Abdication of Emperor Xian ends the Han; Three Kingdoms begin
- Date
- 220 CE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- China (Luoyang)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
On 25 November 220 CE the warlord Cao Pi, son of Cao Cao, compelled the powerless Emperor Xian — long a puppet in the hands of the Cao family — to abdicate, and weeks later took the throne himself, founding the state of Cao Wei with its capital at Luoyang.
This formally ended the four-century Han dynasty. In response, Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor of Shu Han in 221, and Sun Quan established Eastern Wu, declaring himself emperor in 229. The resulting tripartite division inaugurated the Three Kingdoms period, an era of warfare, shifting alliances and political fragmentation that ended only with the Jin reunification in 280. Despite its turbulence and demographic decline, the period became one of the most celebrated in Chinese cultural memory, immortalised in the great historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The fall of the Han marked the close of China's first long age of imperial unity and the beginning of centuries of division.
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Empires active in 220 CE
- Roman Empire27 BCE – 476 CE
- Kingdom of Funan50 CE – 550 CE
- Han Dynasty202 BCE – 220 CE
- Kushan Empire30 CE – 375 CE
- Zapotec State of Monte Albán500 BCE – 800 CE
- Teotihuacan100 BCE – 750 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Ardashir I defeats the Parthians at Hormozdgan and founds the Sasanian Empire28 April 224 CE
- Diocletian establishes the Tetrarchy293 CE (system begun 284–286)
- Chandragupta I founds the Gupta Empire and inaugurates the Gupta erac. 319–320 CE
- Constantine dedicates Constantinople as a new capital11 May 330 CE
- Augustus founds the Principate (First Settlement)16 January 27 BCE
- Deposition of Romulus Augustulus ends the Western Roman Empire4 September 476 CE
Further reading
The wider story
The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han
Authoritative yet readable survey (Harvard History of Imperial China).
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