Career
He reigned his country from 943 until his death. During Li Jing"s earlier reign, he expanded Southern Tang"s borders by extinguishing a few smaller neighboring states: Yin In 945, Minister in 946, and Chu in 951. However, the warfare also exhausted the wealth of the country, leaving it ill-prepared to resist the Later Zhou invasion in 956.
Forced to cede all prefectures north of the Yangtze River, he also had to relinquish his title as an emperor and accept Later Zhou"s overlordship in 958, and later Song Dynasty"s overlordship after 960 when Song succeeded Later Zhou.
Li Jing’s father, Li Bian, posthumously known as Xianzhu (先主), founded the Southern Tang in 937 when he usurped the Wu Kingdom from within. Li came to the throne upon his father’s death in 943.
Of all of the leaders of the Ten Kingdoms, Li Jing was one of the most successful at expanding his domains. He did not wait long to begin that process.
The Minister Kingdom asked the Southern Tang for assistance.
Rather than offering assistance, Li Jing ordered that Southern Tang forces move in and annex the rebel territory. By 945, the Southern Tang had incorporated virtually all of Minister into its own domains. In 951, another neighboring kingdom was experiencing internal turmoil, this one on the southwest border.
The ruling family of Chu was having internal dissention, which gave rise to disorder.
Li Jing took advantage of this turmoil to move in and annexed the kingdom to the growing Southern Tang. The Later Zhou held power in the north from 951.
lieutenant was the first Han Chinese dynasty to rule the north since 923 after a succession of three Shatuo Turk dynasties. The Later Zhou was looking to expand its influence southward in an effort to reunify the Chinese realm.
Feeling the pressure from the north, Li Jing accepted the overlordship of the Later Zhou in 958 and accepted the latter"s era name.
Li Jing died in 961, three years after accepting overlordship of the Later Zhou and the year following the formation of the Song Dynasty, which would eventually reunify nearly all of China.
