South of the Toba were the nineteen tribes of the Hsiung-nu or Huns, as we are now calling them.  Their leader in A.D. 287, Liu Yuean, was one of the principal personages of this period.  His name is purely Chinese, but he was descended from the Hun shan-yue, from the family and line of Mao Tun.  His membership of that long-famous noble line and old ruling family of Huns gave him a prestige which he increased by his great organizing ability.

3 Struggles for the throne

We shall return to Liu Yuean later; we must now cast another glance at the official court of the Chin.  In that court a family named Yang had become very powerful, a daughter of this family having become empress.  When, however, the emperor died, the wife of the new emperor Hui Ti (290-306) secured the assassination of the old empress Yang and of her whole family.  Thus began the rule at court of the Chia family.  In 299 the Chia family got rid of the heir to the throne, to whom they objected, assassinating this prince and another one.  This event became the signal for large-scale activity on the part of the princes, each of whom was supported by particular groups of families.  The princes had not complied with the disarmament law of 280 and so had become militarily supreme.  The generals newly appointed in the course of the imperial rearmament at once entered into alliance with the princes, and thus were quite unreliable as officers of the government.  Both the generals and the princes entered into agreements with the frontier peoples to assure their aid in the struggle for power.  The most popular of these auxiliaries were the Hsien-pi, who were fighting for one of the princes whose territory lay in the east.  Since the Toba were the natural enemies of the Hsien-pi, who were continually contesting their hold on their territory, the Toba were always on the opposite side to that supported by the Hsien-pi, so that they now supported generals who were ostensibly loyal to the government.  The Huns, too, negotiated with several generals and princes and received tempting offers.  Above all, all the frontier peoples were now militarily well equipped, continually receiving new war material from the Chinese who from time to time were co-operating with them.

In A.D. 300 Prince Lun assassinated the empress Chia and removed her group.  In 301 he made himself emperor, but in the same year he was killed by the prince of Ch’i.  This prince was killed in 302 by the prince of Ch’ang-sha, who in turned was killed in 303 by the prince of Tung-hai.  The prince of Ho-chien rose in 302 and was killed in 306; the prince of Ch’engtu rose in 303, conquered the capital in 305, and then, in 306, was himself removed.  I mention all these names and dates only to show the disunion within the ruling groups.

4 Migration of Chinese