Sixteen Kingdoms: non-Han emperors first ruled China’s north
Between 304 and 439 CE, northern China shattered into short-lived dynastic states after the Jin order cracked. Most of their founders came from peoples dubbed the Five Barbarians, such as the Xiongnu, the first time in the imperial era that non-Han rulers claimed the emperorship over the heartland.
Between 304 and 439 CE the Jin order in northern China broke into a string of short-lived states. Most were founded by the so-called Five Barbarians—Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Jie, and Qiang—whose rebellions took Luoyang in 311 and Chang’an in 316, ending the Western Jin. Some, like the Xiongnu of Shanxi, had lived inside China for generations; others, such as the Tuoba and Murong Xianbei, moved in from the frontier. The Jin court survived in the south at Jiankang, modern Nanjing, as the Eastern Jin.
Their arrival had deep roots. Since the Western Han, frontier peoples had been settled in the north as auxiliaries, farmers, and slaves, facing discrimination that fuelled rebellions. When the War of the Eight Princes (291–306) gutted Jin authority, feuding princes leaned on those tribal troops. In 304 Li Xiong founded Cheng-Han in Sichuan, and Liu Yuan, descended from Xiongnu rulers, declared he would restore the Han, founding what historians call the Han-Zhao.
The Jie general Shi Le, once an indentured farmhand, founded the Later Zhao in 319 and crushed the Han-Zhao in 329. His successor Shi Hu was remembered as brutal but backed Buddhism through the Kuchean monk Fotu Cheng. After Shi Hu died in 349, his adopted grandson Ran Min seized power and massacred the Jie. The Former Qin then unified the north and Sichuan from 376 to 383, until the Eastern Jin beat it at the Fei River; by 400 as many as nine states coexisted. The Tuoba Northern Wei reunified the north in 439.
The historian Cui Hong coined the label in the sixth century, counting five Liangs, four Yans, three Qins, two Zhaos, Cheng-Han, and Xia, while leaving out states such as Western Yan and Dai. It was the first imperial-era period in which non-Han rulers governed much of the heartland as emperors. Unlike Rome, whose 395 split became permanent, China later reunified by absorbing these peoples.
Source: Sixteen Kingdoms
