Page 161 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

8
The Five Dynasties and the
Sung Dynasty

T'ang China never fully recovered from the An Lu-shan rebellion,
and gradually what had been a great empire shrank, in both body
and spirit The loss of central Asia to Islam, the Tibetan invasion,
rebellions by warlords and peasants and the consequent break-
down in the irrigation system on which prosperity and good order
depended, all made the downfall of the dynasty inevitable. In 907,
China finally disintegrated into the state of political chaos digni-
fied by the name of the Five Dynasties. The title is an arbitrary
one, chosen to cover those royal houses which had their capitals in
the north; set up mostly by military adventurers, they had such
grandiose names as Later T'ang, Later Han, and Later Chou. Be-
tween 907 and 923, Later Liang had four rulers belonging to three
different families. Although the south and west were divided
among the Ten (Lesser) Kingdoms, in fact those regions were far
more peaceful and prosperous. Szcchwan, as before when the
country was disunited, was, until the destruction of Former Shu
by Later T'ang in 925, a flourishing kingdom, distinguished for its
scholars, poets, and artists who had come as refugees from the
T'ang court, bringing with them something of the imperial splen-
dours of Ch'ang-an and Loyang. The style of late T'ang decora-
tive art is reflected in the jades, wall painting, silverwork, and re-
lief sculpture in the tomb of the Former Shu ruler Wang Chicn,
who died at Chcngtu in 918.
Meanwhile, as before, the northern barbarians watched with
patient interest the disintegration of their old enemy. In 936, the
first ruler of Later Chin made the fatal gesture of ceding to the
Khitan the area between Peking and the sea south of the Great
Wall, with the result that once again the nomads had a footing on
the edge of the North China Plain. Ten years later they established
the kingdom of Liao over a wide area of North China, which was
not to be finally restored to Chinese hands for over four hundred
years.
In 959, the last emperor of the Later Chou died and in the fol- 1 7ft Warrior supporting funerary
lowing year the regent. General Chao K'uang-yin, was persuaded platform in tomb of Wang Chicn.
Chcngtu. Swrchwan. Stone. Five
to ascend the throne as the first emperor of a new dynasty. At first Dynasties, 918 A.D.
I
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