The Tang Dynasty

Instructor Pacas

618-907 CE

• In 617 CE, Li Yuan, one of the major military commanders in north China, led his troops in revolt against the Sui and captured Chang’an.

• After this episode Li Yuan proclaimed a new dynasty in China, the Tang.

• In 621 CE his forces captured the second capital of the former Sui, the city of Luoyang.

• He followed these victories by capturing the major cities in the Yangzi River valley in 624 CE.

Tang China

Tang Forces

The Tang

• In 626 CE, Li Yuan’s son Li Shimin imprisoned his father, killed two of his brothers and seized the throne for himself.

• He took the title of Tang Taizong.• By 628 CE, all remnants of internal

resistance to the Tang were eliminated, but Tang Taizong still had to contend with the powerful Turkic Khitans in the northern borders.

Tang Taizong Great Khan

• Tang Taizong proceeded to move against the Khitans and other Turkic steppe nomads and won some great victories.

• He also cemented some alliances with other Turkic steppe tribes so that eventually the Turkic steppe tribes of the north recognized Tang sovereignty and gave Tang Taizong the title of Great Khan.

The Great Khan Tang Taizong

• This new truce with the Turkic steppe confederations gave the Tang Dynasty and Tang Taizong the ability to expand Chinese spheres of influence in its northern borders but also extend it further west to include Kabul, Kashgar, and Samarkand.

• This period witnessed the final establishment of the Silk Road.

Tang Taizong 626-649 CE

• Tang Taizong although ruthless in his initial seizure of power was nonetheless an effective administrator/emperor.

• He was able to extend China’s influence and trade links.

• He was able to expand China’s military war machine by using the equal-field system as a form of conscription and increase the size of military.

• Under his leadership China became a beacon and a patron of Buddhist schools, temples, etc.

Tang Taizong Cont’d

• Tang Taizong ensured that the power of political families would be checked by not allowing them to exercise positions of power in their native districts.

• He followed the practice of employing the most capable administrators based on merits and abilities instead of status in society.

• He also was responsible for a codifying a sophisticated legal system that was constantly reviewed every 15 years.

• Penalties being based on a criminal’s rank and status in society however.

Chang’an under the Tang

• By the late 640’s Chang’an was one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world at the time.

• People from all over the world including Indians, Persians, Greeks, Central and South East Asians, Koreans, and Japanese came to trade or sought education in the city.

Buddhism in Tang China

• Tang Taizong was a patron of Buddhism and under his governance Buddhism made huge inroads into China.

• Many schools were opened and many scholars came from India to China.

• You also saw a huge rise in domestic Chinese Buddhist schools of thought.

• Zhiyi synthesize all the disparate schools of Buddhism and believed taught that each school had a valid, if different, meaning and purpose.

• Zhiyi demonstrated, and Tang China followed the example of exercising extreme tolerance for different religions and schools of thought.

Chan/Zen Buddhism

• Bodhidharma came to China and established his form of Buddhism that championed meditation as the way to reach enlightenment. This was known as Chan/Zen Buddhism.

• According to tradition Bodhidharma was the creator of Shaolin Kung Fu.

Tang Chinese Society and Culture

• Tang China was a synthesis of ethnic Chinese culture with many elements from the Eurasian steppes and other civilizations to the west particularly Sogdians and Indians (Indian predominantly through Buddhist influences, while Sogdian from trade).

Uighur Buddhists

Eunuchs, Concubines, and Imperial Power

• Perhaps due to influence from the ‘barbarian’ cultures of the steppes, Tang women enjoyed more rights and privileges (if they were from the elite socio-economic class) comparable to their male counterparts.

• Empress Wu being a great example of the height of power that could be achieved by ambitious women in the Tang court.

Empress Wu Zetian

Empress Wu

• Originally a concubine for Emperor Tang Taizong in 640 CE, Wu Zetian (Empress Wu) manipulatively got rid of her competition after the emperor’s death (died 649 CE) eventually becoming Empress Wu in 656 CE.

• By the 670’s she was practically a co-ruler of Tang China along with Emperor Gaozong.

Empress Wu Cont’d

• When some factions at court challenged her expanding power, Empress Wu had the challengers suppressed ruthlessly.

• This created much tension in court and many Confucians began to feel that the strong will of the empress and the weakness of character of the emperor were a volatile mix for the benefit of the state.

End of Empress Wu

• When Emperor Gaozong died in 683 CE, Empress Wu’s son became Emperor Zhongzong.

• Zhongzong challenged his mother’s overbearing authority and she had him replaced by his younger brother, Emperor Ruizong whom she locked away in a palace to minimize exposure to challenges from other administrators in court who did not like the rule of a strong and ambitious woman.

