ultivation
increased, though not the amount of grain-producing land. We gain the
impression that from _c_. the third century A.D. on to the eleventh
century the intensity of cultivation was generally lower than in the
period before.

The period from _c_. A.D. 300 on also seems to be the time of the second
change in Chinese dietary habits. The first change occurred probably
between 400 and 100 B.C. when the meat-eating Chinese reduced their meat
intake greatly, gave up eating beef and mutton and changed over to some
pork and dog meat. This first change was the result of increase of
population and decrease of available land for pasturage. Cattle breeding
in China was then reduced to the minimum of one cow or water-buffalo per
farm for ploughing. Wheat was the main staple for the masses of the
people. Between A.D. 300 and 600 rice became the main staple in the
southern states although, theoretically, wheat could have been grown and
some wheat probably was grown in the south. The vitamin and protein
deficiencies which this change from wheat to rice brought forth, were
made up by higher consumption of vegetables, especially beans, and
partially also by eating of fish and sea food. In the north, rice became
the staple food of the upper class, while wheat remained the main food
of the lower classes. However, new forms of preparation of wheat, such
as dumplings of different types, were introduced. The foreign rulers
consumed more meat and milk products. Chinese had given up the use of
milk products at the time of the first change, and took to them to some
extent only in periods of foreign rule.

2 _Struggles between cliques under the Eastern Chin dynasty_ (A.D.
317-419)

The officials immigrating from the north regarded the south as colonial
country, and so as more or less uncivilized. They went into its
provinces in order to get rich as quickly as possible, and they had no
desire to live there for long: they had the same dislike of a provincial
existence as had the families of the big landowners. Thus as a rule the
bulk of the families remained in the capital, close to the court.
Thither the products accumulated in the provinces were sent, and they
found a ready sale, as the capital was also a great and long-established
trading centre with a rich merchant class. Thus in the capital there was
every conceivable luxury and every refinement of civilization. The
people of the gentry class, who were maintained in the capital by