Tang dynasty
Zhu Wen, originally a salt smuggler who had served under the rebel Huang Chao, surrendered to Tang forces. By helping to defeat Huang, he was granted a series of rapid military promotions. In 907 the Tang dynasty was ended when Zhu Wen, now a military governor, deposed the last emperor of Tang, Emperor Ai of Tang, and took the throne for himself (known posthumously as Emperor Taizu of Later Liang). He established the Later Liang, which inaugurated the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. A year later Zhu Wen had the deposed Emperor Ai poisoned to death.
Administrative divisions of the Tang dynasty
With the extermination of the court eunuchs in 903, the warlord Zhu Wen obtained absolute authority over the emperor. Since Zhu's core holdings were in Henan, he forced Zhaozong to move east to Luoyang in 904, where he was killed. The great city of Chang'an was abandoned and its structures dismantled for their building materials, never again attaining the strategic importance and prestige it presided over for the last millennium. Three years later in 907, the Tang empire officially came to a close when Zhu Wen dethroned its last sovereign.