History
During the final years of the Han Dynasty, the Wu region - in the south of the Yangtze River surrounding present-day Nanjing - was under the control of the warlord Sun Quan. Sun Quan succeeded his brother Sun Ce as the lord over the Wu region paying nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian of Han (who was, at that point, under the control of Cao Cao). Unlike his competitors, he did not really have the ambition to be Emperor of China. However, after Cao Pi of Cao Wei and Liu Bei of Shu Han each declared themselves emperor, Sun Quan decided to follow suit in 229, claiming to have founded the Wu Dynasty.
Sun Quan's long reign resulted in the stabilizing of the south. Wu and Shu had a military alliance, to defeat Wei in the north. Wu never managed to gain territory north of the Yangtze River, but Wei never managed to take territory south of the river.
Wu was finally conquered by the Jin Dynasty in 280, which marked the reunification of China at the end of the Three Kingdoms period.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Wu
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)