The middle of the eighth century was a period of profound turmoil across Eurasia, from the
Carolingian unrest in 751 to the Abbasid Revolution of 746 and the Tibetan Rebellion of 755. However,
the most devastating of these upheavals was undoubtedly the An Lushan rebellion in Tang
China. This cataclysmic but lesser known conflict ended the High Tang golden age, and resulted
in the death of tens of millions of people. Welcome to our video on the An Lushan rebellion.
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After a period of disunity lasting over two centuries, China finally began its reunification
in 581 when the Sui Dynasty overthrew the Northern Zhou. By 587 Sui had easily crushed
and subjugated the smaller Western Liang. Afterward they struck south, invading the
Southern Chen dynasty. By 589, China had been reunified for the first time in centuries
since the fall of the Han. Though the dynasty’s reign was short, a number of key aspects of
future Chinese civilisation were instituted during it, including the Grand Canal, rebuilding
the Great Wall and the construction of more public works. However, the strain of unification
and these momentous achievements also caused discontent to grow. The final straw was a
series of costly and unsuccessful military expeditions into Korea, which finally broke
Sui power. Despite this, it has been said that the Sui laid the foundation for the greatness
of their eventual Tang successors. Rebellion finally broke out against the Sui
in 613, and one of their most experienced generals Li Yuan, was dispatched to modern
Shaanxi with an army in order to defend the capital. In 615 and 616 he moved north and
destroyed some local bandit groups, as well as repelling a Turkic incursion. Despite his
efforts, rebellion soon spread across the country and, as reports of the mounting anarchy
reached Taiyuan, Li Yuan’s advisors encouraged him to seize power. In 617 he marched south
and successfully besieged the capital at Chang’an, installing a puppet Emperor for a few months,
but then elevating himself to the position after popular acclaim, finally establishing
the Tang Dynasty in 618. Over the next century China attained its highest
territorial, political and cultural position yet, and many scholars consider this period
of the High Tang to be a golden age, during which China was probably the most powerful
and wealthy state in the world. The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was subjugated in 630, followed
by its Western counterpart in 642. With these victories, the Tang gained unquestioned hegemony
over Central Asia and the prosperous silk road caravan cities in the Tarim Basin. It
also successfully expanded into Vietnam and Korea, rising above the failures of previous
dynasties. In the bustling cities of China, writers such as Li Bai and Du Fu created some
of the most revered poetry in the ancient Chinese lyrical tradition, while beautiful
paintings and expertly crafted pottery were created and even exported throughout the world.
To do this, a quasi-modern export industry was developed, where Tang craftsmen would
produce goods for specific markets, such as bowls inscribed with Islamic symbology for
sale in the Muslim Caliphate to the west. In the bustling markets and streets of the
Imperial Capital of Chang’an and other large Tang cities; Indians, Persians, Arabs, Koreans,
Syrians, Sogdians and others functioned as merchants and worshipped in their own manner,
tolerated and encouraged by the High Tang aristocracy and monarchy. It truly was an
age of gold, but it was not to last. As Emperor Xuanzong came to the throne in
712, the Tang golden age reached its apex. The early part of his reign was the period
of greatest creativity of the dynasty and many of the greatest aforementioned works
of the period were created in it. This all changed in 736 when Li Linfu, was appointed
the chief minister. At the same time Xuanzong influenced by religion and his favorite courtesan
became less interested in ruling. In 742, Li Linfu conducted a series of purges getting
rid of the most talented potential adversaries at court.
By 747 he was the de facto dictator. Arguably the most damaging of Li Linfu’s policies
was that of exclusively employing non-Chinese generals as military governors. By entrusting
armies to men with no political ties to the court, he hoped to prevent rivals from rising
to power, however this also meant that the army commanders, were less loyal to the central
government. One of them was An Lushan, a general of the
Sogdian and Göktürk origin. As the most powerful frontier commander, he commanded
a 164-thousand strong army in the northeast, and had his headquarters near modern day Beijing.
He was responsible for controlling the nomadic Khitan people and other nomadic tribes in
the Manchurian region. In addition, Xuanzong and Li Linfu gave him unprecedented favour,
appointed him to high ranking offices, gave him the rank of ‘Prince’, and the right
to mint coins. Meanwhile the Xuanzong Emperor’s favourite
mistress influenced him to appoint several of her kin to important government positions.
As the late 740s progressed one of these family members Yang Guozhong, began to make alliances
with the enemies of Li Linfu, challenging his power. He also began conspiring to remove
his courtly rival’s ally An Lushan from his command. The situation became even more
dangerous in 752 as Li Linfu passed away. Yang Guozhong took control of the Imperial
Court and sought to eliminate An Lushan. The reasoning for what occurred next is debated,
it could be that An Lushan felt threatened in his position by the fickle court in Chang’an,
or that he simply desired to usurp the Tang Dynasty, or even that he began to fear that
he was losing the Emperor’s favour. Whatever the case may be, after continuous escalations
between An Lushan and his enemies he set off from Fanyang in early 755 with around 150,000
soldiers, marching south in the direction of Luoyang; the Eastern Tang Capital.
At this point in the dynasty, the majority of experienced forces were on guard at the
various frontiers, so there were no adequate forces to initially oppose the rebels. Though
the Emperor began to recall his loyal generals and armies from the western regions, it would
take time to gather enough forces. A long term consequence of this withdrawal would
be the loss of Xiyu; the western regions, for almost a millennia.
