(Redirected from Tang dynasty)
The 'Tang Dynasty' () (
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 regent, 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,
while the actual population in modern estimation would be around 80 million.
[2]
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 9th century.
Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era; it is considered the greatest age for
Chinese poetry.
[3] Two of China's most famous historical poets,
Du Fu and
Li Bai, belonged to this age, as well as the poets
Meng Haoran and
Bai Juyi. Many famous visual artists lived during this era, such as the renowned painters
Han Gan,
Wu Daozi, and
Zhan Ziqian. However, classic
Chinese painting would not reach its zenith until the
Song and
Ming dynasties. 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.
History
Establishment
Main articles: Transition from Sui to Tang
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.
[4]
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 advise 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.
[5] 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.
Taizong set out to solve internal problems within the government which had constantly plagued past dynasties. 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 Emperor 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. 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, with a few modifications.
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.
[6] Therefore, Emperor Taizong ordered the government agencies in charge of
municipal construction to build every visiting official his own private
mansion in the capital.
Administration and Politics
Imperial examinations
Following the example from the Sui, 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').
[7] 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.
[8] 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 amount 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.
[9]
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. 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.
Religion and politics
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 elected. 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.
[10] 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.
[11]
Taxes and the Census
''A Man Herding Horses'', by
Han Gan (
706–
783), a court artist under Xuanzong.
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 amount 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.
[12] 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.
[13]
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.
[14]
Military and foreign policy
A bas-
relief of a soldier and horse with elaborate
saddle and
stirrups, from the tomb of Emperor Taizong, c. 650.
,
Naval history of China,
Jimi system
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 major kingdoms paying
tribute to the Tang Dynasty included
Kashmir, Neparo (
Nepal),
Japan,
Korea,
Vietnam, and over nine kingdoms located in
Amu Darya and
Syr Darya valley.
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.
[15] It was more economically feasible as well, since training new recruits and sending them out to the frontier every three years drained the treasury.
By the year
742 the total number of enlisted troops in the Tang armies had risen to about half a million.
Turk and Western Regions
Main articles: Protectorate General to Pacify the West,
Protectorate General to Pacify the North
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.
[16][17] 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.
[18][19] 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.
[20] 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.
[21]
After much of the civil war was ended by 626, along with the defeat of
Liang Shidu in 628, a Chinese warlord who occupied the
Ordos region, the Tang began to take offensive against the Turks.
[22] In the year
630, Tang armies captured areas of modern-day
Inner Mongolia province and southern
Mongolia from the Turks.
[23] 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.
[24][25] 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. On and off 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. There were 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.
[26][27] Hostilities continued until the Tibetan Empire and the Tang Dynasty finally signed a formal peace treaty in 821.
[28] The terms of this treaty, including the borders between the two countries, are recorded in a bilingual inscription on a stone pillar outside the
Jokhang temple in
Lhasa.
[29]
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 military, this was a pivotal moment in history; it marks the spread of Chinese
papermaking into regions west of China,
[30] ultimately reaching Europe by the 12th century.
Korea and Japan
Main articles: Protectorate General to Pacify the East
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.
[31] 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.
[32] 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. By 676, the Tang army was driven out of Korea by
Unified Silla.
Although the Tang had fought the Japanese, they still held cordial relations with
Japan. 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.
[33] 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.
[34] 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.
Usurpation of Empress Wu
A Tang Dynasty
earthenware vase with three-color (sancai) glaze, with a spout in the shape of a bird's head.
Although she entered Emperor Gaozong's court as a 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.
After Emperor Gaozong suffered a
stroke in 655, 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.
[35] After 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).
[36] After only six weeks on the throne in 683, Empress Wu deposed
Emperor Zhongzong after his attempt to appoint his wife's father as chancellor.
While she dominated the court of
Emperor Ruizong, a group of Tang princes and their allies staged a large rebellion against Empress Wu in 684, yet her armies suppressed their dissent within two months.
As China's first female emperor in 690 upon her son's abdication, she ruled until her death in 705, her designated heir apparent becoming
Emperor Zhongzong of Tang.
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 as officials, 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, and afterwards installed his father
Emperor Ruizong to 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.
[37][38]
During the 44 year reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the Tang Dynasty was brought to its height and golden age, a period of low economic
inflation, as well as toning down 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 beforehand all executions had to be approved by the emperor himself (which was relatively low, considering that there were only 24 executions in the year 730 alone).
