinct groups of aristocratic lineages.