The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (Chinese: 五代十國) was an era of political upheaval and division in Imperial China from 907 to 979 CE. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concurrent dynastic states, of which the most powerful and influential ten were known as the ten kingdoms, were established elsewhere, mainly in South China. It was a prolonged period of multiple political divisions in Chinese imperial history.
Traditionally, the era is seen as beginning with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 and reaching its climax with the founding of the Song dynasty in 960. In the following 19 years, Song gradually subdued the remaining states in South China, but the Liao dynasty still remained in China's north (eventually succeeded by the Jin dynasty), and the Western Xia was eventually established in China's northwest.
Many states had been de facto independent long before 907 as the late Tang dynasty's control over its numerous fanzhen officials waned, but the key event was their recognition as sovereign by foreign powers. After the Tang collapsed, several warlords of the Central Plain crowned themselves emperor. During the 70-year period, there was near-constant warfare between the emerging kingdoms and the alliances they formed. All had the ultimate goal of controlling the Central Plain and establishing themselves as the Tang's successor.
The last of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms regimes was Northern Han, which held out until Song conquered it in 979. For the next several centuries, although the Song controlled much of South China, they coexisted alongside the Liao dynasty, Jin dynasty, and various other regimes in China's north, until finally all of them were conquered by the Yuan dynasty.
Background
In the 8th century, the An Lushan (755–763 CE) and Huang Chao rebellions weakened the imperial government.
Due to the decline of Tang central authority after the An Lushan Rebellion, large regional administrations began to be superimposed over the old districts and prefectures that had been standard practice for the previous millennium, ever since the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). These administrations, known as circuit commissions, would become the boundaries of the later Southern regimes; many circuit commissioners became the emperors or kings of these states.
By the early 10th century, in the last decades of the Tang dynasty, the imperial government granted increased powers to the jiedushi (Chinese: 節度使), the regional military governors, who commanded de facto independence from its authority. They were not even appointed by the central court anymore, but developed hereditary systems, from father to son or from patron to protégé. They had their own armies rivaling the "palace armies" and amassed huge wealth, as testified by their sumptuous tombs.
The historian Hugh Clark has proposed a three-stage model of broad political trends during this time period:
First Stage (880–910) — The period between the Huang Chao Rebellion and the formal end of the Tang dynasty, with chaotic fighting between warlords who controlled approximately one or two prefectures each.
Second Stage (910–950) — The various warlords stabilize and gain enough legitimacy to proclaim new dynasties.
Third Stage (950–979) — The forceful reunification of China by the Later Zhou dynasty and its successor the Song dynasty, and the demilitarisation of the provinces.
In this model, Southern China, divided into several independent dynastic kingdoms, was more stable than the North, which experienced constant regime change. Consequently, the Southern kingdoms were able to embark on trade, land reclamation, and infrastructure projects, laying the groundwork for the Song Dynasty economic boom. This economic shift to the south also led to a vast southward migration.
North
According to Nicholas Tackett, the three provinces of Hebei (Chengde, Youzhou, Weibo) were able to maintain much greater autonomy from the central government in the aftermath of the An Lushan rebellion. With their administration under local military control, these provinces never submitted tax revenues, and governorships lapsed into hereditary succession. They engaged in occasional war with the central government, or against each other, and Youzhou seemed to conduct its own foreign policy. This meant that the culture of these northeastern provinces started diverging from the capital. Many of the elites in post-Tang China, including the future emperors of the Song dynasty, came from this region.
The administrations of the Five Dynasties and the early Song Dynasty shared a pattern of being disproportionately drawn from the families of military governors in northern and northwestern China (Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi), their personal staff, and the bureaucrats who served in the capitals of the Five dynasties. These families had risen to prominence due to the unraveling of central authority after the An Lushan Rebellion, despite lacking esteemed ancestry. The historian Deng Xiaonan argued that many of these military families, including the Song imperial family, were of mixed Han Chinese-Turkic-Kumo Xi ancestry.
