Author Description

The Sixteen Kingdoms (304-439) saw Northern China become a multiethnic mosaic of states and statelets, one of which was Western Liang (400-422) in modern Gansu province at the edge of the Silk Roads. Its founder Li Hao was a Han settler on soil only recently annexed to the Empire. Here, immigrants ruled semi-nomadic locals, while elsewhere, non-Chinese ruling houses dealt with local Chinese elites. Their interaction, here seen close up in the life and times of Li Hao, had a lasting formative influence on Chinese culture and society for centuries to come.