The Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty were one of the most frequent periods of political change in China, with warlords often overthrowing their own monarchs and establishing themselves as kings. After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, Sima Rui made Nanjing the capital and established the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the relatively safe south. At the beginning of the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, based on jiangnan to resist the attacks of the Xiongnu and Xianbei in the north, but the regime that had just been established was not stable, on the one hand, it was necessary to appease the local people and recuperate, on the other hand, it was necessary to settle these warriors in the north of Nandu, including some rulers and nobles in the former Western Jin Dynasty.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, these rulers were still able to unite internally, but in the later period, the extravagance of the Western Jin nobles gradually prevailed, and these nobles who lived comfortably gradually became unhappy. In the late Eastern Jin Dynasty, land annexation was very serious, and the burden on the peasants was also very serious, in order to resist the northern regime, they had to conscript on a large scale, which also led to a peasant uprising, and in fact, the rule of the Eastern Jin Dynasty existed in name only.
By 420 AD, Liu Yu, a general who held real power in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, deposed the Jin Emperor and established himself, resulting in frequent changes in power in the south for more than 170 years, and successively experienced four dynasties: Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen. These dynasties all had their capital in Nanjing, and historically they were collectively referred to as the Southern Dynasty.
After Liu Yu destroyed the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the founding name was Song, that is, Emperor Wu of Song, who was more accomplished during his reign, reigned for more than 30 years, and made the Jiangnan region gradually rich, and it was also the strongest time of the Southern Dynasty. However, in the Chen Dynasty, Lord Chen Hou did not think of governing, many of the fields in the territory were abandoned, and the tax burden became heavier and heavier, resulting in the exile of the people, but he indulged in pleasure, and finally the Chen Dynasty perished in his place.
When the Eastern Jin Dynasty ruled the south, the north was also in a state of chaos, and there were more than a dozen ethnic minority regimes, which were historically called the Sixteen Kingdoms, and thereafter, from 439 to 581 AD, about the same period as the Southern Dynasty, there were five regimes established by ethnic minorities in northern China, named "Northern Wei". The Northern Dynasty and the Southern Dynasty have long faced each other, collectively known as the "Southern and Northern Dynasties".
In the late Sixteen Kingdoms period, the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe gradually became stronger, and they originally lived in the northern area of Daxing'anling, and moved south at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, gradually forming a powerful military force. Later, Tuoba Jue of Northern Wei destroyed Later Yan, gradually occupied the Central Plains, and built the capital Pingcheng. In the end, the Northern Wei unified the Yellow River Valley, forming a confrontation with the Southern Dynasty.
By the 6th century, Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty had carried out a series of reforms, politically strengthening the centralization of power, economically, liberating slaves, severely punishing the concealment of the land, and at the same time cracking down on the bureaucratic clans, and also forcing those monks and nuns to return to the customs and let them engage in agricultural production; militarily expanding the source of troops, destroying Northern Qi, and unifying the entire Yellow River Valley. However, after the death of Emperor Wu of Zhou, the power fell into the hands of his cousin Yang Jian. Therefore, throughout the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the regime changed frequently.