End of Empress Wu Cont’d

• In 690 CE Empress Wu dropped all pretences and assumed direct power claiming that the Mandate of Heaven had chosen her to create a new dynasty called the Zhou.

• Zhou Dynasty of Empress Wu lasted only 15 years and she was forced to abdicate and return power to her son Emperor Zhongzong in 705 CE. Empress Wu died that same year a few months later.

Innovations of the Tang Dynasty

• Linked to the ever increasing power of played by Buddhists and Buddhism in China many of modern day banking practices are attributed to Buddhism in Tang Dynasty China.

• Checks, paper currency, bank accounts with interest as well as organized tourism, organized hotels, etc. are all developments that date to Tang China of the late 7th century CE.

Tang China in the 8th century CE

• The Tang were restored officially in 705 CE but it lumbered with many problems of court intrigue until Emperor Xuanzong took the throne in 712 CE.

• Emperor Xuanzong ruled from 712-756 CE and under his reign the authority and power of the Tang was mostly restored.

• Except for huge loss of authority to Muslims due to the Tang defeat at the Battle of Talas in 751 CE.

• Also the Rebellion of An Lushan of 755 CE.

Tang Defeat 751 CE

• Wishing to keep control of the trade region with Sogdia and minimize the growing power of the Muslim Caliphate the Tang Chinese went to war against the Arabs in 751 CE near modern day Yunnan.

• However, the Chinese were defeated by the Arabs and their Turkic slave soldiers the ghulams at the Battle of Talas, thus ending Chinese sovereignty in the region.

An Lushan

An Lushan’s Rebellion 755-763 CE

• An Lushan was a Tang general of Turkic-Sogdian mixed ethnicity who perhaps was a secret lover of one of Emperor Xuanzong’s favorite consort Yang Guifei.

• An Lushan suffered from genetic disease that made him extremely obese and had to be carried on a litter. Yang Guifei used to have him dress as a baby too.

755 CE

• Suspecting An Lushan of trying to usurp power the Emperor Xuanzong called him to court, but fearing that it was a trap, An Lushan refused to comply and instead mounted a rebellion in 756 CE.

• An Lushan moved against Chang’an forcing the emperor and Yang Guifei to flee but the emperor’s troop refused to move further south until he had killed his consort to which the emperor painstakingly agreed to comply.

Emperor and consort flee Chang’an

757 CE

• An Lushan was murdered by his own troops in 757 CE.

• The remainder of the Tang court drew alliances with Arabs and Uighurs and moved against the remnants of the An Lushan rebels retaking the capital of Chang’an in 757 CE.

• The rebellion was not officially suppressed until 763 CE when the last remnants of rebels were forced to commit suicide.

The Tang 763-907 CE

• The Tang Dynasty after the An Lushan rebellion was left much weakened and this weakness was exploited by their neighbors in the steppes.

• Turkic steppe tribes forced the Tang Chinese to pay huge tribute that depleted the coffers and overtaxed the population, until the eventual collapse of the Tang in 907 CE.

The Tang 763-907 CE Cont’d

• However, this period of growing weakness of the Tang also coincides with the period of Tang China’s greatest influence on the world at large as trade between Caliphate, India, South East Asia, Korea, and Japan as Central Asian Steppe Nomads and Tang China increased.

Islam in Eurasia

Instructor Pacas

The Muslim Empire• After the death of the prophet Muhammad,

632 CE the Muslim community engaged in a much larger scale process of conquest.

• First subduing the Arabian Peninsula and later moving against the Persian Empire.

• By the end of the 7th century the Muslims had conquered Persia, Arabia, and North Africa.

• Early in the 8th century CE they would conquer parts of Europe and Transoxiana.

Muslim Conquest in 632 CE

Umayyad

• In the 7th century CE Islam conquered the Sassanid Persian Empire 630-644 CE.

• This gave the Muslims a huge cache of weapons to next move their conquest against the Turkic tribes of Khwarazm/Transoxiana.

Transoxiana

• Transoxiana was extremely wealthy as it tapped into the Silk Road trade between Tang China and the West.

• Transoxiana was also militarily one of the most advance territories at the time.

• Enjoying huge innovations in weapons and armor field as well as cavalry tactics and horse archery.

Transoxiana Cont’d

• Khwarazm and Transoxiana also were highly capable societies when it came to castle building engineering. (In fact it is contact via Byzantium, Khwarazm, Transoxiana, and other Turkic states that castle building technology reached Western Europe in the middle ages.

Muslim Conquest 750 CE