ABSTRACT
The fifty years of struggle between the Three Kingdoms which succeeded the Later Han Dynasty constituted the first period of sustained division in the semi-feudal epoch. Unlike other later periods of division which were complicated by the simultaneous occurrence of barbarian invasions, the period of the Three Kingdoms was a typical case of division generated by the internal forces of Chinese society. The material and fundamental factor responsible for such division was the rise of rival economic areas, whose productivity and location enabled them to serve as bases for a sustained challenge of the authority of the overlord who commanded the central or main Key Economic Area. In this case it was the increasing maturity of Shu, or the Szechwan Red Earth Basin, and the adolescent exuberance of Wu, the lower Yangtze valley, that produced the balance of power politically represented by the Three Kingdoms.
