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For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band).
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| This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. |
The Tang Dynasty (Chinese: 唐朝; pinyin: Táng Cháo; Middle Chinese: dhɑngKarlgren, Grammata serica recensa, 1996.) (18 June 618–4 June 907) was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li (李) family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty (16 October 690–3 March 705) when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, becoming the first and only Chinese empress regnant, ruling in her own right.
The Tang Dynasty, with its capital at Chang\'an (present-day Xi\'an), the most populous city in the world at the time, is regarded by historians as a high point in Chinese civilization — equal to or surpassing that of the earlier Han Dynasty — as well as a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Its territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, was greater than that of the Han period, and rivaled that of the later Yuan Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. The enormous Grand Canal of China, built during the previous Sui Dynasty, facilitated the rise of new urban settlements along its route, as well as increased trade between mainland Chinese markets. The canal is to this day the longest in the world. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records stated that the population (by number of registered households) was about 50 million people.Ebrey (1999), 111.Ebrey (1999), 141.a[›] However, even when the central government was breaking down and unable to exact an accurate census of the population in the 9th century, it is estimated that the population in that century had grown to the size of about 80 million people.Du, p. 37Fairbank, 106.
In Chinese history, the Tang Dynasty was largely a period of progress and stability, except during the An Shi Rebellion and the decline of central authority in the latter half of the dynasty. Like the previous Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty maintained a civil service system by drafting officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era; it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry.Yu, 73-87. Two of China\'s most famous historical poets, Du Fu and Li Bai, belonged to this age, as well as the poets Meng Haoran, Du Mu, and Bai Juyi. Many famous visual artists lived during this era, such as the renowned painters Han Gan, Wu Daozi, and Zhan Ziqian. The religious and philosophical ideology of Buddhism became a major aspect of Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects becoming the most prominent. However, Buddhism would eventually be persecuted by the state and would decline in influence. Although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. The weakened central government largely withdrew from managing the economy, but the country\'s mercantile affairs stayed intact and commercial trade continued to thrive regardless.
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Li Yuan (later to become Emperor Gaozu of Tang) was a former governor of Taiyuan when other government officials were fighting off bandit leaders in the collapse of the Sui Empire, with local elites developing defenses of their own. With prestige and military experience, he later rose in rebellion at the urging of his second son, the skilled and militant Li Shimin (later Emperor Taizong of Tang). Their family came from the background of the northwest military aristocracy prevalent during the reign of the Sui emperors. In fact, the mothers of both Emperor Yang of Sui and Gaozu of Tang were sisters, making these two emperors of different dynasties first cousins.Ebrey (2006), 91. Li Yuan installed a puppet child emperor of the Sui Dynasty in 617 but he eventually removed the child emperor and established the Tang Dynasty in 618. Li Yuan ruled until 626 before being forcefully deposed by his son Li Shimin, Prince of Qin, known as "Tang Taizong." Li Shimin had commanded troops since the age of 18, had prowess with a bow, sword, lance, and was known for his effective cavalry charges. Fighting a numerically superior army, he defeated Dou Jiande at Luoyang in the Battle of Hulao in 621. In a violent elimination of royal family due to fear of assassination, Li Shimin ambushed and killed two of his brothers, Li Yuanji and Crown Prince Li Jiancheng in the Incident at Xuanwu Gate on July 2, 626. Shortly after, his father abdicated in favor of him and he ascended the throne as Emperor Taizong. Although his rise to power was brutal and violent, he showed to be a capable leader who listened to the advice of the wisest members of his council. In 628, Emperor Taizong held a Buddhist memorial service for the casualties of war, and in 629 had Buddhist monasteries erected at the sites of major battles so that monks could pray for the fallen on both sides of the fight.Ebrey (2006), 93. This was during Emperor Taizong\'s campaign against Eastern Tujue, a Göktürk khanate that was destroyed after the capture of Jiali Khan Ashini Duobi by the famed Tang military officer Li Jing (571–649), who later became a Chancellor of the Tang Dynasty.
Portrait painting of Emperor Yang of Sui, commissioned in 643 by Emperor Taizong, painted by Yan Liben (600–673).
Taizong set out to solve internal problems within the government which had constantly plagued past dynasties. Building upon the Sui legal code, he issued a new legal code that subsequent Chinese dynasties would model theirs upon, as well as neighboring polities in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. The earliest law code to survive though was the one established in the year 653, which was divided into 500 articles specifying different crimes and penalties ranging from ten blows with a light stick, one hundred blows with a heavy rod, exile, penal servitude, or execution.Ebrey (1999), 111–112. The legal code clearly distinguished different levels of severity in meted punishments when different members of the social and political hierarchy committed the same crime.Ebrey (1999), 112. For example, the severity of punishment was different when a servant or nephew killed a master or an uncle than when a master or uncle killed a servant or nephew. The Tang Code was largely retained by later codes such as Hongwu\'s in 1397,Andrew & Rapp, 25. yet there were several revisions in later times, such as improved property rights for women during the Song Dynasty (960–1279).Ebrey (1999), 158.Bernhardt, 274–275.
