after the fall of the golden age of tang dynasty china entered the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period the messiest and the most convoluted period in chinese history as if keeping track of over a dozen kingdoms fighting for the dominion of china isn't enough they keep using the same names for their kingdoms there were at least three huns two souls and a couple of revived tongues in this episode i will walk you through this chaotic period and teach you how to survive using funsu as case study this career bureaucrat survived through all five dynasties and even became the prime minister of song dynasty the next great dynasty to reunify china before i get into the flow of events i think it would be easier to understand this period if i explain its general structure first on the twilight of the tang dynasty there was a massive rebellion led by huang tao the rebellion was quelled but in the process various warlords rose to power and began fighting among themselves to gain more power and territory tsuhuan who was greatly favored by the tang imperial court ended up betraying it and opposed the emperor to make himself the emperor of the later liang dynasty the first of the five dynasties the five dynasties and the ten kingdoms periods is a concept created during the song dynasty the dynasty that eventually reunited china there were actually a lot more political divisions than what you see on screen many smaller kingdoms didn't even make the list but you know what they say history is written by the victors so that's why the five dynasties were more prominently featured and the ten kingdoms were turned into something like supporting characters in the historiography the five dynasties are very significant to song dynasty historians for a few reasons first of all they inherited the legitimacy of the original tongue dynasty in succession the tongue dynasty was taken over by little liang and then later liang was taken by a later tongue then later jing followed by later han little so until finally seong dynasty launched a successful coup against later zhou and went on to unify most of china the other reason is because these dynasties were some of the biggest political entities located in the central plains of northern china as for the 10 kingdoms except for northern khan which was an attempt at reviving later khan all of them were located in the southern part of china yeah the good old north-south division of china is happening all over again except for sazantang all of them were pretty weak and didn't have much chance of unifying china despite some of them claiming the title of emperor they are called kingdom in english just because someone decided to translate the chinese word guo into kingdom but this word can be more literally translated as country as you can see from the chart these five dynasties and ten kingdoms did not exist all at once some of them were created later and talking about creating kingdoms we can't ignore the overbearing presence of the kitan leo dynasty the king-making force that facilitated the rise and fall of some of the five dynasties alright now without further ado let's get on the history train before the tang dynasty ended many warlords and jedus or military governors already held de facto power over their own region but when the last tang dynasty emperor was deposed and the later lyan dynasty was established in 907 some of the warlords and jedus also established their own countries not all of them claimed to be emperors because there can only be one emperor and this title carries a lot of risk it practically means that you have declared your ambition to conquer everybody else and that could be fatal especially if you are some small country in a corner some of them just claimed to be kings of their own region and others retained their title of jetus and pledged nominal allegiance to someone who claimed the title of emperor as for the kitans they had just coincidentally formed their own cabinets up north in 907 they will adopt the theodosi name in 947 but currently they are still in the process of growing themselves into a formidable force i will cover the kitan leo dynasty in greater detail in a future episode but for now we will just look at the general flow of the period the first emperor of liang dynasty zuwan was an awful person he was originally a participant of huang's house rebellion but he changed sides and backstabbed a lot of people to get into power so not many people liked him among those who hated him was li kyung his arch rival who he had tried to assassinate during their warlord days li kyung established the kingdom of jin but it was pretty small and couldn't really stand a chance against later liang but his son lee swenshu will eventually settle this grudge by conquering zhuwan's fanzil was born in 911 and he proved to be a clever boy but this is not his time to shine yet remember how i said tuwan was an awful person yeah apparently he was also quite depraved he often called his son's wives to the palace and fornicate with them but this is not the real reason why his third son murdered him and took the throne zuwan wanted to make his adopted son his successor but his third son zu yoguei murdered him in his sleep and forged an imperial edict to make himself the emperor tu yokwe didn't last long either his younger fourth brother zuyoten launched a coup against him and had him assassinated stability is not really a thing in this period and the term-shifting alliance is the flavor of the century in 915 a jedus of later liang died and the new emperor wanted to reduce the power of the region by transferring the assets to another region the military personnels righted against the decision and invited lee suanshu from jin to rule them instead the military personnels of this era are especially opinionated it is almost like they are their own character in this story despite having to fight against the kitan at the same time by 923 jin had grown powerful enough to challenge later liang they changed their dynastic name to tang and conquered their long time rival within the same year they named their country tang because they wanted to revive the glory of tang dynasty even though lee swenshu and his father like young was of satur turkic descent li kyung was granted the imperial lee surname but a tongue emperor for his meritorious service so there is just a small connection there historian added the later prefix to differentiate all the different tongue and hand dynasties satan khan is another example of this in reality