Tang dynasty

For other uses, see Tang dynasty (disambiguation).

The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907. There was a break in its rule from 690 to 705, called an interregnum. The Sui dynasty came before the Tang, and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period came after it. Many historians see the Tang as a high point of Chinese civilisation and a golden age of many cultures meeting together. The land it controlled, won by the military campaigns of its early rulers, was larger than that of the Han dynasty.

The Li family started the dynasty after the Sui weakened and finally fell. The first half of the Tang's rule was a time of progress and calm. From 690 to 705, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian took the throne. She named her new dynasty the Wu Zhou dynasty, and she became the only accepted Chinese female emperor. The An Lushan rebellion (755–763) caused great damage and weakened the central government in the later part of the dynasty. The Tang kept a system of government jobs for educated men. People were chosen to serve as scholar-officials through standardised examinations and through recommendations. In the 9th century, regional military leaders called jiedushi gained power and weakened order across the empire. By the second half of the 9th century, the dynasty and its central government had grown weak. Uprisings by farmers caused many people to lose their homes and led to widespread poverty. The government struggled to function, and this eventually ended the dynasty in 907.

The Tang capital at Chang'an (today's Xi'an) was the largest city in the world for much of the dynasty's time. Counts of the people in the 7th and 8th centuries estimated the empire's population at about 50 million. By the end of the dynasty, it was estimated to be about 80 million. The Tang built large armies to compete with nomadic peoples for control of Inner Asia and the valuable trade routes of the Silk Road. Distant kingdoms and states sent gifts to the Tang court to show respect. The Tang also influenced some regions indirectly through a protectorate system. Besides its political hegemony, the Tang had a strong cultural influence on nearby East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea.

Chinese culture grew and developed further during the Tang era. It is often seen as the greatest age of Chinese poetry. Two of China's most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, lived in this time. Along with poets such as Wang Wei, they helped create the famous collection Three Hundred Tang Poems. Many well-known painters were active, including Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, and Zhou Fang. Music at the royal court flourished, with instruments such as the popular pipa. Tang scholars wrote a wide range of historical literature, as well as encyclopaedias and books about geography. One important new invention was woodblock printing. Buddhism became a major influence in Chinese culture, and native Chinese sects became more important too. However, in the 840s, Emperor Wuzong introduced rules to suppress Buddhism, and its influence then declined.

History

Further information: Timeline of the Tang dynasty

Further information: Transition from Sui to Tang and Emperor Taizong of Tang

Main article: Wu Zhou

Further information: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

Main article: An Lushan rebellion

The Tang dynasty was started in 618 by Emperor Gaozu, whose birth name was Li Yuan. This happened as the Sui dynasty was falling apart. In 626, his son, Li Shimin, made him step down and became Emperor Taizong. He was a skilled leader who won big battles against the Eastern Turks. In 690, Wu Zetian took power. She had started out as a lower-ranking woman in the royal court. She founded a short-lived state called Wu Zhou. The Tang was brought back to power in 705. Later, Emperor Xuanzong ruled for 44 years. Many people remember this time as a golden age of wealth and good times. However, the An Lushan rebellion (755–763) weakened the dynasty a great deal. Regional military leaders also began to act more on their own, away from the central government. Later, a rebellion led by Huang Chao caused great damage across much of China. The Tang never fully recovered from it.

In 907, Zhu Wen ended the Tang dynasty and took the throne for himself. This started the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. For the next several decades, China was split into many rival states. In 960, most of the land was brought back together under the Song dynasty.

Administration and politics

See also: Administrative divisions of the Tang dynasty

Emperor Taizong tried to fix problems in the government that had troubled earlier dynasties. He built on the Sui legal code and issued a new legal code. Later Chinese dynasties copied it, and so did nearby lands such as Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Punishments depended on a person's place in society, so the same crime could be punished in different ways. The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) kept much of this code, though it was later changed. One change, improved property rights for women, came during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The Tang government worked through the Three Departments and Six Ministries, a system that lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Its way of running things was like that of the earlier Northern and Southern dynasties, including the fubing system of the Northern Zhou and the equal-field system of the Northern Wei. The capital Chang'an (today Xi'an) was the centre of Tang power. There, the emperor welcomed visitors with music, sports, poetry, and dramatic theatre performances. In 643, prefectural officials came to the capital and had no proper places to stay, so Emperor Taizong ordered that each be given a private mansion.

