Jingnan

Jingnan, also known as Nanping or Northern Chu, was one of the Ten Kingdoms of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It was not a formally proclaimed empire but a regional military command that became hereditary: Gao Jixing, appointed jiedushi of Jingnan in 907, built up an autonomous base at Jiangling (modern Jingzhou) while the Tang dynasty collapsed. In 924 the Later Tang court recognised him as Prince of Nanping, the date from which the state is usually counted. Jingnan was small and militarily weak, but it lay at the crossroads between north and south China. The Gao rulers taxed and sometimes robbed the envoys and tribute missions that passed through their territory, and they formally submitted to whichever dynasty or kingdom was strongest, earning the nickname 'Gao the Defaulters'. The state survived until 963, when Song Taizu's campaign against Jinghu took Jiangling and the last ruler, Gao Jichong, surrendered. Its territory corresponds to the Jiangling and Gong'an area of Hubei. Although later historians count it among the Ten Kingdoms, Jingnan never abandoned its character as a semi-independent frontier command.