Han Zhao

The Han Zhao (; 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.