The cambridge history of china volume 3 sui and tang china, 589 906, part i

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF CHINA General editors D E N I S T W I T C H E T T and J O H N K FAIRBANK Volume Sui and T'ang China, 589-906, Part Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Tai Lieu Chat Luong Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF CHINA Volume Sui and T'ang China, 589-906, Part I edited by DENIS TWITCHETT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/978052I214469 © Cambridge University Press 1979 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published 1979 Reprinted 1993, 1997 2006 2007 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-21446-9 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 GENERAL EDITORS' PREFACE In the English-speaking world, the Cambridge Histories have since the beginning of the century set the pattern for multi-volume works of history, with chapters written by experts on a particular topic, and unified by the guiding hand of volume editors of senior standing The Cambridge modern history, planned by Lord Acton, appeared in sixteen volumes between 190a and 1912 It was followed by The Cambridge ancient history, The Cambridge medieval history, The Cambridge history of English literature, and Cambridge Histories of India, of Poland, and of the British Empire The original Modern history has now been replaced by The new Cambridge modern history in twelve volumes, and The Cambridge economic history of Europe is now being completed Other Cambridge Histories recently undertaken include a history of Islam, of Arabic literature, of the Bible treated as a central document of and influence on Western civilization, and of Iran and China In the case of China, Western historians face a special problem The history of Chinese civilization is more extensive and complex than that of any single Western nation, and only slightly less ramified than the history of European civilization as a whole The Chinese historical record is immensely detailed and extensive, and Chinese historical scholarship has been highly developed and sophisticated for many centuries Yet until recent decades the study of China in the West, despite the important pioneer work of European sinologists, had hardly progressed beyond the translation of some few classical historical texts, and the outline history of the major dynasties and their institutions Recently Western scholars have drawn more fully upon the rich traditions of historical scholarship in China and also in Japan, and greatly advanced both our detailed knowledge of past events and institutions, and also our critical understanding of traditional historiography In addition, the present generation of Western historians of China can also draw upon the new outlooks and techniques of modern Western historical scholarship, and upon recent developments in the social sciences, while continuing to build upon the solid foundations of rapidly progressing Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 VI GENERAL EDITORS PREFACE European, Japanese and Chinese sinological studies Recent historical events, too, have given prominence to new problems, while throwing into question many older conceptions Under these multiple impacts the Western revolution in Chinese studies is steadily gathering momentum When The Cambridge history of China was first planned in 1966, the aim was to provide a substantial account of the history of China as a bench mark for the Western history-reading public: an account of the current state of knowledge in six volumes Since then the out-pouring of current research, the application of new methods, and the extension of scholarship into new fields, have further stimulated Chinese historical studies This growth is indicated by the fact that the History has now become a planned fourteen volumes, which exclude the earliest predynastic period, and must still leave aside such topics as the history of art and of literature, many aspects of economics and technology, and all the riches of local history The striking advances in our knowledge of China's past over the last decade will continue and accelerate Western historians of this great and complex subject are justified in their efforts by the needs of their own peoples for greater and deeper understanding of China Chinese history belongs to the world, not only as a right and necessity, but also as a subject of compelling interest JOHN K FAIRBANK DENIS TWITCHETT June 1976 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 CONTENTS General editors' preface page v Ust of maps and tables x Preface to volume } xii List of abbreviations xiv Introduction i by DENIS TWITCHETT, Professor of Chinese, University of Cambridge The establishment of national unity Institutional change Economic and social change 22 Sui and T'ang China and the wider world 32 The problem of sources 38 T h e Sui dynasty (581-617) by the late ARTHUR F WRIGHT, formerly Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale University Sixth-century China Wen-ti (reign 581-604): the founder and his advisers Major problems of the Sui Yang-ti (reign 604-17): personality and life style Problems of Yang-ti's reign 48 49 57 73 115 128 The founding of the T'ang dynasty: Kao-tsu (reign 618-26) 150 by HOWARD J WECHSLER, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The seizure of power Extension of dynastic control throughout China Internal policies Relations with the Eastern Turks The Hsuan-wu Gate incident and the transfer of power Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 15 160 168 181 182 V1U CONTENTS T'ai-tsung (reign 626-49) the consolidator 188 by HOWARD J WECHSLER T'ai-tsung's ministers 'Regional politics'at the court Domestic policies and reforms Policies designed to strengthen central authority Foreign relations The struggle over the succession Kao-tsung (reign 649-83) and the empress W u : the inheritor and the usurper 193 200 203 210 219 236 242 by DENIS TWITCHETT and HOWARD J WECHSLER Rise of the empress Wu The empress Wu in power Kao-tsung's internal policies Foreign relations The reigns of the empress Wu, Chung-tsung and Juitsung (684-712) 244 251 273 279 290 by RICHARD W L GUISSO, Assistant Proftssor of History, University of Waterloo, Ontario The period of preparation (684-90) The Chou dynasty (690-705) Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung (reigns 705-12) The