Yang Guangyuan

Yang Guangyuan (; died January 21, 945), né Atan, later known as Yang Tang before changing his name to Guangyuan, courtesy name Deming, formally the Prince of Qi, was a general of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period Later Tang (and Later Tang's predecessor state Jin) and the Later Jinstates. He rebelled against Later Jin in 944, believing that he would prevail with aid from the Khitan Liao dynasty, but after the Liao aid forces were repelled by Later Jin forces, his son Yang Chengxun put him under arrest and surrendered. He was subsequently killed by soldiers sent by the Later Jin general Li Shouzhen. Background It is not known when Yang Guangyuan was born. He was ethnically Shatuo, and his family originally did not have a Chinese surname. His father was originally named Adengchuo, but later took the Chinese name of Yang Zhen. He himself originally had the name of Atan, but later, after his family took the surname of Yang, became known as Yang Tan. Yang Tan's father Yang Zhen served as an officer under the major late Tang dynasty warlord Li Keyong, who was also ethnically Shatuo. Yang Tan thus later served as a cavalry officer under Li Keyong's son Li Cunxu, who then reigned the independent state Jin as its prince, although formally still regarding his state as a part of the defunct Tang dynasty. During Jin When Li Cunxu ordered his major general Zhou Dewei to attack the rival state Yan in late 911, Yang Tan served under Zhou in the campaign. After Jin forces under Zhou and Li Cunxu himself destroyed Yan around the new year 914, and Li Cunxu subsequently commissioned Zhou as the military governor (Jiedushi) of Lulong Circuit (盧龍, headquartered in modern Beijing)—the main circuit of the former Yan state—Yang appeared to remain under Zhou's command at Lulong. In a subsequent campaign when the Khitan Empire attacked Xin Prefecture (新州, in modern Zhangjiakou, Hebei), apparently in 917, Yang served under Zhou in resisting the Khitan. During that battle, Yang suffered an injury to one of his arms—probably a fracture—that eventually led to the arm becoming useless. He thus left military service and stayed at home thereafter.