Emperor Taizong had three administrations (省, shěng), which were obliged to draft, review, and implement policies respectively. There were also six divisions (部, bù) under the administration that implemented policy, each of which was assigned different tasks. These divisional state bureaus included the personnel administration, finance, rites, military, justice, and public works — an administrative model which would last until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th century.Fairbank, 78. Although the founders of the Tang related to the glory of the earlier Han Dynasty, the basis for much of their administrative organization was very similar to the previous Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Northern Zhou divisional militia (fubing) was continued by the Tang governments, along with farmer-soldiers serving in rotation from the capital or frontier in order to receive appropriated farmland. The equal-field system of the Northern Wei Dynasty was also kept, although there were a few modifications.
Although the central and local governments kept an enormous number of records about land property in order to assess taxes, it became common practice in the Tang for literate and affluent people to create their own private documents and signed contracts.Brook, 59. These had their own signature and that of a witness and scribe in order to prove in court (if necessary) that their claim to property was legitimate. The prototype of this actually existed since the ancient Han Dynasty, while contractual language became even more common and embedded into Chinese literary culture in later dynasties.
The center of the political power of the Tang was the capital city of Chang\'an (modern Xi\'an), where the emperor maintained his large palace quarters, and entertained political emissaries with music, sports, acrobatic stunts, poetry, paintings, and dramatic theater performances (see Pear Garden acting troupe). The capital was also filled with incredible amounts of riches and resources to spare. When the Chinese prefectural government officials traveled to the capital in the year 643 to give the annual report of the affairs in their districts, Emperor Taizong discovered that many had no proper quarters to rest in, and were renting rooms with merchants.Benn, 59. Therefore, Emperor Taizong ordered the government agencies in charge of municipal construction to build every visiting official his own private mansion in the capital.
The example from the Sui Dynasty, the Tang abandoned the nine-rank system in favor of a large civil service system. The Tang drafted learned and skilled students of Confucian studies who had passed standardized exams, and appointed them as state bureaucrats in the local, provincial, and central government (see imperial examination). There were two types of exams that were given, mingjing (\'illuminating the classics examination\') and jinshi (\'presented scholar examination\').Ebrey (2006), 91–92. The mingjing was based upon the Confucian classics, and tested the student\'s knowledge of a broad variety of texts. The jinshi tested a student\'s literary abilities in writing essay-style responses to questions on matters of governance and politics, as well as their skills in composing poetry. Both examinations required the students to remain isolated in a small room for days. Scholars faced disease, insanity, and death before they completed the assessment. The imperial examination was obtainable exclusively once every three years, and thus the smallest error of the students\' official answer would mean they must endure many more years of study.Ebrey (2006), 92. Candidates were also judged on their skills of deportment, appearance, speech, and level of skill in calligraphy, all of which were subjective criteria that allowed the already wealthy members of society to be chosen over ones of more modest means who were unable to be educated in rhetoric or fanciful writing skills. Indeed there was a disproportionate number of civil officials coming from aristocratic as opposed to non-aristocratic families. Nonetheless, these exams differed from the exams given by previous dynasties, in that they were open to all (male) citizens of all classes, not just those wealthy enough to receive a recommendation.Ebrey (2006), 97. In order to promote widespread Confucian education, the Tang government established state-run schools and issued standard versions of the Five Classics with selected commentaries.
A Tang era gilt-silver ear cup with flower design
This competitive procedure was designed to draw the best talent into government. But perhaps an even greater consideration for the Tang rulers, aware that imperial dependence on powerful aristocratic families and warlords would have destabilizing consequences, was to create a body of career officials having no autonomous territorial or functional power base. The Tang law code ensured equal division of inherited property amongst legitimate heirs, allowing a bit of social mobility and preventing the families of powerful court officials in becoming landed nobility through primogeniture.Fairbank, 83. As it turned out, these scholar-officials acquired status in their local communities and in family ties, and shared values that connected them to the imperial court. From Tang times until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, scholar-officials functioned often as intermediaries between the grassroots level and the government. Yet the potential of a widespread examination system was not fully realized until the Song Dynasty (960-1279), where the merit-driven scholar official largely shed his aristocratic habits and embodied more or less the modern concept of an educated bureaucrat. As historian Patricia Ebrey states of the Song period scholar-officials:
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Nevertheless, the Sui and Tang dynasties institutionalized and set the foundations for the civil service system and this new elite class of exam-drafted scholar-officials.
