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The arguments among the son of Xishu, the Prince of Dongwu and Mr. Wei in Zuo Si's Sandu Fu were actually the battle about the legitimacy of the regime in the Three Kingdoms' tripartite confrontation and the North-South confrontation. The point of the arguments was not about the location of the capital, but about what was legitimate, or the legitimacy of the regime that Jin inherited from Wei. Specifically, Shudu Fu stated the orthodox viewpoint of Shu-Han, the son of Xishu. Wudu Fu stated the cultural orthodox viewpoint of Zhou-Han, the Prince of Dongwu, while Weidu Fu represented Cao Wei's political stand that Jin descended from Wei. A record of the legitimacy of Cao Wei from the perspective of abdication must highlight the political achievements of the State of Wei, and therefore must start from the founding of the State of Wei. In terms of the location of the capital, Ye bore greater political and cultural significance than Luoyang. Therefore, in terms of legitimacy and the mandate of heaven, only Capital Ye could take on such a mission. From the perspective of cultural geography, the north-centered cultural mode of thinking which was shaped in the Zhou-Han unification period became Mr. Wei's theoretical basis of his criticisms of the son of Xishu and the Prince of Dongwu who boasted about their capitals, and of his praise of Cao Cao's establishing Ye as the capital. On the other hand, Luoyang's significance and value as the centre of a unified nation was not fully justified during the period of the Three Kingdoms. In fact, the historical mission of unifying the country was accomplished by the Western Jin Dynasty, which is another important cultural-geographical factor accounting for why Zuo Si selected Ye as his topic. In Weidu Fu, Mr. Wei gave an "authentic" description of Capital Ye's organizational system, local conditions and customs, and Emperor Wei and so on. The description centered round the ruler's righteousness and the "legitimate capital and benevolent government," illustrating his political ethics that Jin descended from Wei. Mr. Wei's comment on Cao Wei is not only a historical evaluation of the Three Kingdoms, but also a major political issue of how the Western Jin Dynasty judged its regime. Using a literary form, Zuo Si successfully applied the political-cultural functions of Da Fu in his record of the fight for hegemony between the three kingdoms and disputes about the Western Jin Dynasty's lineage. It was an approval of the mainstream ideology of the political ethics that Wei was legitimate and Western Jin Dynasty descended from Wei. This explains Zuo Si's description of Capital Ye in Weidu Fu, and the historical and political backgrounds of the overwhelming popularity of Sandu Fu (the sensational effect called "luoyang zhigui" ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the attitudes towards life of the iconoclastic literati of the Wei and Jin dynasties (namely Ruan Ji ... and Ji Kang ...) and Cao Xueqin ... (or Jia Baoyu ... his voice in The Dream of the Red Chamber ...). In the first section, we discuss anti-Confucianism and antimonarchism and how the iconoclastic literati of the Wei and Jin objected to empty ritualism and Confucianism being turned into a vehicle for slaughter in the hands of the ruling class (Ji Kang, for instance, placed himself above social strictures and followed nature while Ruan Ji proposed a kingless society). For his part, Cao expressed similar ideas in The Dream of the Red Chamber in making no distinction between high and low, superior and inferior. The next section looks at the great importance attached to sentiment ... by these literati. Ruan was well known for his expression of true love and deep affection, while Jia Baoyu breaks through the limits and controls on ethical relations to express his love for not only young maids but also all living things. Finally, we focus on a sense of mourning over the passage of time that is a fundamental theme of Ruan's yunghuai ... (expressing the feelings of the heart) poems and attempts by the iconoclastic literati of the period to summon up the past and preserve memories in their writing in an effort to combat the passage of time and a coming death. We find similar themes and creative motifs in The Dream of the Red Chamber and note that Cao lets Baoyu live in the Daguan Garden ... because a retreat to such a garden is reminiscent of the ideal life-style of those iconoclastic literati. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emperors of the Western and Eastern Chin and the Southern dynasties implemented many policies to solidify their power. These policies sometimes violated the proper functions of the political system and thus incurred political chaos. First, they introduced the policy of appointing imperial clansmen to the post of governor-general (tu-tu ...), taking charge of troops stationed in strategic places. Although this policy strengthened the emperor's control of the army, it sometimes resulted in bloody power struggles between family members and caused the demise of the dynasty. Second, emperors of the Southern dynasties often deployed document clerks (tien-ch'ien ...) and commissioners (t'ai-shih ...) to inspect and supervise the functions of local governments under the prefects (tz'u-shih ...) and governors-general. This policy, however, did not provide an effective solution to some of the local problems. The key to solving these problems still lay in the hands of local lords and leaders of local troops. Therefore, in the Sung, Ch'i, and Liang dynasties, the imperial control over local government and local military troops remained limited. At court, the emperors of the Southern dynasties often assigned secretariat drafters (chung-shu she-jen ...) and clerks (ling-shih ...) to be in charge of pivotal political affairs. They chose not to delegate power to officials from elite families, but to these low-ranking officials who came from families of lesser birth, in order to restrain the political power of the elite families. Although these were initially temporary measures, they eventually changed the central government system. In the Ch'en dynasty, the Department of Secretariat Drafters (chung-shu she-jen sheng ...) became the supreme center of the government. As for the elite families, who were the emperors' major contenders for political power, their political status indeed went into a decline. However, some political newcomers forfeited their familial credentials and posed as members of elite families. Then, they took advantage of the privileges reserved for elites in the political system. Since these privileges were not abolished, autocracy remained a distant ideal to the emperors of the Southern dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to historical records, the ancestors of Sun Quan ... had been officials in the Wu region for generations. Based on that, Chen Yinque ... argued that the kingdom of Wu was established by the inferior aristocratic Sun family with the support of major families in the southern lower reaches of the Yangzi River, a view that has had wide influence in academic circles. However, a close examination of the material shows that the Sun family had humble origins and thus should be seen as belonging to the poor landowning class. The Sun family expressed the unconventionality of that class in their attitudes towards culture and customs: they belittled Confucian learning and rites in favor of superstition, choose spouses out of love and disregarded the wife's traditional position in the family hierarchy, and with their love for hunting, displays of humor, and predilection for drinking were closer to Cao Cao ... and his offspring than Confucian literati and officials. Politically speaking, the Sun family also favored Cao Cao's methods of ruling and worked towards centralizing power, a move that caused rifts and strife with the large Confucian families that originally supported them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]