A common problem when researching history is the fact that not all primary sources have
been translated into English. And so we are left without many details for fascinating
historical figures in foreign cultures, but that shouldn’t stop us from telling our
stories. One of these figures is the Chinese Emperor Taizong of the glorious Tang Dynasty,
who is widely regarded as one of the greatest rulers in the history of China. Taizong, unknown
in the western world, had a prolific talent for military and civilian affairs, and stands
amongst the great enlightened philosopher kings of history.
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The boy who would eventually ascend to the Dragon Throne as Emperor Taizong was born
around the year 598AD in Wugong County, located in modern Shaanxi Province. He was born into
the family of Li Yuan, a prominent Duke in the united Imperial structure of the Sui Dynasty,
whose Li Clan was of strong northern tradition - being of mixed Chinese and Turkic descent.
Legend states that his life began with an auspicious sign, as two great dragons - symbols
of Chinese imperial power and the mandate of heaven - appeared in the sky. When he was
4 a fortune teller prophesied to Li Yuan: “your son possesses the features of both
dragon and phoenix. At the age of 20, he could bring the empire into prosperity.” Motivated
by this encounter, Li Yuan gave the name “Li Shimin” to his son, meaning “Save the
earth and pacify the people.” His mother’s clan - the Tou, was extremely influential
in the Sui period, and continued to be so in the early Tang. Therefore, Taizong was
born in a privileged family, and would have likely received the very best Confucian education,
as well as training in archery and horsemanship.
The young noble quickly began to show an active personality and prodigious talent. This was
clear to everyone and in 613, a high Sui official known as Gao Shilian was impressed by the
14 year old Li Shimin, and offered him the hand of his 12 year old niece.
Two years later, the Sui Emperor Yang was ambushed, surrounded and blockaded by forces
from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, and he required aid. In the subsequent campaign,
Li Shimin either served with distinction in the party who rescued him, or even led it
himself. To top off his childhood achievements, Li
Shimin was chosen above all his other brothers to accompany his father to the important city
of Taiyuan in 616, when that region was assigned to his governance.
Though the Sui Dynasty had managed to reunite all of China for the first time in four centuries,
the success was short lived, and many generals, lords and civilians alike were beginning to
rebel against its rule. During the ensuing chaos, Li Yuan was continuously being advised
to formally rebel by his councillors and his own son. When Li Yuan hesitated in his desire
to revolt against the Sui, Li Shimin proclaimed that the uprising was for the good of the
realm, and that giving up would only end up in abandonment and total defeat. He stated
“Retreating to Taiyuan we are nothing but a rebel force, but advancing to Chang’an
we could command people within the realm”. With this reassurance, Li Yuan no longer hesitated
and advanced to the capital city.
After the beginning of the Tang Dynasty’s ascent to power and Li Yuan’s rise to the
imperial throne as Emperor Gaozu, Li Shimin continued his exemplary career. In the period
of consolidation against the various regional warlords, Li Shimin won four major battles
and a great number of smaller skirmishes, the most prominent victory being at the old
eastern capital of Luoyang. During this particular triumph, Li Shimin defeated and annihilated
the armies of two powerful northern warlords who opposed Tang unification - Wang Shichong
and Dou Jiande. The prince’s inexorable rise to prominence
did not go unnoticed at court, and a rivalry between his now overshadowed elder brother
- Li Jiancheng - and himself began to intensify; factions began to form around each of the
brothers, and conflicting imperial orders confused the imperial hierarchy. By 626, Li
Shimin was in his late 20s and the rivalry had become deadly. Both brothers were afraid
of being assassinated by their rival.
Motivated by this, both parties were eager to strike first. In the Summer of 626, Li
Yuanji, the third of Gaozu’s sons, was given control of the army Li Shimin had previously
commanded, at the provocation of Li Jiancheng, in order to resist a Gokturk attack. This
time Li Shimin wasn’t going to tolerate it, and he planned a coup by which he could
seize the empire. He submitted an accusation to Gaozu that both
of his brothers were committing adultery with the Emperor’s concubines, and they were
summoned back to the city to answer these charges. As the pair approached Xuanwu Gate,
which led to the imperial palace, Li Shimin sprung his trap and ambushed them, personally
killing Li Jiancheng with an arrow, and watching Li Yuanji perish at the hands of a subordinate.
With this fratricide complete, Li Shimin entered the Imperial palace at the head of his troops,
and this forced Gaozu to make his remaining son the crown prince.
