Nearly four hundred years separate the collapse of the Han in about 220 AD and the return of unity under the Sui in 589. China was under a single government for only about fifty years of that time, though the idea of a unified empire was never forgotten. This was in some ways a dark age, of war, violence and genocide, but it was also a richly formative one and, when the dust had settled, both culturally and economically a very different society had emerged. For much of this time many areas produced a food surplus which could support a rich and leisured ruling class in the cities and the countryside, as well as large armies and burgeoning Buddhist communities. So culture developed, literature flourished, calligraphy and sculpture, especially Buddhist carvings, all enriched by Indian and central Asian elements, reached unsurpassed levels. This was a rich legacy for the Sui and Tang dynasties which followed to inherit and build on.

 

From 200 AD the three states of Wei , Wu and Shu struggled for supremacy in a protracted and massively complicated war (later immortalized in the saga Romance of the Three Kingdoms) that ruined central China and encouraged mass migrations southwards. The following centuries saw China's regionalism becoming entrenched: the Southern Empire suffered weak and short-lived dynasties, but nevertheless there was prosperity and economic growth, with the capital at Nanjing becoming a thriving trading and cultural centre. Meanwhile, with the borders unprotected, the north was invaded in 386 by the Tobas , who established the northern Wei dynasty after their aristocracy adopted Chinese manners and customs - a pattern of assimilation that would recur with other invaders. At their first capital, Datong , they created a wonderful series of Buddhist carvings, but in 534 their empire fell apart. After grabbing power from his regent in 581, general Yang Jian unified the fragmented northern states and then went on to conquer southern China by land and sea, founding the Sui dynasty.