Later Qin Emperors - Yao Xing (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Yao Xing () (366-416), courtesy name Zilue (), formally Emperor Wenhuan of (Later) Qin (()), was an emperor of the Chinese/Qiang state Later Qin. He was the son of the founding emperor Yao Chang (Emperor Wucheng). For most of his reign, he did not use the title of emperor, but used the title Heavenly Prince (Tian Wang). During his reign, he destroyed the rival Former Qin and proceeded to expand his hegemony over nearly all of western China, as he temporarily seized all of Western Qin's territory and forced Southern Liang, Northern Liang, Western Ling, and Qiao Zong's Western Shu () all to at least nominally submit to him, but late in his reign, defeats on the battlefield, particularly at the hands of the rebel general Helian Bobo (who founded Xia), and internecine struggles between his sons and nephews greatly damaged the Later Qin state, and it was destroyed soon after his death. Yao Xing was an avid Buddhist, and it was during his reign that Buddhism first received official state support in China. The monk Kumarajiva also visited Chang'an at Yao Xing's request in 401. Yao Xing was born in 366, when his father Yao Chang was a general under the Former Qin emperor Fu Jin. (Who his mother was is open to interpretation; Yao Chang's wife, the later Empress She, was mentioned as his mother, but when Yao Xing later became emperor, he posthumously honored one of Yao Chang's concubines, Consort Sun, as empress dowager, which allows an inference that he could have been born of Consort Sun but raised by Empress She, but there is no conclusive evidence.) Not much is known about his life under Former Qin rule, other than that when he grew older, he served as an assistant to Fu Jin's crown prince Fu Hong (). When Yao Chang declared a rebellion and estab... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=4041839