In the two months that followed, Li Shimin showed the benevolence and competence that
he would need when he ascended to the throne. Almost immediately after the ambush - what
became known as the ‘Xuanwu Gate Incident’, an encounter involving one of Li Jiancheng’s
primary advisors of shows how the new crown prince was now perceived. This councillor
- Wei Zheng, had previously been of the opinion that Li Jiancheng should kill Li Shimin, and
the latter knew this. Summoning his brother’s former advisor, he stated “I heard that
you advised my brother to kill me.” In reply, Wei Zheng said earnestly “If the crown prince
adopted my advice, he would not have met his end like this...” Li Shimin, touched by
the advisor’s loyalty to his brother, spared Wei Zheng and made him a prime advisor in
the new administration. Two months later Gaozu abdicated the throne
and allowed his son to rise as Emperor Taizong - a new age had begun.
Though the institutions and policies of the new dynasty had already been formulated by
that time, Taizong still needed to reexamine, rationalise and improve the administrative
structure he was now in charge of. By the end of 626, reforms were clearly needed; there
was a swollen nobility and a vastly inflated number of prefectures and counties, due to
the fact that Emperor Gaozu had rewarded a great many people who had assisted him in
founding the Tang Dynasty. The problem was so bad that the number of prefectures and
counties was double that of the Sui. To solve this problem, Taizong ordered his
chancellor, Fang Xuanling, to reduce the number of civil and military posts, stating that
“employing the right men is far more important than the sheer number of established posts.”
Quality over quantity would be the order of the day.
Almost as problematic was the way provincial offices were valued in comparison to metropolitan
appointments. Positions out in the provinces, even though they bestowed high rank and much
responsibility, were considered inferior and were even thought of as a kind of banishment
which out-of-favour officials would be pushed into. This reputation led competent administrators
to avoid provincial service and therefore, the general quality of provincial governance
was sub-standard. To remedy this issue, Taizong personally scrutinised
the careers of individual officials in the provinces, promoting or demoting each based
on their conduct, and therefore increasing the prestige of the post. Corruption, which
had become a problem under Gaozu, was curbed, and officials guilty were shamed publicly.
The Emperor even began to shame corrupt officials before the imperial court by rewarding those
guilty of taking bribes, and thereby humiliating them.
Penal law and punishment also preoccupied Taizong, especially in the early part of his
reign. Believing many of the laws enacted by his father were too strict, he ordered
that the severities of penalties for certain crimes be reduced. At the imperial court,
frequent discussions began to occur concerning law and ethics, the philosophy of punishment,
and the advantages of harsh and lenient law. In general, Taizong himself appears to have
favoured leniency and strict regulations were placed on both corporal punishments and judicial
torture. Brutal ancient sanctions such as the amputation of feet were discarded and
replaced by banishment in 632. In the following year, Taizong ordered that men condemned to
death were only to be executed after officials had presented the case to the Dragon Throne
on three separate occasions, in order to prevent hasty executions. Finally, the decades long
task of revising the codified law was begun by Fang Xuanling. This was completed in 637,
and the new code drastically reduced the number of offences carrying the death penalty or
banishment, and also decreased the penalties for lesser crimes.
Taizong also sought to strengthen central authority, consciously prolong the life of
his dynasty, and to tune the famous examination system (which fed talented administrators
into the bureaucracy) by constructing public schools.
Foreign affairs and military matters were also crucial considerations for this new unified
Chinese Empire. Since the great Han Dynasty had fallen, successive dynasties had dreamed
of re-establishing its vast dominions, and Taizong intended to do just this. During his
early reign the Emperor accepted advice from his councillors that he must use his military
power conservatively, due to the fact that the economy was still fragile and building
up. Therefore, Taizong pursued a policy of easing relations and pursuing peace with China’s
neighbors, using a combination of marriage alliance and internal subversion in order
to keep his neighbors weak. This would soon change, however, as the general strengthening
of the economy provided Taizong with the ability to pursue a policy of wide-scale foreign expansion.
