Historical Romance of the Five Dynasties (1)

Cai DongfanJul 2024

Rating 4.4
Word count
45K words
Chapters
10

Tags

Otherworld Continent Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategyPolitical AllegoryRise and FallPower GameAntiheroGroup BiographyTurbulent EraSocial Observation

Summary

Romance of the Five Dynasties (1) is a widely read popular history. The great historian Cai Dongfan takes the official histories as his warp and anecdotes as his weft. Structured in the traditional chapter format, written in plain language, and punctuated by shrewd commentary, it vividly recreates the sweeping course of Chinese civilization. The Five Dynasties spanned fifty-three years, saw eight surname houses and thirteen emperors, and changed the dynastic name five times: Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, and Zhou. Because historians had used these names for earlier dynasties, they prefixed each with "Later"—Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou. Alongside them were states that sometimes joined and sometimes split from the five dynasties, called the Ten Kingdoms: Wu, Chu, Min, Southern Tang, Former Shu, Later Shu, Southern Han, Northern Han, Wuyue, and Jingnan. The work depicts the customs and livelihood of the people amid the turnovers of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and lays bare battlefield bloodshed, court intrigue, and the survival wisdom in the rise and fall of ages. Basing itself mainly on trustworthy histories and drawing on unofficial accounts, it selects its material with care, holds balanced views, and is rich in content, well-ordered in narrative, elegant and clean in language, and equipped with the author's own commentary and notes—both reasoned and delightful. It is truly a classic of popular history.

Editor's review

Cai Dongfan treats the official histories as the warp and anecdotal lore as the weft, using the zhanghui (chapter-and-episode) form to give clear order to the chaos of the Five Dynasties—fifty-three years, eight surnames, thirteen emperors. This opening volume moves straight into the main contest between the Later Liang and the Later Tang; the author's own commentary and notes cite his sources and offer measured judgments on the characters' successes and failures, so the reading never grows dull. The prose is polished yet accessible, alternating battlefield carnage with palace intrigue, and suits anyone who wants to understand the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms systematically but dreads the difficulty of the official histories. As the first book in the series, it establishes the chronological framework and the cast of characters; readers who can weather the dense dynastic turnover at the start will find the going smoother as they proceed. Reading it alongside a quick-reference table of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms is recommended.

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and the commentary at the end of each chapter to grasp the volume's main thread before entering the text
  2. Keep a quick-reference table of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms regimes at hand to check which state each figure belongs to as you read
  3. After every few chapters, retell the causes and consequences of events in a few sentences to check whether you are keeping up with the thread

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 自序
  3. 第一回 睹赤蛇老母觉异征 得艳凤枭雄偿夙愿
  4. 第二回 报亲恩欢迎朱母 探妻病惨别张妃
  5. 第三回 登大宝朱梁篡位 明正义全昱进规
  6. 第四回 康怀贞筑垒围潞州 李存勖督兵破夹寨
  7. 第五回 策淮南严可求除逆 战蓟北刘守光杀兄
  8. 第六回 刘知俊降岐挫汴将 周德威援赵破梁军
  9. 第七回 杀谏臣燕王僭号 却强敌晋将善谋
  10. 第八回 父子聚麀惨遭剸刃 君臣讨逆谋定锄凶

FAQ

Can I read this book without any background in Five Dynasties history? Yes. Cai Dongfan writes in the zhanghui style, and most characters are introduced when they appear, in accessible language. Still, regimes changed hands frequently in the Five Dynasties, so it helps to look over the table of contents first for the general framework, consult a quick-reference table when you meet an unfamiliar state name, and focus on the main line of events rather than trying to memorize every name and title.
How does this book differ from the official histories? It takes the official histories as its warp and anecdotes as its weft, selects its material with care, grounds important events in historical fact, and adds the author's own commentary and notes. It cannot replace the original official histories, but it is more readable and serves well as an introduction to Five Dynasties history before returning to the primary sources as interest dictates.

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About the author

Cai Dongfan Author · China · 1877–1945

Cai Dongfan (1877–1945) was a native of Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, and a modern Chinese writer of historical romances. Beginning in 1916, he spent ten years completing the 11-volume, 1,040-chapter Popular Romances of Successive Dynasties, which recounts the rise and fall of dynasties in an accessible style; he also wrote Romances of Empress Dowager Cixi. Drawing on historical sources and adapting them into simple classical Chinese and the chapter-based vernacular form, his works balance historical fact with narrative interest, allowing ordinary readers to follow the broad course of a dynasty through its chapter headings. The collection holds 381 of his works, including dynastic romances on the Jin, Ming, Tang, Later Han and Republican periods, as well as series such as the Six Histories and the Popular Romances of Successive Dynasties, commonly classified as history reading and classical literature. Regarded as a representative figure in Chinese historical romance writing, Cai Dongfan's series have had a lasting influence in popularizing historical knowledge and continuing the romance tradition, and remain accessible introductions to Chinese history for readers today.