period in retrospect Hsuan-tsung (reign 712-56) 290 306 321 329 333 by DENIS TWITCHETT The early reign (713-20): Yao Ch'ung and Sung Ching The middle reign (720-36) Li Lin-fu's regime (736-52) Yang Kuo-chung's regime (752-6) The end of the reign Court and province in mid- and late T'ang 345 374 409 447 45 464 by C A PETERSON, Professor of History, Cornell University The north-eastern frontier Te-tsung (reign 779-805) The provinces at the beginning of the ninth century Hsien-tsung (reign 805-20) and the provinces Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 468 497 514 522 CONTENTS The provinces under Hsien-tsung's successors Decline of the provincial system Court politics in late T'ang times IX j)8 j 52 561 by MICHAEL T DALBY, Assistant Professor of Chinese History, University of Chicago The rebellion of An Lu-shan and its aftermath (75 5-86) Development of the inner court (786-805) Centralization under Hsien-tsung (805-20) Mid-ninth-century court (820-59) 10 The end of the T'ang 561 86 611 635 682 by ROBERT M SOMERS, Assistant Professor of History, University of Missouri-Columbia Fiscal problems, rural unrest and popular rebellion The court under I-tsung (reign 859-73) Hsi-tsung (reign 873-88) New structure of power in late T'ang China Glossary - index Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 682 700 714 762 790 MAPS AND TABLES Maps Sui China, 609 Sui and T'ang canal system Late Sui rebellions, 613-16 page 129 136 145 Late Sui rebellions, 617 T'ang conquest T'ang China, 639 T'ai-tsung's advance into central Asia Kao-tsung's protectorates in central Asia Kao-tsung's interventions in Korea 10 Military establishment under Hsiian-tsung 11 T'ang China, 742 12 An Lu-shan's rebellion 13 T'ang provinces, 763 147 164 204 227 281 283 368 403 454 488 14 Ho-pei"rebellions, 781-6 502 15 T'ang provinces, 785 508 16 Fiscal divisions of the empire, 810 520 17 T'ang provinces, 822 539 18 Banditry in the 830s and 840s 686 19 Ch'iu Fu and P'ang Hsun rebellions 698 20 Wang Hsien-chih's bandit confederation, 874-8 728 21 Huang Ch'ao's movements, 878-80 738 22 Distribution of power after Huang Ch'ao's rebellion, 885 765 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE TANG CHINA 775 service to the dynasty had been gained only by permitting them to occupy large parts of Shansi, from which they could threaten Kuan-chung, Honan and Ho-pei There was widespread fear of the Turks in many parts of north China, and this presented the court with a unique opportunity to take the initiative and organize a broadly supported campaign against them, to give a display of imperial leadership and even to regain for the court control of territory outside Kuan-chung ThatLiK'o-yungwas the T'ang's most powerful and dependable ally seems not to have mattered to the court The main proponents of the plan, the chief ministers Chang Chun and K'ung Wei, had a selfish political motive, for they hoped that a victory would enhance their own strength and permit them to extirpate totally the eunuchs at court and end eunuch control over the imperial armies The decision to mount a campaign against Li K'o-yung was reached only after a meeting of all high-ranking officials, most of whom, including the chief ministers Liu Ch'ung-wang and Tu Jang-neng, opposed the plan.135 In spite of this opposition the emperor, although with considerable trepidation, approved the scheme Active provincial support for the campaign was assured from Li K'o-yung's rival Chu Wen, the military governor of Hsiian-wu (Ho-nan), and from Li K'uang-wei, the military governor of Lu-lung in the far north-east Mobilization began in the fourth month of 890, when nearly a hundred thousand soldiers were recruited from the metropolitan area In the next month the chief minister Chang Chun set out from Ch'ang-an with some fifty thousand troops In the sixth month the government army reached Chin-chou in central Shansi, where it was joined by forces sent from Hsiian-wu by Chu Wen Conflict broke out almost at once between Chu Wen, who wanted to use the campaign to gain control of south-eastern Shansi for himself, and the government troops, who wanted Chu Wen's military assistance against the Turks but were at the same time anxious to prevent him from extending his own territory The campaign got off to a bad start One of the T'ang commanders was captured by the Turks in eastern Shansi, and killed after defiantly refusing Li K'o-yung's offer of an appointment in his own province of Ho-tung Chu Wen's forces suffered a major defeat at Tse-chou, at the hands of one of Li K'o-yung's allies The principal danger to Li K'o-yung came not from the forces from Kuan-chung or Ho-nan, but from the north, where Li K'uang-wei, governor of Lu-lung, and the T'u-yii-hun leader Ho-lien To, who controlled the northern border region of Shansi, were allied against him.136 ' « TCFC 258, p 8596 u6 JCTC 258, pp 8404-5; on the T'u-yu-hun and their leader Ho-lien To, see Mole, The T'ti-jii-him, pp 191-219, passim Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 776 THE END OF THE T'ANG After an initial defeat, Li K'o-yung sent an army against them under his son Li Ssu-yiian, and followed closely with relief forces Within the month, he had defeated Li K'uang-wei and Ho-lien To and secured his northern border The T'ang forces had meanwhile suffered defeats in central Shansi, and most of the contingents from Kuan-chung had fled The remainder, still under the command of Chang Chun, were forced to take refuge in the city of Chin-chou, and escaped only after the Sha-t'o commander voluntarily abandoned his siege of the city and retreated The government troops fled from Shansi in disarray, an" ignominious end to an ill-fated and quite unnecessary campaign The 890 campaign against Li K'o-yung was the T'ang court's last active intervention outside the capital region From that time until the fall of the dynasty, the government was fully engaged in resisting the increasingly aggressive and hostile military governors who surrounded Ch'ang-an The court itself continued to be racked by internal struggles In the twelfth month of 891 the top eunuch generals of the Shen-ts'e Army assassinated Li Shun-chieh, formerly the adoptive son of Yang Fu-kung, out of fear that he was planning to take personal control of the army, and possibly of the government itself By the middle of 893 Chaotsung was considering circumventing his unreliable