Religion, namely Buddhism, also played a role in Tang politics. People bidding for office would have monks from Buddhist temples pray for them in public in return for cash donations or gifts if the person was to be selected. There were many Buddhist temple structures built during the Tang Dynasty, such as the Xumi Pagoda of 636, during the reign of Taizong. Before the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Buddhism and Taoism were accepted side by side, and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang invited monks and clerics of both religions to his court. At the same time Xuanzong exalted the ancient Laozi (granting him grand titles), wrote commentary on the Taoist Laozi, set up a school to prepare candidates for examinations on Taoist scriptures, and called upon the Indian monk Vajrabodhi (671–741) to perform Tantric rites to avert a drought in the year 726. In 742 Emperor Xuanzong personally held the incense burner during the ceremony of the Ceylonese monk Amoghavajra (705–774) reciting "mystical incantations to secure the victory of Tang forces." In addition, if religion played a role in politics, then politics played a role in religion as well. In the year 714, Emperor Xuanzong forbade shops and vendors in the city of Chang\'an to sell copied Buddhist sutras, instead giving the Buddhist clergy of the monasteries the sole right to distribute sutras to the laity.Benn, 57. In the previous year of 713, Emperor Xuanzong had liquidated the highly lucrative Inexhaustible Treasury, which was run by a prominent Buddhist monastery in Chang\'an. This monastery collected vast amounts of money, silk, and treasures through multitudes of synonymous people\'s repentances, leaving the donations on the monastery\'s premise. Although the monastery was generous in donations, Emperor Xuanzong issued a decree abolishing their treasury on grounds that their banking practices were fraudulent, collected their riches, and distributed the wealth to various other Buddhist monasteries, Taoist abbeys, and to repair statues, halls, and bridges in the city.Benn, 61.
The Tang Dynasty government attempted to create an accurate census of the size of their empire\'s population, mostly for effective taxation and matters of military conscription for each region. The early Tang government established both the grain tax and cloth tax at a relatively low rate for each household under the empire. This was meant to encourage households to enroll for taxation and not avoid the authorities, thus providing the government with the most accurate estimate possible. In the census of 609, the population was tallied by efforts of the government at a size of 9 million households, or about 50 million people. Again, the Tang census of the year 742 approximated the size China\'s population to about 50 million people. Even if a rather significant number of people had avoided the registration process of the tax census, the population size during the Tang had not grown significantly since the earlier Han Dynasty (the census of the year 2 recording a population of 59 million people in China). In the Tang census of the year 754, there were 1,859 cities, 321 prefectures, and 1,538 counties throughout the empire.Benn, 45. Although there were many large and prominent cities during the Tang, the rural and agrarian areas comprised the majority of China\'s population at some 80 to 90 percent.Benn, 32. A high salt commission was also introduced, which proved valuable as a means of raising revenue for the central government since taxes from the populace could be gathered indirectly from cooperating merchants.
Chinese population size would not dramatically increase until the Song Dynasty (960–1279) period, where the population doubled to 100 million people due to extensive rice cultivation in central and southern China, coupled with rural farmers holding more abundant yields of food that they could easily provide the growing market.Ebrey (2006), 156.
A bas-relief of a soldier and horse with elaborate saddle and stirrups, from the tomb of Emperor Taizong, c. 650.
The 7th century and first half of the 8th century is generally considered the zenith era of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Tang Xuanzong (r. 712–756) brought the Middle Kingdom to its golden age while the Silk Road thrived, with sway over Indochina in the south, and to the west Tang China was master of the Pamirs (modern-day Tajikistan) and protector of Kashmir bordering Persia. Some of the kingdoms paying tribute to the Tang Dynasty included Kashmir, Neparo (Nepal), Khotan, Kucha, Kashgar, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and over nine kingdoms located in Amu Darya and Syr Darya valley.Whitfield, 47. Nomadic kingdoms addressed the Emperor of Tang China respectfully as Tian Kehan. Under Emperor Xuanzong, several military provinces were established on China\'s frontiers from Sichuan to Manchuria, as the military governors of these were given a great deal of autonomy to handle local crises without waiting for central admission. By the year 737, Emperor Xuanzong discarded the policy of conscripting soldiers that were replaced every three years, replacing them with long-service soldiers who were more battle-hardened and efficient.Benn, 9. It was more economically feasible as well, since training new recruits and sending them out to the frontier every three years drained the treasury. Plus, by the late 7th century, the fubing troops began abandoning military service and the homes allotted to them in the equal-field system, because the supposed standard 100 mu of land for each family was in fact decreasing in size in places where population expanded and the rich and wealthy bought up most of the land.Graff, 208. Hard-pressed peasants and vagrants were then induced into military service with benefits of exemption from both taxation and corvée labor service, as well as provisions for farmland and dwellings for dependents who accompanied soldiers on the frontier.Graff, 209. By the year 742 the total number of enlisted troops in the Tang armies had risen to about 500,000 men.
