William Longsword’s Marriages and Political Alliances (935–936)…

The Later Tang Dynasty falls to the Later Jin Dynasty, founded by Shi Jingtang (posthumously known as Gaozu of Later Jin) in China.

Shi Jingtang is enthroned on November 28, 936, as the first emperor of the Later Jin Dynasty by Emperor Taizong of Liao, following a revolt against Emperor Fei of Later Tang.

The Japanese government dispatches Sumitomo, of the Fujiwara family, west in 936 to subdue the pirates that have long menaced commerce on the Inland Sea.

Succeeding in this, he and his followers now commence to plunder the western provinces themselves in defiance of imperial orders.

Gyeon Hwon leads the Goryeo army against his sons in 936 at present-day Seonsan in Gumi city, destroying Singeom's army.

King Taejo of Goryeo, deeming the plot to have been the work of Singeom's brothers, grants Singeom a noble title.

Accounts vary as to whether Yanggeom and Yonggeom were sent into exile or slain.

The Khitan Empire absorbs the Sixteen Prefectures, which includes the area around modern-day Beijing.

Prince Bei of the Liao dynasty, who is still an honored guest at the Tang court at the time, writes to his brother Emperor Taizong (Yelü Deguang), advising him to invade the Tang.

Instead, Taizong lends military support to a rebellion led by Shi Jingtang, a Tang governor and son-in-law of the former Emperor Mingzong.

With Khitan help, in 936 Shi Jingtang succeeds in replacing the Later Tang with his own Later Jin Dynasty.

After some negotiation with the more powerful Khitans, he cedes sixteen border prefectures stretching from modern-day Datong (Shanxi province) to the coast of the Bohai Sea east of what is now Beijing, to the Liao.

Since the Sixteen Prefectures contain numerous strategic passes and fortifications, the Khitans now have unrestricted access to the plains of northern China.

Shi Jingtang also agrees to treat Emperor Taizong of Liao as his own father, a move that symbolically elevates Taizong and the Liao to a superior position.

The Japanese courtier-poet Ki no Tsurayaki returns to Kyoto from Tosa province, where he had been the provincial governor, a journey that becomes the basis of the earliest surviving Japanese poetic diary, the Tosa nikki.

Tsurayaki maintains the pose of being a woman write in producing The Tosa Diary in 936.

The royal family is not harmonious during Otto's early reign, despite his peaceful transition to the throne of Germany.

Otto's younger brother, Henry, also claims the throne, contrary to his father's wishes.

According to his biography, Vita Mathildis reginae posterior, their mother had favored Henry as king: in contrast to Otto, Henry had been "born in the purple" during his father's reign and shared his name.

Otto also faces internal opposition from various local aristocrats.

According to Widukind of Corvey, in 936, Otto appoints Hermann Billung as Margrave, granting him authority over a march north of the Elbe River between the Limes Saxoniae and Peene Rivers.

As military governor, Hermann extracts tribute from the Polabian Slavs inhabiting the area and often fight against the Western Slavic tribes of the Lutici, Obotrites, and Wagri.

Hermann's appointment angers his brother, Count Wichmann the Elder.

As the elder and wealthier of the two, Wichmann believes his claim to the office is superior to his brother's.

Additionally, Wichmann is related by marriage to the dowager queen Matilda.

Henry I, having effected Germany's transition from a group of tribal duchies into an autonomous kingdom, and in the midst of planning an Italian expedition, dies from the effects of a cerebral stroke on July 2, 936, at his palace, the Kaiserpfalz in Memleben, and is buried at Quedlinburg Abbey.

At the time of his death, all of the various German tribes are united in a single realm.

His son, Otto, becomes king, inheriting a state centered primarily on the duchies of Saxony and Franconia.

The Abbasid caliphate consists by 936 of little more than the province of Baghdad.

Ibn Muqla, resolving to reassert his control over the neighboring provinces by military force, had chosen the Hamdanid-controlled Jazira as his first target: in 935 he had launched a campaign that took the Hamdanid capital, Mosul, but had been forced to return to Baghdad.

Another attempt in 936 to launch a campaign against the rebellious governor of Wasit, the adventurer Muhammad ibn Ra'iq, fails to even get started.

Coupled with his failure to counter the mounting financial crisis, this last disaster leads to Ibn Muqla's dismissal and arrest.

Ibn Muqla's dismissal marks also the final end of the independence of the Abbasid caliphs, for shortly afterward Ibn Ra'iq is appointed by ar-Radi to the new post of amir al-umara ("commander of commanders"), a military-based office that becomes the de facto ruler of what remains of the Caliphate and deprives the Caliph from all real authority.

Ibn Ra'iq has the possessions of Ibn Muqla and his son confiscated, and Ibn Muqla in turn begins to conspire against the amir al-umara.

Ibn Ra'iq becomes aware of this, however, and has him imprisoned and his right hand cut off.

Shortly after, even while the army of the Turkish general Bajkam is approaching Baghdad to depose Ibn Ra'iq, his tongue is cut out.

Despite Bajkam's success, Ibn Muqla remains in prison, where he will die on July 20, 940.

Ibn-Ra’iq, seeking to conquer Syria, initiates another Muslim civil war in 936.

Hugh replaces Boso of Tuscany with his own son Hubert in 936.

He grants Octavion in the Viennois to Hugh Taillefer and patches up his relations with Charles-Constantine in a final effort to save influence in Provence.