Students of Confucian studies could take the imperial examinations, which qualified graduates for government jobs. Main article: Imperial examination

Further information: Imperial examination in Chinese mythology

The exams tested knowledge of the Confucian classics, along with writing skills, poetry, calligraphy, and rhetoric. Wealthy students had an advantage, but the exams were open to all men whose fathers were not from the artisan or merchant classes. The government also set up state schools and issued standard copies of the Five Classics. This helped keep the emperor from depending on powerful warlords and noble families. Equal division of inherited property stopped families from becoming landed nobility through primogeniture. By the late seventh century, the jinshi degree had become the main path to high office, and scholar-officials linked the people and the government until 1912.

Religion also played a part in politics. Li Yuan had gained support by claiming descent from the Taoist sage Laozi*. Emperor Xuanzong honoured Taoism and Buddhism. In 726 he asked the Indian monk Vajrabodhi to perform tantric rites during a drought. In 713 he closed the Inexhaustible Treasury of a Buddhist monastery in Chang'an and criticised its banking practices.

The government tried to count the people for taxes and soldiers. The number counted in 742 was no higher than the number counted in 609. Patricia Ebrey writes that China's population had barely grown since the Han dynasty. Other historians, such as Adshead, made their own estimates for 750. Most people lived in rural areas rather than in cities. Many people also moved from northern to southern China during the Tang.

Military and foreign policy

Main articles: Military history of the Tang dynasty, Naval history of China, and Jimi system

Further information: Imperial Guards (Tang dynasty)

The 7th and early 8th centuries are usually seen as the time when the Tang was strongest. Its control reached further west than any earlier dynasty. Several kingdoms, including Kashmir, Nepal, Khotan, Kucha, Kashgar, Silla, and Champa, sent tribute to the Tang. In 657, Su Dingfang defeated a Göktürk revolt. Emperor Gaozong then set up protectorates that extended Chinese sphere of influence as far as Herat. Later, jiedushi officials became very powerful. They had their own armies, collected taxes, and could pass on their titles. This is widely seen as the start of the decline of the central government. By 737, Emperor Xuanzong replaced conscripted soldiers with long-service soldiers, who were more experienced and more effective. By 742, the Tang army had about 500,000 soldiers.

In East Asia, Tang attacks on the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo mostly failed. Later, the Tang allied with Silla. Their forces won the Battle of Baekgang in 663, and Goguryeo was destroyed by 668. The Tang then controlled northern Korea until Silla pushed Tang forces out by 676. Relations with Japan stayed friendly, and Japanese imperial embassies to China continued until 894. In the west and north, the Tang and their Turkic allies took over much of Central Asia in the 640s and 650s. The Tang also competed with the Tibetan Empire for land in Inner and Central Asia, and these conflicts lasted for many years. However, the Tang lost a major battle at the Battle of Talas in 751, which ended its westward expansion.

Economy

Through land routes along the Silk Road and by sea, the Tang gained many new technologies, customs, luxury goods, and everyday items. They learned new styles of clothing, new kinds of pottery, and better silverwork. Foreign songs, dances, and instruments became popular. These included oboes, flutes, and drums from Kucha in the Tarim Basin, and cymbals from India. Travellers such as Xuanzang went to India and brought back Sanskrit texts, which were translated into Chinese. Inside China, the Grand Canal helped move goods. The state also ran about 32,100 km (19,900 mi) of postal service routes, carried by horse or boat.

Trade along the Silk Road was opened, closed, and reopened several times during the Tang period. It often depended on wars and on who controlled important areas. Foreign merchants lived in many Chinese cities, and Chinese ships sailed as far as the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and East Africa. Chinese goods such as silk and porcelain were in high demand in the Middle East. Chinese traders also sent goods to Japan and other places in East Asia. Trade did not always go smoothly. In 758, raiders attacked the port of Canton and damaged it, and the government closed the port for about fifty years. Later, an attack in Guangzhou in 878 ended the presence of many foreign merchants there. Even so, Chinese ships were large and busy, and the Tang traded widely across Asia and Africa.

Culture and society

Main article: Chang'an

Main articles: Chinese literature and Tang poetry

Main articles: Religion in China and Chinese philosophy

Main article: Women in ancient and imperial China § Tang dynasty

The Sui and Tang dynasties moved away from the more feudal culture of the earlier Northern Dynasties. They supported Confucianism. Government officials were chosen through civil service examinations or recommendations. Taoism and Buddhism were important in people's daily lives. The Tang Chinese enjoyed feasts, drinks, holidays, sports, and entertainment. Chinese literature grew and became easier to get with new printing methods. Chang'an was the capital. Many people from other lands lived there. The city of Yangzhou was not the center of government, but it was the greatest center of trade in the Tang.

