:Category:Sixteen Kingdoms

The Sixteen Kingdoms period of Chinese history (304-439 CE). It was a chaotic period in Chinese history, when the political order of northern China fractured into a series of short-lived dynastic states, most of which were founded by the "Five Barbarians," non-Han peoples who had settled in northern and western China during the preceding centuries and participated in the overthrow of the Western Jin dynasty in the early 4th century. The dynastic states founded by ethnic Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Jie, Qiang, as well as Han and other ethnicities, took on Han-style dynastic names, and fought against each other and the Eastern Jin dynasty, which succeeded the Western Jin and ruled southern China. The period ended with the unification of northern China in the early 5th century by the Northern Wei, a dynasty established by the Xianbei Tuoba clan, and the history of China entered the Northern and Southern dynasties period.