Sixteen Kingdoms
| Sixteen Kingdoms | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 十六國 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 十六国 | ||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Shíliù Guó |
The Sixteen Kingdoms, less commonly the Sixteen States, was a 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 ethnic minority peoples 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 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, 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.
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