Huan Wen’s power steadily grew in the period that followed.  He sent his brothers and relatives to administer the regions along the upper Yangtze; those fertile regions were the basis of his power.  In 371 he deposed the reigning emperor and appointed in his place a frail old prince who died a year later, as required, and was replaced by a child.  The time had now come when Huan Wen might have ascended the throne himself, but he died.  None of his family could assemble as much power as Huan Wen had done.  The equality of strength of the Huan and the Hsieh saved the dynasty for a time.

In 383 came the great assault of the Tibetan Fu Chien against the south.  As we know, the defence was carried out more by the methods of diplomacy and intrigue than by military means, and it led to the disaster in the north already described.  The successes of the southern state especially strengthened the Hsieh family, whose generals had come to the fore.  The emperor (Hsiao Wu Ti, 373-396), who had come to the throne as a child, played no part in events at any time during his reign.  He occupied himself occasionally with Buddhism, and otherwise only with women and wine.  He was followed by his five-year-old son.  At this time there were some changes in the court clique.  In the Huan family Huan Hsuean, a son of Huan Wen, came especially into prominence.  He parted from the Hsieh family, which had been closest to the emperor, and united with the Wang (the empress’s) and Yin families.  The Wang, an old Shansi family, had already provided two empresses, and was therefore strongly represented at court.  The Yin had worked at first with the Hsieh, especially as the two families came from the same region, but afterwards the Yin went over to Huan Hsuean.  At first this new clique had success, but later one of its generals, Liu Lao-chih, went over to the Hsieh clique, and its power declined.  Wang Kung was killed, and Yin Chung-k’an fell away from Huan Hsuean and was killed by him in 399.  Huan Hsuean himself, however, held his own in the regions loyal to him.  Liu Lao-chih had originally belonged to the Hsieh clique, and his family came from a region not far from that of the Hsieh.  He was very ambitious, however, and always took the side which seemed most to his own interest.  For a time he joined Huan Hsuean; then he went over to the Hsieh, and finally returned to Huan Hsuean in 402 when the latter reached the height of his power.  At that moment Liu Lao-chih was responsible for the defence of the capital from Huan Hsuean, but instead he passed over to him.  Thus Huan Hsuean conquered the capital, deposed the emperor, and began a dynasty of his own.  Then came the reaction, led by an earlier subordinate of Liu Lao-chih, Liu Yue.  It may be assumed that these two army commanders were in some way related, though the two branches of their family must have been long separated.  Liu Yue had distinguished himself especially in the suppression of a great popular rising which, around the year 400,