From that point, China would be disunited-and ruled in large part by non-Chinese peoples-for nearly 300 years, until reunification by the Sui Dynasty in 589, when Sui defeated Chen. After Sima Yan's death in 290 C.E., his intellectually disabled son proved to be an incompetent ruler the Rebellion of the Eight Princes would begin in 291 C.E., paving the way for non-Han tribes further north to invade in the early 4th century C.E, culminating in the Disaster of Yongjia in 311, where Luoyang (the capital of Jin) was captured and sacked. The Three Kingdoms period ended in 280 C.E., when Sun Hao, grandson of Sun Quan, surrendered Wu to Sima Yan.Īs if to spite the Sima clan, this unified Jin Dynasty was to be similarly brief. Wei itself collapsed a mere two years later when Sima Yan, Prince of Jin and grandson of Sima Yi note Yan's uncle Shi and father Zhao had been powerful officials in Wei, with Zhao eventually made Duke of Jin while the Wei campaign against Shu was being successfully wrapped up Zhao was further promoted to Prince of Jin in 264., usurped the throne from the Cao family and established the new state of Jin in early 266 C.E. during the reign of Liu Bei's son Liu Shan. The first to fall was Shu, which surrendered to Wei in late 263 C.E.
By then, both Cao Pi and Liu Bei were long dead.įor all its fame, the Three Kingdoms era was very brief, with two kingdoms collapsing within two generations of their founding. as the continuation of the Han Dynasty on the grounds that he was of the same royal Liu clan as the rulers of Han note As such, during its existence, Shu was referred to as "Han" by its people the term "Shu-Han" was coined by later historians, much like how the "Byzantine" Empire was a later invention, and that the people of the empire referred to it as the "Roman Empire".) in the southwest and Wu (founded by Sun Quan, on the grounds that (1) everyone else was doing it and (2) his people were culturally and economically distinct and practically a different people anyway in the southeast.) note While Sun Quan declared independence from Cao Wei in 222 C.E., he crowned himself emperor only in 229 CE. as the successor to the Han Empire on the grounds that the last Han Emperor had passed the title on to his house) in the north, Shu (founded by Liu Bei in 221 C.E.
Following a series of disasters including the Yellow Turban Rebellion which started in 184 C.E., the rogue warlord Dong Zhuo seized power in the imperial capital of Luoyang, beginning a dramatic era where various warlords vied for supremacy that culminated with the emergence of three powers: Wei (founded by Cao Pi in 220 C.E. One of the most dramatic and well known eras of human history, the Three Kingdoms period of China took place towards the end of the 400-year-old Han Empire.