The Sui and Tang had one of the most successful military campaigns against the steppe nomads during its history. In terms of foreign policy to the north and west, the Chinese now had to deal with Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in Central Asia.Ebrey (2006), 113.Xue, p. 149-152, 257-264 To handle and avoid any threats posed by the Turks, the Sui government repaired fortifications and received their trade and tribute missions. They sent royal princesses off to marry Turkic clan leaders, a total four of them in 597, 599, 614, and 617. The Sui stirred trouble and conflict amongst ethnic groups against the Turks.Benn, 2-3.Cui, p. 655-659 As early as the Sui Dynasty the Turks had become a major militarized force employed by the Chinese. When the Khitans began raiding northeast China in 605, a Chinese general led 20,000 Turks against them, distributing Khitan livestock and women to the Turks as a reward. The Tang, unlike the Sui, did not send royal princesses to their leaders; instead they were married to Turk mercenaries or generals in Chinese service, and such marriages only occurred in two rare occasions between 635 and 636. Throughout the Tang Dynasty until the end of 755, there were approximately ten Turkic generals serving under the Tang.Xue, p. 788 While most of the Tang army was made of fubing Chinese conscripts, the majority of the army led by Turkic generals was of non-Chinese origin, campaigning largely in the western frontier where the presence of fubing troops was low.Liu (2000), 85–95.
A Tang period gilt-silver jar with a pattern of dancing horses, shaped in the style of northern nomad\'s leather bag.Ebrey (1999), 127. The horse is seen dancing with a cup of wine in its mouth, just how the horses of Emperor Xuanzong were trained to do.
Civil war in China was almost totally diminished by 626, along with the defeat in 628 of the Ordos Chinese warlord Liang Shidu; after these internal conflicts, the Tang began an offensive against the Turks.Xue, p. 226-227 In the year 630, Tang armies captured areas of the Ordos Desert, modern-day Inner Mongolia province, and southern Mongolia from the Turks.Xue, p. 380-386 After this military victory, Emperor Taizong won the title of Great Khan amongst the various Turks in the region who pledged their allegiance to him and the Chinese empire (with several thousand Turks traveling into China to live at Chang\'an). On June 11 631, Emperor Taizong also sent envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to persuade the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners who were captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.Benn 2.Xue, p. 222-225 While the Turks were settled in the Ordos region (former territory of the Xiongnu), the Tang government took on the military policy of dominating the central steppe. Like the earlier Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty (along with Turkic allies) conquered and subdued Central Asia during the 640s and 650s. During Emperor Taizong\'s reign alone, large campaigns were launched against not only the Göktürks, but also separate campaigns against the Tuyuhun, the Tufan, the Xiyu states, and the Xueyantuo.
The Tang Empire fought with the Tibetan Empire for control of areas in Inner and Central Asia, which was at times settled with marriage alliances.Whitfield, 193. There was a long string of conflicts with Tibet over territories in the Tarim Basin between 670–692 and in 763 the Tibetans even captured the capital of China, Chang\'an, for fifteen days amidst the An Shi Rebellion.Beckwith, 146.Stein, 65. Hostilities continued until the Tibetan Empire and the Tang Dynasty signed a formal peace treaty in 821.Benn, 11. The terms of this treaty, including the fixed borders between the two countries, are recorded in a bilingual inscription on a stone pillar outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa.Richardson, 106-143.
By the 740s, the Arabs of Khurasan - by then under Abbasid control - had established a presence in the Ferghana basin and in Sogdiana. At the Battle of Talas in 751, Qarluq mercenaries under the Chinese defected, which forced Tang commander Gao Xianzhi to retreat. Although the battle itself was not of the greatest significance militarily, this was a pivotal moment in history; it marks the spread of Chinese papermaking into regions west of China,Bai, 242-243.Eberhard, 183. ultimately reaching Europe by the 12th century. Although they had fought at Talas, on June 11, 758, an Abbasid embassy arrived at Chang\'an simultaneously with the Uyghur Turks in order to pay tribute.Schafer, 26.
During the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–656), the son of the last ruler of the Sassanid Empire, Prince Pirooz, fled to Tang China.Schafer, 10 & 25–26. According to the Book of Tang, Pirooz was made the head of a Governorate of Persia in what is now Zaranj, Afghanistan.
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A clay figure of a haniwa model of a ship, from Japan\'s Kofun period (250–538).
