Meng Chang

Meng Chang (孟昶) (919–965), originally Meng Renzan (孟仁贊), courtesy name Baoyuan (保元), formally Prince Gongxiao of Chu (楚恭孝王) (as posthumously honored by Emperor Taizu of Song), was the second emperor of Later Shu during imperial China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He ruled from 934 until 965, when his state was conquered by the Song Dynasty. He died soon afterwards. Meng ruled largely peacefully for three decades. The Later Shu became one of the centers for the arts and literature, where it flourished with support from the court. An anthology of lyric poetry known as the Amidst the Flowers Anthology was compiled in 940. It was also among the most stable of the southern kingdoms, but it also stagnated militarily and politically. When the Song Dynasty replaced the Later Zhou, the last of the Five Dynasties, in 960, Song's founding emperor Emperor Taizu of Song made it his mission to reunify the realm. Song forces forced Meng Chang to surrender in 965 on the road to the reunification of most of China. Background Meng Renzan was born in 919, in Taiyuan. His father Meng Zhixiang was then an officer under Li Cunxu the Prince of Jin, and had married Li Cunxu's cousin as his wife. Meng Renzan, however, was not born of her, but rather of a different Lady Li — one who had previously been a concubine of Li Cunxu's, but whom Li Cunxu had awarded to Meng Zhixiang as a concubine. He was Meng Zhixiang's fifth son but the third to grow up. During Later Tang In 923, Li Cunxu declared himself emperor of a new Later Tang, and shortly after destroyed archrival Later Liang and took over its territory. In 925, he further sent an army and destroyed Later Tang's southwestern neighbor Former Shu (whose territory would eventually be the territory for Later Shu). He commissioned Meng Renzan's father Meng Zhixiang as the military governor (Jiedushi) of Former Shu's main territory Xichuan Circuit (西川, headquartered in modern Chengdu, Sichuan). However, shortly after, the entire Later Tang realm was thrown into confusion due to a series of mutinies, and Li Cunxu himself was killed in a mutiny at the capital Luoyang in 926. He was succeeded as Later Tang's emperor by his adoptive brother Li Siyuan.