Chapter 5

The renewal of empire: The Sui and Tang dynasties (589-ca. 800)

Key ideas:

This chapter investigates the re-integration of empire in the Sui, the early and high Tang. This was the great period of aristocratic society, of internal control and external expansion. The investigation focuses on issues of continuity from the previous period and on transformation that set in during this period, heralding the fundamentally different Chinese society that became manifest in the Song period.

The Tang 唐 dynasty is regarded as the greatest age of imperial China. The tremendous influence of the empire through Eastern and Southeastern Asia is reflected in the fact that “Tang” became the name for the country and its people in Korea, Japan and throughout Southeast Asia down to modern times. Denis Twitchett summarized the glory of the Tang:

It was a time of unprecedented material prosperity, of institutional growth, of new departures in thought and religion, of creativity in all the arts. What accounts for its tremendous vitality? First was its eclecticism – the way the T’ang drew together the many cultural strands from the tumultuous history of the preceding four hundred years. Second was its cosmopolitanism – its openness to foreign influence of all kinds. These qualities of the T’ang civilization gave it a universal appeal. From T’ang China neighboring peoples drew the elements which transformed for all time their own cultures. And to T’ang China came people from all over Asia: students and Buddhist monks from Korea and Japan; tribal leaders and warriors from among the Turks, the Khitans, the Uigurs; emissaries, artists, and musicians from the oasis kingdoms of Central Asia; merchants from many lands – Samarkand, Bokhara, India, Persia, Syria, and Arabia among others. The T’ang capital at Ch’ang-an was more than the functioning capital of a great empire: it was a cosmopolis, the greatest city in the world; it was the radiating center of civilization for the whole of Eastern Asia; from it came the latest in Buddhist doctrine, the latest in poetical modes, authoritative models for institutions, and so on, down to the newest in haute couture and hair styles.133

When looking for history in the Sui 随 and Tang periods, however, we need to be aware that the age of overwhelming glory mainly refers to the first half of the 8th century – of a dynasty that lasted almost three centuries. Allowing ourselves also to investigate the century before and the one and a half centuries after the high Tang

133 Twitchett & Wright (1973), “Introduction,” p. 1.

as periods in their own right, we may discern longer-term tradition and transformation.

The Qin-Han and Sui-Tang analogy

In exploring the history of the Sui and Tang, we have to deal with two major lines of interpretation, namely the parallel reading of Qin-Han 秦汉 and Sui-Tang 隋唐 histories and the image of the dynastic cycle and periodization.

At first glance, parallels between Qin-Han and Sui-Tang may make us inclined to think that history repeated itself. The Sui (581-618) like the Qin (221-209) was a powerful yet short-lived dynasty that unified China through conquest. The Sui like the Qin came from the Northwest and was regarded as semi-barbarian by many, and it brought about its own downfall by overstretching resources in ambitious military and infrastructure projects. In addition, the rise of the middle empire, like that of the first, was accompanied by the formation of a new powerful steppe polity. As the Han faced the Xiongnu, the Sui and Tang were confronted with the confederation of the Turks (Tujue 突厥 in Chinese)134 who set up their steppe empire along the Northern and Western frontier in 522 AD. The Tang, like the Han, was a long-lived dynasty and is considered an age of great glory. During the early decades of the new dynasty, the government pursued a cautious course of consolidation that subsequently enabled it to embark on powerful expansion. Much like the Wang Mang interregnum in traditional historiography appears as the turning point after which the once glorious dynasty would never be more than a shadow of its former self, the An Lushan 安禄山 rebellion (755-763) brought the dynasty to the brink of collapse and left a weakened, de facto disintegrated empire behind.

Closer investigation quickly reveals that many of the parallels are no more than superficial similarities or coincidences. Yet, while the attempt to mutually explain different ages through simply aligning them can hardly contribute to gaining a better understanding, the comparative reading of the early and middle empire remains important. Not so much because we want to prove or disprove historical repetition, but because Sui and Tang rulers, political thinkers and historians consciously used and defined themselves and their judgement through historical precedent.

