The Battle of Red Cliffs (赤壁之戰) at the end of the Han Dynasty, ca. AD 208 “The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity” Ancient Chinese proverb The Chinese believe that the above saying accurately describes the great affairs of the world. Two millenniums ago, after almost four centuries of rule and a golden age, the definitive Han dynasty became to come apart. A period of peace and prosperity gave way to a period of chaos and hardship. Political struggles, warlordism, famines and disasters eventually led to the well-known Three Kingdoms period after the Han collapsed. Despite the massive social upheavals, there were innovations in military technology, agriculture, and social governance systems, spurred on by the competition between rival warlords fighting to unify the realm. New trade routes and systems were also established  ...