defend itself
against views and systems entirely opposed to it; for the Turkish and
Mongol peoples who ruled northern China brought with them their
traditions of a feudal nobility with privileges of birth and all that
they implied. Thus this period, socially regarded, is especially that of
the struggle between the Chinese gentry and the northern nobility, the
gentry being excluded at first as a direct political factor in the
northern and more important part of China. In the south the gentry
continued in the old style with a constant struggle between cliques, the
only difference being that the class assumed a sort of "colonial"
character through the formation of gigantic estates and through
association with the merchant class.

To throw light on the scale of events, we need to have figures of
population. There are no figures for the years around A.D. 220, and we
must make do with those of 140; but in order to show the relative
strength of the three states it is the ratio between the figures that
matters. In 140 the regions which later belonged to Wei had roughly
29,000,000 inhabitants; those later belonging to Wu had 11,700,000;
those which belonged later to Shu Han had a bare 7,500,000. (The figures
take no account of the primitive native population, which was not yet
included in the taxation lists.) The Hsiung-nu formed only a small part
of the population, as there were only the nineteen tribes which had
abandoned one of the parts, already reduced, of the Hsiung-nu empire.
The whole Hsiung-nu empire may never have counted more than some
3,000,000. At the time when the population of what became the Wei
territory totalled 29,000,000 the capital with its immediate environment
had over a million inhabitants. The figure is exclusive of most of the
officials and soldiers, as these were taxable in their homes and so were
counted there. It is clear that this was a disproportionate
concentration round the capital.

It was at this time that both South and North China felt the influence
of Buddhism, which until A.D. 220 had no more real effect on China than
had, for instance, the penetration of European civilization between 1580
and 1842. Buddhism offered new notions, new ideals, foreign science, and
many other elements of culture, with which the old Chinese philosophy
and science had to contend. At the same time there came with Buddhism
the first direct knowledge of the great civilized countries west of
China. Until then Chin