Continuities from the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties

The Sui as the reunifying dynasty, and the early to high Tang as a period of great imperial power with the reign of Xuanzong 玄宗 (reigned 717-755) as China’s golden age appears to delineate the Sui-Tang age clearly from the preceding “dark ages” of foreign rule and division. This periodization, however, can be quite misleading, when the demarcations of dynasties and the contrast of political

134 The Turks appear in the Chinese documents from the 6th century onwards as a tribal people based on the Altai region and renowned for their ironwork.

disunity versus unified empire are overstated. After all, it were the same northwestern elites who were in power from the Wei through to the high Tang and they employed quite similar administrative structures. Furthermore, the great age of religion in China, with governments sponsoring Buddhism and Daoism while tolerating other creeds and a sizeable proportion of the population opting for monastic life as monks or nuns, lasted through to the early 9th century. Although transferred to a reunified empire, there doubtlessly existed strong continuities between the Northern dynasties and the Sui-Tang.

Problems of dynastic periodization

More importantly, the focus on dynastic and political history inhibits a perspective on socio-economic and cultural transformation that does not coincide with dynastic change. According to the traditional view, the Tang after the great rebellion were but a sad, lingering shadow of former glory, hardly worthy of dwelling upon. It was the longer-term, structural perspective of historical progress that enabled historians to recognize the later Tang as a great departure in socio-economic structures and with regard to the role of the state, akin to the Song rather than to pre 755 Tang.135 Taking into account this by now received interpretation of a fundamental revolution taking place in the later Tang and Song, this chapter concentrates on the period up to 755, leaving the exploration of the late Tang to Song transformation to the next.

The following survey of political events and at some key structural issues will allow us to gain a more differentiated perspective on the period of the early middle empire.

5.1 Issues in the re-building of the Chinese empire For a map of the Sui empire, see http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/china/maps/sui-map.cfm

135 This reinterpretation of Chinese history was initiated by the journalist-historian Naitô Torajirô in a work of 1914. While many details of his proposition have been contested, the general periodization has become received historical understanding.

The Northwestern aristocracy

The Sui rose as successor to the Northern Zhou. As it were, Yang Jian 楊堅 (541 - 604, reigned as Wendi 文帝 581-604), the founder of the Sui, was a general at the Zhou court and the father-in-law of the last Zhou emperor. Li Yuan 李淵 (565-635, reigned as Tang Gaozu 唐高祖 618–626), the founder of the Tang, was a Sui general and a cousin of the second Sui emperor. The rulers of the newly unified empire and their core aristocracy came from the same background of the Northwestern aristocracy.

The centuries of political and social dominance of non-Chinese people in the North left deep marks on society and institutions. Especially in the North-west a new, mixed aristocracy arose, created by the intermarriage of foreign and Chinese elites and cultural osmosis. Outlook and life-styles of these Northwestern aristocrats were very different from the traditional Chinese ruling class. Many spoke Turkish as well as Chinese, they were military leaders rather than a civilian elite, and their women were quite independent and active.

Despite Xianbei and Turkish genealogies, however, we have to be careful not to lump the Zhou, Sui and Tang elites together with the invaders of two centuries before. Rather than ambitious steppe warriors, the northwestern aristocrats of the 6th and 7th centuries were statesmen with considerable experience in the ruling of quite extensive states. They considered themselves the ruling class of China. This comes out in the policy of the first Tang rulers. Although some members of the ruling house still preferred speaking Turkish, their new government immediately proceeded to fortify the borders against the non-assimilated Turks along the northern frontier. The identification of the new rulers and their northwestern aristocracy clearly was with the Chinese empire.

