This man of the Toba on the throne of South China was unable, however, to maintain his position; he had not sufficient backing.  He was at war with the new rulers in the northern empire, and his own army, which was not very large, melted away; above all, he proceeded with excessive harshness against the helpers who had gained access for him to the Liang, and thereafter he failed to secure a following from among the leading cliques at court.  In 552 he was driven out by a Chinese army led by one of the princes and was killed.

The new emperor had been a prince in the upper Yangtze region, and his closest associates were engaged there.  They did not want to move to the distant capital, Nanking, because their private financial interests would have suffered.  The emperor therefore remained in the city now called Hankow.  He left the eastern territory in the hands of two powerful generals, one of whom belonged to the Ch’en family, which he no longer had the strength to remove.  In this situation the generals in the east made themselves independent, and this naturally produced tension at once between the east and the west of the Liang empire; this tension was now exploited by the leaders of the Chou state then in the making in the north.  On the invitation of a clique in the south and with its support, the Chou invaded the present province of Hupei and in 555 captured the Liang emperor’s capital.  They were now able to achieve their old ambition:  a prince of the Chou dynasty was installed as a feudatory of the north, reigning until 587 in the present Hankow.  He was permitted to call his quasi-feudal territory a kingdom and his dynasty, as we know already, the “Later Liang dynasty”.

5 The Ch’en dynasty (A.D. 557-588) and its ending by the Sui

The more important of the independent generals in the east, Ch’en Pa-hsien, installed a shadow emperor, forced him to abdicate, and made himself emperor.  The Ch’en dynasty which thus began was even feebler than the preceding dynasties.  Its territory was confined to the lower Yangtze valley.  Once more cliques and rival pretenders were at work and prevented any sort of constructive home policy.  Abroad, certain advantages were gained in north China over the Northern Ch’i dynasty, but none of any great importance.

Meanwhile in the north Yang Chien had brought into power the Chinese Sui dynasty.  It began by liquidating the quasi-feudal state of the “Later Liang”.  Then followed, in 588-9, the conquest of the Ch’en empire, almost without any serious resistance.  This brought all China once more under united rule, and a period of 360 years of division was ended.

6 Cultural achievements of the south