The Tongjian on the Five Dynasties Chaos

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907 to 960 CE) is the most fragmented and chaotic era in the Zizhi Tongjian. After the Tang dynasty collapsed, China split into competing states in the north and south, with five short-lived dynasties succeeding each other in the north and ten regional kingdoms holding territory across the south. For fifty-three years, there was no stable central authority. The Tongjian covers this period with the same meticulous chronological attention it gives to every era, but the density of events, the turnover of regimes, and the constant warfare make it one of the most challenging and revealing sections of the work. For the full scope of what the Tongjian covers, see What Zizhi Tongjian Covers.

The End of the Tang and the Beginning of Chaos

The Tang dynasty’s formal end came in 907 CE when Zhu Wen, a former Huang Chao rebel who had gone over to the Tang and then accumulated military power, forced the last Tang emperor to abdicate. He established the Later Liang. Sima Guang records this transition with characteristic economy. The Tongjian does not mourn. It notes the abdication, records the new dynasty’s name, and moves on to the next crisis. The implication is that the Tang had been functionally dead for decades. The abdication was a formal confirmation of what everyone already knew.

What followed was not a new dynasty establishing itself but a pattern of military strongmen seizing power, failing to build stable institutions, and being overthrown by the next strongman. The five northern dynasties, Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou, lasted an average of eleven years each. None established a stable succession. Most ended in assassination, coup, or foreign conquest. The Tongjian tracks each one with precision, but the repetition builds its own argument.

The Shatuo Turks and Military Governance

One of the most striking features of this period is the role of the Shatuo Turks. Three of the five northern dynasties (Later Tang, Later Jin, and Later Han) were founded by Shatuo military leaders. The Shatuo were a Turkic people who had served as frontier cavalry for the Tang and had settled in northern China. By the end of the Tang, they had become a semi-autonomous military caste. The Tongjian records their rise without ethnic commentary, treating them as political actors whose effectiveness determined outcomes, not as outsiders whose ethnicity explained anything.

What the Tongjian does emphasize is the structural problem: military governance without institutional foundations is inherently unstable. Each Shatuo ruler could assemble a coalition of troops and allies, seize a capital, and declare a dynasty. None could build the administrative apparatus needed to govern a stable state. The examination system was suspended. Civil officials were distrusted. Tax collection was ad hoc. Military loyalty was personal, tied to specific commanders rather than to institutions or to the throne. When a commander died, his coalition dissolved, and another strongman filled the vacuum. The Later Tang illustrates this cycle with punishing clarity. Li Cunxu, its founder, was a brilliant cavalry commander who destroyed the Later Liang. Within three years of taking the throne, he was killed in a mutiny by his own officers, who replaced him with a fellow Shatuo commander. The Tongjian records the speed of the deterioration: from victorious conqueror to murdered monarch in under three years. The problem was not competence. Li Cunxu won every battle. The problem was that his authority rested entirely on personal military loyalty, which has no institutional mechanism for transferring to a successor.

The Tongjian‘s treatment of the Five Dynasties is a study in what happens when institutions disappear. The problem is not that the rulers were barbarians or incompetents. Several were personally capable and courageous. The problem is that personal capability, without institutional structures to channel and sustain it, cannot build a state. Every good decision dies with the decision-maker. Every coalition dissolves when the coalition-builder falls. The Tongjian shows this pattern repeating five times in fifty-three years.

The Ten Kingdoms in the South

While the north cycled through five dynasties, the south was divided among ten regional kingdoms. These were more stable than the northern dynasties, partly because they were smaller and partly because several were founded by former Tang officials who maintained some of the Tang administrative traditions. The Tongjian gives less attention to the southern kingdoms, reflecting Sima Guang’s focus on the northern political line that he considers the legitimate succession, but it tracks their internal histories with enough detail to show that stability was possible even in a fragmented China.

