Murong Chui

Also known as Zi Daoming

Murong Chui, courtesy name Daoming and first named Ba, was the fifth and favourite son of Murong Huang of the Former Yan. In 369 he routed the northern expedition of the Jin general Huan Wen at Fangtou, but the jealousy of the regent Murong Ping and the empress dowager drove him to Fu Jian of Former Qin, who conquered Yan the next year. After Qin's defeat at the Fei River in 383, with his own troops intact, he broke away, proclaimed himself King of Yan in 384 with the reign title Yanyuan, and became emperor at Zhongshan in 386 under the title Jianxing. He destroyed Western Yan in 394, but the next year his heir Murong Bao was crushed at Canhepo by Tuoba Gui. Marching on Wei himself in 396, he took Pingcheng, but grief at the bones of Canhepo on his return brought on illness, and he died aged seventy-one, with the temple name Shizu. The History of the Jin (Jinshu) gives him a chapter among its northern records.