Han-Zhao

Han-Zhao was a state in northern China from 304 to 329 CE, founded by Liu Yuan, a leader of the Xiongnu-descended peoples settled in Shanxi. Proclaimed as Han in 304 and renamed Zhao in 319, it is known in historiography as the Northern Han and the Former Zhao, or as Han-Zhao when treated as one state. Its armies destroyed the Western Jin dynasty in the north, opening the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms.

After the Xiongnu confederation split in the first century CE, the Southern Xiongnu submitted to the Han dynasty and settled along its northern frontier. Their own government broke down in 188. In 216 the warlord Cao Cao reorganised the remaining Xiongnu into Five Divisions, confined to the Fen River valley in Shanxi under Chinese supervision, and used them as cavalry. Many turned to farming, and their leaders adopted Chinese ways and surnames such as Liu, recalling past marriage alliances with the Han royal house. Liu Yuan, son of a division commander, grew up as a hostage at the court in Luoyang and received a Confucian education.

Traditional histories make Liu Yuan a member of the Luandi clan of the old Xiongnu rulers and a descendant of the founder Modu Chanyu. Modern scholars have questioned this. Several texts call his family Chuge, a group descended from Xiongnu who surrendered to the Han in 121 BCE and who appear in seals and records as distinct from the Southern Xiongnu. Some historians think the royal genealogy was invented to bolster his claim; others think Chuge had become a general name for the sinicised Xiongnu, including the old ruling clan.

By 304 the War of the Eight Princes had left the Jin military in the north badly weakened. Liu Yuan was serving the Jin prince Sima Ying when the Five Divisions invited him to lead them. At Zuoguo in Shanxi he was hailed as Grand Chanyu, and the same year he declared himself King of Han, presenting himself as heir to the Han dynasty through those old marriage ties. Rebels of many backgrounds joined him, including Wang Mi and the Jie leader Shi Le. After famine forced several moves, the capital eventually settled at Pingyang, in modern Linfen. Liu Yuan's government combined Chinese offices with a Chanyu Platform that commanded the tribal peoples, a dual system later copied by other states.

Liu Yuan died in 310. His son Liu Cong seized the throne after killing his half-brother Liu He. In 311 Shi Le destroyed the main Jin army at Ningping, and Han forces sacked Luoyang and captured Emperor Huai, an event known as the Disaster of Yongjia. In 316 Liu Cong's cousin Liu Yao took Chang'an and captured the last Western Jin emperor, Min. Both emperors were humiliated and later put to death. Yet the state was unstable: outside Shanxi its generals acted like independent warlords, and the court was torn by purges. In 318 Liu Cong died, and his son Liu Can was killed in a coup by the consort kinsman Jin Zhun.

Liu Yao and Shi Le joined forces to crush Jin Zhun, and loyalists proclaimed Liu Yao emperor. He moved the capital to Chang'an and in 319 renamed the state Zhao, honouring Modu Chanyu as ancestor instead of the Han emperors. Shi Le broke away the same year and founded his own state, also called Zhao, now known as Later Zhao, leaving Liu Yao with the west. Liu Yao campaigned in the north-west, forced the Former Liang to submit, and founded an imperial university in Chang'an. War with Later Zhao began in 324. At Luoyang in 328 or 329 Liu Yao, reportedly drunk, fell from his horse and was captured, then executed. His heir Liu Xi was driven from Chang'an and killed at Shanggui in 329, ending the state.

Our maps label the state "Han Zhao" and draw it in 300, a few years before Liu Yuan proclaimed it in 304. In our 400 map the lands of northern China belong to the Sixteen Kingdoms.