Liu Song dynasty: A Visual History

The Liu Song dynasty (420-479) was founded at Jiankang (Nanjing) by Liu Yu, a general of humble origin who had reconquered Sichuan, Shandong and briefly the old capitals from the northern states before deposing the Eastern Jin. Under Emperor Wen the 'Yuanjia reign' (424-453) was a period of peace and culture, but wars with the Northern Wei ended in disaster in 450, and a series of paranoid or deranged emperors slaughtered the imperial clan. The general Xiao Daocheng took the throne as founder of the Southern Qi in 479.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Liu Song dynasty. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Registered households

Southern registration was patchy; the figures indicate scale rather than precision.

Timeline of the Liu Song dynasty

1. 417
   Liu Yu retakes Chang'an
2. 420
   Liu Song founded
3. 424
   Emperor Wen; the Yuanjia era
4. 450
   Northern campaign fails; Wei invades
5. 453
   Emperor Wen murdered by his son
6. 465
   Emperor Qianfei assassinated
7. 477
   Emperor Houfei killed
8. 479
   Xiao Daocheng founds Southern Qi

Liu Yu

Liu Yu rose from a poor family through the Beifu army, crushed the Sun En rebellion, restored the Jin emperor after Huan Xuan's usurpation, and led expeditions that destroyed Southern Yan (410) and Later Qin (417), briefly retaking Luoyang and Chang'an. He accepted abdication in 420 and had the deposed Jin emperor killed. He curbed the great aristocratic clans and put power in the hands of the throne and lesser gentry.

The Yuanjia era

Emperor Wen's 30-year reign was the high point of the Southern Dynasties: light taxes, agricultural recovery, historical scholarship (the History of the Later Han was written), the poet Xie Lingyun and the founding of academies. But his northern campaigns of 430 and 450 failed; the Wei emperor Taiwu counter-attacked to the Yangtze in 450-451, devastating the region north of the river.

Fratricide

Wen was murdered by his son in 453; his other son Xiaowu killed the parricide and then several brothers. Emperor Qianfei (464-465) was a teenage sadist who killed relatives and officials and was assassinated; Emperor Ming (465-472) exterminated Xiaowu's sons and most of his own brothers. Houfei (472-477) roamed the streets killing people for sport until the general Xiao Daocheng had him murdered, then deposed the last child emperor and founded Southern Qi in 479.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Eastern Jin dynasty (317 to 420)
• Northern Wei (386 to 535)
• Liang dynasty (502 to 557)
• Former Qin (351 to 394)
• Rouran Khaganate (330 to 555)

8 surprising things about the Liu Song dynasty

1. Liu Yu was so poor in youth that he sold straw sandals and was once beaten for gambling debts.
2. His northern expedition of 416-417 was the last time a southern dynasty held Chang'an until the Sui reunification.
3. The poet Xie Lingyun invented special hiking clogs with removable teeth for going up and down mountains.
4. The name 'Yuanjia rule' became a Chinese phrase for good government.
5. Emperor Qianfei allegedly forced his aunt to become his concubine and kept his uncles in cages.
6. Zu Chongzhi, working under the Liu Song, calculated pi to seven decimal places, a record for 900 years.
7. The Wei invasion of 450 reached Guabu on the Yangtze, within sight of the capital.
8. The dynasty is called Liu Song to distinguish it from the later, greater Song of 960.

Sources

• Liu Song dynasty Wikipedia
• Liu Yu Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Northern and Southern dynasties Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Mark Edward Lewis, China Between Empires (2009) Harvard University Press

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