[39]
Trade and the spread of culture
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 the Tang were able to acquire new ideals in fashion, favouring trousers over robes, new improvements on ceramics, and rare ingenious paintings. To the Middle East, the Islamic world coveted and purchased in bulk Chinese goods such as
silks,
lacquer-wares, and
porcelain wares.
Songs, dances, and musical instruments from foreign regions became popular in China during the Tang Dynasty.
[40] 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. 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
A Tang Dynasty tri-color
glazed figurine of a horse
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.
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 three decades. It was closed after the Tibetan captured it, largely blocking the route to the west. About 20 years later, 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. 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.
It was not until the 840s that Tang China regained its western territories from Tibet, which contained crucial grazing areas and pastures for raising horses that the Tang Dynasty desperately needed.
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.
Seaports and maritime trade
Figurine of a foreign merchant of the Tang Dynasty, 7th century.
Chinese envoys had been sailing through the
Indian Ocean to
India since the 2nd century BC,
[41][42] 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.
[43] 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,
Jews and
Nestorian Christians of the
Near East, and many others.
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",
[44] 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. 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.
[45] 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.
[46] 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.
[47] His rebellion was eventually suppressed in 884.
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,
[48] with various contemporary Chinese sources giving detailed descriptions of trade in Africa. In
863 the Chinese author
Duan Chengshi 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.
[49] 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.
[50] 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.
[51] Shulama also noted in his writing that Chinese ships were often very large, large enough to carry aboard 600 to 700 passengers each.
Decline
Rebellion and catastrophe
The
Leshan Giant Buddha, 71 meters tall, construction began in 713, 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,
[52] yet most of his campaigns against the Khitans since
736 and after
744 were unsuccessful.
[53] He was given great responsibility in
Hebei, which allowed him to rebel with an army of more than one hundred thousand troops.
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
Luoyang.
While the heir apparent raised troops in
Ningxia and Xuanzong fled to
Sichuan province, they called upon the help of the
Uyghur Turks in 756. The Uyghur khan
Moyanchur was greatly excited at this prospect, and even married his own daughter to the Chinese diplomatic envoy once he arrived. 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.
Furthermore, 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 his own son in 757, this time of troubles and widespread insurrection continued until 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.
[54] 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.
[55] 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.
[56] 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.
[57] 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,
yet the Tang government in the 9th century was nearly helpless in dealing with any calamity.
Rebuilding and recovery
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.
[59] 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.
[60] 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:
The last great ambitious ruler of the Tang Dynasty was
Emperor Xianzong of Tang (r.
805–
820), his reign period aided by the fiscal reforms of the 780s, including the government monopoly on the salt industry.
[61] He also had an effective well trained imperial army stationed at the capital led by his court eunuchs; this was the Army of Divine Strategy, numbering 240,000 in strength as recorded in 798.
[62] Between the years 806 and 819, Emperor Xianzong conducted seven major military campaigns to quell the rebellious provinces that had claimed autonomy from central authority, managing to subdue all but two of them.
[63] Under his reign there was a brief end to the hereditary jiedushi, as Xianzong appointed his own military officers and staffed the regional bureaucracies once again with civil officials.
However, Xianzong's successors proved less capable and more interested in the leisure of hunting, feasting, and playing outdoor sports, allowing eunuchs to amass more power as drafted scholar-officials caused strife in the bureaucracy with factional parties.
The eunuchs' power became unchallenged after
Emperor Wenzong of Tang's failed plot to have them overthrown; instead the allies of Emperor Wenzong were publicly executed in the
West Market of Chang'an, by the eunuch's command.
Tension also stimulated an antagonism against religion in general and specifically against Buddhism. Suppression of religion was intiated in 841 by the court. Although these orders were rescinded in 843, by then a quarter of a million monks and nuns had left the practice of Buddhism, 4,600 monasteries and 40,000 shrines had been destroyed or converted to other uses, and 150,000 slaves had been confiscated.
Although Buddhism continued to be practiced, it had suffered an inreparable loss in momentum and its centres never regained its previous simulating philosophical and intellectual component.
