China’s Later Han Dynasty collapses by 221, due largely to economic woes and intense political factionalism at court.

Massive peasant rebellion and the resulting dissolution of the empire lead to the so-called Period of Disunion.

A series of semi-Sinicized barbarian peoples rule North China; Chinese colonial regimes settle the south.

Three separate kingdoms replace the empire (in what later historians will call the “Three Kingdoms” period.)

Confucianism is discredited and aristocrats, rather than the Confucian-tested morally superior men, dominate the governments.

Fierce racial tension and great physical destruction ensues.

The nomadic Turkic-speaking bandits known as the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), based in Mongolia, begin to threaten China’s borders.