Among the fifty-five potentates of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era, few were as lionized in life and mourned in death as Li Siyuan (867–933), better known as the “Enlightened Ancestor,” Mingzong. He acceded to the throne illicitly in 926 through military coup, but by dint of concrete deeds, he came to be embraced not just by skeptical courtiers in his day, but more importantly, discriminating historians centuries later. Writing 150 years after his death, Sima Guang (1019–1086), renders this rather generous tribute in theComprehensive Mirror for the Advancement of Governance:

The monarch was instinctively inclined...

For most of his life, Li Siyuan, was renowned for his daring gambles as strategist and resourcefulness in a dogfight. But perhaps more pivotal to his destiny to be Son of Heaven was the camaraderie that he shared with ordinary soldiers in the trenches, bonds that forged such adulation among his underlings that they rallied to elevate him to the throne with little in the way of prompting on his part. But the ascent of Siyuan was neither serendipitous nor sudden. He played an equal, and at times even greater, role than Li Cunxu, the nominal founder of Later Tang,...

In the long history of China, only a handful of men to accede illicitly as sovereigns were visionary enough to set aside their own insecurities and rise to greatness. The most memorable case is Tang Taizong. He orchestrated the mutiny in 626 that led to the death of his elder brother, then deposed his own father, the sixty-year-old Li Yuan, placing him under house arrest until his death nine years later.¹ Taizong employed every excuse to justify his misdeeds—the declining faculties of the father and the intrigues of his brother. Nonetheless, in a society organized around family values, Taizong’s...

The year 930 began as the fifth year of Tiancheng, the emperor launching New Year’s festivities at the Mingtang Hall.¹ Three years had passed since his last celebration at that illustrious venue due to the extended sojourn at Kaifeng. Mingtang was no ordinary hall: it had been constructed to host the first of several ceremonies to celebrate the confluence of family and dynasty. Six years earlier, the current monarch’s predecessor, Zhuangzong, had similarly held New Year’s audience at the Mingtang Hall prior to officiating over sacrifices in the southern suburbs, which culminated in additional rites at the hall.² Emperor Mingzong...

The Son of Heaven reached out to civilian courtiers from the very outset of the reign, an effort that continued to varying degrees until the end. Late in the fifth month of 926, his first month in power, Mingzong employed a sealed envelope to announce the launching of a special audience every five days in the Interior Palace (neidian), a more intimate space, to facilitate informal exchanges with leading political and military advisors, including direct questions from the emperor. He apparently disliked the rather passive format of formal audiences, where assemblies and reports consumed much of the time.¹ The court...

Among the five dynasties to rule North China, the Later Tang had the most extensive contacts with countries along the northern border, where the politics of tribute was commonly conflated with the business of trade. Commerce contributed to the dynasty’s economic development, while providing steady supplies of the necessities of Shatuo life—horses, hunting animals, furs, and other commodities in short supply in the Chinese heartland. The demand for northern imports had surely expanded due to the substantial consumption demands of a ruling class with origins in Inner Asia that subsequently relocated to the central plains. The conduct of regular...

The sudden demise of his presumptive heir surely worsened the last days of Mingzong and accelerated his death. Frequently in the past, when confronting contested allegations of political crimes, the monarch had insisted on interrogating the parties involved to reach a fair conclusion, reflecting his hands-on approach to administering justice. But sadly, Congrong’s death in his Luoyang headquarters denied the father that final confrontation with the youth to pinpoint who and what may have swayed him to mobilize armies against his own father. The thoughts of the dying monarch, as a man of little faith but much superstition, must have...