The Sui unification

The Sui conquest of the East and the South, undertaken after several years of internal consolidation, was accomplished swiftly and with minimal bloodshed. The Later Liang, a vassal state, was taken in 583 and provided the Sui with the naval force necessary to conquer the last southern dynasty, the Chen in 589. The reconquest of the South was accompanied by a show of force. Nanjing was destroyed and the aristocracy of the Southern capital forced to resettle at the northern capitals Luoyang or Daxing 大兴 (the Chang’an of the Tang). Having destroyed the central power base of the southern aristocracy, however, the new rulers proceeded gradually and carefully in the integration of the culturally and economically different South. Administrative structures of the North were not forcefully imposed upon the South, but allowed to be adopted very gradually with the cooperation of the local elites.

Equal fields, codified law and the militia system

From the outset, the new Sui rulers and their ministers displayed remarkable administrative skill. Most important were the adaptation of the equal field (juntian 均田) system of the Wei, according to which land was state-owned and given out to individuals for their lifetime only, and the promulgation of a unified code of law as early as 583.

The equal field system - where it was thoroughly implemented - brought close control and a sound tax revenue for the state. We may note that, even for the Tang, the extent of its implementation in the South remains unclear.

Mark Elvin has emphasized the crucial integration of the militia and the equal field systems. Milita men were hereditary warriors and soldiers who now were settled as farmer-soldiers as units on available land, providing for their own upkeep by working their fields three quarters of the year, assembling for military drill during the winter slack season. This system meant that, for all ordinary purposes, the army was self-sufficient and did not have to be paid for by the taxpayers.136

Codified law was the basis for an empire-wide integrated administration. It should be noted that, in good Legalist tradition, the authority of the law was founded on the fact that is applied to all. There were distinctions between “good people” (liangmin 良民, i.e. all ordinary subjects) and “lowly people” (qianmin 浅民, unfree bondsmen, slaves and convicts, a group that however did not surpass a few hundred thousand in the Tang period137), and some privileges for high officials, but no legal affirmation of aristocratic status.

The Tang inherited the equal field system and the militia system as well as the emphasis on codified law. Although these remained, to some extent administrative ideals, the realization of which had to be carefully negotiated according to local customs, traditional networks and state presence, they were the foundation of renewed imperial authority and, in the long run, contributed much to the waning aristocratic power.

Great construction projects

In conscious emulation of Han precedent, the Sui took forceful measures to establish imperial integration in terms of symbolic and practical centres of power and of communication and transport. Upon his ascension, the first Sui emperor began the rebuilding of the two Han capitals Chang’an (named Daxing under the Sui, reverted to Chang’an under the Tang) and Luoyang on a grandiose scale. The work was continued and completed by the early Tang. The city walls of Chang’an measured 9,7 km east to west and 8,2 km north to south and reached a height of almost 10 m. Laid out as a giant,

136 Elvin (1973), The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p. 55. 137 Weng Junxiong (1995), Tangdai renkou yu quyu jingji, pp. 282 and 296.

regular grid, the capital city testifies to the Sui claims to well-ordered grandeur. In the high Tang, the western capital would become the world’s largest metropolis, with some 1 Mio. inhabitants living inside and outside the city walls.

The transport canals

An even greater project was the construction of the Great Transport Canal from 587 to 608, a system of canals and canalised rivers that created a navigable route from the capitals Chang’an 长安 and Luoyang 洛阳 to the Southeast as far as Hangzhou 杭州, extending over 1300 km from Luoyang to Hangzhou.

For a map of the Sui and Tang system of transport canals, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China-Grand_canal,_Sui_and_Tang.svg

The main construction effort of the Sui canal went into the connection between Huaihe 淮河 and Huanghe 黄河. This canal, though using the already canalised river Bianhe 汴河, has been shown to have followed a route different from earlier Han canals. Besides, it was much larger, according to the dynastic history of the Sui and confirmed by archaeological research it was 40 m wide and accompanied by great roads.

