22.6 The far east: a.d. 701 to 800

The far east

Back to The Far East: A.D. 601 to 700

China and manchuria (continued t'ang dynasty)

After the death of Empress Wu the true T'ang Dynasty resumed control. Of particular note is Ming Huang (or Hsuan Tsung) (712-756), the "Brilliant Emperor" under whom China stood in the very forefront of civilization, the most powerful, enlightened, progressive and best-governed empire on earth. By the middle of this 8th century the imperial officers began exchanging excess grain for various luxury goods and the effect was to expand a market for highly skilled artisan wares such as fine silks, porcelains, lacquer works, etc. A substantial enlargement of merchant and artisan classes ensued, with an increase in urban growth. Sugar cane, native to Bengal, was imported in China and adapted itself readily in the neighborhood of Canton where a wooded hinterland supplied the great amount of fuel necessary for its processing. Tea, known in Szechwan for centuries, now spread throughout the country. (Ref. 260 ) From the Han to the T'ang dynasties China's population had varied greatly but had now built back up to about 50 million people, kept from being still larger, at least in part, by infanticide. (Ref. 46 , 101 )

The army was professional and largely recruited from and commanded by "barbarians". In fighting with the expanding Arabs in west Turkistan, the Arabs were helped by the Karluk Turks, who attacked the Chinese from the rear. In the steppe, the Uigur and Girghiz Turks were now in control and the last of the Turkic peoples to reside in Mongolia. In China, proper, in 754, 75% of the total population lived north of the Yangtze River. The city of Ch'ang-an had 2,000,000 inhabitants with half of those living within the walled inner city of 30 square miles. A total of 26 cities had registered populations of over 500,000. The oldest datable printed materials were produced in 770 when 1,000,000 copies of a Buddhist charm were run off by commission from a Japanese empress. (Ref. 101 , 213 )

It has been said that Emperor Hsuan-tsung lived too long, because in 745 at age 60 he fell in love with one of his sons' concubines, Lady Yang (Yang Kuei-fei), and soon her family monopolized the most powerful ministerial posts. One of these, An Lu-Shan, an audacious Turk, had the run of the palace as Lady Yang 's adopted son. Soon thereafter when the "barbarians" of Asia again bore down on the Chinese borders, An Lu-Shan, then a general, rose in rebellion against the T'ang forces and they had to be recalled from the frontiers to defend the emperor. The rebellion was checked in 763, but the T'ang Dynasty had been eroded and Chinese power did not return to central Asia for six centuries. (See also previous section, this chapter). This type of revolt by a border "guard" was always a threat to the Chinese central authority and explains, in part, their continual efforts to keep the military under tight control. The same paranoia determined their policy of breaking up undue concentrations of wealth. No one - military commander or rich trader – was ever to be in a position to challenge the authority of the political ruler. (Ref. 279 ) In the An Lu-Shan revolt some 3, 500,000 lost their lives and this was followed in 762 by a plague in Shantung province with more than one-half of the people dying. The disease risk in the south was greater than the risk of death on the nomad frontier. (Ref. 101 , 140 ) Intervention of the Uighur Turks from Mongolia helped to save the T'ang Dynasty after the tragedies, but thereafter the T'ang court was essentially a vassal of the Uighur khan. In this period of tragedy from revolt and disease, Chinese poets reached great heights, with Li Po becoming the "Keats" of China.