generals by giving commands to the imperial princes.137 By 893 the court's most immediate and formidable adversary was Li Mao-chen, military governor of Feng-hsiang since 887, whose power in western Kuan-chung was growing rapidly He held the weakened court in great contempt, both for the failure of its ill-conceived campaign against Li K'o-yung, and for its inability to rid itself of eunuch influence In a letter to the emperor in the seventh month of 893, Li taunted him with the court's vulnerability to a military rising, ending by asking, sarcastically, where the emperor would go into exile this time.138 The emperor furiously organized a punitive force, under the command of the heir apparent, to attack the arrogant Li Mao-chen, but the result was an easy victory for the battle-hardened forces of Feng-hsiang over the government's young and untrained recruits To complete the court's humiliation, Li Mao-chen insisted on the execution of three of the senior eunuchs, and of the chief minister Tu Jang-neng, whom he blamed for the decision to attack Feng-hsiang The emperor was powerless to refuse, and Tu Jangneng and his younger brother were forced to commit suicide Li Mao-chen was then formally confirmed as military governor of Shan-nan West, official recognition of the fact that he now controlled more than fifteen prefectures in western Kuan-chung and Shan-nan ' « TCTC 258, p 8409, and 259, p 8445 " TCTC 259, p 8446 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE TANG CHINA 777 By 894 the T'ang dynasty was clearly living on borrowed time Chaotsung continued to carry out his formal duties as emperor, but his appointments of new chief ministers were no longer to be taken seriously, to judge by his promotion of the bibulous poet Cheng Ch'i and the prose master Li Hsi in 894 The military governors Li Mao-chen and Wang Hsing-yii (military governor of Pin-Ning) constantly sought to destroy the last vestiges of imperial independence, abetted by the chief minister Ts'ui Chao-wei, who reported all the affairs of the court to them There was an attempt early in 895 to put imperial princes in command of troops to suppress banditry around the capital, but even this was prevented by the officials, who feared that such a step might lead to intervention by the armies from Feng-hsiang and Pin-Ning.'" Chao-tsung was very nearly deposed in 895 by an alliance of the three most powerful military governors of Kuan-chung - Li Mao-chen, Wang Hsing-yii and Han Chien - and survived only because of the intervention of the Sha-t'o leader Li K'o-yung, who continued to fear the establishment of a strong and united force in Kuan-chung Turkish troops fought their way into Kuan-chung as Li Mao-chen and Wang Hsing-yii argued over which of them would take control of the emperor To intensify the crisis, fighting broke out among the remaining imperial forces, during which Chao-tsung was nearly killed He finally managed to get together a small bodyguard, and fled towards the Chin-ling mountains, taking refuge first in a Buddhist temple, then in a small garrison town After narrowly escaping capture by local troops, he was once again saved by Li K'o-yung, who provided an escort back to the capital The palaces of Ch'ang-an were by this time so badly damaged that the emperor had to stay in the Department of State Affairs, attended by only a few remaining officials Li K'o-yung was rewarded by the gift of the most exquisite beauty from the imperial harem; and he himself, his allies and descendants were all granted noble titles, one of the few functions remaining for the T'ang court In the twelfth month of 895, Li K'o-yung left the capital and returned to Ho-tung, having been persuaded that his prolonged presence in Kuanchung might unduly alarm the people His departure was also encouraged by a 'gift' of some three million strings of cash for his troops But Li was far more concerned with Chu Wen's possible expansion into Ho-tung than he was with affairs in Kuan-chung and was therefore anxious to return to his own capital; less than a month later he was engaged in bitter fighting with Chu Wen As soon as Li K'o-yung left the capital region, Li Mao-chen continued his expansion, taking three prefectures in Ho-hsi (Kansu) in the twelfth ãằ TCTC 260, pp 8466-7 Cambridge Histories Online â Cambridge University Press, 2008 778 THE END OF THE T'ANG month of 895, and naming one of his own officers as military governor of Ho-hsi, an unprecedented, but not surprising, usurpation of the imperial prerogative Provincial interference in court affairs became even more intense after 895 Chu Wen sought to have Chang Chun, who had led the unsuccessful campaign against Li K'o-yung in 890, appointed as chief minister, presumably in the hope that he would again mobilize troops from Kuanchung against Li K'o-yung But the idea was quickly abandoned when Li K'o-yung threatened to attack Ch'ang-an if Chang Chun were appointed Further factional struggles led to the death of the chief minister Ts'ui Chao-wei in the fifth month of 895, when eunuchs, who had formed close alliances with the Kuan-chung military governors and in particular with Li Mao-chen, arranged for his execution because of his constant efforts to induce Chu Wen to intervene and rescue the court from the military governors' dominance Chao-tsung was again forced to put imperial princes in command of loyalist forces, but this at once caused Li Mao-chen to move his troops towards the capital The people at Ch'ang-an feared the worst, and fled into the hills outside the city The imperial troops were easily defeated in a brief battle, and Chao-tsung, more desperate than ever, decided to flee to Ho-tung and seek the protection of Li K'o-yung.140 As he set out for Ho-tung, Chao-tsung was intercepted by the son of Han Chien, the prefect of Hua-chou, whose territory lay between the capital and Ho-tung Han attempted to persuade the emperor to accept his father's protection at Hua-chou Chao-tsung was at first unwilling but was finally persuaded by Han Chien himself, who met the emperor at Fu-p'ing and warned him that if he went into 'the border region' of Ho-tung and surrendered himself to the Turks he would never again return to the capital; if he remained in Kuan-chung, there was still hope of a dynastic recovery The threat behind Han Chien's advice to the emperor was unmistakable, and Chao-tsung arrived in Hua-chou