One of the generals who had returned with haste from the Tarim Basin; Feng Changqing,
quickly assembled a 60,000 strong levy force and moved to confront An Lushan. In a series
of encounters in the eastern capital’s outlying regions, the untested and raw forces of Feng
proved no match for the battle-hardened rebel army and was defeated, with the beaten commander
withdrawing west to the impenetrable Tong mountain Pass with what remained of his army.
Feng Changqing was then joined here by another experienced general; Gao Xianzhi, who had
recently returned from Central Asia after being defeated at the Battle of Talas.
A few months later, Luoyang surrendered to An Lushan. he entered the city and treated
the surrendered Tang officials there with respect and dignity, an act which caused many
of them to come over to him. At the dawn of the year 756, An Lushan declared himself emperor
of a new Yan Dynasty with Luoyang as its capital. As the main rebel army prepared to march on
the Tong pass, where the loyalists had entrenched themselves, An Lushan dispatched other prongs
of his army to the northwest and northeast. His northwestern advance thrust towards the
bend of the Yellow river in order to secure strategic territories in the region. His eastern
deployment was far more critical; as his army had initially dashed south to capture Luoyang,
he had not secured the marching path with garrisons or pledges of loyalty. Due to this,
pockets of Tang loyalist resistance began to spring up on the path from Fanyang to Luoyang,
cutting An Lushan’s connection to his home base in the north, and consequently delaying
his attack on the Tong pass. By the summer of 756 An Lushan had regained control of his
home territory and turned in Chang’an’s direction once again.
Concurrently, the Xuanzong emperor made two catastrophic tactical errors. Furious at Feng
Changqing and Gao Xianzhi for their inability to defeat the rebels, he had them executed
and replaced by a sycophantic subordinate. He then ordered this new commander to abandon
their strong defensive position and attack An Lushan’s force immediately· The attempted
frontal assault turned into a disaster when the army was led into an ambush and destroyed
on July 9th, after marching through a narrow pass. The way to Chang’an and the Imperial
Capital was open, and there was now nothing to defend it. It seemed as though the new
Yan Dynasty had won. The few survivors of the massacre in the mountain
pass fled to the west, and reported what had happened to the Emperor. Alarmed at the news,
Xuanzong and his heir; Suzong, fled the grandeur of the Imperial capital. Two weeks later as
they reached a relay station, the royal entourage was turned on by their soldier escort and
Xuanzong was forced to execute many of his bureaucrats, who the soldiers blamed, probably
correctly, for the disaster at the Tong pass. After placating his warriors, Xuanzong fled
south and eventually reached the city of modern Chengdu in Sichuan province, while his heir
advanced north and approached Lingzhou in the autumn of 756. Three days after his arrival,
Suzong was persuaded to usurp the throne from his exiled father; who was granted the title
shang-huang; or ‘retired emperor’. The Tang’s longest and most glorious reign was
at an end. Meanwhile, An Lushan’s main rebel army entered and occupied the capital at Chang’an,
reportedly massively depopulating the city in the process. It is not known if he massacred
a great portion of the city’s population, or if the disruption simply caused many to
flee, but the formerly glorious city was greatly diminished by this part of the war.
From his new base in the northwest, Suzong began to gather forces to him. In 757 he decided
to borrow troops from both the Abbasid Caliphate in the west and the newly ascendant Uyghur
Khaganate in the north, who likely prospered from Chinese trade and did not want it to
be damaged, or were promised privileges after the rebellion had been quelled.
At the same time, perhaps frustrated by the inability of An Lushan to successfully advance
either west to the Tarim Basin or south to the Yangtze in the face of increasingly stubborn
resistance, a group of his immediate followers assassinated him and installed his son; An
Qingxu, in his place. However, this coup led to the weakening and implosion of the burgeoning
Yan Dynasty, enabling the Tang to strike back. With the assistance of newly gathered frontier
forces and their new allies, the newly enthroned Suzong Emperor marched south once again and
regained the twin capitals of Chang’an and Luoyang from the rebels. The existential threat
to the Tang Dynasty was over, but the victory had been won at great consequence.
The effect of the rebellion on China had been utterly devastating. It is not known how many
Tang subjects perished as a result, but the death toll is widely estimated to range from
15,000,000 to 40,000,000. As the loyalists had been forced to withdraw both their generals
and armies from the frontiers to fight the rebels, their border defences also collapsed;
with armies from Vietnam and the surrounding region attacking the undefended Canton region,
maintaining control over it for half a decade. In 763, the Tang’s long-standing Tibetan
rivals took advantage of their weakness and briefly occupied Chang’an, before they were
forced to retreat. The Tarim Basin and northwest was permanently lost, along with its rich
horse-rearing pasture and wealthy oasis cities. During the rebellion, An Lushan had also seized
the Grand Canal, cut off the flow of grain, cloth and money to Chang’an. Furthermore,
after he had seized the capitals, the Imperial government lost all of the granary contents
and the wealth in its treasuries. As a result, the previously prosperous realm was now in
dire need of funds, and began selling titles and positions; which had before been occupied
by skilled and examined bureaucrats. This situation was not helped by the fact that
the old taxation and land system completely collapsed in the rebellion, as many tax rolls
were destroyed or became obsolete due to the massive casualties and amounts of civilian
displacement. The last embers of Yan rebellion were not
extinguished for another decade, and the impacts of the conflict would plague the Tang dynasty
for the rest of their reign. They would rule for another 150 years before the unified China
once again fragmented, but would never again reach the heights they had achieved before
the rebellion of An Lushan.
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