What Can We Learn From the 16 Kingdoms Period of China?:

A good number of people know that after the fall of the Han Empire, it took many decades of war between the three kingdoms of Wei, Wu, and Shu before China was united again under the first Emperor of the Sima clan, Sima Yan, that went by the name of Jin.  Little do people realize how tenuous this reuniting of China was.

The first half of Sima Yan's rule is admirable.  With boldness that went against all of his advisers, he pursued a plan of total conquest against his rivals Shu and Wu.  He figured, correctly, that his enemies were far weaker than they were in the past, and were paper tigers at this point.  Once Jin invaded Shu, it surrendered almost without a fight.  And when Jin invaded Wu fifteen years later, they easily won every battle until Wu was forced to surrender as well.  He had the honesty to depose the last emperor of Wei, who hadn't had any power since the days of Cao Rui, and rule in his own name, unlike his father and grandfather who had hidden behind the fig leaf of 'serving' Wei.  He also squelched all the rebellions attempting to revive Shu, Wei, or other groups and kept a tight hand on the entire united China.

You would think this would be the beginning of a new, peaceful and prosperous era.  With all the wars behind us, China could concentrate on farming and building cities, perhaps even shipbuilding and trade and science, right?  But no, Sima Yan decided to take a very different course.

Once peace was secured, he lost interest in ruling.  Instead, he used the wealth of united China to gather up a harem of 10,000 concubines.  He then built palaces to house all of his new wives in, while demanding that even married women had to be presented to him as possible new additions to his harem.  With this many wives, Sima Yan managed to produce an enormous brood of children, dozens of sons who all had a decent claim to the throne.  However, in an act of supreme contempt, he named his heir to be Sima Lun, a developmentally disabled retard.  This set the stage for the end of united China, as quickly as it had come.  Once Sima Yan died of old age, the fight was on.

Every single other son of Sima Yan felt they had a better right to rule than the actual retard on the throne.  As such, they all angled to become his 'regent' who would rule in Sima Lun's name.  It got to the point that there were eight different claimants to the regency all warring with each other with real armies amassed throughout the lands of Jin and executing each other back and forth, despite all of them being brothers.

In the midst of this completely avoidable chaos, various non-Han tribes that lived in China or just north of it smelled weakness.  These tribes had stayed pacified throughout the three kingdoms era, which means Sima Yan's bad rule was more devastating than a hundred years of civil war.  But smelling blood, like sharks in the water, a massive invasion of Hsiongnu, Xianbei, etc, relatives of what we now call mongols and turks, swept into Jin and conquered Jin's capital city.  Various provinces, sick of the madness of Jin rule, declared independence in relief at this chance, and so Jin lost even more land.  In a few decades, Jin had lost all of its territory north of the Yangtze river and two of its Emperors had been captured and executed by the barbarian invaders.  However, with the benefit of terrain and a few able generals, Jin was able to hold on to the southern half of China, while the northern half started fighting among each other for the spoils.

Since the tribes were all built around a single ruling family, they had no fellow feeling for their fellow turkish and mongol invaders, instead, they all bitterly hated each other and went to war.  It was a time when ambitious men could start out as slaves, like Shi Le did, become generals who showed success on the battlefield, and then lead his men to rebel against his distant ruler and set up his own kingdom, and then conquer his previous suzerain and own half of northern China to pass down to his heir.  But for every competent ruler of the 16 kingdoms, their heirs would ruin it again, and the average lifespan of these northern kingdoms was only around 30 years.  Basically, the lifespan of the founding emperor plus the time it took to be conquered afterwards.  Why were the heirs always so bad?

Let me count the reasons:  Throughout an emperor's reign, the battle for who would be crown prince raged underneath him.  Ambitious sons would try to have their brothers executed based on false charges, or at least their brothers' most esteemed supporters executed, so that they would have less support when 'D-day' arrived.  The same was true of the dozens of wives of the ruler -- they would all fight to see their son reach the throne and had no interest in any of the other children of the Emperor.  Add in the mix constantly rebelling generals who saw no use in obeying anyone not personally leading an army, scheming eunuchs who would assassinate any ruler they felt might not favor them, and the utterly preposterous custom of passing power down to child emperors simply because they were 'next in line of descent' from the ruler.

At this time, no one lived very long in China.  It was typical for emperors to die in their 20's, and hardly anyone lived until their 40's.  Therefore, most of the time, when an emperor died, his son was not yet of age to be genuinely capable of running a country or an army.  The moment he was given power, regents would fight over the right to rule in his name, if not simply depose the child emperor and rule instead.  Often, power would end up with the brother of the deceased emperor instead of the son, because they were at least of age to rule.  Even when a monarch lived until 40, 50, or 70, he would generally appoint a child emperor at the very end to be his heir.  How can this be?  Well, if you recall that most people die in their 20's or 30's, a long lived emperor usually outlived all of his children.  Whether by executions, assassinations, deaths on the battlefield or death by illness, life was fleeting for the imperial line.  One Emperor had 11 sons and only his youngest survived to take power from him -- those aren't very good odds.  The next problem is that the latest and youngest wife of the Emperor would be his personal favorite at the time of his death, so he would dote on her and award her child the entire Empire simply because he was currently in love with the mother (though at this time period, I doubt any man loved any woman, but were all simply 'in lust' with them).

