This short space of time was filled, especially the early years, with stirring deeds of heroism and marvellous strategical operations, fortune favouring first one of the three commanders and then another.

The whole story of these civil wars is most graphically told in a famous historical romance composed about a thousand years afterwards.
As in the case of the Waverley novels, a considerable amount of fiction has been interwoven with truth to make the narrative more palatable to the general reader; but its basis is history, and the work is universally regarded among the Chinese themselves as one of the most valuable productions in the lighter branches of their literature.
The three to four centuries which follow on the above period were a time of political and social disorganisation, unfavourable, according to Chinese writers, to the development of both literature and art.

The House of Chin, which at first held sway over a once more united empire, was severely harassed by the Tartars on the north, who were in turn overwhelmed by the House of Toba.

The latter ruled for some two hundred years over northern China, while the southern portions were governed by several short-lived native dynasties.

A few points in connexion with these times deserve perhaps brief mention.
The old rule of twenty-seven months of mourning for parents was re-established, and has continued in force down to the present day.