Liu Yan

Biography

Family and succession in Lingnan

Liu Yan's father Liu Qian, also called Liu Zhiqian, served as prefect of Feng Prefecture. His mother was Lady Duan, while his brother Liu Yin controlled Lingnan's military and government. Both encyclopedias recount that Liu Qian's principal wife Lady Wei killed Liu Yan's birth mother and raised him. This story has a legendary quality in its telling and is presented as a later historical account, not as an explanation of Liu's political conduct. Sources give Shangcai in Cai Prefecture and Pengcheng as alternative places of family origin. another account also summarizes competing modern theories about his family's ancestry. The materials do not establish a specific non Han ethnicity for him.

When Liu Yin died in 911 (Later Liang Qianhua 1), Liu Yan succeeded to his position. The Later Liang court subsequently appointed him Military Commissioner of Qinghai Circuit and granted the title Prince of Nanhai. Before and after this succession, the brothers campaigned against local rivals in Lingnan and contested Rong, Gui, and Yong with Ma Chu. other accounts's full text describes Liu Yan urging caution when Liu Yin proposed attacking Shao Prefecture and the later expansion of their territory. These campaigns did not all occur after Liu Yan proclaimed himself emperor.

Proclaiming an empire and building institutions

In 917 (Later Liang Zhenming 3), Liu proclaimed himself emperor at Panyu, initially calling his state Da Yue and adopting the era name Qianheng. In 918 (Southern Han Qianheng 2), he renamed it Han; historians call it Southern Han to distinguish it from other Han states. At its founding he posthumously honored his grandfather Liu Anren, his father Liu Qian, and his brother Liu Yin, and established a court administration. Scholars including Yang Dongqian, Li Heng, Ni Shu, and Zhao Guangyi received senior appointments. Scholars were also appointed as prefects. In 920 (Southern Han Qianheng 4), the state established examinations and annually recruited jinshi and mingjing candidates. Elsewhere other accounts's full text places the holding of examinations in 918, whereas its explicit account of establishing the selection office gives 920. This article follows the latter and records the difference in the source comparison.

External wars and final years

Liu fought Ma Chu but also maintained relations with neighboring states through marriage and envoys. In 928 (Southern Han Bailong 4; Dayou 1), Chu forces attacked Feng Prefecture, and the Southern Han commander Su Zhang met them. In 930 (Southern Han Dayou 3), Southern Han forces captured Qu Chengmei in Jiaozhi. In 931 (Southern Han Dayou 4), Yang Tingyi retook Jiao Prefecture, and Southern Han failed to retain control of the area. In 937 (Southern Han Dayou 10), Liu Hongcao was killed in fighting on the Bach Dang River, after which Liu Yan withdrew. another account's list of children instead dates Liu Hongcao's death to 938; the main account follows other accounts's full text and another account's biographical narrative.

other accounts and another account also describe Liu building palaces, collecting valuables, and imposing cruel punishments. The vivid account of his reactions while watching executions is a historian's portrayal of a tyrant, not a verifiable account of his psychology. Liu died in 942 (Southern Han Dayou 15). His temple name was Gaozu, his posthumous name Tianhuang Dadi, and he was buried at Kangling.

His Family, His Birth, and His Adoption by Lady Wei

Liu Yan's grandfather Liu Anren had been a chief secretary of Chaozhou under the Tang, when the family moved to Lingbiao. His father Liu Qian was a man of ability, and in the Xiantong era, when the chancellor Wei Zhou was posted to the South Sea, Liu Qian was a minor officer of the guard of very low rank, yet of unusual bearing, so that Wei Zhou, seeing him, married his brother's daughter to him. In 889 Liu Yan's mother, lady Duan, gave birth to him in an outside house at Fengzhou, his father being then already governor of Fengzhou; and Liu Qian's principal wife, lady Wei, who had always been jealous of his favour to lady Duan, was much enraged at the news and meant to kill the child. But when he was brought to her she was so startled at his appearance that she said he was no common boy; and three days later she killed his mother lady Duan and brought him up as her own son. When he grew older he was seven feet tall with hands hanging below his knees, and skilled with bow and horse.