It should be obvious by now what ruined China:  polygamy.  This one custom was enough to pitch China into eternal civil war and barbarism.  If an emperor did well and became rich, he would spend it all on thousands of women.  His lust had no bounds and his greed to have every last pretty woman in the world had no limits -- they had even more wives than they could possibly have sex with in their lives, "just in case they might want to."  Some of these emperors literally had hundreds of children, but whenever one ascended to the throne, they would command the murder of the other 99 as dangerous rival claimants that need to be eliminated.  Polygamy meant that no two children actually grew up in the same household with the same mother, they all felt like strangers to each other and cared nothing for each other as siblings.  Furthermore, none of them ever grew up with their father who was always busy impregnating some new woman, so none of them cared about their father either.  They grew up alone and abandoned, with enemies at every side who wanted to kill them, thinking only of how they could miraculously seize power and preemptively kill everyone else first.  There was no real bond between husband and wife, both of whom commonly conspired to kill each other, because the man would constantly be seeking fresher meat, abandoning any woman who lived past 30 to rot in some palatial attic or cellar.  As a result, there were too many heirs, they were always too young, and they hated each other too much to agree to get along.  With just the one single institution of polygamy, nothing but chaos could be the fate of every single Chinese dynasty.  I studied the history of the Jin, the Northern Wei who came to unite northern China while Jin kept southern China, and the 16 kingdoms who all had temporary rule in northern China.  They all had the same story.  Polygamy, followed by chaos each succession.  The average Emperor ruled for a shorter time than our two-term presidents, despite ruling 'for life.'  This goes beyond individual immoral people making mistakes of judgment and becomes a systemic problem that will befuddle any individual placed into such an environment.

If we wished to return to an era of absolute despots and polygamous families, I suggest a few reforms to make the transitions of power more peaceful:

The Emperor must marry all the concubines he wishes to marry at the same time, at the very beginning.  He cannot add in new wives later.

The Emperor may not marry more than ten wives.  He must spend personal, quality time with all of them and sleep with them whenever they desire.  He cannot forsake his marital duties towards any of them.

All of his wives must agree to marry him, and they must all agree with his choice of other wives.

The Emperor, his wives, and all of his children must live together in the same house.  They must all eat dinner together, do their homework together, ride to war together, and attend parties together.  They must treat each other just as well as a real family does (or at least should).

Power cannot be handed down to a child below the age of 20.  If the Emperor dies and his heir is underage, power must be given to a brother or other relative of sufficient age, or to some trusted minister or general that all the country holds in high esteem and will follow.  He is then free to designate any heir he likes in turn, so long as he meets the same requirements.  He can pass it on to his own children or relatives, give it back to the old line, or choose someone else entirely.  No one but the chosen heir has the 'right' to ascend the throne.

Among the children of an Emperor, all should be given important posts as generals or civil servants (mayors of cities, for instance.)  Those that perform their duties well should be recommended by the servants who watch over these children to the Emperor.  Also, careful insight should be made in the course of his children's carrying out of duties as to their personal virtues.  After reviewing their skill, popularity with the people, and personal virtue, the Emperor should select the next heir on merit, not by age.

There shall be no quick 'justice' in this world.  People will not be arrested, interrogated, or executed on 'suspicion' of treason or any other crime.  Unless there is clear and hard evidence of a crime, people will be presumed innocent.  Therefore, no one need fear the Emperor or rebel 'ahead of time' to escape the headman's axe.  No matter how competent a prime minister or general you are, you will be honored and unmolested by the Emperor so long as you do not actively rise up in rebellion against him.  The Emperor's daughters will be married off to the best generals and civil servants of the realm, bringing them into the Imperial Family and the riches, fiefs and honors that entails.

When the most competent son succeeds the throne, all the other children will maintain their previous posts.  They will not be demoted, executed, exiled, or harmed in any way by the new Emperor.  In turn, the other sons are forbidden to launch coups or rebellions in the hopes of seeking the throne themselves.  No sibling will be suspected of treason simply on the grounds of being a sibling.  Furthermore, no sibling has the right to rebel simply on the grounds that 'the Emperor is sure to execute me anyway.'  Everyone must simply get along.  All generals and court officials must support the chosen heir and give no thought to supporting any other brothers' claim to the throne.

With this, I feel we could more easily unite China and concentrate on a history of progress, instead of one of endless war and chaos.  Humorously, since Taiwan still belongs to 'the Republic of China,' the war to unite China still hasn't ended.  Perhaps the gods themselves have decreed that the land can never unite for long.  But if they just followed my advice, who knows?