The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms is a period of political upheaval in China, beginning in the Tang Dynasty and ending in the Song Dynasty.

During this period, five dynasties quickly succeed one another in the North, and more than a dozen independent states are established, mainly in the South.

However, only ten are traditionally listed, hence the era's name, "Ten Kingdoms."

Some historians, such as Bo Yang, count eleven, including Yan and Qi, but not Northern Han, viewing it as simply a continuation of Later Han.

The Annamese, or residents of the Chinese-controlled region of Annam (“Pacified South,” a name that the native peoples resent), granted in 906 the right to select their own governor in the anarchy that ensues after the collapse of the Tang dynasty, begin skirmishing with the Chinese of Guangdong province to the north.

Wang, able to expand his holdings into eastern Sichuan, takes the title of emperor as the Tang fall in 907.

The Great Shu, called in retrospect Former Shu, has its capital at Chengdu and controls most of present-day Sichuan, parts of southern Gansu and Shaanxi, part of western Hubei and all of contemporary Chongqing.

Not only dioes it border the Later Liang Dynasty, the successor to the Tang Dynasty in the north, but it also borders the Chinese kingdoms of Nanping and Chu and the non-Chinese peoples to the south (formerly Nanzhao and soon to be the Kingdom of Dali and Amdo Tibet).

The Liao Khitan Mongols seize control of Chinese border areas in 907 and establish rulership there.

(Cathay, the ancient name for China, coined by the early travelers from the Middle East, is derived from Khitan or Khitai.)

The Khitan reside on the east slope of the Greater Khingan Mountains (Xing'an).

West of the mountains are other nomadic pastoral tribes such as the Shiwei, and the Xi, along with the Turkic Uyghur tribe, which have intermarried with the Khitan.

East and northeast, all the way to the Amur river, live the Jurchen tribe, residing in small villages and subsisting by hunting and fishing.

Across the Liao River to the east and southeast to the Yalu River are the Bohai people, the majority of which are a settled agricultural society.

The Bohai rule over a population of Koreans and Chinese that they had subjugated.

The Yaolian clan had dominated the leadership of the Khitan tribes since the 750s, maintaining good relations with the Tang Dynasty of China to the south.

However, by the end of the ninth century, leaders of the powerful Yila Tribe were expressing dissatisfaction with the Yaolian khans.

Abaoji's father had been the elected chieftain of the Yila Tribe.

As surnames are considered a marker of Chinese culture, they are not used by the Khitan people outside of the Yaolian imperial clan.

Abaoji had become chieftain of the Yila tribe in 901 and in 903, was named the Yuyue, Commander of all Khitan military forces.

This had the effect of making him second only to the great khan in the hierarchy of the Khitan nation.

He had started making a name for himself in 905, when he led seventy thousand cavalry into Shanxi to in support of Li Keyong against Zhu Wen, demonstrating his willingness to be to be more aggressive than the Great Khan.

He appears at the triennial council in 907 and demands to be named the khaghan, the Khan of Khans.

His successes against the Chinese in the north, who he has been raiding since 901, lead to receiving the support of seven tribal chiefs and even the acquiescence of the last Yaolian Great Khan himself.

The Later Liang Dynasty controls most of northern China, though much of Shaanxi (controlled by the Qi) as well as Hebei (controlled by the Yan state) and Shanxi (controlled by Shatuo Turks) remains largely outside Later Liang control.

The Later Liang maintains a tense relationship with the Shatuo Turks, due to the rivalry between Zhu Quanzong and Li Keyong, a relationship that had begun back in the time of the Tang Dynasty.

After Li Keyong’s death, his son, Li Cunxu, has continued to expand his State of Jin.

Li is able to destroy the Later Liang in 923 and found the Later Tang Dynasty, which he refers to as the “Restored Tang”.

The Later Liang dynasty moves the capital back to the old Tang eastern seat of Luoyang in 923 as a part of “restoring the Tang.”