[64]
Fall of the Tang dynasty
In addition to natural calamities and jiedushi amassing autonomous control in their regions, the
Huang Chao Rebellion (
875–
884) resulted in the sacking of both Chang'an and Luoyang, and took an entire decade to suppress. Although the rebellion was defeated by the Tang, it never recovered from that crucial blow, weakening it for the future military powers to take over. There were also large groups of bandits, in the size of small armies, that ravaged the countryside in the last years of the Tang, who smuggled illicit salt, ambushed merchants and
convoys, and even besieged several walled cities.
A certain
Zhu Wen (originally a salt smuggler) who had served under the rebel Huang had later surrendered to Tang forces, his military merit in betraying and defeating Huang's forces meaning rapid military promotions for him.
[65] In
907, after almost 300 years in power, the dynasty was ended when this military governor, Zhu Wen (known soon after as Taizu of Later Liang), deposed the last emperor of Tang,
Emperor Ai of Tang, and took the throne for himself. He established his
Later Liang Dynasty, which thereby inaugurated the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. A year later, the deposed Emperor Ai was poisoned to death by Zhu Wen.
Although cast in a negative light by many for usurping power from the Tang, Zhu Wen turned out to be a skilled administrator. Emperor Taizu of Later Liang was also responsible for the building of a large
seawall, along with new walls and roads for the burgeoning city of
Hangzhou, which would later become the capital of the
Southern Song Dynasty.
Society and culture
Both the Sui and Tang Dynasties had turned away from the more
feudal culture of the preceding Northern Dynasties, in favor of staunch civil
Confucianism.
A government system supported by a large class of Confucian
intellectuals selected through civil service examinations was perfected under Tang rule. In the Tang period,
Taoism and
Buddhism reigned as core ideologies as well, and played a large role in people's daily lives. The Tang Chinese enjoyed feasting, drinking, holidays, sports, and all sorts of entertainment, while
Chinese literature blossomed and was more widely accessible with new
printing methods.
Leisure in the Tang
Much more than earlier periods, the Tang era was an era renowned for its time reserved for leisure activity, especially for those in the upper classes.
[66] Many outdoor sports and activities were enjoyed during the Tang, including
archery,
[67] hunting,
[68] horse
polo,
[69] cuju football,
[70] cockfighting,
[71] and even
tug of war.
[72] Government officials were granted
vacations during their tenure in office. Officials were granted 30 days off every three years to visit their parents if they lived 1000 miles/1609 km away, or 15 days off if the parents lived more than 167 miles/268 km away (travel time not included).
Officials were granted nine days of vacation time for weddings of a son or daughter, and either five, three, or one days/day off for the
nuptials of close relatives (travel time not included).
Officials also received a total of three days off for their son's capping initiation rite into manhood, and one day off for the ceremony of initiation rite of a close relative's son.
such as
Chinese New Year,
Lantern Festival,
Cold Food Festival, and others were universal holidays. In the capital city of
Chang'an there was always lively celebration, especially for the
Lantern Festival since the city's nighttime
curfew was lifted by the government for three days straight.
[73] Between the years 628 and 758, the imperial throne bestowed a total of sixty-nine grand
carnivals nationwide, granted by the emperor in the case of special circumstances like important military victories, abundant
harvests after a long
drought or
famine, the granting of
amnesties, the installment of a new
crown prince, etc.
[74] For special celebration in the Tang era, lavish and gargantuan-sized feasts were sometimes prepared, as the imperial court had staffed agencies to prepare the meals.
[75] This included a prepared feast for 1,100 elders of Chang'an in 664, a feast for 3,500 officers of the Divine Strategy Army in 768, and a feast for 1,200 women of the palace and members of the imperial family in the year 826.
Drinking
wine and
alcoholic beverages was heavily ingrained into Chinese culture, as people drank for nearly every social event.
[76] A court official in the 8th century even had a
serpentine-shaped structure called the 'Ale Grotto' built with 50,000 bricks on the groundfloor that each featured a drinking bowl for his friends to drink from.
[77]
Chang'an, the Tang capital
Main articles: Chang'an
Although Chang'an was the site for the capital of the earlier Han and Jin dynasties, after subsequent destruction in warfare, it was the Sui Dynasty model that comprised the Tang era capital. The roughly-square dimensions of the city had six miles of outer walls running east to west, and more than five miles of outer walls running north to south.