From Deputy of Liu Yin to Prince of Nanhai

When Liu Yin was administrative secretary, Liu Yan was also called to be a counsellor of the household of the prince of Xue; and when Liu Yin held the South Sea, Liu Yan was his deputy, succeeding him at his death. In 912 the Later Liang made him military commissioner of Qinghai, assistant grand protector and joint manager of state affairs, and in 913 added the title of assistant grand tutor; and on the accession of the last emperor all Liu Yin's titles were given to him, with the fief of prince of Nanhai. At that time, with the realm in disorder and every post held by a separatist, only Lingnan was without one, so that from Liu Yin's time the family held it apart. Then Qu Chengke of Jiaozhou and Liu Shizheng of Guizhou, Ye Guanglüe of Yongzhou and Pang Juzhao of Rongzhou each held their districts, Lu Guangchou held Shaozhou, and the governor of Gaozhou, Liu Changlu, the governor of Xinzhou, Liu Qian, and more than seventy stockades all held their ground and obeyed no one. When Liu Yin marched against Lu Yanchang of Shaozhou, Liu Yan told him that Shaozhou relied on Lu Guangchou, and that if they attacked Shaozhou the troops of Qianzhou would surely come to the rescue, so that they would be caught front and rear and it was no wise plan; and Liu Yin would not listen, and in the end was heavily beaten and came back, after which he gave all military business to Liu Yan. Liu Yan cleared away the stockades of the separatists, killed the governor of Gaozhou, Liu Changlu, and the rest, appointed fresh governors there, and in the end destroyed the Lu family, taking all the prefectures of Chao and Shao; and turning west he contended with Ma Yin for Rong and Gui, Ma Yin taking Guizhou and capturing Liu Shizheng, while Liu Yan took the chance to seize Rongzhou, drive out Pang Juzhao and take Yongzhou. From the time the brothers accepted the fiefs of the Later Liang they kept its calendar as their standard while secretly extending their borders.

The Founding of the State, His Employment of Scholars, and the Affair of Zhao Guangyi

Having gradually destroyed the separatists in Lingnan and come to have the makings of a state, Liu Yan took the imperial title in 917, at first with the dynastic name of Great Yue, gave his brother Liu Yin the posthumous title of Emperor Xiang and established three temples; and he then set up a formal bureaucratic government with the hundred offices at court. Zhao Guangyi, thinking himself of a great clan since the Tang, was unwilling to serve Liu Yan's regime and was always sullen and wishing to return to the central plain; and Liu Yan forged letters in his hand and sent envoys by a side road to Luoyang to bring his two sons Zhao Sun and Zhao Yi with the rest of his household to Lingnan, at which Zhao Guangyi was astonished and delighted and afterwards served him with all his heart. Liu Yan also took Yang Dongqian's advice and established schools, promoted education, set up a bureau of selection and held the examinations; and in 918, the year after the founding, the first examination was held and more than ten men were taken, after which the taking of graduates by examination "became the yearly rule."

The Change of the Dynastic Name to Han, Wang Dingbao's Mockery, and the Change of Name after the White Dragon

Liu Yan sacrificed to Heaven, proclaimed a pardon in his territory and formally changed the dynastic name to Han, known to history as the Southern Han. At first, when he was about to usurp the imperial title, he had been much afraid of Wang Dingbao; and when Wang Dingbao returned to Lingnan, Liu Yan, fearing he would not accept his purpose, sent men to comfort him and to tell him of the founding of the state and the taking of the title, whereupon Wang Dingbao said that since it was a state, yet on entering the southern gate he had seen the old tablet of the military commissioner still hanging over the city gate, which would hardly escape the laughter of the four quarters; and Liu Yan, hearing of it, laughed and said that he had long been on his guard against Wang Dingbao and yet had never thought of this, no wonder the man mocked him. In 919 Liu Yan formally invested lady Ma, lady of the state of Yue, as empress, she being a daughter of the king of Chu. In 925, when a white dragon was said to have appeared in the Sanqing hall of the southern palace, Liu Yan changed the era name to Bailong and formally changed his own name to Liu Gong to answer the omen; but when a monk from among the Hu said that the prophetic books had it that "he who destroys the Liu is Gong," he took the sense of the flying dragon in heaven from the Book of Changes, made the new character "Yan," and finally took the name Liu Yan.

