Popular Romance of the Two Jin Dynasties

[Introduction to history, general history of the two Jin Dynasties, chapter chapters of popular novels, no threshold reading of official history, Five Hus and Sixteen Kingdoms] If you want to sort out the chaotic history of the Two Jins, Five Hus and Sixteen Kingdoms, this "Popular Romance of the Two Jins" is an excellent introductory book. Cai Dongfan uses popular stories to break down complicated historical materials, abandoning boring classical textual research, and hundreds of stories clearly divide the Western Jin Dynasty and the Eastern Jin Dynasty into two major stages. The first half tells the story of the Sima clan who replaced the Wei Dynasty and unified the Wu Dynasty, and its prosperity and decline: the establishment of the foolish prince, the disaster of the country by the empress Jia, and the chaos between the eight kings and the hollowing out of the Central Plains; the second half tells the story of the fall of the Central Plains, the migration of nobles to the south to establish the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the five northern kingdoms taking turns to divide the country, and the perennial confrontation between the north and the south. The book is interspersed with stories of well-known historical figures such as Zhou Chu, Lu Ji, Tao Kan, and Xie An, and takes into account war, court, people's livelihood, and foreign customs. There is no fantasy content in the whole process. Students and history novices can easily understand it. After reading it, they can completely distinguish the changes in the Jin Dynasty and the disputes between the Five Hus.