The “battle royale” of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. If Chinese history were a relay race:
The Qin and Han dynasties were the opening sprint from the start.
During the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, someone fell and everyone piled up together.
The Sui and Tang dynasties got back on their feet and sprinted again.
And the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms? That was the baton handoff: smack! The baton hit the ground!
The Tang dynasty, the “big brother,” ran for nearly three hundred years before finally running out of steam in 907. The moment it fell, the dozen or so “little brothers” waiting nearby burst into chaos: “I’ll take the baton!” “I’ll take it!” “Move aside, it’s my turn!” When I write about this period of history, I often think of the ordinary people whose names were never recorded. The history books document emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, but what truly sustained that era was every ordinary person struggling to stay alive. In a world torn by chaos, they married and raised children, farmed and wove, did business, studied, and held on to their beliefs, seeking possibility where none seemed to exist. Their stories were never recorded, but their descendants are us.
History is not just a parade of rulers and ministers taking turns in the spotlight. It is also the traces left by countless ordinary people as they struggled to live amid the tides of their times.
