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An Lushan (An Shi) Rebellion Ān-​Shǐ Zhī Luàn ​安史之乱

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An Lushan (An Shi) Rebellion Ān-​Shǐ Zhī Luàn ​安史之乱 ◀ Ami Harvest Festival Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667. An Lushan (An Shi) Rebellion Ān-​Shǐ​Zhī​Luàn ​安史之乱 The An Lushan Rebellion (755– 763 ce) was an uprising against the Tang dynasty by a rapid succession of four rebel emperors of mixed Turkic-​­Sogdian ethnicity, whose ancestors came from present-day​­ Uzbekistan. The event generated a rich cultural heritage recounting the devastation of the country, and it roman- ticized the folly of Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved imperial concubine Yang. n 16 December 755 ce, An Lushan (703– 757), or Rokshan (Persian for “light”), swept south from Fanyang (today’s Beijing region) with a multieth- nic army of 150,000– 200,000 troops (Xi, Malgal, Tongra, Khitan, and Chinese) and mounted a catastrophic rebel- lion against Tang dynasty China (618– 907) in the name of a new dynasty, Yan. In the next seven years the Tang capitals of Chang’an and Luoyang were occupied by a rapid succession of four rebel emperors of mixed Turkic-Sogdian​­ ethnicity (An Lushan and his son An Qingxu and Shi Sim- This tomb figure of a warrior, in pottery painted ing and his son Shi Chaoyi), whose ancestors came from with color and gold, from the end of the seventh present-​­day Uzbekistan and spoke a Persian (Iranian) lan- century (Tang dynasty) is in the collection of the guage. The An Lushan Rebellion was more than a signifi- Historical Museum, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. The cant military event in Tang China; in literary and artistic features of this Tang warrior’s face suggest that circles it generated a rich cultural heritage that recounted he was descended at least partially from Central the devastation of the country and romanticized the trag- Asian forebears; military armor such as this fig- edy and folly of Emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712– 756) and ure wears was in use at the time of the An Lushan his beloved imperial concubine Yang (719– 756), who had Rebellion. Photo by Joan Lebold Cohen. formerly been the wife of one of his sons. 49 © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC O 50 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝 库 山 中 华 全 书 Scene showing Emperor Xuanzong and his army retreating through the mountains to Sichuan, after the emperor’s beloved concubine Lady Yang was forced to commit suicide by the emperor’s angry troops; they believed her extravagant ways had incited An Lushan’s rebellion. The emperor is the figure closest to the foreground on the right, riding a dark horse in the painting Emperor Xuanzong’s Journey to Shu, ink and color on silk, by an anonymous artist, ninth–​­tenth century. From the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan. Chinese primary and secondary sources vilify An Lushan harbored a seditious intent, and indeed An Lushan as a semi-​­sinicized military governor of three Lushan rebelled, and his forces quickly cut off access to strategic provinces in the northeast (Pinglu, Fanyang, the Grand Canal, the economic lifeline that connected and Hebei) whose rebellion brought widespread famine the economies of the north and the south. The rebellion and deaths by the millions. The narrative is focused on drove Emperor Xuanzong and his entourage to seek ref- the palace spectacle, where the obese and exotic-​­looking uge in Sichuan, but at the Mawei postal station his soldiers An Lushan had first convinced Emperor Xuanzong of his executed Yang Guozhong and forced the suicide of the loyalty to the Tang throne through over a decade of fron- imperial concubine Yang, whom they blamed for provok- tier defense against the border peoples. When summoned ing An Lushan and plunging the country into civil war. to the Tang court, An Lushan entertained the women of Xuanzong abdicated in favor of his son Suzong (reigned the court while dressed as a baby and was adopted as a 756– 762), who enlisted the assistance of the Uighur cav- son by the imperial concubine Yang. Her cousin, Prime alry to crush the rebels. Both emperors died before the Minister Yang Guozhong, repeatedly warned that An rebellion came to a conclusion in January 763, when the © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC An Lushan (An Shi) Rebellion n Ān-Shǐ​Zhī​Luàn n 安史之乱 51 much-​­diminished Tang dynasty allowed the rebel gener- governors were in charge of the civil and military admin- als, previously connected with An Lushan, to retain their istration, and as they increased the size of their armies, military governorships in the northeast. their provinces also became new centers of trade. Rebel- lion was ripe in the northeast provinces, which had a di- rect invasion route to Luoyang and were located closer Origins of the Rebellion than the Tang capitals to the rich south. Scholarship in the West