certificates were now printed. They were the predecessors of the paper
money used from the time of the Sung.

4 _Political history of the Five Dynasties_

The southern states were a factor not to be ignored in the calculations
of the northern dynasties. Although the southern kingdoms were involved
in a confusion of mutual hostilities, any one of them might come to the
fore as the ally of Turks or other northern powers. The capital of the
first of the five northern dynasties (once more a Liang dynasty, but not
to be confused with the Liang dynasty of the south in the sixth century)
was, moreover, quite close to the territories of the southern dynasties,
close to the site of the present K'ai-feng, in the fertile plain of
eastern China with its good means of transport. Militarily the town
could not be held, for its one and only defence was the Yellow River.
The founder of this Later Liang dynasty, Chu Ch'uean-chung (906), was
himself an eastern Chinese and, as will be remembered, a past supporter
of the revolutionary Huang Ch'ao, but he had then gone over to the T'ang
and had gained high military rank.

His northern frontier remained still more insecure than the southern,
for Chu Ch'uean-chung did not succeed in destroying the Turkish general
Li K'o-yung; on the contrary, the latter continually widened the range
of his power. Fortunately he, too, had an enemy at his back--the Kitan
(or Khitan), whose ruler had made himself emperor in 916, and so staked
a claim to reign over all China. The first Kitan emperor held a middle
course between Chu and Li, and so was able to establish and expand his
empire in peace. The striking power of his empire, which from 937 onward
was officially called the Liao empire, grew steadily, because the old
tribal league of the Kitan was transformed into a centrally commanded
military organization.

To these dangers from abroad threatening the Later Liang state internal
troubles were added. Chu Ch'uean-chung's dynasty was one of the three
Chinese dynasties that have ever come to power through a popular rising.
He himself was of peasant origin, and so were a large part of his
subordinates and helpers. Many of them had originally been independent
peasant leaders; others had been under Huang Ch'ao. All of them were
opposed to the gentry, and the great slaughter of the gentry of the
capital, shortly before the beginning of Chu's rule, had been welcomed
by Chu and his followers. The gentry therefor