ral ideal, but persuaded them to adopt
laws that substantially restricted the privileges of the Sha-t'o and
brought advantages only to the Chinese gentry. Consequently all the
Chinese historians are enthusiastic about the "Later T'ang", and
especially about the emperor Ming Ti, who reigned from 927 onward, after
the assassination of his predecessor. They also abused the Liang because
they were against the gentry.

In 936 the Later T'ang dynasty gave place to the Later Chin dynasty
(936-946), but this involved no change in the structure of the empire.
The change of dynasty meant no more than that instead of the son
following the father the son-in-law had ascended the throne. It was of
more importance that the son-in-law, the Sha-t'o Turk Shih Ching-t'ang,
succeeded in doing this by allying himself with the Kitan and ceding to
them some of the northern provinces. The youthful successor, however, of
the first ruler of this dynasty was soon made to realize that the Kitan
regarded the founding of his dynasty as no more than a transition stage
on the way to their annexation of the whole of North China. The old
Sha-t'o nobles, who had not been sinified in the slightest, suggested a
preventive war; the actual court group, strongly sinified, hesitated,
but ultimately were unable to avoid war. The war was very quickly
decided by several governors in eastern China going over to the Kitan,
who had promised them the imperial title. In the course of 946-7 the
Kitan occupied the capital and almost the whole of the country. In 947
the Kitan ruler proclaimed himself emperor of the Kitan and the Chinese.

[Illustration: Map 6: The State of the later T'ang dynasty]

The Chinese gentry seem to have accepted this situation because a Kitan
emperor was just as acceptable to them as a Sha-t'o emperor; but the
Sha-t'o were not prepared to submit to the Kitan regime, because under
it they would have lost their position of privilege. At the head of this
opposition group stood the Sha-t'o general Liu Chih-yuan, who founded
the "Later Han dynasty" (947-950). He was able to hold out against the
Kitan only because in 947 the Kitan emperor died and his son had to
leave China and retreat to the north; fighting had broken out between
the empress dowager, who had some Chinese support, and the young heir to
the throne. The new Turkish dynasty, however, was unable to withstand
the internal Chinese resistance. Its founder died in 948, and his son,
owing t