In terms of foreign policy to the east, the Chinese had more unsuccessful military campaigns as compared with elsewhere. Like the emperors of the Sui Dynasty before him, Taizong established a military campaign in 644 against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo in the Goguryeo-Tang Wars. Since the ancient Han and Jin dynasties once had a commandery in ancient northern Korea, the Tang Chinese desired to conquer the region. Allying with the Korean Silla Kingdom, the Chinese fought against Baekje and their Yamato Japanese allies in the Battle of Baekgang in August of 663, a decisive Tang-Silla victory. The Tang Dynasty navy had several different ship types at its disposal to engage in naval warfare, these ships described by Li Quan in his Taipai Yinjing (Canon of the White and Gloomy Planet of War) of 759.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 685-687. The Battle of Baekgang was actually a restoration movement by remnant forces of Baekje, since their kingdom was toppled in 660 by a joint Tang-Silla invasion, led by notable Korean general Kim Yushin and Chinese general Su Dingfang. In another joint invasion with Silla, the Tang army severely weakened the Goguryeo Kingdom in the north by taking out its outer forts in the year 645. With joint attacks by Silla and Tang armies under commander Li Shiji (594–669), the Kingdom of Goguryeo was destroyed by 668.Benn, 4. Although they were formerly enemies, the Tang accepted officials and generals of Goguryeo into their administration and military, such as the brothers Yeon Namsan and Yeon Namsaeng. From 668 to 676, the Tang Empire would control northern Korea. However, in 671 Silla began fighting the Tang forces there. At the same time the Tang faced threats on its western border when a large Chinese army was defeated by the Tibetans on the Dafei River in 670.Graff, 201. By 676, the Tang army was driven out of Korea by Unified Silla. Following a revolt of the Eastern Turks in 679, the Tang abandoned its Korean campaigns.
Although the Tang had fought the Japanese, they still held cordial relations with Japan. There were numerous Imperial embassies to China from Japan, diplomatic missions that were not halted until 894 by Emperor Uda, upon persuasion by Sugawara no Michizane.Kitagawa, 222. The Japanese Emperor Temmu (r. 672–686) even established his conscripted army on that of the Chinese model, his state ceremonies on the Chinese model, and constructed his palace at Fujiwara on the Chinese model of architecture.Ebrey (2006), 144. Many Chinese Buddhist monks came to Japan to help further the spread of Buddhism as well. Two 7th century monks in particular, Zhi Yu and Zhi You, visited the court of Emperor Tenji (r. 661–672), whereupon they presented a gift of a South Pointing Chariot that they had crafted.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 289. This 3rd century mechanically-driven directional-compass vehicle (employing a differential gear) was again reproduced in several models for Tenji in 666, as recorded in the Nihon Shoki of 720. Japanese monks also visited China; such was the case with Ennin (794–864), who wrote of his travel experiences including travels along China\'s Grand Canal.Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 308.
Ladies from a mural of Li Xianhui\'s tomb in the Qianling Mausoleum, where Wu Zetian was also buried in 706.
Although she entered Emperor Gaozong\'s court as the lowly consort Wu Zhao, Wu Zetian would rise to the highest seat of power in 690, establishing the short-lived latter Zhou Dynasty. Empress Wu\'s rise to power was achieved through cruel and calculating tactics. For example, she allegedly killed her own baby girl and blamed it on Gaozong\'s empress so that the empress would be demoted. Emperor Gaozong suffered a stroke in 655, and Wu began to make many of his court decisions for him, discussing affairs of state with his councilors that would take orders from her while she sat behind a screen.Ebrey (2006), 97–98. When Empress Wu\'s eldest son and crown prince began to assert his authority and announce his support for issues that were opposed to Empress Wu\'s ideas, he suddenly died in 675. Many suspected he was poisoned by Empress Wu. Although the next heir apparent kept a lower profile, in 680 he was accused by Wu of plotting a rebellion and was banished (and later forced to commit suicide).Ebrey (2006), 98. After only six weeks on the throne in 683, Emperor Zhongzong was deposed by Empress Wu after his attempt to appoint his wife\'s father as chancellor. Because she dominated the court of Emperor Ruizong, a group of Tang princes and their allies staged a major rebellion against Empress Wu in 684; yet her armies suppressed their dissent within two months. Becoming China\'s first female emperor in 690 upon her son\'s (forced) abdication, she ruled until her death in 705, her designated heir apparent becoming Emperor Zhongzong of Tang again. In order to legitimize her rule in a religious sense, she circulated a document known as the Great Cloud Sutra, which predicted that a reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha would be a female monarch who would dispel illness, worry, and disaster from the world.Ebrey (1999), 116. She even introduced numerous revised written characters to the written language, which were reversed back to the originals only after her death.Whitfield, 74. Arguably the most important part of her legacy was diminishing the power of the northwest aristocracy, allowing people from other clans and regions of China to become more representative in Chinese politics and government.Fairbank, 82.Schafer, 8.