The Tang dynasty was a golden age of Chinese literature and art. Many poems from the Tang have survived, written by many authors. Li Bai was famous for one style of poetry, and Du Fu is still greatly respected among Tang poets. Buddhism became the most widely followed belief during the prosperous Tang. Later, in the late 8th and 9th centuries, its importance began to fall. Tea also became popular and was linked to fine living. Women in wealthy city families had more freedom than women in the countryside, where families worked hard at their own jobs.

Main article: Science and technology of the Tang dynasty

Further information: History of science and technology in China, List of Chinese inventions, and List of Chinese discoveries

Tang inventors built on earlier ideas, such as the gear systems of Zhang Heng (78–139) and Ma Jun (fl. 3rd century). In 725, the Tang inventor Yi Xing (683–727), who was a mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and monk, created the world's first escapement mechanism for a clock. It used a water clock and waterwheel to turn an armillary sphere. His device also rang a bell every hour and beat a drum every quarter-hour, so it was a striking clock. Students had to write an essay about Yi Xing's astronomical clock to pass the imperial examinations by 730. The most common clock was the inflow clepsydra. Around 610, Sui engineers Geng Xun and Yuwen Kai improved it with a steelyard balance. This helped it adjust the pressure head for changes in day length across the seasons. Other inventions included an early 8th-century wine server shaped like an artificial mountain. It had dragon-headed faucets and stood on a lacquered wooden tortoise frame. Mechanical puppets were not new, since they date back to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), and automatons were also used in the Tang. Rules for government buildings were written down in the early Tang code Yingshan Ling. The Song dynasty manual Yingzao Fashi, written by Li Jie (1065–1101) in 1103, is the oldest complete technical book on Chinese architecture that still survives.

Main articles: Woodblock printing, Playing cards, and Chinese playing cards

Woodblock printing made the written word available to many more people. One of the world's oldest surviving printed documents is a tiny Buddhist dharani sutra. It was found at Xi'an in 1974 and dates from about 650 to 670. The Diamond Sutra is the first full-length book printed at regular size, dated to 868. Although Bi Sheng's movable type in the 11th century was a new idea, woodblock printing remained the main method of printing in China until the printing press from Europe became widely used in East Asia. The first use of the playing card during the Tang was part of this new age of printing. In cartography, Pei Ju (547–627) made a well-known map with a grid and a graduated scale in 605. He followed the tradition of Pei Xiu (224–271). Jia Dan (730–805) finished a map of China and its former colonies in Central Asia for Emperor Dezong in 801. The only Tang-era maps that have survived are star charts. The earliest extant terrain maps of China come from the earlier state of Qin. The Tang also sorted medicines used in pharmacology. In 657, Emperor Gaozong of Tang ordered an official materia medica with drawings of 833 substances. Sun Simiao (581–682) was the first to notice that people with diabetes should avoid alcohol and starchy foods. Tang scientists also made waterproof varnish and other mixtures through alchemy. Porcelain was invented in China during the Tang. People had long drilled boreholes to carry natural gas through bamboo pipelines. The gas was used to boil salty water in cast iron pans. A gazetteer of Sichuan described men carrying gas in bamboo tubes, which were essentially the first gas cylinders. For cooling, Ding Huan (fl. 180) of the Han invented a rotary fan. In 747, Emperor Xuanzong had a "Cool Hall" built. Tang Yulin described it as having water-powered fan wheels.

Historiography

See also: Chinese historiography

The first classic history of the Tang is the Old Book of Tang. Liu Xu and others wrote it during the Later Jin period. Later, Song historians Ouyang Xiu, Song Qi, and others edited it into another history, called the New Book of Tang. Both books were based on earlier records that are now lost. Both are also counted among China's Twenty-Four Histories.

One of the surviving sources of the Old Book of Tang is the Tongdian. It mainly covers events up to 756. Du You presented it to the emperor in 801. The Tang period was also included in a very long universal history with 294 volumes, called the Zizhi Tongjian. A team of scholars working under the Song dynasty Chancellor Sima Guang finished it in 1084. This book covers Chinese history from the start of the Warring States in 403 BC to the start of the Song dynasty in 960.