The Wars with Chu, the Attack on Jiaozhou, and the War with Wu Quan

When the Chu army attacked Fengzhou and the Fengzhou troops were beaten at the He river, Liu Yan in great fear divined by the stalks and got the hexagram Dayou, whereupon he proclaimed a pardon in Southern Han and changed the era name. He sent Su Zhang with three thousand of the divine crossbow army to relieve Fengzhou: Su Zhang sank two iron chains in the He river, set great wheels on the bank, built a dyke and laid an ambush, and with light boats gave battle and feigned flight; and when the Chu pursued, Su Zhang turned the great wheels to haul the chains and lock their ships, shooting with the strong crossbows from both sides. In 930 Liu Yan sent the generals Li Shouyong and Liang Kezhen against Jiaozhou and took Qu Chengmei and others; and when Qu Chengmei reached the South Sea Liu Yan mounted the Yifeng tower to receive the prisoners and asked him why, having always called his court a false court, he was now taken by him; and Qu Chengmei at once knocked his head and confessed, so that Liu Yan pardoned him from death. In the same year Liang Kezhen attacked Champa and plundered its treasures and goods before returning. In 931 Aizhou rebelled against Southern Han and attacked Li Jin, governor of Jiaozhou, who fled back; in 936 Liu Yan sent the general Sun Desheng against Xiangzhou without success; and in 937 the Jiaozhou officer Jiao Gongxian killed the Southern Han commander and attacked Jiaozhou, then came to ask help of Southern Han; and Liu Yan enfeoffed his son Liu Hongcao as prince of Jiao and sent him out from Bachang with troops, himself camping with a force. Presently Wu Quan killed Jiao Gongxian and gave battle at the mouth of the river, having buried iron stakes in the sea; and Wu Quan's troops came in with the tide, and when Liu Hongcao went to meet them and, after the tide fell, turned back, the ships that struck the stakes fell into the ambush and Liu Hongcao was killed, Liu Yan gathering up the remnant and withdrawing.

His Last Years: Luxury, Cruel Punishments, and Suspicion

In his last years Liu Yan was "advanced in years and at ease in his aims," and "whenever he saw a northerner he would say of himself that his family had lived for generations in Xian and Qin and that he was ashamed to be king of the southern barbarians, calling the sovereign of the central court the governor of Luozhou." First, he built palaces on a great scale and in extreme luxury: besides the palaces he would "bring in the merchants of the ridges to display his extravagance," and he gathered all the treasures of the South Sea into his own hands and built the jade halls and pearl chambers with them. Second, he inflicted cruel punishments without measure: it is recorded that he set up "the cauldron, the iron bed and the rest," and devised such cruelties as pouring water into the nose, cutting out the tongue, dismemberment, flaying, roasting and steaming; that he was "stern by nature and ready to kill, and when he sat in judgment would let down a curtain in the side hall and have the officers bring the condemned below the steps and butcher them with his unlawful instruments, whence there were the prisons of the cauldron and the iron bed"; that "after being thrown into the cauldron they were exposed to the sun and doused with salt and vinegar, so that the flesh rotted while the man could still stand, and death came only after a long time"; and that "Liu Yan's lips would water down to his chin" at the sight, so that men of the time took him for a dragon or sea monster. Third, his suspicion grew heavier day by day: in his later years he began to push the scholars away, and no longer chose what was good from their remonstrances as at the founding, so that their advice bred only the sovereign's weariness. In 942 Liu Yan died at fifty-four.

His Employment of Scholars in the Prefectures, and the Several Sides of His Government, Diplomacy, Trade, Letters and Buddhism