The term "Five Dynasties" was coined by Song dynasty historians and reflects the view that the successive regimes based in Kaifeng, controlled the Central Plain and possessed the Mandate of Heaven. The first of the Five Dynasties was founded by Zhu Wen, the rebel defector turned warlord who ultimately ended the Tang dynasty. The rest of the Five Dynasties as well as the Song dynasty all emerged from a military organization originally led by Shatuo Turks whose commanders replaced each other in frequent coup d'état. The Later Tang was founded by Li Cunxu, the son of Shatuo leader Li Keyong, who was the main military rival to Zhu Wen in the late Tang. The Later Jin founder Shi Jingtang was the son of a Shatuo commander in Li Keyong's army and became the son-in-law of the Later Tang general and emperor Li Siyuan, who was himself an adopted son of Li Keyong. The Later Han founder Liu Zhiyuan was a Shatuo officer under Li Siyuan and Shi Jintang. The father of the Later Zhou founder Guo Wei fought in Li Keyong's army and Guo served under Liu Zhiyuan. The father of Song founder Zhao Kuangyin served in the armies of Later Tang, Later Han, and Later Zhou. Zhao, also a professional soldier, rose through the ranks of the Later Zhou before seizing the throne in the Chenqiao Mutiny in 960, which ended the era of the Five Dynasties.
The Qing historian Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) wrote that this period could be compared to the earlier Warring States period of ancient China, remarking that none of the rulers could be described as "Son of Heaven". The Five Dynasties' rulers, despite claiming the status of emperor, sometimes dealt with each other on terms of diplomatic equality out of pragmatic concern. This concept of "sharing the Mandate of Heaven" as "sibling states" was the result of the brief balance of power. After the reunification of China by the Song dynasty, the Song embarked on a special effort to denounce such arrangements.
South
The Southern regimes generally had more stable and effective government during this period. Even the rulers of the Southern states were almost all military leaders from the North with their key officers and elite forces also hailing from the North since the bulk of the Tang army was based in the North. The founders of Wu and Former Shu were 'rogues' from Huainan and Xuchang respectively, the founder of Min was a minor government staffer from Huainan, the founder of Wuyue was a 'rogue' from Hangzhou, the founder of Chu was (according to one source) a carpenter from Xuchang, the founder of Jingnan was a slave from Shanzhou and the founder of Southern Han was a southern tribal chief. The Southern kingdoms were founded by men of low social status who rose up through superior military ability, who were later scorned as "bandits" by future scholars. However, once established, these rulers took great pains to portray themselves as promoters of culture and economic development so as to legitimize their rule; many wooed former Tang courtiers to help administer their states.
The economies of each of the southern regions had prospered in the late Tang. Guangdong and Fujian were the sites of important port cities trading exotic goods, the middle Yangtze and Sichuan were centers of tea and porcelain production, and the Yangtze delta was a center of extremely high agricultural production and an entrepot for the other regions. The regions were economically interdependent. Sui and Tang's policies, while paying little attention to developing the South, gave the South room to innovate free of tight administrative controls. The dominant northern officials had been unwilling to serve in the South during the Tang, and so southerners were recruited by the Tang to serve in a local capacity under the "Southern Selection" supplemental system. These southern officials became the administrative core of the Ten Kingdoms and later dominated the bureaucracy by the mid-Song.
Significant jiedushi
North China
Wang Rong at Zhenzhou (modern Zhengding County, Hebei province)
Wang Chuzhi at Dingzhou (modern Dingzhou, Hebei)
Li Keyong and Li Cunxu at Taiyuan (modern Taiyuan, Shanxi), precursor to Later Tang
Liu Rengong and Liu Shouguang at Youzhou (modern Beijing), precursor to Yan
Li Maozhen at Fengxiang (modern Fengxiang County, Shaanxi province), precursor to Qi
Luo Shaowei at Weibo (modern Daming County, Hebei province)
Li Sigong at Dingnan circuit, precursor to Western Xia
Zhang Yichao at Guiyi
Zhu Wen at Bianzhou (modern Kaifeng, Henan), precursor to Later Liang
South China
Qian Liu at Hangzhou (modern Hangzhou, Zhejiang), precursor to Wuyue
Ma Yin at Tanzhou (modern Changsha, Hunan), precursor to Chu
Wang Shenzhi at Fuzhou (modern Fuzhou, Fujian), precursor to Min
Liu Yin at Guangzhou (modern Guangzhou, Guangdong), precursor to Southern Han
Wang Jian at Chengdu (modern Chengdu, Sichuan), precursor to Former Shu
Yang Xingmi at Yangzhou (modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu), precursor to Wu
Gao Jixing at Jingzhou, precursor to Jingnan
Five Dynasties
Later Liang (907–923)
During the Tang dynasty, the warlord Zhu Wen was originally a member of Huang Chao's rebel army, he took on a crucial role in suppressing the Huang Chao Rebellion. For this function, he was awarded the Xuanwu Jiedushi title. Within a few years, he had consolidated his power by destroying neighbours and forcing the move of the imperial capital to Luoyang, which was within his region of influence. In 904, he executed Emperor Zhaozong of Tang and made Zhaozong's 13-year-old son Emperor Ai of Tang a subordinate ruler. Three years later, he induced the boy emperor to abdicate in his favour. He then proclaimed himself emperor, thus beginning the Later Liang.