on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of 896 Those among Chao-tsung's ministers who accompanied him there were under no illusions about the real nature of Han Chien's 'protection' of the emperor, and were careful to consult Han before conducting any court business Han sent out a proclamation to the provinces ordering them, on the emperor's behalf, to send provisions to Hua-chou This order was received with scorn by the nearby governors, who regarded Han Chien's crude manipulation of the emperor with open contempt Early in the following year, Han took further steps to cripple the court, and to reduce the emperor to a helpless puppet In the first month of 897, he informed ãô TCTC 260, pp 8489-91 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 779 Chao-tsung that he had discovered an assassination plot directed against himself by the imperial princes who still had troops under their command and who, he claimed, planned to move the emperor east into Ho-chung; it is of course quite likely that such a plan had been devised Han ordered the princes back to Ch'ang-an, placing their troops under his own command Furthermore, he prohibited Chao-tsung from having contact with any outsider, lest he became 'confused'.141 In the sixth month of 897 Li K'o-yung attempted to organize forces to rescue the emperor from his virtual captivity, but could find little support The next month Han Chien decided to take even more drastic steps against the imperial princes in Ch'ang-an Blaming all the difficulties between the emperor and the Kuan-chung military governors upon them and their control of imperial troops, he decided to kill the princes With the aid of the eunuch Liu Chi-shu, who hoped to gain advantage for himself by assisting Han Chien, in the eighth month of 897 Han's troops surrounded the imperial compound Some of the princes shaved their heads pretending to be monks and others tried desperately to escape, but eleven were captured and killed The situation changed significantly at the beginning of 898, as the Kuan-chung governors grew increasingly apprehensive of the expanding power of Chu Wen to the east, especially after Chu took Lo-yang and invited the emperor to go there This led to a temporary alliance between Li Mao-chen, Han Chien and Li K'o-yung, who decided to move the emperor back to Ch'ang-an rather than let him fall into the hands of Chu Wen Chao-tsung thus returned to Ch'ang-an in the eighth month of 898 and to celebrate the occasion declared a new reign period, called ' Radiant Transformation' (Kuang-hua) Once back in Ch'ang-an, the old struggle between the eunuchs and officials created yet another crisis The chief minister Ts'ui Yin plotted with the emperor to rid the court of eunuchs, especially their leaders, the hated imperial secretaries Sung Tao-pi and Ching Wu-hsiu The eunuchs allied themselves with Kuan-chung governors, while Ts'ui Yin gained the support of Chu Wen, whose influence was growing in Kuan-chung, after he had extended his personal territory to the very border of that province in 899 The atmosphere of intrigue at court that Ts'ui had done so much to promote led to his own brief dismissal, but he was restored through Chu Wen's intervention and succeeded in the sixth month of 900 in bringing about the banishment and forced suicide of a rival chief minister and of the chief eunuchs Sung Tao-pi and Ching Wu-hsiu.'42 'ôã TCTC 261, pp 8497-8 MI TCTC 262, p 8530; for a survey of the alliances between eunuchs and military governors during the late T'ang, see Wang Shou-nan, T'tmg-tai huan-kuan ch'iian-sbib chihym-tbiu, p 47 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 780 THE END OF THE T'ANG The remaining eunuchs, realizing that their personal and political positions were in great danger as long as Ts'ui Yin was able to exploit Chao-tsung's life-long hatred of them, now reacted by plotting to remove Chao-tsung from the throne and to replace him with the heir apparent In the eleventh month of 900, the eunuchs carried out their plan, deposing the emperor and confining him in the palace under the strictest guard The new eunuch-dominated regime carried out savage reprisals against its real or suspected political opponents, who were systematically executed The only major figure spared was their principal adversary Ts'ui Yin, who still enjoyed Chu Wen's protection Chu Wen seemed about to intervene at court at the end of 900, and this induced the eunuchs to return control of the court to Ts'ui Chu was, however, wary of involving himself too deeply in the brutal politics at the court, and refused to take any direct action The coup against Chao-tsung lasted only a short time, however, as the new regime failed to gain any support The eunuchs who had carried out the coup were themselves assassinated in the first month of 901; Chao-tsung was freed and restored to the throne A new reign period was declared, and in celebration of the victory over the eunuchs, Chaotsung issued a major Act of Grace which included a posthumous pardon for Wang Ya and the other officials executed more than half a century earlier after their abortive attempt to extirpate the eunuchs in the ill-fated Sweet Dew incident.143 After 901 court politics deteriorated still further Hatred and intrigue grew to grotesque proportions between the ministers (led by the chief minister Ts'ui Yin) and the eunuchs, with each side willing to pay any price to damage the other The only beneficiaries of this situation were the military governors who manipulated both parties The real question was which governor would prevail, and which court faction would be the last to succumb This tragic situation was nearing an end by 903 when Chu Wen, whose armies by then had taken control of most of Kuan-chung, established his own domination over the court and capital He stationed forces under a nephew to guard the emperor, and appointed his own commissioners to take charge of what was left of the capital Urged by Ts'ui Yin to kill the eunuchs, but no doubt following his own impulses as well, in the first month of 903 Chu Wen ordered his soldiers to herd several hundred of the remaining eunuchs into the Department of the Inner Palace (Nei-shih sheng), where they were brutally executed In the first month of 904, having no reason to remain in Ch'ang-an, ' « TCTC 262, p 85 j2; for the text of the Act of Grace, TTCLC 5, pp J I - J For the execution of Wang Ya and the