For the southern section of the Sui canal system existing canals that connected Huaihe and Yangzi, and south of the Yangzi to Hangzhou were expanded. These sections are still in use as the southern Grand Canal, while the Bianhe section was destroyed in 1126. Altogether, the construction of the canal system was an enormous project. Once in place, it overcame the division between North and South, linking

the Southern centre of Jiangnan with the old and new centres on the Western fringe of the Central Plains. Initially perhaps mainly strategic, carrying the threat of swift intervention if need be, the canal became the great transport avenue that made possible the economic integration of the central regions of the empire through the Tang and Northern Song dynasties.

The central granaries

The construction of the transport route that linked the capital regions, the productive Southern part of the North China plain and the central area of the former Southern Dynasties along the lower Yangzi was accompanied by the building of huge central granaries situated at the terminal points of the waterways near Luoyang and Daxing/Chang’an. These central granaries, like their Han predecessors located near the capitals and at major river confluences along the transport route, had huge storage capacities. A main Sui granary held roughly 11 Mio. tons of grain, during the Tang period, capacities were further expanded.

Clearly, the transport canal was a revival of the Qin and Han transport systems devised to channel Eastern wealth to the political centre in the West. While we have little information on the Sui period, during the Tang, especially from the 8th century onwards, the canal and granary system certainly fulfilled its purpose. With a significant change in the main providing regions and the main products, however: Whereas millet from the plains north and south of Shandong had been most important during the Han period, through the Tang rice from the region between Huaihe and Yangzi and increasingly from regions south of the great river became important.

Military expansion

Again emulating the Han, the Sui embarked on vigorous military expansion. Campaigns were undertaken against the Turkish confederations, into Annam 安南 (the region of Hanoi) and against Gogureo 高句丽 in northern Korea. The wars against Goguryeo, a warlike kingdom based mainly on walled settlements on mountain-tops in the forested hills and mountains of Northern Korea and Eastern Manchuria, eventually brought about the downfall of the Sui. After a failed first campaign, the second Sui emperor, Yangdi 煬帝 (ruled 604-618), had an enormous provisioning line constructed in 608: He had another transport canal built from the Huanghe opposite the end of the southern canal east of Luoyang to the Beijing area.

The great canal and road building projects are thought to have caused the fall of the dynasty. The histories note that for the canal connecting Huaihe to Huanghe and again for the Northern canal over 1 Mio. men and women (!) were recruited over the summer (!). (Suishu, 63, 70). The recruitment of men and women would indicate great labour shortage, while the continuation of work over the

summer months in disregard of agricultural cycles, a measure that must have led to extremely serious consequences for the communities who had to provide these men and women as well as for the labourers themselves. They faced even greater danger of epidemic disease in the hot summer months and, if they survived the corvée service, might end up returning to fields that had turned wasteland.

Troops en route to Korea mutined in 609, peasants of Hebei and Shandong rebelled after Huanghe floods in 611 and more requisitions for the Korean campaigns. Despite mounting unrest, Yangdi undertook three campaigns against Gogureo between 612 and 614. All ended in failure, while leading aristocrats began to rise in open rebellion.

Political history, symbolics and interpretation For a mapof the Tang empire, see http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/china/maps/tang-map.cfm

Tang Taizong138

Li Yuan 李渊 (566—635, reigned 618–626), a general stationed in Taiyuan 太原, rebelled and succeeded in occupying the capital in 617. When Yangdi died in the following year, Li Yuan declared the founding of a new dynasty, the Tang and ruled as emperor Gaozu. Although the strongest and best placed contender, it took the Tang until 624 to secure control of the whole empire. Power struggles at court began with the ascension to power. Li Shimin 李世民 (599 - 649, reigned 626 - 649), Li Yuan’s second son, realized his ambitions by having two of his brothers killed and forcing his father to

138 Wechsler (1979), “The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty: Kao-tsu (reign 618-26),” and “T’ai-tsung (reign 626-49) the consolidator;” Idem (1985), Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T'ang Dynasty.

abdicate. He ascended the throne as Taizong 太宗 and ruled China for over 20 years. His assertive policies that shaped Tang culture and exemplify the wide scope of legitimation sources which the Tang dynasty used to firmly establish its rule.

