Sixteen Kingdoms
The Sixteen Kingdoms (simplified Chinese: 十六国; traditional Chinese: 十六國; pinyin: Shíliù Guó), less commonly the Sixteen States, was a period in Chinese history from AD 304 to 439 when the political order of the Jin dynasty (266–420) in northern China fragmented into a series of short-lived dynastic states. Most of these states were founded by the "Five Barbarians" – Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Jie, Qiang – non-Han peoples from northern and western China who launched the rebellions that toppled the Jin court in Luoyang in 311 and Chang'an (modern-day Xi'an) in 316, ending the Western Jin dynasty (266–316).