Introduction
Faced
with disastrous military setbacks in Korea and revolt on the streets,
Yangdi was assassinated by one of his high officials. Meanwhile, another
Sui official , posted in the border garrison of Taiyuan, turned his troops
back on the capital. His name was Li Yuan (known posthumously as Gaozu)
and he was to establish the Tang Dynasty (618-907), commonly regarded
by the Chinese at the most glorious period in their history.
Gaozu's grab at dynastic succession was not without contest, and it was
to take 10 years before the last of his rivals was defeated. Once this
was achieved, however, the Tang set about putting the house in order.
A pyramidal administration was established, with the emperor at its head,
two policy-formulating ministries and a Department of State Affairs below
this, followed in turn by nine courts and six boards dealing with specific
administrative areas. In a move to discourage the development of f fegional
power bases, the empire was divided into 300 prefec-I lures (zhou) and
1500 counties (xian), a regional breakdown that persists to this day.
The accession of Gaozu's son, Taizong (600-649), to the imperial throne
saw a continuation of the early Tang's successes. He was one of the greatest
emperors in China's history and virtually the creator of the Tang Dynasty.
Military conquests re-established Chinese control of the silk routes and
contributed to an influx of traders, producing an unprecedented 'internationalization'
of Chinese society.
The major cities of Chang'an, Luoyang and Guangzhou (formerly Canton),
as well as many other trading centres, were all home to foreign communities.
Mainly from Central Asia, these communities brought with them new religions,
food, music and artistic traditions. Later in the Tang Dynasty, foreign
contact was extended to Persia, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.
By the 9th century the city of Guangzhou was estimated to have a foreign
population of 100,000.
Buddhism also flourished under the Tang. Chinese pilgrims, notably the
famous wanderer Xuan Zang, who was the most famous traveller and translator
of Buddhist scriptures in Tang Dynasty , made their way to India, bringing
back with them Buddhist scriptures that in their turn brought about a
Buddhist renewal. Translation, which until this time had expensively sini-sised
difficult Buddhist concepts, was undertaken with a new rigor , and Chinese
Buddhist texts increased vastly in number. One of the consequences of
this, however, was a schism in the Buddhist faith.
In reaction to the complexity of many buddhist texts being translated
from Sanskrit, the Chan School (more famously known by its Japanese name,
Zen or Nokori) arose. Chan looked to bypass the complexities of scriptural
study through discipline and meditation, while another Buddhist phenomenon,
the Pure Land School (later to become the most important form of Chinese
Buddhism), concerned itself with attaining the 'Western Paradise'.
For the Chinese, the apex of Tang Dynastic glory was the reign of Xuanzong
(685 - 761 ), known also by the title Minghuang, or the 'Radiant Emperor'.
His capital of Chang'an was one of the greatest cities in the world, with
a population of over one million. His court was a magnet to scholars and
artists throughout the country, and home for a time to poets such as Du
Fu and Li Bai, perhaps China's two most famous rhymers. His reign similarly
saw a flourishing of the arts, dance and music, as well as a remarkable
religious diversity.
Some might say that all this artistic activity was an indication that
the empire was beginning to go a bit soft at the core. Xuanzong's increasing
preoccupation with the arts, Tantric Buddhism, Taoism, one of his consorts
Yang Guifei and whatever else captured his fancy, meant that the affairs
of the state were largely left to his administrators.
An Lushan, a general in the northeast, took this opportunity to build
up a huge power base in the region, and before long (755) he made his
move on the rest of China. He led the rebellion and took Chang'an. Emperor
Xuan Zong fled in panic towards Sichuan. The fighting, which dragged on
for nearly 10 years, overran the capital and caused massive dislocations
of people and millions of deaths. Although Tang forces regained control
of the empire, it was the beginning of the end for the Tang.
Tang power gradually weakened during the 8th and 9th centuries. In the
northwest, Tibetan warriors overran Tang garrisons, while to the south
the Nanzhao kingdom centred in Dali, Yunnan, posed a serious threat to
Sichuan. Meanwhile, in the Chinese heartland of the Yangzi region and
Zhejiang, heavy taxes and a series of calamities engendered wide-ranging
discontent that culminated in Huang Cao, the head of a loose grouping
of bandit groups, ransacking the capital.
From 907 to 959, until the establishement of the Song Dynasty, China was
once again racked by wars between contenders for the mandate of heaven.
It is a period often referred to as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Period.