There were many prominent women at court during and after Wu Zetian\'s reign, including Shangguan Wan\'er (664–710), a female poet, writer, and trusted court official of Wu Zetian as a palace secretary. In 706 the wife of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Empress Wei, convinced her husband to staff government offices with his sister and her daughters, and in 709 requested that he grant women the right to bequeth hereditary privileges to their sons (which before was a male right only). Empress Wei eventually poisoned Zhongzong, whereupon she placed his fifteen year old son upon the throne in 710. Two weeks later, Li Longji (the later Emperor Xuanzong) entered the palace with a few followers and slew Empress Wei and her faction. He then installed his father Emperor Ruizong on the throne. Just as Emperor Zhongzong was dominated by Empress Wei, so too was Ruizong dominated by Princess Taiping. This was finally ended when Princess Taiping\'s coup failed in 712 (she later hung herself in 713) and Emperor Ruizong abdicated to Emperor Xuanzong.Ebrey (2006), 99.Benn, 6.
During the 44 year reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the Tang Dynasty was brought to its height, a golden age, a period of low economic inflation, as well as a toning down of the excessively lavish lifestyle of the imperial court. Seen as a progressive and benevolent ruler, Xuanzong even abolished the death penalty in the year 747, and all executions had to be approved beforehand by the emperor himself (which was relatively few, considering that there were only 24 executions in the year 730 alone).Benn, 47.
A 5-stringed pipa (wuxian) from the Tang Dynasty.
Through use of the land trade along the Silk Road and maritime trade by sail at sea, the Tang were able to gain many new technologies, cultural practices, rare luxury, and contemporary items. From the Middle East, India, Persia, and Central Asia the Tang were able to acquire new ideas in fashion, new types of ceramics, and improved silver-smithing.Ebrey (1999), 118–119. The Chinese also gradually adopted the foreign concept of stools and chairs as seating, whereas the Chinese beforehand always sat on mats placed on the floor.Ebrey (1999), 119. To the Middle East, the Islamic world coveted and purchased in bulk Chinese goods such as silks, lacquerwares, and porcelain wares. Songs, dances, and musical instruments from foreign regions became popular in China during the Tang Dynasty.Ebrey (2006), 114.Whitfield, 255. These musical instruments included oboes, flutes, and small lacquered drums from Kucha in the Tarim Basin, and percussion instruments from India such as cymbals. There was great contact and interest in India as a hub for Buddhist knowledge, with famous travelers such as Xuanzang (d. 664) visiting the South Asian subcontinent. After a 17-year long trip, Xuanzang managed to bring back tons of valuable Sanskrit texts to be translated into Chinese. There was also a Turkic-Chinese dictionary available for serious scholars and students, while Turkic folksongs gave inspiration to some Chinese poetry.Schafer, 28.Eberhard, 182. In the interior of China, trade was facilitated by the Grand Canal and the Tang government\'s rationalization of the greater canal system that reduced costs of transporting grain and other commodities.
The Silk Road was the most important pre-modern Eurasian trade route. During this period of the Pax Sinica, the Silk Road reached its golden age, whereby Persian and Sogdian merchants benefited from the commerce between East and West. At the same time, the Chinese empire welcomed foreign cultures, making the Tang capital the most cosmopolitan area in the world. In addition, the maritime port city of Guangzhou in the south was also a home to many foreign merchants and travelers from abroad.
A Tang Dynasty tri-color glazed figurine of a horse
Although the Silk Road from China to the West was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141–87 BC) centuries before, it was reopened by the Tang in 639 when Hou Junji conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, during Empress Wu Zetian\'s period, the Silk Road reopened when the Tang empire reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade.Eberhard, 179. After the An Shi Rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire had once again lost control over many of its outer western lands, as the Tibetan Empire largely cut off China\'s direct access to the Silk Road. An internal rebellion in 848 ousted the Tibetan rulers, while Tang China regained its western territories from Tibet in 851, which contained crucial grazing areas and pastures for raising horses that the Tang Dynasty desperately needed.Whitfield, 57 & 228.
Despite the many western travelers coming into China to live and trade, many travelers, mainly religious monks, recorded the strict border laws that the Chinese enforced. As the monk Xuanzang and many other monk travelers attested to, there were many Chinese government checkpoints along the Silk Road that examined travel permits into the Tang Empire. Furthermore, banditry was a problem along the checkpoints and oasis towns, as Xuanzang also recorded that his group of travelers were assaulted by bandits on multiple occasions.