The first encounter between the Emperor and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate was an inauspicious
one. Only a few weeks after he seized the throne, they launched an attack upon Chinese
territory. After mustering their force of around 100,000 nomadic cavalry, the Turks
attacked. Riding through the province of Shenshi, the invaders advanced to within 10 miles of
the capital, and were probably bribed to retreat. This balance of power changed in 627 and 628,
when the Eastern Turks suffered a number of tribal revolts and climatic disasters, which
weakened them. Soon after Khagan Jieli had returned from China, he sent his nephew Tuli
to repel the rebels, but he was defeated. The Khagan was furious and put Tuli in prison
for 10 days, but the Khagan’s nephew escaped and fled to Taizong. Seeing the opportunity,
Taizong astutely helped this disintegration along by supporting Tuli against Jieli.
The faction led by Tuli proceeded to become vassals of the Tang and sent tribute to the
imperial court. Now confident of total victory, Taizong sent 100,000 Chinese troops, under
the command of prominent generals such as Li Jing and Li Shiji, to subdue the Turks.
In that campaign the Chinese defeated and eventually captured Khagan Jieli, who was
subsequently sent to Chang’an in order to live out his days as a political hostage.
The Khagan was actually gifted with a mansion by the generous Taizong, and was even made
a general in the army. With their leader now in Tang custody, the
remaining Turkic chieftains came to the imperial court, requesting that Taizong assume the
mantle of Tengri Khagan - the Heavenly Khagan - with the implication of supreme suzerainty
over the tribes and the right to mediate disputes. Some 100,000 Turks were then distributed among
the Chinese frontier from Hebei to Shenshi, and 10,000 prominent tribal aristocrats came
to live in Chang’an.
Encouraged by this great success, Taizong began to employ similar divide-and-conquer
tactics against the Western Turks, who were also weakened by the same kind of internal
division. The traditional Chinese civilised policy of ‘using the barbarians to control
the barbarians’ was employed expertly by the Emperor in balancing the various nomadic
factions to the west. Also to the west, the wealthy oasis and silk
road cities of the Tarim Basin once again came under Chinese rule during Taizong’s
reign when the Anxi protectorate was established in 640, while the increasingly aggressive
Tibetans were pacified by marriage alliance. Similar to the events which brought down the
Sui dynasty, Taizong now cast his eyes on the hostile Goryeo kingdom of Korea and personally
led an invasion there during 645, which achieved some impressive tactical victories, but ultimately
he suffered a strategic defeat when winter devastated the Tang army. Further attempts
to invade Goryeo in 647 and 648 also failed in a similar manner.
While Taizong was campaigning against Goryeo, the Koreans asked another Turkic tribe, the
Xueyantuo, for an alliance. They initially refused, but then the passive Turkic leader
Zhenzhupique passed away and was replaced by a more belligerent son named Duomi. He
declared war against Tang, but was quickly defeated. Then, as had occurred with the Eastern
Turks, many chieftains came to Taizong and asked him to become their Khagan. So in 647
the Anbei protectorate was established in the north, bringing the Tang borders to their
furthest extent.
Unfortunately, the Emperor’s last years on the throne were a sad ending to what had
been a glorious reign. During the 645 Korean campaign, Taizong contracted a debilitating
disease which exhausted his strength, meaning that much of the routine governance had to
be assumed by his heir apparent - Li Zhi, the future Emperor Gaozong.
In an ironic and desperate attempt to obtain relief from his ailment, Taizong, who in his
earlier, more vigorous years as emperor had heaped scorn on those obsessed with longevity
and elixirs, now called in an Indian ‘magician’ to help him. Apparently realising that death
would soon take him, Taizong became increasingly concerned about what sort of Emperor his son
would be, and even wrote four chapters to him laying out his ideals for a monarch. By
Summer of 649 Taizong was seriously ill, with some believing that his sickness was caused
by him taking pills given to him by alchemists. On the 10th of July 649 the great Taizong
Emperor passed away at the Cuiwei [tsay’way] Palace in Chang’an.
Though his reign ended on a relatively low point, Taizong’s reign was the first high
point of the Tang, and in many ways a high water-mark for Chinese history. He gave a
mighty heritage to his successor: a rationalised, smoothly functioning administrative structure,
a healthy economy and a vastly enlarged empire even greater than that of the Han. To the
educated Chinese of later ages, Taizong’s reign represented an ideal, combining exemplary
civil government with unrivalled military strength. The dual Chinese virtues of wen
and wu - civil order and military might - were championed as no reign before or after. To
understand Taizong as a ruler, we can listen to perhaps his most famous quote:
“One could trim one’s apparel through the mirror of bronze; one could learn one’s
mistakes through the mirror of people; one could understand the rise and fall of empires
through the mirror of history”
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