Five Dynasties Period - (AD 907 to 960 - 53 Years) - Page 3
Ten Kingdoms Period - (AD 907 to 979 - 62 Years)
Liao Dynasty (AD 907 to 1125 - 218 Tears)

After the collapse of the Tujue and Uighur empires, the northern tribes broke up, and again began to fight. Some of the Uighurs who had been driven out of Mongolia by the Kirghiz escaped to the Turpan Basin where they established the Huigu state. Meanwhile, in 901, the Qidan rose to power again under the leadership of Yelu Abaoji. He established a new Qidan state and called it Liao. His forces marched east to conquer the Pohai state in 926, then moved north to break up the confederation of the Heishui Moge. Hence the Heishui Moge was split into two branches: the Shu Nyzhen in the south, and the Sheng Nuzhen in the north. The former was absorbed by the Liao and later accepted the Liao's overlordship.

While the Qidan were building up a strong state, the central government of the Tang Dynasty had been much weakened by the increasing power of the frontier commanders who were in charge of the country's military regions. Towards the end of the ninth century, these frontier commanders disobeyed the central government and fought among themselves. Eventually, in 907, Zhu Wen, who was in charge of the military region in present day Henan and Anhui Provinces, usurped the throne, and established the Later Liang Dynasty, the first of the Five Dynasties in North China. It lasted only 17 years and was replaced by the Later Tang Dynasty. Then Shi Jingtang, another frontier commander, sought the help of the Liao forces and succeeded in overthrowing the Later Tang, establishing the Later Jin Dynasty. In return for the help of the Qidan, he ceded 16 border prefectures (Yanyun Shiliu Zhou) in the northern part of present day Shanxi and Hebei Provinces to the Liao.

While in North China one dynasty was being replaced by another, a military junta was busy in partitioning other parts of China, setting up small kingdoms. Except for Northern Han, all these were established in Central or South China. Spatially they often corresponded with physical or economic regions. For example, the Shu state occupied the Sichuan Basin; the Nan Ping state was established in the center reach if the Chang Jiang basin, and the Nan Han state covered what are now Guangdong Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.