Later Tang (923–936)
In the final years of the Tang dynasty, rival warlords declared independence in the provinces they governed—not all of which recognized the emperor's authority. Li Keyong was the jiedushi for the Hedong circuit in present Shanxi, forming a polity called Jin (晉). His son Li Cunxu and Liu Shouguang fiercely fought the regime forces to conquer northern China; Li Cunxu succeeded. He defeated Liu Shouguang (who had proclaimed a Yan Empire in 911) in 915, and declared himself emperor in 923; within a few months, he brought down the Later Liang regime. Thus began the Shatuo Later Tang—the first in a long line of conquest dynasties. After reuniting much of northern China, in 924 Cunxu received the submission of Shaanxi's Qi kingdom, and in 925 Cunxu conquered the Former Shu, a regime that had been set up in Sichuan.
Later Jin (937–947)
The Later Tang had a few years of relative calm, followed by unrest. In 934, Sichuan again asserted independence. In 936, Shi Jingtang rebelled against Li Congke, the fourth emperor of the Later Tang. Shi Jingtang, a Shatuo jiedushi from Taiyuan, was aided by the Khitan-led Liao dynasty in his rebellion. In return for their aid, Shi Jingtang promised annual tribute and the Sixteen Prefectures (modern northern Hebei and Beijing) to the Khitans. The rebellion succeeded, and Shi Jingtang became emperor in this same year.
Not long after the founding of Later Jin, the Liao came to regard the emperor as a proxy ruler for China. In 943, the Khitans declared war and within three years seized the capital, Kaifeng, marking the end of Later Jin. But while they had conquered vast regions of China, the Khitans were unable or unwilling to control those regions and retreated from them early in the next year.
Later Han (947–951)
To fill the power vacuum, the jiedushi Liu Zhiyuan entered the imperial capital in 947 and proclaimed the advent of the Later Han, establishing a third successive Shatuo reign. This was the shortest of the five dynasties. Following a coup in 951, General Guo Wei, a Han Chinese, was enthroned, thus beginning the Later Zhou. However, Liu Chong, a member of the Later Han imperial family, established a rival Northern Han regime in Taiyuan and requested Khitan aid to defeat the Later Zhou.
Later Zhou (951–960)
After the death of Guo Wei in 954, his adopted son Chai Rong succeeded the throne and began a policy of expansion and reunification. One month after Chai Rong took the throne, Liu Chong, Emperor of Northern Han, allied with Liao dynasty to launch an assault on Later Zhou. Against the advice of Minister Feng Dao, Chai Rong decided to lead his army against the incursion. When Chai Rong engaged Liu Chong at Gao Ping (in modern Jincheng), two of Chai's generals, Fan Aineng and He Hui, fled from the battlefield along with their troops. At this critical moment, Chai Rong risked his life to break through the defense and crushed Liu's forces. After this campaign, Chai Rong consolidated his power. Between 956 and 958, forces of Later Zhou conquered much of Southern Tang, the most powerful regime in southern China, which ceded all the territory north of the Yangtze in defeat. In 959, Chai Rong attacked the Liao in an attempt to recover territories ceded during the Later Jin. After many victories, he succumbed to illness.
In 960, the general Zhao Kuangyin staged a coup and took the throne for himself, founding the Northern Song dynasty. This is the official end of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. During the next two decades, Zhao Kuangyin and his successor Zhao Kuangyi defeated the other remaining regimes in South China, conquering Northern Han in 979, starting the Song dynasty era in 982.
Ten Kingdoms
Unlike the dynasties of northern China, which succeeded one another in rapid succession, the regimes of South China were generally concurrent, each controlling a specific geographical area. These were known as "The Ten Kingdoms" (in fact, some claimed the title of Emperor, such as Former Shu and Later Shu). Each court was a center of artistic excellence. The period is noted for the vitality of its poetry and for its economic prosperity. Commerce grew so quickly that there was a shortage of metallic currency. This was partly addressed by the creation of bank drafts, or "flying money" (feiqian), as well as by certificates of deposit. Wood block printing became common during this period, 500 years before Johannes Gutenberg's press.
The Ten Kingdoms were:
Yang Wu (907–937)
Wuyue (907–978)
Min (909–945)
Ma Chu (907–951)