other ministers after the Sweet Dew incident, see TCTC24^, p 7916 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 781 Chu Wen moved Chao-tsung to the newly rebuilt eastern capital of Loyang, which he controlled During the journey Chu killed all the emperor's remaining personal retainers By the eighth month of 904 Chaotsung himself had been murdered by Chu Wen and replaced by his ninth son, the twelve-year-old Li Chu Li Chu, who is conventionally known as Ai-ti or Chao-hsiian-ti, was nominal ruler for three years, until in 907 Chu Wen deposed him and established his own Liang dynasty This last brief reign has no real meaning as a part of T'ang history, and is properly seen as only a stage in the consolidation of power by Chu Wen, a process which we will now describe Chu Wen and the beginning of the Five Dynasties Chu Wen was nearing the peak of his power, which he had carefully and systematically built up over the previous two decades, when he brought Chao-tsung to Lo-yang in 904 Although Chu suffered set-backs on several fronts during the next few years, he remained sufficiently strong in 907 to proclaim the establishment of his own Liang state, after declaring an end to the defunct T'ang dynasty.144 The Liang (907-23) was the first of a series of shortlived dynasties which dominated north China between the time of the T'ang overthrow in 907 and the founding of the Sung in 960 In addition to Chu Wen's historical role as the founder of the Liang state, his early life and career illustrate with special clarity the means by which the most important members of the newly-risen political and military elite of the late T'ang period came to power.14' Chu Wen was born in 852 in Sung-chou (modern Kiangsu province), then part of the Hsiian-wu command His father and grandfather had been scholars and teachers, but had never received any official appointment They were, however, important enough in their own locality to have formed marriage ties with one of the more prominent local official families His father died when Chu was still young, and his mother and brother were forced to take employment on the estate of a landlord in his mother's native county Even as a boy, Chu Wen displayed his lifelong traits of self-reliance and calculating aggressiveness, and even after he grew up he had no regular profession, but relied on his skill in fighting; he was disliked by many of his fellow villagers.146 When the Huang Ch'ao rebellion broke out, Chu Wen and his brothers >« TCTC 266, p 8674 For a discussion of the sources available for Chu Wen's life, see Wang Gungwu, The structure ofpower, p *7n M6 Pei-meng so-yen, 17, p ia; CWl'S 1, p 2a I4J Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 782 THE END OF THE T'ANG joined the rebel forces Chu was with Huang Ch'ao when the bandit army swept into Ch'ang-an in 880, and was appointed prefect of T'ung-chou during Huang's occupation of the capital Sensing Huang Ch'ao's weakness, he surrendered to the loyal forces and was rewarded in 883 with appointment as military governor of his home province in Hsiian-wu Chu showed great skill and determination in consolidating his personal control over Hsiian-wu, a province which had a century-long history of instability, mainly caused by the highly independent, and often unmanageable, local garrison He placed his own personal followers in command of those forces, retaining the hereditary officers only in subordinate positions More importantly, he, like other military governors of the period, built up a personal guard, orya-chiin, as his main force.I47 These ya-chun soldiers came from widely varying backgrounds, including regular guardsmen, members of the local elite, peasants, traders, travelling merchants, bandits, criminals and menials of all sorts.1*8 Some were selected from the local garrison or conscripted locally, others were surrendered or captured troops Many appear to have been semi-servile personal retainers of the military governor, and all were personally loyal to him, rather than to the garrison officers Without them, Chu Wen would have been unable to hold his own province of Hsiian-wu, much less expand beyond its borders In addition to the ya-chun troops, Chu Wen established a special cavalry unit, the military value of such forces having been dearly demonstrated in the numerous successful campaigns of the Sha-t'o Turks These cavalry soldiers were an elite group, consisting of members of wealthy families who supplied all their own arms, horses and provisions.149 During his early years as military governor of Hsiian-wu, Chu Wen faced numerous external threats After Huang Ch'ao's army had abandoned Ch'ang-an early in 883, it threatened Chu Wen with a major assault, from which he was saved only by the heroic defence of Ch'en-chou and by Huang Ch'ao's decision to commit the bulk of his army to an abortive year-long siege of that city At the end of 883, Chu Wen was involved in a campaign against Huang's forces at Po-chou, in central Hsiian-wu, and used his victory there to consolidate his control of the area Chu was, '«' Important studies of thtya-cbun during the late T a n g - F i v e Dynasties period include Sudd Yoshiyuki, 'Godai setsudoshi n o yagun ni kansuru ichi kosatsu - bukyoku to n o kanten ni oite', Toyo bunka kenkyujo kiyo, (1951) 5-72; Hori Toshikazu, 'Godai Sosho ni okeru kingun n o hatten', Toyo bunka kenkyujo kiyo, (1953) 83-151; Kikuchi Kideo, 'Godai kingun ni okeru shingunsei no seiritsu', Sbien, 70 (1956) j i - 7 148 See Sudd Yoshiyuki, 'Godai n o setsudoshi n o shihai taisei', in his Soiai kei%aisbi kenkyu (Tokyo, 1962), p 576 149 For a study o f this cavalry regiment, see Hori Toshikazu, 'Shu ZenchQ no Choshito', in Wada Hakase koki kinm ToySsbi ronso (Tokyo, 1961), pp 819-31 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 783 however, wary of wasting too much of his strength fighting Huang Ch'ao In the first month of 884 he joined with other military governors of the region in requesting the assistance of the Sha-t'o leader Li K'o-yung, who had recently recovered Ch'ang-an from Huang Ch'ao Huang Ch'ao, as we have seen, was crushed in a final series of battles in the fourth and fifth months of 884 and committed suicide in the sixth month of that year, bringing the rebellion to an end Two important events preceding Huang Ch'ao's death had a deep influence on the structure of power in China over the next decades The