Jin Dynasty

The Jin Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that briefly reunified the country after the fragmentation of the Three Kingdoms period before itself collapsing into division.

It was founded in 266 CE by Sima Yan, who proclaimed himself Emperor Wu of Jin after his family, the Sima clan, had built up dominant power within the state of Wei (the legacy of the influential statesman and general Sima Yi). In 280 CE the Western Jin completed the conquest of the rival kingdom of Wu, reuniting China under a single ruler for the first time since the fall of the Han. This unity proved short-lived. The dynasty was soon crippled by a devastating civil war among imperial princes known as the War of the Eight Princes, which exhausted the state and opened the door to incursions by various non-Chinese peoples from the north and west. In the early fourth century these groups overran northern China in the upheaval known as the Uprising of the Five Barbarians, sacking the Jin capitals and capturing emperors. The Western Jin collapsed around 316 CE, and surviving members of the imperial house fled south, re-establishing the dynasty as the Eastern Jin with its capital at Jiankang (modern Nanjing). The Eastern Jin held the prosperous southern lands while the north fragmented into a succession of short-lived states (the Sixteen Kingdoms). Despite political instability, the Jin period, especially in the south, was culturally productive, witnessing developments in calligraphy, painting, poetry, and the growth of Buddhism and Daoism among the aristocracy. The Eastern Jin was eventually overthrown in 420 CE by the general Liu Yu, who founded the Liu Song dynasty, beginning the era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

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