Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
The Later Liang (yellow) and contemporary kingdoms
Traditional Chinese	五代十國
Simplified Chinese	五代十国
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wǔ dài shí guó Wade–Giles Wu3 tai4 shih2 kuo2

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, also called Five Dynasties, was an era of political upheaval in 10th-century imperial China. During this period, five states quickly succeeded one another in the Chinese Central Plain, while more than a dozen concurrent states were established elsewhere, mainly in south China.

Traditionally, the era started with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 AD and ended with the founding of the Song dynasty in 960. Many states were de facto independent kingdoms long before 907. After the Tang has collapsed, kings who controlled central plain simply crown themselves as emperor. And war between kingdoms happened frequently to gain control the central plain for legitimacy, then over whole China. The last of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms states, Northern Han, was not vanquished until 979.

The Five Dynasties were:

The Ten Kingdoms were:

Only ten are traditionally listed, hence the era's name, "Ten Kingdoms"; some historians, such as Bo Yang, count eleven, including Yan and Qi but not the Northern Han, viewing it as simply a continuation of Later Han. This era also led to the founding of the Liao dynasty in the north.

Other regimes during this period were Yan, Qi, Zhao, Yiwu Jiedushi, Dingnan Jiedushi, Wuping Jiedushi, Qingyuan Jiedushi, Yin, Ganzhou, Shazhou, and Liangzhou.