Editing Three Kingdoms (section)

=== Population ===
[[File:Pottery courtyard, 3 kingdoms, Wu, Hubei, 1967. NationalMusemBeijing.JPG|thumb|250px|Pottery dwelling around a large courtyard, a ''[[siheyuan]]''. Unearthed in 1967 in a tomb of [[Hubei]] built during the kingdom of Eastern Wu, [[National Museum of China]], Beijing]]

After the Yellow Turban Rebellion, serious famine followed in the [[Central Plain (China)|Central Plain]]s of China. After his coming to power, Dong Zhuo gave full swing to his army to loot and plunder the population, and abduct women into forced marriages, servants or consorts. When the Guandong Coalition was starting the campaign against Dong Zhuo, he embarked upon a scorched earth campaign, proclaiming that "all the population of [[Luoyang]] be forced to move to Chang'an, all the palaces, temples, official residences and homes be burnt, no one should stay within that area of 200 ''[[Li (unit)|li]]''". Considering the hardships of that time this amounted to a death sentence for many, and cries of discontent rose as the population of Luoyang decreased sharply. When Cao Cao attacked [[Xu Province]], it was said that "hundreds of thousands of men and women were buried alive, even dogs and chickens did not survive. The [[Si River]] was blocked. From then on, these five towns never recovered."{{citation needed|date=June 2016}} When [[Li Jue (Han dynasty)|Li Jue]] and his army were advancing towards the [[Guanzhong]] area, "there remained hundreds of thousands of people, but Li Jue allowed his army to plunder the cities and the people, thus making the people have nothing but eat each other to death."{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

The following table shows the severe decrease of population during that period. From the late Eastern Han to the Western Jin dynasty, despite the length of about 125 years, the peak population only equalled 35.3% of the peak population during the Eastern Han dynasty. From the Western Jin dynasty to the [[Sui dynasty]], the population never recovered. High militarisation of the population was common. For example, the population of Shu was 900,000, but the military numbered over 100,000. The ''[[Records of the Three Kingdoms]]'' contains population figures for the Three Kingdoms. As with many Chinese historical population figures, these numbers are likely to be less than the actual populations, since census and tax records went hand in hand, and tax evaders were often not on records.

During the Three Kingdoms period, a number of statuses intermediate between freedom and [[Slavery in China|slavery]] developed, but none of them are thought to have exceeded 1 per cent of the population.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=R. Owen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_SeZrcBqt-YC&pg=PA156 |title=Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition [Two Volumes] |date=November 2006 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-01524-3 |language=en}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Three Kingdoms Period Populations<ref>From Zou Jiwan ({{zhi|c=鄒紀萬}}), ''Zhongguo Tongshi – Weijin Nanbeichao Shi'' {{lang|zh-hant|中國通史·魏晉南北朝史}}, (1992).</ref>
|-
! Year
! Households
! Population
! Notes
|-
|Eastern [[Han dynasty]], 156
|align="right"|10,679,600
|align="right"|56,486,856
|
|-
|[[Shu Han]], 221
|align="right"|200,000
|align="right"|900,000
|
|-
|Shu Han, 263
|align="right"|280,000
|align="right"|1,082,000
|At Shu's demise, the population contained 102,000 armed soldiers and 40,000 various officials.
|-
|[[Eastern Wu]], 238
|align="right"|520,000
|align="right"|2,567,000
|
|-
|Eastern Wu, 280
|align="right"|530,000
|align="right"|2,535,000
|At Wu's demise, the population had 32,000 officials, 230,000 soldiers, and 5,000 imperial concubines.
|-
|[[Cao Wei]], 260
|align="right"|663,423
|align="right"|4,432,881
|
|-
|[[Western Jin dynasty]], 280
|align="right"|2,495,804
|align="right"|16,163,863
|After reuniting China, the Jin dynasty's population was greatest around this time.
|}

While it is clear that warfare undoubtedly took many lives during this period, the census figures do not support the idea that tens of millions were wiped out solely from warfare. Other factors such as mass [[List of famines in China|famines]] and [[infectious diseases]], due to the collapse of sustaining governance and migrations out of China must be taken into account.<ref>{{cite news |title=China has been plagued, and shaped, by epidemics – it has also overcome them |url=https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3114327/china-has-been-plagued-and-shaped-epidemics-it |work=[[South China Morning Post]] |date=21 December 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mazanec |first=Thomas J. |date=2020-09-01 |title=Review: The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian'an and the Three Kingdoms, by Xiaofei Tian |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/4/3/353/110917/Review-The-Halberd-at-Red-Cliff-Jian-an-and-the |journal=Studies in Late Antiquity |language=en |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=353–359 |doi=10.1525/sla.2020.4.3.353 |s2cid=225333779 |issn=2470-6469}}</ref>