Tang Dynasty. It was founded by Li Yuan, a military commander who proclaimed himself emperor in 618 after suppressing a coup by his guards who assassinated the Sui emperor Yangdi (r. 614–618). Although Gaozu (Li Yuan’s reign name) was the first of the Tang emperors, it was under his son Taizong (r. 624–649) that the Tang dynasty consolidated its power and began to achieve an internal peace that would last for almost three centuries, interrupted only by the nine-year An Lushan Rebellion (755–763).
History
The Sui dynasty unified China under indigenous Chinese rulers for the first time since the end of the Han period, and the Tang inherited this legacy. However, unlike the Han emperors, Taizong was partly of Turkic descent, and was born and raised in border territories, so he was intimately familiar with the problems of nomadic invaders who were pressing on the Tang’s northern border.
By 630, Taizong had defeated the eastern Turkic nomads and resettled them north of the Ordos in the Inner Mongolis. Other Central Asian peoples and minor kingdoms in northwestern China submitted to the Tang court, naming Taizong their “supreme Khan.” This brought the important Hexi Corridor and the Gobi oases under imperial Chinese control, and Taizong recruited garrisons of Turkic and Central Asian soldiers to guard the trade routes, facilitating a renewed flow of goods carried by merchants from Central Asia, India , and the Near East , who brought with them their religion and culture.
Economic and cultural development
Clerics in the Tang Court
The Tang period is considered the golden age in the annals of Chinese history, marked by a period of unprecedented military and political dominance of the Asian continent. It is also notable for its great material prosperity, lofty artistic and cultural achievements, and a level of interest in and tolerance of foreign cultures and religions that made Chang’an, the Tang capital, the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Thousands of foreign merchants and artisans lived in Chang’an and other major cities of the empire, while followers of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Islam , and Nestorianism worshipped according to their own customs in temples, mosques, and churches, some of which were built with funds donated by the Tang court.
Foreign envoys regularly visited the Tang court, bringing gifts and tributes of Turkic, Uyghur, Toqari, Sogdian, and Iranian origin. Another type of diplomatic envoy was Buddhist clerics who traveled to China from India, Central Asia, Korea , and Japan to study and teach at famous temples. These clerics were often received at the court, and likewise, Chinese Buddhist priests traveled to centers of religious learning (such as Dunhuang) that had developed in the Tarim Basin, where they communicated with clerics of various faiths. Other monks, such as the famous Xuanzong , traveled as far as India in search of scriptures originating in the land of Buddhism .
The Tang aristocracy and wealthy society were strongly influenced by foreign music and arts. Central Asian musicians and dancers were highly regarded both at the Tang court and at the popular level. Aromatic dishes made from expensive imported ingredients and spices were served to the wealthy, accompanied by wine made from grapes. Chinese women arranged their hair in the Uyghur fashion, while fashionable men adopted tights, tight-fitting bodies and Turkish headdresses.
Weakening of the Tang Dynasty
These peaceful and beneficial relations between the Chinese and the foreign residents of the large cities continued until friction began to arise between foreign merchants and Chinese traders in the late 8th century . This friction gradually increased in the form of growing resentment and suspicion toward the expatriate merchants living in Chang’an and other cities, until laws were enacted in 836 prohibiting outside social contacts between Chinese and foreigners. By 845 the Tang court’s liberal policies toward foreign religions were completely reversed, and all foreign religions were outlawed.
This disintegration of good relations between the Chinese and the non-native population coincided with a weakening of Tang imperial political dominance in Central Asia. The beginnings of this decline are usually dated to around 751, when Tang forces were destroyed by an army composed of allied Turkic and Arab forces at Atlach on the Talas River (west of Lake Balkash in modern Kazakhstan).
Collapse of the Tang Dynasty
A few years later, in 755, a rebel army of 150,000 frontiersmen led by the general An Lushan captured the city of Jojun (modern Beijing ) in the northeast of the empire. It took the Tang army eight years to put down the rebellion, and the empire never recovered. Over the next century, peasant revolts and foreign incursions increased, while provincial rulers grew in power as the centralized Tang state slowly collapsed. Although a Tang emperor remained on the throne until 907, by the 890s much of the empire was in the hands of independent and ambitious military leaders. By the time of the Tang collapse, the empire had divided into ten kingdoms, and it would remain fragmented until the reunification of the Song dynasty.