Chinese envoys had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India since the 2nd century BC,Sun, 161-167.Chen, 67-71. yet it was during the Tang Dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, into Persia, Mesopotamia (sailing up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq), Arabia, Egypt, Aksum (Ethiopia), and Somalia in East Africa.Bowman, 104-105. From the same Quraysh tribe of Muhammad, Sa\'d ibn Abi-Waqqas sailed from Ethiopia to China during the reign of Emperor Gaozu. He later traveled back to China with a copy of the Quran, establishing China\'s first mosque, the Mosque of Remembrance, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong. To this day he is still buried in a Muslim cemetery at Guangzhou.
During the Tang Dynasty, thousands of foreigners came and lived in Guangzhou for trade and commercial ties with China, including Persians, Arabs, Hindu Indians, Malays, Sinhalese, Khmers, Chams, Jews and Nestorian Christians of the Near East, and many others.Schafer, 20. In 748, the Buddhist monk Jian Zhen described Guangzhou as a bustling mercantile center where many large and impressive foreign ships came to dock. He wrote that "many big ships came from Borneo, Persia, Qunglun (Indonesia/Java)...with...spices, pearls, and jade piled up mountain high",Tang, 61.Schafer, 15. as written in the Yue Jue Shu (Lost Records of the State of Yue). After Arab and Persian pirates burned and looted Guangzhou in 758, the Tang government reacted by shutting the port down for roughly five decades, as foreign vessels docked at Hanoi instead.Schafer, 16. However, when the port reopened it continued to thrive. In 851 the Arab merchant Suleiman al-Tajir observed the manufacturing of Chinese porcelain in Guangzhou and admired its transparent quality.Shen, 163. He also provided description on the mosque at Guangzhou, its granaries, its local government administration, some of its written records, the treatment of travellers, along with the use of ceramics, rice-wine, and tea.Woods, 143. However, in another bloody episode at Guangzhou in 879, the Chinese rebel Huang Chao sacked the city, and purportedly slaughtered thousands of native Chinese, along with foreign Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the process.Ebrey (2006), 108.Schafer, 10 & 16.Eberhard, 190. Chao\'s rebellion was eventually suppressed in 884.
A gilt Buddhist reliquary with decorations of armored guards, from Korean Silla, 7th century.
Korean Silla, Manchurian Balhae and Japanese vessels were all involved in the Yellow Sea trade, in which Silla dominated the trade and Japanese vessels ventured into from Hizen.Schafer, 11. After Silla and Japan reopened renewed hostilities in the late 7th century, most Japanese maritime merchants chose to set sail from Nagasaki towards the mouth of the Huai River, the Yangzi River, and even as far south as the Hangzhou Bay in order to avoid Korean ships in the Yellow Sea.
The Tang government and Chinese merchants became interested in by-passing the Arab merchants who dominated the trade of the Indian Ocean, to gain access to thriving trade in the vast oceanic region. Beginning in 785, the Chinese began to call regularly at Sufala on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middlemen,Shen, 155. with various contemporary Chinese sources giving detailed descriptions of trade in Africa. The official and geographer Jia Dan (730–805) wrote of two common sea trade routes in his day: one from the coast of the Bohai Sea towards Korea and another from Guangzhou through Malacca towards the Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka and India, the eastern and northern shores of the Arabian Sea to the Euphrates River. In 863 the Chinese author Duan Chengshi (d. 863) provided detailed description about the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade in a country called Bobali, which historians point to the possibility of being Berbera in Somalia.Levathes, 38. In Fustat (old Cairo), Egypt, the fame of Chinese ceramics there led to an enormous demand for Chinese goods, hence Chinese often traveled there, also in later periods such as Fatimid Egypt.Shen, 158. From this time period, the Arab merchant Shulama once wrote of his admiration for Chinese seafaring junks, but noted that the draft was too deep for them to enter the Euphrates River, which forced them to land small boats for passengers and cargo.Liu (1991), 178. Shulama also noted in his writing that Chinese ships were often very large, large enough to carry aboard 600 to 700 passengers each.Hsu (1988), 96.
The Leshan Giant Buddha, 71 m (233 ft) in height; construction began in 713 and was completed ninety years later in 803.
