From Humble Beginnings to Military Prominence

Liu Zhiyuan (895–948), the founding emperor of the Later Han Dynasty, emerged from the turbulent landscape of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Born into the Shatuo Turkic tribe, he grew up in Taiyuan, a strategic military hub in northern China. His early career unfolded under the patronage of Shi Jingtang, a powerful warlord who later founded the Later Jin Dynasty.

As Shi Jingtang’s trusted military officer and later as his chief of staff (押衙), Liu Zhiyuan played a crucial advisory role. When Shi Jingtang sought the support of the Khitan-led Liao Dynasty to overthrow the Later Tang in 936, Liu famously cautioned against excessive concessions. He argued that offering tribute and acknowledging subordination would suffice, warning that ceding territory—particularly the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun—would create long-term vulnerabilities for Central Plains. His foresight proved prescient, but Shi Jingtang ignored the advice, securing Khitan aid at a steep cost.

The Fractured Loyalties of the Later Jin Era

Following Shi Jingtang’s death in 942, his nephew Shi Chonggui (Emperor Chu) ascended the throne, inheriting a realm strained by Khitan overreach. Liu Zhiyuan, now governing Shanxi as the Prince of Beiping, consolidated power by neutralizing regional threats. His suppression of the restive Tuyuhun tribes—executing their leader Bai Chengfu and seizing their cavalry—cemented his reputation as a formidable warlord. By the mid-940s, his domain in Hebei was the wealthiest and most militarized in the north.

When the Khitan launched a full-scale invasion in 946, sacking the Later Jin capital Kaifeng, Liu conspicuously withheld military aid. His strategic patience reflected both pragmatism and ambition: as the Later Jin collapsed, he sent envoys to pledge nominal allegiance to the Khitan ruler Yelü Deguang, who patronizingly referred to him as “son” in official correspondence.

Seizing the Mandate: The Birth of the Later Han

The turning point came in early 947. Witnessing the Khitan’s brutal occupation and their inability to govern—exacerbated by widespread Han Chinese rebellions—Liu declared himself emperor in Taiyuan. Adopting the era name “Tianfu 12th Year” to legitimize his rule as a continuation of the Later Jin, he rallied disaffected elites. By March, the Khitan retreat had begun, leaving a power vacuum.

Liu’s forces swiftly occupied Luoyang and then Kaifeng, where a puppet regime under Li Congyi (a Later Tang prince installed by the Khitan) collapsed. The elimination of Li—reportedly forced to suicide—cleared the path for Liu’s coronation. In 948, he formally proclaimed the Later Han Dynasty, symbolizing a restoration of Han Chinese rule after foreign domination.

Governance and Sudden Demise

Liu’s reign, though brief, prioritized stabilizing the war-torn north. He reinstated Tang-era bureaucratic structures and redistributed Khitan-seized lands to loyalists. However, his health faltered rapidly; within months of adopting the reign title “Qianyou,” he died in early 948, leaving the throne to his young son Liu Chengyou.

Legacy: A Bridge Between Chaos and Reconsolidation

Historians regard the Later Han as a critical transitional regime. Though it lasted barely four years before falling to the Later Zhou, Liu Zhiyuan’s rebellion against Khitan overreach resonated as a nationalist template for subsequent dynasties like the Song. His cautionary stance against territorial concessions foreshadowed the Song’s eventual struggles with the Khitan and Jurchen.

Culturally, his rise reflected the era’s fluid identities: a Turkic-descended ruler championing Han legitimacy, mirroring the broader Sinicization of Shatuo elites. Modern narratives often frame him as both a pragmatic survivor and an inadvertent architect of Song unification—a figure whose brief reign illuminated the perils of foreign alliances and the resilience of centralized Han rule.

In the grand tapestry of Chinese history, Liu Zhiyuan’s dynasty was a fleeting spark, but one that helped reignite the flame of native governance after a century of fragmentation.