first was Chu Wen's cynical attempt to murder Li K'o-yung while the Turkish leader was in Pien-chou Li managed to escape and return to his own capital in Ho-tung, but this act of treachery helped to harden the mistrust between them." It also exacerbated the existing differences between the Turks and the Chinese military governors There was already a long history of conflict between them, which was to continue during much of the tenth century The second important event during the period just before the end of the rebellion was the surrender of most of Huang Ch'ao's remaining forces to Chu Wen These troops, the well-trained and battle-hardened core of Huang Ch'ao's otherwise casually organized forces, were integrated into Chu Wen's army and their commanders were appointed as officers under him They were an extremely important source of support for Chu Wen during the difficult years that lay ahead.151 Chu Wen's most formidable adversary during the years immediately following the rebellion was another military governor, Ch'in Tsungch'iian, whose career had certain parallels with his own " During the early years of the Huang Ch'ao rebellion, Ch'in had been an officer on the staff of the military governor of Chung-wu In 880, when Huang Ch'ao crossed to the north of the Yangtze, Ch'in was sent with a force of ten thousand men to hold Ts'ai-chou (formerly the capital of Huai-hsi province), just south of the Chung-wu command and on the southern bank of the Huai River Because Ch'in carried out his duties so effectively, a military governorship was established for him in Ts'ai-chou, where he remained Although he was one of the few provincial governors who had sent troops to Ch'ang-an to help relieve the capital during Huang Ch'ao's occupation, he had no hesitation in going over to Huang Ch'ao when his troops attacked Ts'ai-chou in 883 After that, Ch'in joined the bandit gangs in pillaging the countryside and also took part in the siege of "° TCTC255, pp 8306 ff '" Wang, The structure of power, pp 56-7; for an important survey of Chu Wen's power structure, see Hori Toshikazu, 'Shu Zenchu ssiken no seikaku', Sundai shigaku, 11 (1961) IJ1 38-61 His biographies are in CTS 200B, pp 5398-9; HTS 22jC, pp 6464-6 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 784 THE END OF THE T'ANG Ch'en-chou Ch'in earned a reputation as one of the most ruthless of all the military and bandit leaders of the late T'ang After Huang Ch'ao was crushed, Ch'in attempted to establish a dynasty of his own, and assumed the title of emperor His troops attacked and raided over an enormous territory in central China, but this probably did more to weaken and fragment his regime than it did to strengthen or consolidate it Late in 885 he captured Lo-yang and Cheng-chou, which lay just between the eastern capital and Chu Wen's base at Pien-chou Before the end of 886, Ch'in besieged Pien-chou Chu Wen responded by making alliances with the leaders of neighbouring prefectures, who feared Ch'in Tsung-ch'uan's forces as well as himself In the last month of 888, Ch'in was betrayed by one of his own generals who handed him over to Chu Wen for execution, in return for his own appointment as military governor of Ts'ai-chou.^ After his victory over Ch'in Tsung-ch'iian, Chu Wen faced no serious adversaries anywhere near to his own territory Over the next decade and a half he steadily expanded his control over a large region of northern China, and finally established his own Liang state in 907 His success was due in great measure to the skill and determination with which he had trained and moulded his powerful army But it should also be said that his success owed much to his ruthless cruelty and deviousness, which were second to none even in that brutal time With his own soldiers he was savage - any unit that lost a battle faced execution He was totally treacherous and unscrupulous, as Li K'o-yung discovered after barely escaping assassination at his hands Even would-be allies found Chu extraordinarily ruthless and devious When Lo Hung-hsin, the military governor of the strategically vital province of Wei-Po, wavered between supporting Li K'o-yung or Chu Wen, Chu settled the issue in 896 by turning over Li K'o-yung's captured son to him for execution.154 Willing to use any tactic, and in control of a powerful army, Chu could not be challenged by any Chinese governor, though some were able to avoid his domination The dynasty he founded lasted for less than two decades, however, and was brought down in 923 by the superior strength of China's principal foreign enemy, the Sha-t'o Turks, whose remarkable rise to power in north China must now be outlined Li K'o-yung and the foreign occupation of north China Some Chinese scholars, seeking to explain the collapse of T'ang power, have put great emphasis on the extent to which the T'ang permitted the ' » TCTC 257, p 8382 '>* TCTC 260, p i Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 785 occupation of north China by foreign peoples, mainly from Inner Mongolia." It is, of course, absurd to single this out as the main cause of the T'ang downfall, and it would indeed be easier to show that foreign intervention helped prolong the dynasty's life But the extent of foreign presence in north China at the end of the T'ang period was still a very significant development The situation along the northern border in the late T'ang was extremely complex, and we have only a scanty knowledge of actual conditions and of the patterns in which Chinese and non-Chinese peoples intermingled We know, however, that some areas, including Kuan-chung itself, had an extremely large non-Chinese population Other areas of north China within the Great Wall had come under the full or partial control of foreign warriors, although we have no evidence that this was accompanied by the movement of large numbers of non-Chinese settlers In terms of sheer ethnic variety, the range of foreign peoples in north China was remarkable There were resettled T'u-yii-hun and Tanguts, T'ieh-le and Ch'i-pi, Hsienpei and Uighurs But most important by far at this time were the Sha-t'o Turks, who had succeeded the Uighurs as the major power in the steppelands of Inner Mongolia and had become a major factor within China proper The Sha-t'o Turks first appear in the record during the first decades of T'ang rule, when they were the easternmost tribe of the Western Turks, living far to the