Wang Jun moves the capital once more to Pingyang (also in modern Linfen) in 309.

By this time, Liu Cong and Wang had eventually been able to control all of southern Shanxi for Han Zhao, and they again attack Luoyang, but are again repelled.

One 'Amr, the leader of the large Arab tribe known as Banu Lakhm, had founded the Lakhmid Kingdom centered on the southern Mesopotamian city of al-Hirah, and after his son Imru' al-Qais converted to Christianity, the whole city had gradually converted to this faith.

Imru' al-Qais, dreaming of a unified and independent Arab kingdom, has seized many cities in Arabia and defeated Shemrir al-A'asha, the king of Himyar.

He has since formed a large army and developed his kingdom as a naval power, which consists of a fleet of ships operating along the Bahraini coast.

From this position, he attacks the coastal cities of Persia, which at this time is in civil war, due to a dispute as to the succession, even raiding the birthplace of the Sassanid kings, the province of Pars (Fars).

Persian nobles, at the death of Sassanid king Hormizd II in 309, kill his eldest son, blind the second, and imprison the third (Hormizd, who afterwards escapes to the Roman Empire).

The throne is reserved for the unborn child of one of the wives of Hormizd II.

It is said that Shapur II may have been the only king in history to be crowned in utero: the crown is placed upon his mother's belly.

This child, named Shapur, is therefore born king; the government is conducted by his mother and the magnates.

Liu Yuan grows ill in 310, and he creates his second wife Lady Dan empress and his oldest son Liu He (by his first wife Empress Huyan—who appears to have died by this point, although her death is not mentioned in history) crown prince.

When he dies later this year, Liu He becomes emperor.

However, only a week later, he is overthrown and killed by Liu Cong, who now becomes emperor.

The various agrarian rebel generals who are resisting Jin rule, whether ethnically Wu Hu or Han, often choose to come under Liu Yuan's Han banner as years pass.

Chief among these are the Han general Wang Mi and the Jie general Shi Le (both of whom had declared loyalty to Han Zhao in 307), who generally only nominally submit to Liu's orders while maintaining separate power structures but who also so appear to genuinely respect and fear Liu.

As for troops under his own control, Liu largely entrusts them to his son Liu Cong the Prince of Chu and his nephew Liu Yao the Prince of Shi'an.

The four generals, while unable to hold cities, are generally able to rove throughout northern and central China unimpeded by Jin forces, defeating most Jin generals who oppose them.

Constantine annexes Maxentius' Spanish territory in 310.

Unhappy at the court, Maximian dies in 310, either by murder or by suicide, shortly after his capture during the suppression of a revolt raised by him against Constantine.

The Han Zhao forces capture Luoyang in 311, and with it the Jin emperor Sima Chi (Emperor Huai).

The Wu Hu forces commit a massacre when entering the city, killing the Jin crown prince, a host of ministers, and over thirty thousand civilians.

They also burn down the palaces and dig up Jin mausoleums.

Maximinus succeeds his uncle, Galerius, in 311, occupying Asia Minor.

The aged Diocletian has been living in retirement in the neighborhood of Salonae, on the edge of the Adriatic, where he has had a magnificent palace built (the modern town of Split, in Yugoslavia, occupies the site of its ruins).

He has seen his Tetrarchic system fail, torn by the selfish ambitions of his successors.

He has heard of Maximian's third claim to the throne, his forced suicide, his damnatio memoriae.

In his own palace, statues and portraits of his former companion emperor are torn down and destroyed.

Deep in despair and illness, Diocletian may have committed suicide.

The death of the former emperor on December 3, 311, occurs almost unnoticed.