Liu Song dynasty

The Liu Song dynasty ruled southern China from 420 to 479 and was the first of the four Southern Dynasties. It was founded by Liu Yu, a poor soldier who had risen through the armies of the Eastern Jin and who took the throne after his northern campaigns had recovered land as far as the Yellow River. The court sat at Jiankang, on the Yangtze where Nanjing now stands, and the dynasty is called Liu Song to distinguish it from the later Song of 960–1279. Its third emperor, Wen, presided over the Yuanjia reign of 425 to 453, remembered as a rare period of stable and honest administration in the age of division. Northern expeditions and border wars with the Wei drained the treasury, and after 450 the state lost much of what its founder had won. Later emperors were often violent and incompetent, and princely revolts and palace murders recurred. The court nonetheless sponsored literature, and Bao Zhao, Xie Lingyun and Yan Yanzhi, the three giants of the Yuanjia age, worked under its patronage, while Buddhism spread more widely. In 479 the general Xiao Daocheng deposed the last boy emperor and founded the Southern Qi, ending the dynasty after fifty-nine years.