Emperor Gaozu of Later Han

Liu Zhiyuan (March 4, 895 – March 10, 948), later changed to Liu Gao, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Gaozu of Later Han, was the founding emperor of the Shatuo-led Chinese Later Han dynasty, the fourth of the Five Dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He was the older brother of the Northern Han founder Liu Min (Emperor Shizu). Background Liu Zhiyuan was born in 895, during the reign of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang, at Taiyuan. His ancestors were of Shatuo extraction. His father Liu Dian served as an officer under the major late-Tang warlord Li Keyong the military governor of Hedong Circuit (河東, headquartered at Taiyuan). His mother was a Lady An, likely Liu Dian's wife. He had at least one other brother of the same father (and possibly of the same mother), Liu Chong. Lady An — likely after Liu Dian's death — bore a son to a man with the surname of Murong. This half-brother of Liu Zhiyuan's was named Murong Yanchao. Liu Zhiyuan was said to be serious in his disposition as a young man. He became a guard soldier for Li Keyong's adoptive son Li Siyuan. During Jin and Later Tang In 907, Li Keyong's archrival Zhu Quanzhong the military governor of Xuanwu Circuit (宣武, headquartered in modern Kaifeng, Henan), who then had the Tang imperial court under his control, seized the throne from Emperor Zhaozong's son and successor Emperor Ai, ending Tang and starting a new dynasty known as Later Liang. Li Keyong and several other warlords refused to recognize him as the new emperor, and Li Keyong, from that on, became effectively the ruler of an independent state of Jin, which, under him and his biological son and successor Li Cunxu, engaged in numerous wars with Later Liang. In 919, there was a battle at Desheng (德勝, in modern Puyang, Henan), a fortress on the Yellow River that Li Cunxu was trying to enlarge. During the battle, Li Siyuan's son-in-law Shi Jingtang, who served as one of the commanders under him, was stricken by a Later Liang soldier, and his horse's armor was broken. Liu Zhiyuan, who was near Shi at that time, gave Shi his own armored horse, while taking Shi's horse and moving gradually, such that the Later Liang soldiers in pursuit believed that he was leading them into a trap, and broke off the pursuit.