From the large Mingde Gates located mid-center of the main southern wall, a wide city avenue stretched from there all the way north to the central administrative city, behind which was the Chentian Gate of the royal palace, or Imperial City. Intersecting this were fourteen main streets running east to west, while eleven main streets ran north to south. These main intersecting roads formed 108 rectangular wards with walls and four gates each, and each ward filled with multiple
city blocks. The city was made famous for this checkerboard pattern of main roads with walled and gated districts, its layout even mentioned in one of Du Fu's poems.
[78] During the
Heian period, the city of
Kyoto in
Japan (like many cities) was arranged in the checkerboard street grid pattern of the Tang capital and in accordance with traditional geomancy following the model of Chang'an.
Of these 108 wards in Chang'an, two of them (each the size of two regular city wards) were designated as government-supervised markets, and other space reserved for temples, gardens, ponds, etc.
Throughout the entire city, there were 111 Buddhist monasteries, 41 Daoist abbeys, 38 family shrines, 2 official temples, 7 churches of foreign religions, 10 city wards with provincial transmission offices, 12 major
inns, and 6
graveyards.
[79] Some city wards were literally filled with open public playing fields or the backyards of lavish mansions for playing horse polo and
cuju football.
[80]
Chinese ladies playing
cuju football, which was played in fields of city wards and in immediate areas outside of Chang'an.
The Tang capital was the largest city in the world at its time, the population of the city wards and its outlying suburbs reaching 2 million inhabitants.
The Tang capital was very cosmopolitan, with ethnicities of
Persia, Central Asia, Japan, Korea,
Vietnam,
Tibet, India, and many other places living within. Naturally, with this plethora of different ethnicities living in Chang'an, there were also many different practiced religions, such as
Buddhism,
Nestorian Christianity,
Manichaeism,
Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, and
Islam being practiced within. With widely open access to China that the
Silk Road to the west facilitated, many foreign settlers were able to move east to China, while the city of Chang'an itself had about 25,000 foreigners living within.
[81]
Chang'an was the center of the central government, the home of the imperial family, and was filled with splendor and wealth. However, incidentally it was not the economic hub during the Tang Dynasty. The city of
Yangzhou along the
Grand Canal and close to the
Yangtze River was the greatest economic center during the Tang era.
[82] Yangzhou was the headquarters for the Tang's
government monopoly on
salt, and the greatest industrial center of China; it acted as a midpoint in shipping of foreign goods that would be organized and distributed to the major cities of the north.
This was aided by
Guangzhou in the south, the most important international
seaport for the empire.
There was also the secondary capital city of
Luoyang, which was the favored capital of the two by
Empress Wu. In the year 691 she had more than 100,000 families (more than 500,000 people) from around the region of Chang'an move to populate Luoyang instead.
With a population of about a million, Luoyang became the second largest capital in the empire, and with its close proximity to the Luo River it benefited from southern agricultural fertility and trade traffic of the Grand Canal.
However, the Tang court eventually demoted its capital status and did not visit Luoyang after the year 743, when Chang'an's problem of acquiring adequate supplies and stores for the year was solved.
Literature
Main articles: Chinese literature,
Chinese poetry
The Tang period was a
golden age of Chinese literature and
art. Perfecting one's skills in the composition of poetry became a required study for those wishing to pass
imperial examinations,
[83] while poetry was also heavily competitive; poetry contests amongst esteemed guests at
banquets and courtiers of elite social gatherings was common in the Tang period.
[84] Poetry styles that were popular in the Tang included
gushi and
jintishi, with the renowned Tang poet
Li Bai famous for the former style, and Tang poets like
Wang Wei (
701–
761) and
Cui Hao (
704–
754) famous for their use of the latter. Jintishi poetry, or regulated verse, is in the form of eight-line
stanzas or seven
characters per line with a fixed pattern of tones that required the second and third couplets to be antithetical (although the
antithesis is often lost in translation to other languages).
[85] Tang poems in particular remain the most popular out of every historical era of China. This great emulation of Tang era poetry began in the Song Dynasty period, as it was Yan Yu (active 1194–1245) who asserted that he was the first to designate the poetry of the High Tang (c. 713–766) era as the
orthodox material with "canonical status within the classical poetic tradition."
At the pinnacle of all the Tang poets, Yan Yu had reserved the position of highest esteem for that of
Du Fu (
712–
770),
[86] a man who would not be viewed as such in his own era of poetic competitors, and branded by his peers as an anti-traditional rebel.
