The Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties: A History of China: PART FOUR

In 888 AD, Emperor Zhaozong inherited a Tang dynasty that still ruled China in name but was losing control of the forces that mattered most: armies, provinces, and the imperial court itself.

The Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties: A History of China — Part Four follows the final struggle of the Tang and the extraordinary political world that emerged from its collapse. At the center are emperors, eunuchs, jiedushi military governors, Shatuo commanders, and regional warlords—including Zhu Quanzhong, Li Keyong, Li Cunxu, Li Siyuan, Shi Jingtang, Guo Wei, and Chai Rong—whose rivalries reshaped the Central Plains.

The story moves from the last Tang emperors through Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou, while also following the Ten Kingdoms that flourished across Sichuan, Jiangnan, Wuyue, Chu, Lingnan, and other regions. Military ambition collides with court intrigue, family loyalty, succession crises, economic survival, and the persistent problem of how to rebuild authority after decades of war.

Written as accessible narrative history for general readers, the book explains complicated politics without turning them into a catalogue of names and dates. It follows the human choices behind dynastic change and the long struggle that eventually brought Zhao Kuangyin and the Song dynasty onto the historical stage.