[907 - 960] Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

We are in the year 907. The great Tang Dynasty, a titan that had bestrode Asia for nearly three centuries, was dead. It did not go quietly. It had been bleeding out for decades, its authority shredded by ambitious warlords and peasant rebellions. The final, fatal blow was delivered by a man named Zhu Wen. He was a salt smuggler turned rebel, a man whose ambition was matched only by his cruelty. He forced the last Tang emperor to abdicate and then, for good measure, had him murdered, founding his own dynasty, the Later Liang. And so began an age of turmoil so profound that Chinese historians would later call it simply, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. For the next fifty-three years, North China became a brutal, violent stage. The imperial throne in the old heartland of the Yellow River valley was not a seat of power, but a bloody crown passed between traitors. A new dynasty would be declared, only to be torn down a few years later by its own most trusted general. It was a terrifying, repeating cycle. The Five Dynasties—the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou—rose and fell in a dizzying, violent succession. The average reign for any of these northern dynasties was barely a decade. Loyalty was not to an empire or a nation, but to a commander. Armies were personal possessions. The soldiers, often drawn from hardy nomadic peoples like the Shatuo Turks who had settled along the frontier, wore practical round-collared robes and leather boots, a far cry from the silken finery of the old Tang court. They were pragmatists, fighting for the general who fed them and promised them plunder. Life for the common farmer in the north was a nightmare. Armies swept back and forth across the plains, conscripting sons, seizing grain, and leaving famine in their wake. A good harvest was no guarantee of survival; it only made you a more tempting target. The chaos reached a fever pitch with the third dynasty, the Later Jin. Its founder, a general named Shi Jingtang, was so desperate for the throne that he made a deal with the devil. He appealed to the powerful Khitan empire to the north, a formidable nomadic power. In exchange for their military backing, he made a catastrophic promise: he handed over a vital strip of territory known as the Sixteen Prefectures. This land, which included the site of modern-day Beijing, was a crucial defensive barrier, a northern shield for the Chinese heartland. By giving it away in 937, Shi Jingtang not only called himself a subordinate of the Khitan emperor but also opened a strategic gateway that would plague Chinese dynasties for the next 400 years. But to the south of the turbulent Yellow River, a different story was unfolding. Here, in the lush river valleys and bustling port cities of the Yangtze and beyond, the collapse of the Tang had not led to endless war, but to a patchwork of smaller, more stable states. These were the "Ten Kingdoms." While the north burned, the south, for the most part, prospered. These southern kingdoms, like Wuyue, Southern Han, or the Former and Later Shu, were ruled by clever warlords who understood that wealth was a better foundation for power than terror. The rulers of Wuyue, centered on the modern-day city of Hangzhou, were brilliant engineers. They invested heavily in constructing seawalls and dredging rivers, protecting their agricultural heartland and boosting its rice production to incredible levels. In their capital, stone-and-brick pagodas, like the six-harmony Pagoda that would later be rebuilt, pointed to the sky, symbols of both Buddhist piety and immense wealth derived from maritime trade. Silks, ceramics, and, most importantly, tea, flowed from their ports to the rest of Asia. It was also here, in the quiet monasteries and workshops of kingdoms like Shu and Min, that a world-changing technology was perfected: woodblock printing. While the technique had existed in the Tang, it was in this era that it truly took off. Buddhist sutras, Confucian classics, and collections of poetry could now be reproduced with astonishing speed and accuracy. Suddenly, texts that once took scribes months to copy could be reproduced by the thousands. This wasn't just a convenience; it was a revolution. It helped standardize knowledge and fueled a rise in literacy among a growing class of merchants and landowners. A man no longer had to be a high-born aristocrat to afford an education. The most famous of these southern realms was the Southern Tang, a kingdom renowned for its culture. Its last ruler, Li Yu, was a far better poet than he was an emperor. As his kingdom crumbled under the threat of invasion from the north, he composed some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking verse in the Chinese language, writing of lost palaces and faded glories. He captured the soul of his doomed, refined world, a world of perfumed halls and moonlit rivers, even as the drums of war grew louder. By the late 950s, a semblance of order had returned to the north under the final of the Five Dynasties, the Later Zhou. Its emperor was a brilliant and energetic young ruler who began the hard work of reconquest and reform. But he died of illness in 959, leaving his seven-year-old son on the throne. The court was terrified. The Khitans were rumored to be invading again. The army needed a strong leader. In early 960, the main army was dispatched from the capital to meet the supposed threat. They made camp at a place called Chen Bridge. That night, something extraordinary happened. The officers, convinced that only their commander, the respected general Zhao Kuangyin, could save the empire, burst into his tent. They threw a yellow imperial robe—the color reserved for the emperor—over his shoulders and hailed him as the new Son of Heaven. Whether he was a reluctant draftee to the throne or the master of a brilliantly staged piece of political theater, we will never know for certain. He marched the army back to the capital, took the throne without a fight, and declared the start of a new dynasty. He would become Emperor Taizu, the founder of the Song Dynasty. His first and most brilliant act was to solve the riddle that had plagued the past half-century. He invited his powerful generals to a banquet. Over wine, he spoke not of threats, but of the joys of a peaceful retirement, with vast estates and riches to enjoy. He convinced them, one by one, to trade their military power for a life of guaranteed wealth and honor. He broke the cycle of bloodshed not with the sword, but with a golden handshake. The age of chaos was over. The work of rebuilding a fractured China had begun.