Guo Zongxun (Chinese: 郭宗訓) (14 September 953 – 973) or Chai Zongxun (Chinese: 柴宗訓), also known by his posthumous name as the Emperor Gong of Later Zhou (Chinese: 後周恭帝), was the third and last emperor of the Later Zhou dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. As the only child of Guo Rong (Emperor Shizong of Zhou), he ascended the throne in July 959, when his father suddenly died of illness during a northern military expedition attempting to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures from the Khitans Liao dynasty. His reign ended just months later in February 960, when the six-year-old emperor was usurped in a mutiny led by royal guard general Zhao Kuangyin, who founded the Song dynasty.
After the usurpation, Guo Zongxun was sent away with his mother Empress Dowager Fu to Xijing (西京), where he was renamed to his father's birth surname Chai. Despite assurance by Zhao Kuangyin (now Emperor Taizu of Song) that the Chai family would be treated with respect and granting of lifetime judicial amnesty, he was killed in 973 by Xin Wenyue, an official trying to gain favour with the emperor. Upon hearing the news, the Emperor Taizu ordered a period of national mourning and buried the dethroned emperor next to the Emperor Shizong's tomb.
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Notes and references
Sources
Mote, F.W. (1999). Imperial China: 900–1800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-44515-5.
(in Chinese) Xue Juzheng; et al., eds. (974). Wudai Shi (五代史) [History of the Five Dynasties].
(in Chinese) Ouyang Xiu (1073). Wudai Shiji (五代史記) [Historical Records of the Five Dynasties].
(in Chinese) Sima Guang (1086). Zizhi Tongjian (資治通鑑) [Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government].