Wǔguó Gùshi 五國故事
Tales of the Five Kingdoms
About the work
An anonymous two-juàn (upper/lower) brief history of five of the Ten Kingdoms of the Five Dynasties period (907–979 CE): Wú 吳 (Yang family), Southern Táng 南唐 (Li family), Wúyuè 吳越 (Qian family), Mǐn 閩 (Wang family), and Southern Hàn 南漢 (Liu family). The work is organized dynastically, with each ruler of each kingdom listed in succession with brief biographical and anecdotal notes. It is a compact reference-style account, not a narrative history.
Note: The “Five Kingdoms” (Wǔguó 五國) in the title refers not to the Five Dynasties (Wǔdài 五代) that ruled in the north (Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, Zhou) but to five of the southern and coastal kingdoms of the Ten Kingdoms period.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The Wǔguó Gùshi 五國故事 is a concise, reference-style account of five southern kingdoms of the Five Dynasties–Ten Kingdoms period. It was evidently compiled in the Song dynasty from earlier records and secondary accounts. Though brief and not a major scholarly source in its own right, it was widely cited in later reference works and provides a convenient overview of these five regimes.
The five kingdoms covered — Wu, Southern Tang, Wuyue, Min, and Southern Han — represent the major southeastern polities of the era. Three of them (Wu, Southern Tang, and Wuyue) are particularly important for the cultural history of the period: the Southern Tang court of Lǐ Jǐng and Lǐ Yù is one of the great centers of cí lyric poetry, and Wuyue is notable for its Buddhism and arts patronage. The Jiāngnán Yěshǐ KR4k0024 provides a more detailed account of Wu and Southern Tang specifically.
Translations and research
- Wang Gungwu. 1963. The Structure of Power in North China during the Five Dynasties. University of Malaya Press. For the period generally.
Links
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