Former Zhao

The Han Zhao (simplified Chinese: 汉赵; traditional Chinese: 漢趙; pinyin: Hànzhào; 304–329), or Former Zhao, or Northern Han (北漢), was a Southern Xiongnu state during Sixteen Kingdoms period coeval with the Chinese Jin Dynasty (265-420). In the Chinese historiography it was given two conditional state titles, the Han state (漢, pinyin Hàn) for the state proclaimed in 304 by Liu Yuan, and the Former Zhao state (前趙, pinyin Qiánzhào) for the state proclaimed in 319 by Liu Yao. The reference to them as separate states should be considered clearly erroneous, given that when Liu Yao changed the name of the state from Han to Zhao in 319, he treated the state as having been continuous from the time that Liu Yuan founded it in 304; instead, he de-established royal lineage to the Han Dynasty and claimed ancestry directly from Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty.

The reason it was also referred to as Former Zhao was that when the powerful general Shi Le broke away and formed his own state in 319, later it was also conditionally named Zhao as well, and so in the Chinese historiography Shi Le's state was referred to as Later Zhao.) Since they both were ruled by partially sinicized Xiongnu with a Chinese throne name Liu, the Chinese scholars often conditionally combined them into a single Han Zhao state. Numerous western texts refer to the two states separately; others referred to the Han state as the Northern Han, a confusing nomenclature as the term also refers to the Northern Han in the Period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.