dynasty, and therefore to be the rightful, legitimate ruler over China.  His descent, however, was a little doubtful, and in any case it depended on a link far back in the past.  Against this the Wei of the north declared that the last ruler of the Han dynasty had handed over to them with all due form the seals of the state and therewith the imperial prerogative.  The controversy was of no great practical importance, but it played a big part in the Chinese Confucianist school until the twelfth century, and contributed largely to a revision of the old conceptions of legitimacy.

The political plans of Shu Han were well considered and far-seeing.  They were evolved by the premier, a man from Shantung named Chu-ko Liang; for the ruler died in 226 and his successor was still a child.  But Chu-ko Liang lived only for a further eight years, and after his death in 234 the decline of Shu Han began.  Its political leaders no longer had a sense of what was possible.  Thus Wei inflicted several defeats on Shu Han, and finally subjugated it in 263.

The situation of the state of Wu was much less favourable than that of Shu Han, though this second southern kingdom lasted from 221 to 280.  Its country consisted of marshy, water-logged plains, or mountains with narrow valleys.  Here Tai peoples had long cultivated their rice, while in the mountains Yao tribes lived by hunting and by simple agriculture.  Peasants immigrating from the north found that their wheat and pulse did not thrive here, and slowly they had to gain familiarity with rice cultivation.  They were also compelled to give up their sheep and cattle and in their place to breed pigs and water buffaloes, as was done by the former inhabitants of the country.  The lower class of the population was mainly non-Chinese; above it was an upper class of Chinese, at first relatively small, consisting of officials, soldiers, and merchants in a few towns and administrative centres.  The country was poor, and its only important economic asset was the trade in metals, timber, and other southern products; soon there came also a growing overseas trade with India and the Middle East, bringing revenues to the state in so far as the goods were re-exported from Wu to the north.

Wu never attempted to conquer the whole of China, but endeavoured to consolidate its own difficult territory with a view to building up a state on a firm foundation.  In general, Wu played mainly a passive part in the incessant struggles between the three kingdoms, though it was active in diplomacy.  The Wu kingdom entered into relations with a man who in 232 had gained control of the present South Manchuria and shortly afterwards assumed the title of king.  This new ruler of “Yen”, as he called his kingdom, had determined to attack the Wei dynasty, and hoped, by putting pressure on it in association with Wu, to overrun Wei from north and south.  Wei answered this plan very effectively by recourse to diplomacy and it began by making Wu