As the Han dynasty’s final years and the Three Kingdoms period came to an end, three centuries of chaos in the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties began. Sima Yi watched like a hawk, enduring for half his life before seizing power from Cao Wei in the Gaoping Tomb Incident. Three generations of the Sima clan then worked in succession to usurp Wei and establish Jin. After the Western Jin unified the realm, extravagance flourished, aristocrats’ empty talk harmed the state, and the enfeoffment of princes sowed the seeds of disaster. The foolish Emperor Hui ascended the throne, and Jia Nanfeng’s misrule ignited the War of the Eight Princes. The imperial Sima clan slaughtered its own, draining the Central Plains of its strength. As princes shed blood at court, the Five Barbarians rose beyond the borders, and Liu Yuan founded a state, ushering in the chaotic era of the Sixteen Kingdoms. From political maneuvering and powerful ministers’ usurpations to infighting within the imperial clan and the fall of the Central Plains, this book begins with Sima Yi’s rise and connects the twilight of the Three Kingdoms, the fortunes of the Western Jin, the War of the Eight Princes, and the upheaval of the Five Barbarians. It unpacks the cycles of power, human struggles, and collapse that shaped three centuries of turmoil in the Wei and Jin, recreating the shifting fortunes and dynastic fate of an age of great division.