[87] Below is an example of Du Fu's poetry, ''To My Retired Friend Wei'', displaying fondness of being in the company of an old friend who he had not seen in two decades:
 Cquote1.png | ''It is almost as hard for friends to meet''
''as for the morning and evening stars.''
''Tonight then is a rare event,''
''joining, in the candlelight,''
''two men who were young not long ago''
''but now are turning grey at the temples.''
''...To find that half our friends are dead''
''shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.''
''We little guessed it would be twenty years''
''Before I could visit you again.''
''When I went away, you were still unmarried;''
''But now these boys and girls in a row''
''are very kind to their father's old friend.''
''They ask me where I have been on my journey;''
''and then, when we have talked awhile,''
''they bring and show me wines and dishes,''
''spring chives cut in the night-rain''
''and brown rice cooked freshly a special way.''
''...My host proclaims it a festival,''
''He urges me to drink ten cups --''
''but what ten cups could make me as drunk''
''as I always am with your love in my heart?''
''...Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;''
''after tomorrow - who can say?''
|  Cquote2.png |
| Du Fu[88] |
There were other important literary forms besides poetry during the Tang period. There was
Duan Chengshi's (d.
863) ''
Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'', an entertaining collection of foreign legends and hearsay, reports on natural phenomena, short
anecdotes, mythical and mundane tales, as well as notes on various subjects. The exact literary category or classification that Duan's large informal
narrative would fit into is still debated amongst scholars and historians.
[89] Short story
fiction and tales were also popular during the Tang, one of the more famous ones being ''Yingying's Biography'' by
Yuan Zhen (
779–
831), which was widely circulated in his own time and later became the basis for plays in
Chinese opera.
[90] Chinese
geographers such as
Jia Dan wrote accurate descriptions of places far abroad. In his work written between
785 and
805, he described the sea route going into the mouth of the
Persian Gulf, and that the medieval
Iranians (whom he called the people of Luo-He-Yi) had erected 'ornamental pillars' in the sea that acted as
lighthouse beacons for ships that might go astray.
[91] Confirming Jia's reports about lighthouses in the Persian Gulf, Arabic writers a century after Jia wrote of the same structures, writers such as
al-Mas'udi and
al-Muqaddasi. The Tang Dynasty Chinese
diplomat Wang Xuance traveled to
Magadha (modern northeastern
India) during the 7th century. Afterwards he wrote the book ''Zhang Tian-zhu Guo Tu'' (Illustrated Accounts of Central India), which included a wealth of geographical information.
[92] Many histories of previous dynasties were compiled between
636 and
659 by court officials during and shortly after the reign of
Emperor Taizong of Tang. These included the ''
Book of Liang'', ''
Book of Chen'', ''
Book of Northern Qi'', ''
Book of Zhou'', ''
Book of Sui'', ''
Book of Jin'', ''
History of Northern Dynasties'' and the ''
History of Southern Dynasties''. Although not included in the official ''
Twenty-Four Histories'', the ''
Tongdian'' and ''
Tang Huiyao'' were nonetheless valuable written historical works of the Tang period. The ''
Shitong'' written by
Liu Zhiji in
710 was a meta-history, as it covered the history of
Chinese historiography in past centuries until his time. The ''
Great Tang Records on the Western Regions'', complied by
Bianji, recounted the journey of
Xuanzang, the Tang era's most renowned
Buddhist monk. There were also large
encyclopedias published, such as the ''
Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era'', compiled in the 8th century by
Gautama Siddha, an ethnic
Indian
astronomer,
astrologer, and scholar born in the capital
Chang'an. The
Classical Prose Movement was spurred large in part by the writings of Tang authors
Liu Zongyuan (
773–
819) and
Han Yu (
768–
824). This new
prose style broke away from the poetry tradition of the 'piantiwen' style begun in the ancient Han Dynasty. Although writers of the Classical Prose Movement imitated 'piantiwen', they criticized it for its often vague content and lack of colloquial language, focusing more on clarity and precision to make their writing more direct.
[93] This ''guwen'' (archaic prose) style can be traced back to Han Yu, and would become largely associated with
orthodox Neo-Confucianism.
[94]
Religion and philosophy
Main articles: Religion in China,
Chinese philosophy
Stimulated by contact with
India and the
Middle East, the Empire saw a flowering of creativity in many fields.