west of China proper Early in the eighth century, Tibetan attacks pushed them north to the region near Lake Balkash By the mid-eighth century the Sha-t'o had become subjects of the Uighurs, and sent troops with the Uighur forces which assisted the T'ang against the An Lu-shan rebels Late in the 780s they again changed their allegiance, some 7,000 of their 'tents' moving over to Tibetan control They often joined in Tibetan forays into Chinese territory, and many of them settled in central Kansu However, serious discord developed with the Tibetans, and in 808, 30,000 Sha-t'o decided to surrender to the Chinese The Tibetans pursued and killed many of them but nearly 10,000 were settled in Yen-chou (central Kuan-chung) by Fan Hsi-ch'ao, the military governor of Ling-chou, and a smaller group of 700 settled in Chen-wu, the Ordos Desert region to the north of Kuan-chung When in 809 Fan Hsi-ch'ao was sent to garrison T'ai-yiian he took with him 1,200 Sha-t'o soldiers who played a major role in his successful campaigns against Wang Ch'engtsung, the military governor of Ch'eng-te, in 816 Another small group was placed under the control of the military governor of Chung-wu, in Iss See esp Liu Shan-li, 'T'ang-tai fan-chen chih-huo k'o-wei wei ti-san-tz'u i-tsu luan-Hua', pp 821-58 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 786 THE END OF THE T'ANG Ho-nan, and was used in the vital and successful Huai-hsi campaign of 817; its fate after that is obscure.156 The bulk of the Sha-t'o Turks, however, were not involved in these early campaigns in the interior of China, but remained in northern Shansi In the campaigns against P'ang Hsiin in 869 they played a vital role, and the T'ang subsequently adopted their leader Chu-yeh Ch'ih-hsin into the imperial family Known afterwards as Li Kuo-ch'ang, the Sha-t'o leader continued to consolidate his control in northern Shansi during the 870s and early 880s The T'ang soon grew apprehensive over the possibility of a Sha-t'o invasion, and strengthened their own defences in central Shansi, using both regular troops and militia forces From 878-80 they dispatched six successive military governors to T'ai-yiian, none of whom had any success in containing the Sha-t'o incursions In 880 the dynasty finally sent to T'ai-yiian a former chief minister with a hand-picked team of officials as well as military reinforcements from Lo-yang, and by the middle of 880 the Chinese succeeded in re-establishing control of the Shansi border region Within a short while, however, the court was forced to grant pardons to the Turkish leaders in order to obtain their support to recover the capital from Huang Ch'ao and to assist in the final campaign against him The Sha-t'o leader in the campaigns against Huang Ch'ao was Li K'oyung, the son of Li Kuo-ch'ang He had earlier taken part in the fighting against P'ang Hsiin, had spent some time in the T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an and in 887 was appointed deputy commander of his father's Sha-t'o forces.157 He soon tightened his control of the northern border until the Chinese were forced to strengthen their defences against his encroachments In spite of Li K'o-yung's numerous successful campaigns against Huang Ch'ao, he does not seem to have sought any territory beyond what he already held This is not surprising, since his base area in Ho-tung was easily defensible, and an ideal base in which to establish an independent regime during a period of political decentralization and endemic warfare Li easily staved off the campaign mounted against him by the government in 890, and his power increased steadily over the next decade, keeping pace with the growing power of his rival Chu Wen In 895 he was able to appoint his own candidate as military governor of Lu-lung province in northern Ho-pei, and for a time regularly exacted taxes from that productive region.158 A decade later, in 905, Li K'o-yung made a very Is6 For a good account of Sha-t'o movements during the early and middle T'ang, see Chang Ch'un, 'T'ang-tai hsiang-hu an-chih k'ao', Hsin-Ya Hsuth-pao, I.I (1955) 311-12 157 For details, see Mole, The T'u-yii-bm, p 196 n 's See TCTC 261, p 8505 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 787 important alliance with the Khitan leader A-pao-chi, who came from his homeland in Manchuria to northern Shansi with an army of seventy thousand horsemen.'s» This alliance marked the beginning of the close ties between the Sha-t'o Turks and the Khitan that lasted throughout the Five Dynasties period, and led to an increasing involvement of the peoples of southern Manchuria in Chinese affairs The strength of the Sha-t'o Turks continued to grow during the first decades of the tenth century After many years of fighting, they succeeded in conquering Chu Wen's state of Liang, and established their own Later T'ang dynasty, which claimed legitimacy as a successor state to the T'ang, many of whose policies they adopted The Later T'ang ruled for only little more than a decade, until 937, but during that time it succeeded in establishing control over the whole of north and west China, conquering the independent states of Ch'i (western Kuan-chung) and Shu (Szechwan), which had remained independent of Chu Wen's control Its state thus marks a particularly significant stage in the consolidation of power in north China, and was an important step in the unification process completed by the Sung After the collapse of their Later T'ang dynasty, the Sha-t'o continued to maintain an independent existence in Shansi as the state of Northern Han, one of the Ten Kingdoms This area was not recovered by the Chinese until 979, after more than a century of Turkish domination Independent states of the tenth century: the Ten Kingdoms Regional divisions and cultural variation, always an important part of Chinese history, are never so apparent as in a period of extreme political fragmentation such as the late T'ang Lines of division in north China appear with unusual clarity in the long decades of struggle between the Turkish rulers of Shansi and the Chinese military governors of Ho-pei and Ho-nan Though these two groups were the principal contenders for power during the late ninth and early tenth centuries their struggles did not take place in isolation Elsewhere in China, the collapse of T'ang authority led to the formation of regional states, each with its own cultural and