Jin Dynasty East Jin Dynasty (317- 420)

As Ethnic Minority Powers Occupied North China, Ethnic Han Founded a Small Regime East Jin in the South.

53 Fu Jian & Xie An

Two Opponent Military Leaders of Fei-River War

West Jin had shortly lived for only 42 years, and its corrupt politics had brought about five powerful ethnic minorities rising up in the north. After West Jin perished, Jin royal members founded a small regime in the south, namely East Jin. Historians gave this separating time (including the South & North Dynasties Period) a special name as “Five Minorities Making Turmoil in China”.

By the time, a north state “Former Qin” of ethnic Di was all powerful. After unifying north China, the young emperor Fu Jian (338-385) pooled his troops as many as 870,000 infantry and cavalry attacking southward. The invasion set in a thunder out of blue for the East Jin emperor and his officials, because they had only a small army of 80,000 troops. But Xie An (320-385), Jin’s premier, appeared as calm and quiet as usual playing chess and made tours to scenic mountains and rivers. Days later, he at last sent out troops, with Xie Xuan, his nephew and Xie Shi, his younger brother to be commanders to go to battlefield. Two antagonistic troops met at Fei-River, situated at north of Hefei City, Anhui Province. As water prevented forces to reach out, Xie Xuan, the Jin’s commander asked Fu Jian to remove his army a bit providing Jin troops ferrying across the river. Fu actually ordered his military arrays moving back. At the very moment, Xie Xuan himself led his 8,000 elite commandoes ferrying across the water and charging to the enemy. Also, there broke out a mutiny among Fu Jian troops, some one yelling: “Qin’s defeated!” The men were East Jin’s turncoats coming some days earlier. Soon Qin’s 870,000 troops were utterly routed and fleeing in hordes like a landslide. Fu Jian, scared out of his wits, ran to a mountain named Mount Ba Gong. At night, the paranoid Fu dreaded of the sound of wind blowing as if enemies tracing, dreaded of the shadows of trees and grasses as if ambushers coming. The story produced a popular idiom as “wind blows were tracers, tree and grass were ambushers”.

After Fu Jian’s failure, many of his subordinates betrayed him. Two years later he was killed in a mutiny, when he was only 38 years old. Also, there happened an unthinkable coincidence: Xie An, the East Jin premier died in the same month.