Chaos in the North: The Collapse of Northern Wei While Emperor Wu of Liang busied himself with Buddhist ordinations in the south, the Northern Wei dynasty was tearing itself apart.
In the volatile power struggles of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, political marriages were not unions of affection but strategic instruments of war and betrayal. One of the most revealing episodes of this era occurred in 196 AD, when Yuan Shu, having failed to conquer Xu Province (Xuzhou) by force, attempted to subvert Lü…