has produced translations of An Lushan’s biography in the official histories and probed Outcome of the Rebellion deeper into the political and military developments that led to the rebellion. A patron of the arts and literature, The Tibetans and Uighurs were the winners in the re- Emperor Xuanzong has been credited with Tang’s golden bellion. The Tibetans saw the opportunity to dominate age of peace and prosperity at home and abroad until the the provinces of Gansu and Ningxia when the Tang rebellion occurred. He is blamed for supporting his prime minister, Li Linfu (d. 752), whose political and military reforms in 736–752 weakened the central government and Detail of the scroll painting Emperor Xuanzong’s gave rise to regionalism and separatism in the northeast Journey to Shu. Emperor Xuanzong is pictured provinces, the base for An Lushan’s operations. In 749 Li bottom center. dealt a death blow to the cost-​­effective fubing (garrison soldiery) system of soldier-​­cultivators, in which soldiers farmed the land in the growing season and at other times undertook military exercises and tours of duty at the capi- tals and the frontiers. Expenditures were kept low as the soldier-​­cultivators provided for their own food, equip- ment, and horses in return for larger land allocations and exemption from taxes and unpaid public labor. The garrison soldiery system was totally replaced by a pro- fessional army, accounting for the largest single expendi- ture of the central government because salaries, food, and equipment were now state expenses. Eighty-​­five percent of these career soldiers were placed under military gover- nors, who had large staffs and generous funds to direct the loyalty of their soldiers to themselves rather than to the Tang throne. Contrary to the tradition of selecting mili- tary governors from the aristocracy and bureaucracy, Li Linfu appointed non-​­Chinese career military officers to the frontier provinces to carry out an aggressive and pre- carious foreign policy. In 751 Gao Xianzhi, a Tang general of Korean ancestry, lost the Battle of Talas (in Kyrgyz- stan) to the Arabs, after which Tang China relinquished control over Tashkent and Ferghana in central Asia. An Lushan and Shi Siming, career military men from the Turkic-​­Sogdian disaporic communities in Beijing, bene- fited enormously from Li Linfu’s military policies and ex- ploited the discontent of the northeast population against the Tang dynasty’s discriminatory measures. The military © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 52 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝 库 山 中 华 全 书 government withdrew frontier troops to defend the capi- Further Reading tals. In 760 the Tibetan king, Trisong Detsen (reigned Beckwith, C. (1987). The Tibetan empire in central Asia. 755– 797), invaded Sichuan Province and exacted annual Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. payments of silk from Tang China; in late 763 he charged Benn, C. (2002). China’s golden age: Everyday life in the into Chang’an and installed a pretender to the Tang Tang dynasty. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University throne. The Uighurs, who had earlier assisted the Tang Press. dynasty with troops and horses to crush the rebel forces, des Rotours, R. (1962). Histoire de Ngan Lou-​­Chan. Paris: now drove the Tibetans out and were paid with princess l’Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises. brides and a lucrative horse trade. Drompp, M. R. (2005). Tang China and the collapse of the The Tang dynasty survived the rebellion but never Uighur empire. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. recovered its external prestige and internal stability. The Graff, D. A. (1995). Meritorious cannibal: Chang Hsun’s defence of Sui-​­yang and the exaltation of loyalty in an central government accepted the autonomy of the north- age of rebellion. Asia Major, 8(1), 1– 27. east provinces and lost 25 to 30 percent of the tax base. The Kamalov, A. (2001). Turks and Uighurs during the rebel- financial structure of the dynasty had collapsed during the lion of An Lu-​­shan Shih Ch’ao-​­yi (755– 762). Central rebellion, and the taxation system had to be overhauled Asiatic Journal, 45(2), 243– 253. by 780, when the poll tax in kind (grain, cloth, corvee Levy, H. S. (1960). Biography of An Lu-​­shan. Berkeley and [labor]), based on the number of people in the household, Los Angeles: University of California Press. was replaced with a twice-​­yearly tax payable in cash. The Pulleyblank, E. G. (1955). The background of the rebellion of southward shift of population from the war-​­torn north- An Lu-​­Shan. London: Oxford University Press. east to the Huai and Yangzi regions gave new importance Pulleyblank, E. G. (1976). The An Lu-Shan​­ Rebellion and to the central and southern parts of the country as the the origins of chronic militarism in late T’ang China. chief source of revenue for the central government.
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