Buddhism, originating in India around the time of
Confucius, continued to flourish during the Tang period and was adopted by the imperial family, becoming thoroughly sinicized and a permanent part of Chinese traditional culture. In an age before
Neo-Confucianism and figures such as
Zhu Xi, Buddhism had begun to flourish in China during the
Southern and Northern Dynasties, and became the dominant ideology during the prosperous Tang. However, situations changed as the dynasty and central government began to decline during the 9th century. Buddhist
convents and
temples that were exempt from state taxes beforehand were targeted by the state for taxation. In 845
Emperor Wuzong of Tang finally shut down 4,600 Buddhist
monasteries along with 40,000 temples and shrines, forcing 260,000 Buddhist monks and nuns to return to
secular life;
this episode would later be dubbed one of the
Four Buddhist Persecutions in China. Although this ban would be lifted just a few years after it was enacted, Buddhism never again gained its once dominant status that it enjoyed during the earlier era.
This situation also came about through new revival of interest in native Chinese philosophies, such as Confucianism and Daoism. The "brilliant
polemicist and ardent
xenophobe"
Han Yu (
786–
824) was one of the first men of the Tang to denounce Buddhism.
Although his contemporaries found him crude and obnoxious, he would foreshadow the later persecution of Buddhism in the Tang, as well as the revival of Confucian theory with the rise of
Neo-Confucianism of the
Song Dynasty.
[95] Nonetheless,
Chán Buddhism gained popularity amongst the educated elite.
[96] There were also many famous Chan monks from the Tang era, such as
Mazu Daoyi,
Baizhang, and
Huangbo Xiyun.
Rivaling Buddhism was
Taoism, a native Chinese philosophical and religious belief system that found its roots in the book of the ''
Tao Te Ching'' (attributed to
Lao Zi in the 6th century BC) and the ''
Zhuangzi''. The ruling Li family of the Tang Dynasty actually claimed descent from the ancient Lao Zi.
On numerous occasions where Tang princes would become crown prince or Tang princesses taking vows as Taoist priestesses, their lavish former mansions would be converted into Taoist
abbeys and places of worship.
Innovations
Main articles: History of science and technology in China
Woodblock printing made the written word available to vastly greater audiences. The text of the
Diamond Sutra is an early example of Chinese woodblock printing, complete with illustrations embedded with the text. With so many more books coming into circulation for the general public, literacy rates could improve, along with the lower classes being able to obtain cheaper sources of study. Therefore, there was more lower class people seen entering the Imperial Examinations and passing them by the later
Song Dynasty (
960–
1279). Although the later
Bi Sheng's
movable type printing in the 11th century was innovative for his period, woodblock printing that became widespread in the Tang would remain the dominant printing type in China until the more advanced
printing press from
Europe became widely accepted and used in East Asia. Technology during the Tang period was built also upon the precedents of the past. The mechanical gear systems of
Zhang Heng and
Ma Jun gave the Tang engineer, astronomer, and Buddhist monk
Yi Xing (
683–
727) a great source of influence when he invented the world's first clockwork
escapement mechanism in 725.
[97] This was used alongside a
clepsydra clock and
waterwheel to power a rotating
armillary sphere in representation of
astronomical observation.
[98] Yi Xing's device also had a mechanically-timed bell that was struck automatically every hour, and a drum that was struck automatically every quarter hour.
[99] His
astronomical clock and water-powered armillary sphere also became well known throughout the country, since students attempting to pass the imperial examinations by 730 had to write an essay on the device as an exam requirement.
[100] There were many other technically impressive inventions during the Tang era. This included a 3 ft. tall mechanical wine server of the early 8th century that was in the shape of an artificial mountain, carved out of
iron and rested on a
lacquered-wooden
tortoise frame.
[101] This intricate device used a
hydraulic pump that
siphoned wine out of metal
dragon-headed
faucets, as well as tilting bowls that were timed to dip wine down, by force of
gravity when filled, into an artificial
lake that had intricate iron leaves popping up as trays for placing party treats.
Furthermore, as the historian Charles Benn describes it:
Although the use of a teasing mechanical puppet in this wine-serving device was certainly ingenious, the use of mechanical puppets in China date back to the
Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC)
[102] while
Ma Jun in the 3rd century had an entire mechanical puppet
theater operated by the rotation of a waterwheel.
There was also an automatic wine-server known in the ancient
Greco-Roman world, a design of
Heron of Alexandria that employed an urn with an inner valve and a lever device similar to the one described above. The Chinese of the Tang era were also very interested in the benefits of officially classifying all of the
medicines used in
pharmacology. In 657,
Emperor Gaozong of Tang (r.
