Fu Deng

Fu Deng (Chinese: 苻登; 343–394) was an emperor of the Chinese/Di state Former Qin. He assumed the throne in 386 after the deaths of Fu Jiān (Emperor Xuanzhao) and Fu Jiān's son Fu Pi (Emperor Aiping), even though he was only a distant relative of theirs, as by that time Former Qin's territory had largely been reduced to the territory under his control. He battled the Later Qin emperor Yao Chang for years in a stalemate that neither could conclusively prevail, but in 394, he made a major attack on Later Qin after Yao Chang's death, seriously underestimating Yao Chang's son and successor Yao Xing, who captured and executed him. Later that year, his son Fu Chong, who succeeded him, would die in battle, ending Former Qin.

Fu Deng was born in 343, to Fu Chang (苻敞), a distant grandnephew of Former Qin's founder Fu Jiàn, while still under Later Zhao rule. After Fu Jiàn founded Former Qin in 351, Fu Chang served as a general and a commandery governor. During the reign of Fu Jiàn's cruel and whimsical son Fu Sheng (r. 355–357), Fu Chang was executed, but he was posthumously honored after Fu Sheng was overthrown by his cousin Fu Jiān. Fu Jiān was impressed by Fu Deng's abilities, and when he grew older, Fu Deng was made the county magistrate of the capital Chang'an. Later, however, for unspecified faults, he was demoted to be the county magistrate for Didao (狄道, in modern Dingxi, Gansu).

After Former Qin began to collapse in 384 and Fu Jiān was killed by the Later Qin general Yao Chang in 385, Fu Deng became a subordinate of the general Mao Xing (毛興), who sought to control all of the provinces in the west still nominally under Former Qin rule, but his soldiers became weary from all of the battles and assassinated him in 386, replacing him with Wei Ping (衛平), a very old general who was the head of the clan. However, these soldiers soon became convinced that Wei was too old to accomplish much, and they deposed Wei and replaced him with Fu Deng. Fu Deng submitted a report of these events to Fu Jiān's son Fu Pi, the new emperor, and Fu Pi commissioned him as a provincial governor and created him the Prince of Nan'an.

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