Southern Han

Southern Han was one of the Ten Kingdoms that divided China after the fall of the Tang. It was founded in 917 by Liu Yan, a regional governor of Lingnan, who first called his state Yue and changed the name to Han in 918 to claim descent from the Han imperial house. Its capital was Xingwang Fu, present-day Guangzhou, and its territory covered Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and, for a time, northern Vietnam. The kingdom was a maritime and commercial power, drawing revenue from overseas trade through the ports of the south, and it maintained a court that patronised Buddhism and scholarship. Its rulers tried to annex Jinghai, the Vietnamese polity on its southern border, but failed; the defeat at the Battle of Bach Dang in 938 had already checked Chinese expansion into the Red River valley. Southern Han fought recurring wars with its neighbours Min, Chu and the Southern Tang, and it was weakened by succession disputes and internal repression. In 971, during the Northern Song unification, the last ruler surrendered to Song armies, ending the kingdom. Its short existence illustrates the fragmentation of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.