Fu Yanqing

Fu Yanqing (898-July 31, 975), né Li Yanqing, courtesy name Guanhou, formally the Prince of Wei, nicknamed Fu Disi (符第四, "the fourth Fu"), was a Chinese military general, monarch, and politician of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou states, as well as the Liao dynasty and Song dynasty. He was one of the most celebrated generals of the period, and he was also the father of three daughters who received empress titles — two as successive empresses of the Later Zhou emperor Guo Rong (Empress Fu the Elder and Empress Dowager Fu (Later Zhou)), and one (posthumously) as a wife of Zhao Guangyi, who would become the second emperor of Song. Background Li Yanqing was born in 898, near the end of the Tang dynasty, during the reign of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang. His father, then known as Li Cunshen but who was born with the name of Fu Cun, was an adoptive son of and general under the major late-Tang warlord Li Keyong the Prince of Jin. Li Yanqing was said to be the fourth-born son of Li Cunshen's, but only the identities of two of his older brothers, Li Yanchao and Li Yanrao, were recorded in history; he also had at least two younger brothers, Li Yanneng and Li Yanlin. (All four of his known brothers would eventually serve as generals.) When Li Yanqing was 12 — i.e., in 910 — by which time Tang had fallen and the Jin realm, theoretically still under Tang rule, was actually under the rule of Li Keyong's biological son and successor Li Cunxu — Li Yanqing, who was already capable of riding and archery, entered military service under Li Cunxu, being close enough to Li Cunxu that he was allowed to enter the prince's bedchamber. When he grew older, he became an officer in Li Cunxu's army. Also in his youth, he became a friend of Shi Chonggui, the nephew of Shi Jingtang, the son-in-law of Li Siyuan, also an adoptive son of Li Keyong's. (However, while this was traditionally described as such in official accounts, Shi Chonggui, born in 914, was 16 years younger than Li Yanqing.) During Later Tang In 923, Li Cunxu claimed imperial title as the emperor of a new Later Tang, and shortly after conquered his southern rival Later Liang and took over its territory. Li Yanqing continued to serve as an officer of Li Cunxu's imperial guards.