(737-795/4) The War of the Three Rings was a terrible conflict, named for the fabled Three Rings of Tian; the legendary magical artifacts once held by the Three Sovereigns of the Far East.
These three rings had been captured by the Warlord Zhou Xing-ha, when he defeated the Three Sovereigns and founded the Empire of Shang-Zhou.
By the late Fourth Age, those rings and the imperial power behind came to be envied by a powerful, eastern Warlord named Shao Zheng, who invaded the Empire in the year 737/4.
Shao soon received a well-deserved moniker of "Zheng the Merciless," as his ruthless military campaigns cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and caused the utter destruction of many cities and towns. Also, Zheng showed no mercy to the last Emperor Hansu; whom he captured and ordered executed.
Ironically, the three rings were lost in the fighting, and there was no clear victor. Only rampant destruction and chaos for the next millennia.
When the conflict ended in the year 795 of the Fourth Age, it tore apart the ancient realm of Shang-Zhou, and left the Far East in a state of chaos for 1,000 years.
