End of the Han dynasty
The end of the Han dynasty refers to the period of Chinese history from 189 to 220 AD, which roughly coincides with the tumultuous reign of the Han dynasty's last ruler, Emperor Xian. During this period, the country was thrown into turmoil by the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184–205). Meanwhile, the Han Empire's institutions were destroyed by the warlord Dong Zhuo, and fractured into regional regimes ruled by various warlords, some of whom were nobles and officials of the Han imperial court. Eventually, one of those warlords, Cao Cao, was able to gradually reunify the empire, ostensibly under Emperor Xian's rule, but the empire was actually controlled by Cao Cao himself. Cao Cao's efforts to completely reunite the Han empire were rebuffed at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 / 209, when his armies were defeated by the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei. The Han dynasty formally ended in 220 when Cao Cao's son and heir, Cao Pi, pressured Emperor Xian into abdicating in his favour. Cao Pi became the emperor of a new state, Cao Wei. A year later, in response to Cao Pi's usurpation of the Han throne, Liu Bei declared himself emperor of Shu Han; and in 229, Sun Quan followed suit, declaring himself emperor of Eastern Wu. The period from Emperor Xian's abdication in 220 to the partial reunification of China under the Jin dynasty in 265 was known as the Three Kingdoms era in Chinese history.
Han Chinese
During the Shang dynasty, people of the Wu area in the Yangtze River Delta, were considered a different tribe, and described as being scantily dressed, tattooed and speaking a distinct language. Later, Taibo, elder uncle of Ji Chang – on realising that his younger brother, Jili, was wiser and deserved to inherit the throne – fled to Wu and settled there. Three generations later, King Wu of the Zhou dynasty defeated King Zhou (the last Shang king), and enfeoffed the descendants of Taibo in Wu – mirroring the later history of Nanyue, where a Chinese king and his soldiers ruled a non-Han population and mixed with locals, who were sinicized over time. By the Tang dynasty, however, this area had become part of the Han Chinese heartland.
After the Battle of Muye, the Shang dynasty was overthrown by Zhou (led by Ji Fa), which had emerged as a western state along the Wei River in the 2nd millennium BCE. The Zhou dynasty shared the language and culture of the Shang people, and extended their reach to encompass much of the area north of the Yangtze River. Through conquest and colonization, much of this area came under the influence of sinicization, and this culture extended south. However, the power of the Zhou kings fragmented not long afterwards, and many autonomous vassal states emerged. This dynasty is traditionally divided into two eras – the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and the Eastern Zhou (770–256 BCE) – with the latter further divided into the Spring and Autumn (770–476 BCE) and the Warring States (476–221 BCE) periods. It was a period of significant cultural and philosophical diversification (known as the Hundred Schools of Thought) and Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism are among the most important surviving philosophies from this era.