649–
683) commissioned the literary project of publishing an official
materia medica, complete with text and aid of illustrated drawing for 833 different medicincal substances taken from different stones, minerals, metals, plants, herbs, animals, vegetables, fruits, and cereal crops.
[103] In the realm of technical
Chinese architecture, there were also government standard
building codes, outlined in the early Tang book of the ''Yingshan Ling'' (National Building Law).
[104] Fragments of this book have survived in the ''Tang Lü'' (The Tang Code),
[105] while the Song Dynasty architectural manual of the ''
Yingzao Fashi'' (State Building Standards) by
Li Jie (1065–1101) in
1103 is the oldest existing technical treatise on Chinese architecture that has survived in full.
During the reign of
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (
712–
756) there were 34,850 registered
craftsmen serving the state, managed by the Agency of Palace Buildings (Jingzuo Jian).
Tang women
''Beauties Wearing Flowers'', by painter
Zhou Fang, 8th century.
Women's social rights and social status during the Tang era were incredibly liberal-minded for the medieval period. However, this was largely reserved for urbane women of elite status, as men and women in the rural countryside labored hard in their different set of tasks; with wives and daughters responsible for more domestic tasks of weaving
textiles and rearing of
silk worms, while men tended to farming in the fields.
There were many women in the Tang era who gained access to religious authority by taking vows as Taoist priestesses.
[106] The head mistresses of the
bordellos in the
North Hamlet (also known as the
Gay Quarters) of the capital Chang'an acquired large amounts of wealth and power.
[107] Their high-class
courtesans, who very much resembled Japanese
geishas,
[108] were respected. These courtesans were known as great singers and poets, supervised banquets and feasts, knew the rules to all the
drinking games, and were trained to have the utmost respectable
table manners.
[108][110] Although they were renowned for their polite behavior, the courtesans were known to dominate the conversation amongst elite men, and were not afraid to openly castigate or criticize prominent male guests who talked too much or too loudly, boasted too much of their accomplishments, or had in some way ruined dinner for everyone by rude behavior (on one occasion a courtesan even beat up a drunken man who had insulted her).
Women who were full-figured (even plump) were considered attractive by men, as men also enjoyed the presence of assertive, active women. In example of the latter, the foreign horse-riding sport of
polo (from
Persia) became a wildly popular trend amongst the Chinese elite, as women often played the sport (as glazed
earthenware figurines from the time period portray). There were some prominent court women after the era of Empress Wu, such as
Yang Guifei (
719–
756), who had Emperor Xuanzong appoint some of her friends and cronies in important ministerial and martial positions.
Tea, food, and necessities
During the earlier
Southern and Northern Dynasties (
420 –
589), and perhaps even earlier, the drink of
tea had become popular in southern China. Tea comes from the leaf buds of
Camelia sinensis, native to southwestern China. Tea was viewed then as a beverage of tasteful pleasure and looked upon with pharmacological purpose as well. During the Tang Dynasty, tea was synonymous with everything sophisticated in society. The Tang poet
Lu Tong (
790–
835) devoted most of his poetry to his love of tea. The 8th century author
Lu Yu (known as the Sage of Tea) even wrote a treatise on the art of drinking tea, called the ''
Classic of Tea'' (Chájīng).
[111] Although
wrapping paper had been used in China since the 2nd century BC,
[112] during the Tang Dynasty the Chinese were using wrapping paper as folded and sewn square
bags to hold and preserve the flavor of tea leaves.
Indeed, paper found many other uses besides writing and wrapping during the Tang era. Earlier, the first recorded use of
toilet paper was made in 589 by the scholar official
Yan Zhitui,
[113] and in 851 an
Arab Muslim traveler commented on how the Tang era Chinese were not careful about cleanliness because they did not wash with water when going to the bathroom; instead, he said, the Chinese simply used paper to wipe with.
A Tang era gilt-silver ear cup with
flower design
In ancient times, the Chinese had outlined the five most basic foodstuffs known as the five grains:
sesamum,
legumes,
wheat,
panicled
millet, and
glutinous millet.
