The change of dynasty in the state of Wei did not bring any turn in China’s internal history.  Ssu-ma Yen, who as emperor was called Wu Ti (265-289), had come to the throne with the aid of his clique and his extraordinarily large and widely ramified family.  To these he had to give offices as reward.  There began at court once more the same spectacle as in the past, except that princes of the new imperial family now played a greater part than under the Wei dynasty, whose ruling house had consisted of a small family.  It was now customary, in spite of the abolition of the feudal system, for the imperial princes to receive large regions to administer, the fiscal revenues of which represented their income.  The princes were not, however, to exercise full authority in the style of the former feudal lords:  their courts were full of imperial control officials.  In the event of war it was their duty to come forward, like other governors, with an army in support of the central government.  The various Chin princes succeeded, however, in making other governors, beyond the frontiers of their regions, dependent on them.  Also, they collected armies of their own independently of the central government and used those armies to pursue personal policies.  The members of the families allied with the ruling house, for their part, did all they could to extend their own power.  Thus the first ruler of the dynasty was tossed to and fro between the conflicting interests and was himself powerless.  But though intrigue was piled on intrigue, the ruler who, of course, himself had come to the head of the state by means of intrigues, was more watchful than the rulers of the Wei dynasty had been, and by shrewd counter-measures he repeatedly succeeded in playing off one party against another, so that the dynasty remained in power.  Numerous widespread and furious risings nevertheless took place, usually led by princes.  Thus during this period the history of the dynasty was of an extraordinarily dismal character.

In spite of this, the Chin troops succeeded in overthrowing the second southern state, that of Wu (A.D. 280), and in so restoring the unity of the empire, the Shu Han realm having been already conquered by the Wei.  After the destruction of Wu there remained no external enemy that represented a potential danger, so that a general disarmament was decreed (280) in order to restore a healthy economic and financial situation.  This disarmament applied, of course, to the troops directly under the orders of the dynasty, namely the troops of the court and the capital and the imperial troops in the provinces.  Disarmament could not, however, be carried out in the princes’ regions, as the princes declared that they needed personal guards.  The dismissal of the troops was accompanied by a decree ordering the surrender of arms.  It may be assumed that the government proposed to mint money with the metal of the weapons surrendered, for coin (the old coin of the Wei dynasty) had become very scarce; as we indicated previously, money had largely been replaced by goods so that, for instance, grain and silks were used for the payment of salaries.  China, from c. 200 A.D. on until the eighth century, remained in a period of such partial “natural economy”.