The Kingdom of Wu Yue (907 to 978 CE), centered on modern Zhejiang, was the most durable. It lasted seventy-one years, maintained a strong navy, invested in hydraulic engineering, and preserved relative peace. The Southern Han (917 to 971 CE) controlled Guangdong and Guangxi. The Former and Later Shu held Sichuan in succession. Each of these kingdoms was eventually absorbed by the Song dynasty as it reunified China, but their relative stability during the chaos period suggests that regional governance, when backed by effective administration, could endure where military adventurism could not. The contrast between the Ten Kingdoms and the Five Dynasties is one of the most instructive comparative passages in the Tongjian.

The Later Zhou: The Path to Reunification

The last of the five dynasties, the Later Zhou (951 to 960 CE), is where the Tongjian starts to trace the recovery. Its founder, Guo Wei, was a military commander who took power after the Later Han collapsed, but he behaved differently from his predecessors. He reduced taxes, reformed the legal system, invested in agriculture, and began rebuilding the administrative structures that military governance had stripped away. His adopted successor, Chai Rong (Emperor Shizong), continued these reforms and launched successful military campaigns against the Southern Tang and the Liao. Chai Rong was a genuine military talent who personally led campaigns and understood logistics, but his contribution that the Tongjian values most was not military. It was administrative. He reformed the examination system, purged corrupt officials, reduced the tax burden, and began the work of rebuilding the bureaucratic apparatus that would allow the Song to govern effectively. The Tongjian records his reign with an attentiveness that suggests Sima Guang saw it as the pivot point between chaos and recovery.

Chai Rong died young in 959 CE, leaving a child heir. In 960 CE, his general Zhao Kuangyin was sent to fight the Liao. Instead, his troops mutinied and declared him emperor. This was the founding of the Song dynasty. The Tongjian records the event with its characteristic precision and without drama. The transition was not a military conquest. It was the final step in a process of institutional recovery that the Later Zhou had begun. The Song would complete the reunification and establish the institutional framework that would govern China for the next three centuries. For more on how the Tongjian assesses such transitions, see Sima Guang and the Making of the Comprehensive Mirror.

The Tongjian’s Silent Judgment

Sima Guang wrote the Tongjian during the Northern Song, and the Song dynasty claimed legitimacy partly through its restoration of unified governance after the Five Dynasties chaos. One might expect the Tongjian to treat the Five Dynasties as a dark interlude between the Tang golden age and the Song’s enlightened rule. It does not. Sima Guang records this period with the same scholarly attention he gives to every other era, finding the same patterns of human judgment and institutional consequence. The Five Dynasties are not an aberration in the Tongjian. They are a demonstration of what happens when the institutional foundations that Sima Guang considers essential are stripped away. The Tongjian observes the same human tendencies during the Five Dynasties as during the Tang golden age: ambition, talent, loyalty, betrayal. What differs is the institutional container. With strong institutions, these tendencies produce governance. Without them, they produce only a cycle of fragile military coalitions. The Tongjian‘s treatment of this period is perhaps the clearest expression of Sima Guang’s core thesis: the difference between order and chaos is not human nature but institutional design. For the broader lessons Sima Guang drew for rulers, see Zizhi Tongjian’s Lessons for Rulers and Managers, and for comparison with earlier models of history, see Zizhi Tongjian vs the Shiji.

FAQ

Why did the five northern dynasties each last so briefly?

The Tongjian traces this to the absence of institutional foundations. Each dynasty was essentially a personal military coalition without administrative structures, succession mechanisms, or civil bureaucracy. Loyalty was personal, so it dissolved when the founder died. Without institutional continuity, each transition became a crisis, and each crisis invited the next coup.

Why were the southern kingdoms more stable?

Several were founded by former Tang civil officials who preserved elements of the Tang administrative system. The Tongjian notes that these kingdoms maintained tax systems, legal codes, and examination traditions where the northern military dynasties did not. Smaller territory also meant more direct governance and fewer opportunities for regional commanders to build autonomous power bases.

How does the Tongjian connect the Five Dynasties to the Song reunification?

The Tongjian presents the Later Zhou as the institutional bridge. Its founders began rebuilding the administrative structures that the Five Dynasties had stripped away. The Song inherited this process and completed it. Sima Guang treats reunification not as a single event but as the culmination of gradual institutional recovery that the Later Zhou began.