Liu Yan relied on scholars to govern and appointed scholars to the chief posts in every prefecture, and it is recorded that after the founding "the institutions of the state were ordered with some system, all by these few men." He carried on his brother Liu Yin's practice of summoning and honouring the scholars and gentlemen, set the scholars who had taken refuge in Lingnan or were natives of it in important offices, and took care to settle their anxieties for the future, so that they served the Southern Han sincerely. These scholars "proclaimed the instruction of government," so that "the people received the benefit of it," and the local administration of Southern Han was comparatively clean, records of greedy and violent prefectural officials being few. In extending his territory he had their help on a great scale: his suppression of the revolt at Zhennan and his defeat of Ma Chu's contest for the western circuit of Lingnan, in which he won every battle and took all the five commands, came of the assistance of the vice minister of war Yang Dongqian. In diplomacy he built neighbourly relations with the surrounding states by marriage and embassies: the minister of war Zhao Guangyi, alive to the threat from Chu, told him that since the death of the empress Ma no envoy had gone to Chu and that old ties of kin and neighbour should not be forgotten; and on his recommendation Liu Yan sent the remonstrating grand master Li Xian, a man of embassy, to Chu to restore the old friendship, and Chu sent envoys in return. With Wu-Yue, Southern Tang and Min too envoys came and went frequently and relations were very friendly, and with Shu and the Yun-nan state of Biaoxin there were distant ties; and the historians praised Southern Han for "keeping peace with the neighbouring fiefs, renewing old marriages, quieting the frontiers and keeping off the enemy," and for its envoys "ever diligent in their missions, so that this small corner beyond the ridges was peacefully at rest." In trade, coming of a rich merchant family and holding the merchant's view, he encouraged economic dealings: "when merchants from north of the ridges came to the South Sea he would summon many of them," and he "exchanged missions with the garrisons north of the ridges at the seasons," while in foreign trade especially he took pains to attract the sea merchants and "had good methods for gathering them," so that Southern Han was "rich enough within and strong enough without to withstand the central court." In letters, taking Yang Dongqian's advice, he set up a bureau of selection and held the examinations, which stimulated the culture of Lingnan: men such as Chen Yongzhuo, who from youth studied rites and music and "was especially skilled in the pitch pipes," wrote ten chapters of the Tang Zheng Sheng Qin Ji, recording the discussions of the zither masters on the names of the pieces and the deeds of the ancient emperors and famous men who were skilled on the instrument, and supplied new notation for the missing note of the old modes; and Zhou Jie, skilled in the calendar and its calculations, wrote a book because the traditional calendar's accounts differed from the methods in use. He was also particularly devoted to Buddhism and built a great many Buddhist structures in his territory, not only a royal temple within the palace but seven temples in each of the four quarters of Guangzhou, known together as the twenty-eight temples of Southern Han.

His Tomb, the Kangling

Liu Yan's tomb, the Kangling, lies on the southern slope of Daxiang mountain at Beiting village in Xiaoguwei, and is a large brick chamber tomb. Across the door of the front chamber stands a tablet of mourning text in the shape of a stele, in perfect preservation, 115 centimetres high, 154 broad and 20 thick; the text is in regular script, beginning with the title "the mourning text for the great emperor Gaozu of Heaven," in thirty-eight lines of thirty-five characters, a thousand and sixty-two characters in all. The Kangling stands on the southern foot of Daxiang mountain and consists of a structure above ground and a subterranean palace: the chamber lies on the first terrace at the southern end of the slope and is a vertical brick chamber tomb with a passage, over which is a round altar of brick and earth; and on the second terrace square platforms are built on the northeast and northwest of the round altar. The three are arranged in the shape of an inverted "pin," about fifty metres apart. The tomb has been repeatedly plundered: by the gazetteer of the twenty-fifth year of Kangxi of the Qing and other sources, it suffered a large-scale robbery in 1636, and the archaeologists found seven robbers' holes on the site, three of them larger and leading straight into the chamber, one piercing the position of the altar gate. Through these repeated robberies the two great holes pierced the vault of the front and rear chambers, so that complete vessels are very few; the pottery is in fragments of jars and bowls, with broken stone figures, pieces of jade, silver rings and Kaiyuan tongbao coins, and notably pottery fruits — bananas, pineapples, mushrooms, papayas, water chestnuts, peaches and persimmons — and fragments of a set of glass vessels, bowls, cups and bottles.

Major Activities

Founding Southern Han and employing scholars

Liu changed from a ruler of a Later Liang recognized circuit to an independent emperor with a court at Panyu. Establishing offices, appointing scholars such as Yang Dongqian, and recruiting candidates by examination were institutional features of his reign. other accounts's full text makes broad positive claims about the effects of these policies. This article records the appointments and examinations that can be checked without claiming that administration was good in every prefecture.

