Li Bian Usurps the Throne

Date: November 10, 937 • Location: Beijing, China

Ten Kingdoms: Li Bian usurps the throne and deposes Emperor Yang Pu. The Wu State is replaced by Li (now called "Xu Zhigao"), who becomes the first ruler of Southern Tang.

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period was an era of political upheaval and division in Imperial China from 907 to 979 CE. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concurrent dynastic states, of which the most powerful and influential ten were known as the ten kingdoms, were established elsewhere, mainly in South China. It was a prolonged period of multiple political divisions in Chinese imperial history.