The Northern and Southern Dynasties were a period of division in Chinese history, beginning with Liu Yu's usurpation of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in 420 AD and establishing the Southern Song Dynasty, and ending with the Sui Dynasty's destruction of the Southern Dynasty Chen in 589 AD. During this period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wuhu and Sixteen Kingdoms were inherited from the top, and the Sui Dynasty was connected below, although the two sides of the north and south had their own dynastic changes, they maintained confrontation for a long time, so they were called the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The Southern Dynasties (420 AD – 589 AD) included the Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties; The Northern Dynasties (439 AD – 589 AD) included the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, and Northern Five Dynasties. At the beginning of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it was still a hereditary politics, and the social classes were divided into hereditary clans, Qi people, dependents, and slaves, and foreign exchanges were also flourishing, extending from Japan and the Korean Peninsula in the east, to the Western Regions, Central Asia, and West Asia (Elamshahr) in the west, and to Southeast Asia and India in the south.