at the time they just called themselves han ancient chinese dynasties usually named their region after the region where their leader became king before becoming the emperor the first emperor of the original khan dynasty for example was made the king of han region before conquering the rest of china and becoming an emperor the other naming method is by harkening back to a glorious past dynasty like what these kingdoms are doing but starting from the mongol yuan dynasty they broke from this convention because wait for it they are the exception anyway during the later tang dynasty fans started his civil service this dynasty took a step closer to unifying china by threatening former su into surrender but then it took another step back when one of the jetus they assigned to the region declared independence and formed later su this period is completely plagued by insubordination lee tuanchu himself ended up getting killed in a revolt and the next dynasty was formed by a rebellious veteran jedus and he called his dynasty jin the former name of the later tang dynasty so historians came to call this dynasty later jin in their near hopeless attempt to prevent confusion xintong was not powerful enough to win on his own so he had to sign a proverbial contract with the devil to secure a victory he asked for reinforcements from the kitans after he defeated the later liang dynasty he had to give away the strategic 16 prefectures which included what would be the city of beijing today and also he had to call the kitan emperor yelu the guang father emperor he would assume the role of the child emperor even though the kitten emperor at the time was 10 years younger than him obviously it was fairly degrading and this superior to inferior emperor relationship would come back to haunt later dynasties coincidentally with the destruction of the later tang dynasty the kingdom of yangwoo down south was taken over by libyan since the later tang dynasty was destroyed and not using the name anymore he just joined it and called his kingdom tongue historians added the prefix to differentiate the different tang dynasties this kingdom is pretty powerful and it will eventually take over the kingdoms of ming and matsu as a side note the third period of chinese domination of vietnam ended completely in 938 when the kingdom of satan han attacked jinghai circuits or anan and was repelled in the battle of bakdang but as if the chaos of the era was contagious vietnam soon entered its own turbulent period called the anarchy of the 12th warlords meanwhile during the later jin dynasty fans continued to rise up the ranks but as you can see on the chart this dynasty didn't last long after the death of its founder the generals and ministers all thought you know what we should really stop being the vessels of the kittens so in a small act of defiance the new emperor sent a letter to the kitan emperor and addressed him as grandfather but he didn't call himself their vassal and how did the kitans react to this not very well if they could create a later jing dynasty so could they destroy them and they did in 947 later jinx rendered and their emperor was exiled the cold and lonely northern region of kitan yelu de guang proclaimed himself as the emperor of all china but he was very unpopular sick of having to deal with all the rebellions and the summer heat he decided to return north but he died on his way his death emboldened the rebels and one of them leotsuyan quickly seized power and established the later han dynasty but his dynasty was the most short-lived among the five lasting only five years just after one year of rain he died and was succeeded by his young son leo tanyo to support him he assigned his minister of military affairs go away to be regent who proceeded to seize the throne like taking candies from a baby the later han dynasty ended in 951 the northern han kingdom was created because the late emperor's brother lyoming was supported by the kitans to rebel and claim to be the successor of later han dynasty so they served as the kittens vessel and a buffer state against the later zhou despite their rivalry with the kitans when guawi entered the capital he remembered that there was a very meticulous bureaucrat who would make a great minister for his new dynasty so again fansel was hired to continue working for another dynasty well if there is one lesson we can learn from fans about surviving in a time of chaos is that sometimes all you need to do is to just do your job well and when in doubt just not and smile huawei's reign was succeeded by his adopted son gorong and guorung son gotong shoon became the last emperor of the dynasty at the tender age of six well karma is a funny thing isn't it just like how the later joe dynasty was established by a general seizing power from a young emperor the dynasty ended the same way when its general saw kuan yin forced the young emperor to abdicate in 960. according to the official history it was his soldiers who rioted demanding him to become their emperor while he was heading north to intercept a lyon invasion he refused it a few times but it was just a common east asian fake politeness act throughout chinese history almost all emperors had done this stick even the legendary tang tae jong after his coup i mean who else was going to be the emperor but though kwang king went method with the acting he even cried in front of fans saying that he had no choice and he was forced by his men to do it yeah right but instead of rolling his eyes fans just nodded and bowed like the other ministers and he was eventually promoted to become a chancellor of song dynasty when a dynasty change usually you still have the same people running the bureaucracy or it will just grind to a halt the same goes for the kitan yao empire just because the land expanded it doesn't mean that all the citizens magically turn into kitans real life isn't a video game the kittens still needed chinese bureaucrats to run the sedentary part of their empire after its establishments in 960 the song dynasty then went on to conquer all the other kingdoms and reunified most of china by 979 the kitan leo dynasty then became its arch rival on the next episode we will look at the rise of the song dynasty in greater detail who was zhou yin and what is the mystery of his death remember to subscribe so that you don't miss the episode before i go i would like to thank all our patrons on patreon for supporting the channel and all you viewers for liking and sharing the video until next time stay cool my bros