[114] The
Ming Dynasty encyclopedist Song Yingxing (
1587–
1666) noted that
rice was not counted amongst the five grains from the time of the legendary and deified
Shennong (the existence of whom Yingxing wrote was "an uncertain matter") into the 2nd and 1st millenniums BC, because the properly wet and humid climate in
southern China for growing rice was not yet fully settled or cultivated by the Chinese.
During the Tang, the many common foodstuffs and cooking ingredients in addition to those already listed were
barley,
garlic,
salt,
turnips,
soybeans,
pears,
apricots,
peaches,
apples,
pomegranates,
jujubes,
rhubarb,
hazelnuts,
pine nuts,
chestnuts,
walnuts,
yams,
taro, etc.
[115] The various meats that were consumed included
pork,
chicken,
lamb (especially preferred in the north),
sea otter,
bear (which was hard to catch, but there were recipes for steamed, boiled, and
marinated bear), and even
bactrian camels.
In the south along the coast meat from seafood was by default the most common, as the Chinese enjoyed eating cooked
jellyfish with
cinnamon,
Sichuan pepper,
cardamom, and
ginger, as well as
oysters with
wine, fried
squid with ginger and
vinegar,
horseshoe crabs and
red crabs,
shrimp, and
pufferfish, which the Chinese called 'river piglet'.
[116] Some foods were also off-limits, as the Tang court encouraged people not to eat
beef (since the
bull was a valuable
draft animal), and from 831 to 833
Emperor Wenzong of Tang even banned the slaughter of
cattle on the grounds of his religious convictions to Buddhism.
[117] With large amount of facilitated trade over land and overseas, the Chinese acquired golden
peaches from
Samarkand,
date palms,
pistachios, and
figs from Persia, pine seeds and
ginseng roots from
Korea, and
mangoes from
Southeast Asia.
[118]
Methods of
food preservation were important and practiced throughout China. The common people used simple methods of preservation, such as digging deep ditches and trenches,
brining, and salting their foods.
[119] The emperor had large
ice pits located in the parks in and around Chang'an for preserving food, while the wealthy and elite had their own smaller ice pits.
[120] Each year the emperor had laborers carve 1000 blocks of ice from frozen creeks in mountain valleys, each block with the dimension of 3 ft. by 3 ft. and 3½ ft.
There were many frozen delicacies enjoyed during the summer, especially chilled
melon.
Historiography about the Tang
Main articles: Chinese historiography
The first classic work about the Tang is the ''
Book of Tang'' by Liu Xu (
887–
946) et al of the
Later Jin redacted it during the last years of his life. This was edited into another history (labelled the ''
New Book of Tang'') in order to distinguish it, which was a work by the historian
Ouyang Xiu (
1007–
1072), Song Qi (
998–
1061) et al of the
Song Dynasty (between the years 1044 and 1060). Both of them were based upon earlier annals, yet those are now lost.
[121] Both of them also rank among the ''
Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. One of the surviving sources of the ''Book of Tang'', primarily covering up to 756, is the ''
Tongdian'', which
Du You presented to the emperor in 801. The Tang period was again placed into the enormous
universal history text of the ''
Zizhi Tongjian'', edited, compiled, and completed in 1084 by a team of scholars under the Song Dynasty Chancellor
Sima Guang (
1019–
1086). This historical text, written with 3 million
Chinese characters in 294 volumes, covered the history of China from the beginning of the
Warring States (403 BC) until the beginning of the Song Dynasty (960).
See also
★
List of Tang Emperors
★
Tang Dynasty art
★
Islam during the Tang Dynasty
★
List of tributaries of Imperial China
★
Imperial embassies to China
★
Four Buddhist Persecutions in China
★
Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup
★
I Ching (monk)
★
Yan Zhenqing
Notes
1. Ebrey, ''Cambridge Illustrated History of China'', 141.
2. Du, p. 37
3. Yu, 73-87.
4. Ebrey, 91.
5. Ebrey, 93.
6. Benn, 59.
7. Ebrey, 91-92.
8. Ebrey, 92.
9. Ebrey, 97.
10. Benn, 57.
11. Benn, 61.
12. Benn, 45.
13. Benn, 32.
14. Ebrey, 156.
15. Benn, 9.
16. Ebrey, 113.
17. Xue, p. 149-152, 257-264
18. Benn, 2-3.
19. Cui, p. 655-659
20. Xue, p. 788
21. Liu, p. 85-95
22. Xue, p. 226-227
23. Xue, p. 380-386
24. Benn 2.
25. Xue, p. 222-225
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