The Tang Empire was at its height of power up until the middle of the 8th century, when the An Shi Rebellion (December 16, 755–February 17, 763) destroyed the prosperity of the empire. An Lushan was a half-Sogdian, half-Turk Tang commander since 744, had experience fighting the Khitans of Manchuria with a victory in 744,Ebrey (2006), 100.Eberhard, 184. yet most of his campaigns against the Khitans since 736 and after 744 were unsuccessful.Xu et al, p. 455-467 He was given great responsibility in Hebei, which allowed him to rebel with an army of more than one hundred thousand troops. After capturing Luoyang, he named himself emperor of a new, but short-lived, Yan Dynasty. Despite early victories scored by Tang General Guo Ziyi (697–781), the newly recruited troops of the army at the capital were no match for An Lushan\'s die-hard frontier veterans, so the court fled Chang\'an. While the heir apparent raised troops in Shanxi and Xuanzong fled to Sichuan province, they called upon the help of the Uyghur Turks in 756.Eberhard, 185. The Uyghur khan Moyanchur was greatly excited at this prospect, and even married his own daughter to the Chinese diplomatic envoy once he arrived, yet the Uyghur khan would in turn receive a Chinese princess as his bride. Although the Uyghurs helped recapture the Tang capital from the rebels, they continued to stay and refused to leave until the Tang paid them an enormous sum of tribute in silk. Even Abbasid Arabs assisted the Tang in putting down An Lushan\'s rebellion. The Tibetans took hold of the opportunity and raided many areas under Chinese control, and even after the Tibetan Empire had fallen apart in 842 (and the Uyghurs soon after) the Tang were in no position to reconquer Central Asia after 763. Although An Lushan was killed by one of his eunuchs in 757, this time of troubles and widespread insurrection continued until rebel Shi Siming was killed by his own son in 763.
One of the legacies that the Tang government left since 710 was the gradual rise of regional military governors, the jiedushi, who slowly came to challenge the power of the central government.Wang, p. 91 After the An Shi Rebellion, the autonomous power and authority accumulated by the jiedushi in Hebei went beyond the central government\'s control. After a series of rebellions between 781 and 784 in today\'s Hebei, Shandong, Hubei and Henan provinces, the government had to officially acknowledge the jiedushi\'s hereditary ruling without accreditation.Hebei Sanzhen The Tang government relied on these governors and their armies for protection and to suppress locals that would take up arms against the government. In return, the central government would acknowledge the rights of these governors to maintain their army, collect taxes and even to pass on their title to heirs. As time passed on these military governors slowly phased out the prominence of civil officials drafted by exams, and became more autonomous from central authority. The rule of these powerful military governors lasted until 965, when a new civil order under the Song Dynasty was established.Jiedushi Also, the abandonment of the equal-field system meant that people could buy and sell land freely. Many poor fell into debt because of this, forced to sell their land to the wealthy, which led to the exponential growth of large estates.
With the central government collapsing in authority over the various regions of the empire, it was recorded in 845 that bandits and river pirates in parties of 100 or more began plundering settlements along the Yangtze River with little resistance. In 858, enormous floods along the Grand Canal inundated vast tracts of land and terrain of the North China Plain, which drowned tens of thousands of people in the process.Bowman, 105. The Chinese belief in the Mandate of Heaven granted to the ailing Tang was also challenged when natural calamities occurred, forcing many to believe the Heavens were displeased and that the Tang had lost their right to rule. Then in 873 a disastrous harvest shook the foundations of the empire, in some areas only half of all agricultural produce being gathered, and tens of thousands faced famine and starvation. In the earlier period of the Tang, the central government was able to meet crisis in the harvest, as it was recorded from 714–719 that the Tang government took assertive action in responding to natural disasters by extending the price-regulation granary system throughout the country. The central government was able then to build a large surplus stock of foods to meet danger of rising famine and increased agricultural productivity through effective land reclamation,Benn, 7. yet the Tang government in the 9th century was nearly helpless in dealing with any calamity.
The Three Pagodas of Dali, Yunnan province, 9th and 10th centuries.
Although these natural calamities and rebellions stained the reputation and hampered the effectiveness of the central government, the early 9th century is nonetheless viewed as a period of recovery for the Tang Dynasty.Benn, 15-17. The government\'s withdrawal from its role in managing the economy had the unintended effect of stimulating trade, as more markets with less bureaucratic restrictions were opened up.Ebrey (2006), 101.Fairbank, 85. By 780, the old grain tax and labor service of the 7th century was replaced by a semiannual tax paid in cash, signifying the shift to a money economy bolstered by the merchant class.Schafer, 9. Cities in the Jiangnan region to the south, such as Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou prospered the most economically during the late Tang period. Yet even after the power of the central government was in decline since the mid 8th century, it was still able to function and give out imperial orders on a massive scale. Although weakened after the An Shi Rebellion, in 799 the Tang government\'s salt monopoly accounted for over half of the government\'s revenues, while the salt commission became one of the most powerful state agencies, run by capable ministers chosen as specialists in finance. The Tangshu (Book of Tang) compiled in the year 945 recorded that in 828 the Tang government issued a decree that standardized irrigational square-pallet chain pumps in the country:
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