Sixteen Kingdoms

Uncommon card · No. 98921

The Sixteen Kingdoms (simplified Chinese: 十六国; traditional Chinese: 十六國; pinyin: Shíliù Guó), less commonly the Sixteen States, was a period in Chinese history from AD 304 to 439 when the political order of the Jin dynasty (266–420) in northern China fragmented into a series of short-lived dynastic states. Most of these states were founded by the "Five Barbarians" – Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Jie, Qiang – non-Han peoples from northern and western China who launched the rebellions that toppled the Jin court in Luoyang in 311 and Chang'an (modern-day Xi'an) in 316, ending the Western Jin dynasty (266–316). Some of these peoples, notably the Xiongnu of Shanxi and the Di of Guanzhong, had lived in China for generations and were highly sinicized. Others such as the Tuoba and Murong Xianbei tribes migrated from China's periphery into Central Plains in the ensuing decades to compete for political supremacy over northern China. All of these states took on Han-style dynastic names and most claimed as...

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