Campaigns in Lingnan and Jiaozhi

His state contested border areas with Ma Chu and twice tried to control Jiao Prefecture. Capturing Qu Chengmei in 930 (Southern Han Dayou 3) was a military success. Yang Tingyi's recovery of Jiao Prefecture in 931 (Southern Han Dayou 4) and Liu Hongcao's defeat in 937 (Southern Han Dayou 10) show that Southern Han could not hold the area for long.

Harsh rule and palace construction

Both encyclopedias and the Five Dynasties histories record extensive palace building and harsh punishments under Liu. His examinations and civil appointments do not erase the sources' criticism of penal practices and expenditure; both aspects belong in an assessment of his rule.

His Employment of Scholars and Local Administration, the Disagreement over the Date of His Accession, and the Disputes over His Clan and Ancestral Home

Southern Han ruled Lingnan for half a century through four lords, and apart from Liu Yan the other three were all licentious and cruel with corrupt government; that the state did not fall into great disorder is due in the main to Liu Yan's use of scholars to govern the prefectures, men with no troops in their hands, so that local administration was comparatively clean — the centre might be in disorder while the localities were not, and the people of Lingnan could still just keep body and soul together. It is for this reason that his practice of appointing scholars as prefectural officers has been seen by later ages as one of the conditions that let Southern Han last half a century, even though a scholar in office, if corrupt, did less harm than a soldier in office, who was dull and unruly, greedy and violent, and ready at any moment to raise troops and ruin a district. As to the date of his taking the imperial title, the sources disagree: the Old History of the Five Dynasties, the New History of the Five Dynasties, the Comprehensive Mirror and the History of Song all put it in the third year of Zhenming, with the dynastic name Great Yue and the era name Qianheng, while two other accounts give the eighth month of the second year of Zhenming and the fourth month of the fourth. In the last century a tomb inscription by the Five Dynasties writer He Song was discovered recording that "Liu Yan took the imperial title and changed the era in the third year of Zhenming, on the first day of the eleventh month, with the dynastic name Great Yue, and the following year changed the dynastic name to Han"; so that the year in the Old History of the Five Dynasties and the rest is right and the month should follow the inscription. As to the clan of the Liu of Southern Han, the old histories mostly call them Chinese, while a Japanese scholar, in an article on the ancestors of the Liu of Southern Han, has doubted whether they were Chinese at all and suggested that they were descendants of Arab merchants trading in Fujian and Guangdong, a view that has drawn the attention of Chinese historians; and others hold that Liu Qian and his son were armed chieftains of the Li and Lao peoples of Lingnan who falsely claimed to be Chinese in founding the state and were rapidly sinicized. As to their ancestral home, the records give both Shangcai and Pengcheng: most say their forebears were men of Shangcai in Caizhou, while the Liu of Southern Han, claiming descent from the imperial house of Han, made Pengcheng their gentry seat and described their origin as Pengcheng; but when the last emperor of Liang ordered Wu-Yue to attack Southern Han he said that its lord Liu Yan "grows ever more savage, falsely calling himself a remnant of the Han house," so that the claim to Pengcheng was the false pretension of Liu Yan seeking to establish his own legitimacy and noble descent, and his ancestral home must have been Shangcai in Caizhou.

Personal Relations

• Liu Anren: grandfather, honored after the state was founded.
• Liu Qian (Liu Zhiqian): father and prefect of Feng Prefecture, honored after the state was founded.
• Lady Duan: birth mother; Lady Wei: Liu Qian's principal wife, said in historical accounts to have raised Liu Yan.
• Liu Yin: elder brother and predecessor in Lingnan's military administration.
• Lady Ma: empress and daughter of Ma Yin, ruler of Chu.
• Liu Bin: son and successor; Liu Sheng: son who later became emperor.
• Liu Hongcao: son killed in the Jiaozhi war.
• Yang Dongqian and Zhao Guangyi: Southern Han officials; Ma Yin, Qu Chengmei, Yang Tingyi, and Wu Quan: figures connected through diplomacy or war.

Historical Assessment

The New History of the Five Dynasties and other later histories record Liu's founding of a state in Lingnan and employment of scholars alongside his harsh penalties and extravagance. The full texts of other accounts and another account present the same mixed picture: he created Southern Han's court and bureaucracy, failed to keep control of Jiao Prefecture, and was criticized for punishments and palace construction. His family's ethnic ancestry remains a question of modern scholarly debate and cannot be reduced to one hypothesis.