historical identity, all of which played an important role in spanning the transition from the late T'ang to the Sung The best known and most enduring of these independent states appeared in central and south China, and are known collectively as the " ' For a detailed study of the alliance between Li K'o-yung and A-pao-chi, see Ch'en Shu, 'A-pao-chi yu Li K'o-yung meng-chieh hsiung-ti chih nien chi chi pei-meng hsiang-kung chih t'ui-tsc', CYYY, 7.1 (1936) 79-88 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 788 THE END OF THE T'ANG Ten Kingdoms The first emerged in the Lower Yangtze delta and southeastern coastal region, where the first major anti-dynastic rebellions had broken out in the late 850s Tung Ch'ang's shortlived state of Lo-p'ing, which rested on a consolidation of local militia forces organized to suppress banditry in the region of Hang-chou (see above, pages 753-4), was the first of these It was succeeded in 921, as we have seen, by the state of Wu-Yiieh, founded by the gang-leader turned militia commander Ch'ien Liu, who consolidated control over most of Chekiang To the north and west was the rich and prosperous state of Wu, founded in 902 by Yang Hsing-mi, 'a man risen from nowhere', based directly on the regime established in Huai-nan by the T'ang general Kao P'ien The state of Wu eventually covered an immense territory, centred in the Lower Yangtze delta but extending far to the north and south.160 The state of Min was given formal shape only in 926, but its rulers already had de facto control of Fukien as early as 893, and Fukien enjoyed a rich and varied culture under the Min during the first half of the tenth century.161 Along the south China coast Liu Yin, a local warlord, took control of Canton in 896 In 918, his son Liu Yen declared the establishment of the state of Southern Han, whose territory covered most of the T'ang province of Ling-nan For several decades the Southern Han state grew increasingly wealthy and expansionist, but around mid-century it was weakened by a series of brutal and corrupt rulers, and proved no match for the Sung armies, which captured Canton in 971 l62 These regional states of the south are important in the local histories of the areas they ruled, and occupy a prominent place on the map of China in the years preceding and following the formal termination of T'ang rule in 907 One other state is, however, of greater immediate interest to this study, as its history is even more directly related to the precise circumstances of the T'ang collapse This was the state of (Former) Shu, established in Szechwan in 907 by Wang Chien, whose career is surely one of the most extraordinary of the period.163 A man of commanding appearance, Wang began as a village thief- a never-forgotten fact - then enlisted as a soldier in one of the important military commands in northern China 160 161 162 163 See Robert J Krompart, "The southern restoration of T'ang: counsel, policy and parahistory in the stabilization of the Chiang-Huai region, 887-943', unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 197}, p 54, passim See E H Schafer, The empire of Min (Rutland, Vermont, 19J4) On the state of Southern Han, see E H Schafer, "The history o f the empire of Southern Han, according to chapter 65 of the Wu Tai Sbib of Ou-yang Hsiu', Silver Jubilee Volume of /be Zimbun-Kagaku-Kenkyiuyo (Kyoto, 1954), pp 339-69 For a useful sketch in English of his career, see Feng Han-i, 'Discovery and excavation of the Yung-ling, the royal tomb o f Wang Chien (847-918 AD), Archives of the Chinese Arts Society of America, (1947) n - Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 POWER IN LATE T'ANG CHINA 789 and was eventually adopted by the powerful eunuch T'ien Ling-tz'u After T'ien was dismissed during Hsi-tsung's second exile, Wang was in 889 appointed military governor of Hsi-ch'uan (western Szechwan) and by 901 was virtually an independent ruler, with his capital at Ch'eng-tu His regime was in numerous ways an extension and continuation of T'ang rule on a regional basis He was assisted by many T'ang officials, most notably the famous poet Wei Chuang, who devised a formal system of administration and ritual based on that of T'ang.16* At Wang Chien's capital of Ch'eng-tu he attempted, on a small scale, to imitate the great T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an, and many of the city wards were even given the same names Wang's legitimist regime in Szechwan became a great refuge for artists and poets, not to mention members of the T'ang official class who were able to escape the brutal fighting taking place in the north His regime was one of the most stable and peaceful of these years The Ten Kingdoms forms the final part of our picture of the new structure of power in late T'ang China Though none of those states had any chance of establishing a centralizing dynasty, all played an important part in the process of political consolidation completed by the Sung Between 885 and 907 some fifty provincial regimes had been consolidated into a dozen regional states The importance of the Ten Kingdoms goes beyond matters of political consolidation, however Much of the distinctive character of Sung China - the accelerating economic progress of the Yangtze delta, the rich seagoing trade along the south China coast, the new class of literati so heavily concentrated in the south-east - derived from the half-century of peace and stability achieved by the rulers of the Ten Kingdoms If many of the distinctive features of Sung China are linked with the Ten Kingdoms, others are tied to developments in north China, which we have traced earlier The eclipse of north-west China as a political centre, which was at least partly due to the debilitating, endless conflict of the last decades of T'ang rule, was never reversed under the Sung The political and military foundations of Sung imperial power were laid well before the formal termination of T'ang rule, and were largely completed by Chu Wen and his successors Finally, the constant and ultimately overwhelming foreign threats that afflicted Sung rule clearly have their origin in the military weakness of the late T'ang, which permitted large and crucial areas of north China to be effectively lost to Chinese control for many decades 164 See Chang Ts'ung-p'ing, Wei Tuan-cki shih cbiao-cbu (Taipei, 1969), p Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008