“FORMER QIN”
(351 – 394)
(the Sixteen Kingdoms, less commonly the Sixteen States, was a chaotic period in Chinese history from 304 to 439 when the political order of northern China fractured into a series of short-lived sovereign states, most of which were founded by the “Five Barbarians” who had settled in northern China during the preceding centuries and participated in the overthrow of the Western Jin dynasty in the early 4th century)
(the period ended with the unification of northern China by the Northern Wei in the early 5th century)
(the term “Sixteen Kingdoms” was first used by the 6th century historian Cui Hong in the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms and refers to the five Liangs (Former, Later, Northern, Southern and Western), four Yans (Former, Later, Northern, and Southern), three Qins (Former, Later and Western), two Zhaos (Former and Later), Cheng Han, and ‘Xia’)
(‘Cui Hong’ did not count several other kingdoms that appeared at the time including the Ran Wei, Zhai Wei, Chouchi, Duan Qi, Qiao Shu, Huan Chu, Tuyuhun, and ‘Western Yan’)
(nor did he include the ‘Northern Wei’ and its predecessor Dai, because the Northern Wei eventually became the ruling dynasty of northern china)
(classical Chinese historians called the period the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians because most of the kingdoms were founded by ethnic Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Jie, Qiang, and Dingling rulers who took on Chinese dynastic names)
(among the handful of the states founded by ‘Han Chinese’ (Former Liang, Western Liang, Ran Wei and Northern Yan), several founders had close relations with ethnic minorities)
(the father of Ran Min, the founder of the Ran Wei, was adopted into a Jie ruling family)
(‘Feng Ba’, who is considered by some historians to be the founder of the ‘Northern Yan’, had been assimilated into Xianbei culture)
(‘Gao Yun’, considered by other historians to be the Northern Yan founder, was an ethnic Korean who had been adopted by Xianbei nobility)
(due to fierce competition among the states and internal political instability, the kingdoms of this era were mostly short-lived)
(from 376 to 383, the Former Qin briefly unified northern China, but its collapse led to even greater political fragmentation)
(the ‘Sixteen Kingdoms’ is considered to be one of the most chaotic periods in Chinese history)
(the collapse of the ‘Western Jin Dynasty’ and the rise of barbarian regimes in China during this period resembles the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire amidst invasions by the Huns and Germanic tribes in Europe, which also occurred in the 4th to 5th centuries)