After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, there were five dynasties with their capital in the Central Plains, and there were many separatist regimes, such as Former Shu, Later Shu, Southern Wu, Southern Tang, Wuyue, Min, Chu, Southern Han, Nanping (Jingnan), and Northern Han. In 960, Later Zhou Zhao Kuangyin launched the Chen Qiao Mutiny, seized the throne of the little emperor, established the Song Dynasty, unified the remaining political power, and basically realized the unification of the whole country.
Today I want to talk about one of the five dynasties, the Later Jin Dynasty, the regime established by Shi Jingyao, although it only experienced two emperors and existed for twelve years, but during this period, they have always bowed to the Khitan and the emperor has not humiliated and sought peace with dignity, but in the end it was destroyed by the Khitans, and such a country is really sad.
Shi Jingyao could not bear that the emperor did not attack him, so he decided to rebel, united several ministers, and wrote a letter accusing the late Tang Emperor of being an adopted son and should give way to Li Congyi, the fourth son of Emperor Mingzong, which angered the late Tang Emperor. Sending an army to attack Shi Jingyao, who was in Taiyuan, Shi Jingyao could not resist the strength of the troops in his hands, and he actually decided to ask the Khitan for help, promised the conditions for ceding Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitans, and promised that he would call himself "Son" to Emperor Taizong of Liao in the future.
With the help of the Khitans, Shi Jingyao successfully defeated the unsuspecting Later Tang army, and tens of thousands of troops chose to surrender to Shi Jingyao, among which the commander Zhang Jingda, who refused to surrender, was killed by his men. Emperor Taizong of Liao made Shi Jingyao emperor, changed his name to Yuan Tianfu and the name of the country Jin, and Shi Jingyao, who was proclaimed empress dowager, fulfilled the promise he had made that day, calling the Khitan lord the father emperor, and he was the "child emperor", and the ridiculous thing was that Yelü Deguang was ten years younger than him, and he would pay a large amount of money to the Khitan every year.
Moreover, whenever the Khitan emissaries arrived, he and the ministers of the court had to be edicted in the other halls, and if the emissaries were slightly dissatisfied, they would be reprimanded by them, and Shi Jingyao endured all this shame for his own throne. At the same time, Xu Zhihuan, a powerful minister of the State of Wu, killed the lord of the country, ascended the throne as an enemy, and in order to declare orthodoxy, he also changed his name to Li Fu, so the ruler of the Tang Dynasty was the Li family, so he became a descendant of the Tang dynasty royal family. Not only that, but also the Later Tang Dynasty's Xichuan Jiedushi also occupied Sichuan and established the Shu State, which was generally referred to as Hou Shu in order to distinguish it from the earlier Shu State.
But Shi Jingyao could not take care of these things anymore, he was still busy currying favor with the Khitan Emperor, as well as the emissaries everywhere, after all, everyone knew how his throne came about, unlike the emperors of other countries, he could become the emperor, relying on the Khitan army, but he did not have a strong army in his hands. So in the face of the sneering ridicule of the town envoys, because they were not accustomed to Shi Jingyao's appearance as an emperor but bowing to the Khitans, but Shi Jingyao still did not get angry, he could only suppress all his anger in his heart.
Shi Jingyao liked to be jealous and reused eunuchs, which led to political corruption and civil resentment. The nomadic Tuguhun tribe north of Yanmen was reluctant to surrender to the Khitans, so the chief fled to Hedong with his men and defected to Liu Zhiyuan, a general under Shi Jingyao. When the Khitan emissaries came to hold them accountable, Shi Jingyao did not dare to offend Liu Zhiyuan, who had a heavy army, and Liu Zhiyuan also indicated that he would not hand over people, nor did he dare to offend the Khitans.
Although this dynasty existed for a short time, it had great influence, and the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, which had been lost by Shi Jingyao, were confiscated by the Song Dynasty for three hundred years, until the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the generals Xu Da and Chang Yuchun to recover them. And Shi Jingyao also became a world-famous emperor because of the "child emperor", which is really ironic.
After Shi Jingyao's death, his son was too young, so his nephew Shi Chonggui was proclaimed emperor, this person was mediocre and incompetent, greedy for money and lust, after succeeding to the throne did not think of rectifying the government, but put forward the idea of not paying tribute, the group of ministers believed that if they did not pay tribute to the Khitans, they would soon send troops to attack. At this time, a minister named Jing Yanguang gave a method, which was very stupid, and he proposed that the emperor be called Grandpa Khitan according to the generation of the previous emperor, and then stop paying tribute on the grounds of serious natural disasters in the country, so that the Khitan lord should understand.
Such an unreliable idea is considered very reliable in Shi Chonggui's place, and after reporting it to the Khitans, it naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the Khitan lord and was about to send troops to attack, but at this time, Jing Yanguang was speaking wildly, claiming that "the Jin Dynasty has 100,000 horizontal sharpening swords, and if Weng wants to fight, he will come early, and he will not only be a grandson, but he will make the world laugh and regret it!" Such a provocation naturally angered Yelü Deguang, who was about to go south to attack Jin.
In fact, there were many warlord forces within the Later Jin Dynasty who wanted to usurp power and seize the throne, and now it was a chaotic period, it was to raise the banner of righteousness, and the people resisted the war, and once defeated the Khitan army. During this time, Shi Chonggui was complacent and thought that victory was imminent, so he began to seek pleasure and ignore the government, so that the generals lost the hearts of the army, and soon the Khitan broke through the defense line of the Jin army, killing all the way to Kaifeng, Shi Chonggui became a prisoner of the order, was sent to the Khitan and never returned, until he died of illness.
After Yelü Deguang entered Kaifeng, he believed that the emperors of the Later Tang and Later Jin dynasties were all Shatuo people, so he could also be the emperor as a Khitan person, so he accepted the surrender of the ministers, and held an enthronement ceremony in Kaifeng according to the etiquette of the Emperor of the Central Plains, and the great Khitan state was the Liao Dynasty and established himself as the Liao Emperor. However, as a nomadic people, the Khitan people had never accepted Sinicization, plundered everywhere in the Central Plains, did not listen to the advice of the ministers, and even relied on military grain, which made the people in other Central Plains unacceptable, levying taxes, and even robbing grain, warlord forces everywhere jointly rebelled.
The Liao state fell into a huge crisis, under the hot weather, the power of the Khitan army was greatly weakened, Yelü Deguang could only choose to withdraw from the Central Plains, on the way to escape, he fell seriously ill because of the hot weather, died of "killing tiger forest", later this place was called "killing Hulin", the seriously decomposed body was finally made into bacon by a cook, he was the only mummified emperor in ancient China.