Unryu SUGANUMA
The Sixteen Kingdoms was a violent era during the third and early fourth centuries CE when five tribes alternated with each other in establishing brief kingdoms in northern China.
The Sixteen Kingdoms was the time (304–439 CE) when non-Han Chinese tribes, including some of nomadic origin, alternated with each other in founding short-lived kingdoms in northern China. (See table 1.) Historians list the kingdoms as the sixteen nations of the five “barbarian”