For a possibly contemporary painting of Tang Taizong (a painting attributed to Yan Liben), see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Taizong1.jpg

Emperor Taizong and Buddhism139

Despite having committed fratricide and deposing his father, heinous crimes to Confucian standards, Taizong came to be venerated as the true founder and greatest ruler of the Tang. How did he achieve such support at his time and such positive judgement by historians?

The main reasons are that he successfully presented himself as a defender of Buddhism and presided over a glorious reign. In the legitmation of power transfer from the Northern Zhou to the Sui and from the Sui to the Tang, the patronage of Buddhism, the cultivation of the image of a new ruler as a true Buddhist king, as well as other heavenly symbols and omina played an important role. The ascension of Taizong, being particularly hard to justify, is an exemplary case of the skillful handling of symbolic and religious support.

Li Shimin struck out against his brothers and father shortly after Gaozu had insisted on closing large numbers of Buddhist monasteries, a drastic measure following Wei dynasty precedents that provided the state with sizeable revenue from the closed monasteries’ property. Besides, closing down monasteries and forcing monks to return to lay life would have served to dry up pockets remaining Sui followers, for monks at the period were often

139 Esp. Wright (1973), “T’ang T’ai-tsung and Buddhism.”

also warrior communities and unsuccessful insurgents could take Buddhist vows in order to escape state persecution (for joining the clergy involved leaving one’s family and changing one’s name). We do not know whether Li Shimin was motivated by pious concern for the Buddhist religion, by concern for the stability of Tang rule should the new dynasty challenge the powerful Buddhist church, or whether he simply saw his chance in the family power struggle. Whichever the case, once in power, he quickly moved to have his father’s edict rescinded. Subsequently, he carefully cultivated an image of Buddhist devotion and patronage.

Emperor Taizong and Daoism

Nevertheless, while Taizong apparently was indeed interested in religion, he did not allow his private conviction interfere with his perspective of a statesman. Later in his reign, he used Daoism to symbolically assert the position of the emperor. Drawing on the coincidence that the Tang ruling house’s surname was the same as that of the Laozi, the Li genealogy was extended back to the venerated founder of Daoism, thus asserting seniority even over the oldest eastern aristocratic clans. While rulers of the Northern and Southern dynasties had been primus inter pares within their aristocratic circles at best, under Taizong the Tang emperors gained a far more exalted status, clearly apart from the aristocrats.

Emperor Taizong and Confucian learning

Parallel to seeking religious and cosmological support to his rule, the emperor placed his dynastic house in the Confucian tradition by measures that enhanced the system of imperial schools and state examinations, by continuing and expanding imperial editing projects that codified the Confucian heritage and history writing projects that defined the image of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

In the last decade of his reign, he revived Han sacrifices on mount Taishan, 泰山 in Shandong asserting the Tang mandate of heaven. Some years later, he took measures to curb the worldly wealth and power of the Buddhist church, promulgating a standard of monastic conduct that precluded economic pursuits and adultery. 140

Tang administration

Although ruthless in gaining and defending power, the first Tang emperors were able rulers who strengthened and expanded the empire. The assertion of the central and exalted position of the emperor has already been mentioned. The key political reform was the consolidation of efficient, centralized government structures. Key features of Tang government and administration, the six central ministries, the grand council, the hierarchical structure reaching out from the capital to prefectures and districts, but also the inbuilt tensions and overlapping competences between regular and extraordinary institutions as well as between the administration and

140 See Wright (1973), “T’ang T’ai-tsung and Buddhism” for a careful analysis of Taizong’s reign and the role of Buddhism and Daoism in his legitimation.

parallel structures of the inner palace which were run by eunuchs would remain in place until the end of the dynastic age.

Like the Han, the early Tang avoided the formation of larger regional units that might grow to challenge Tang rule. The empire was divided into about 300 prefectures under direct central control. Administrative efficiency was remarkable. The registered population and tax revenue increased swiftly, as the equal field system took root, at least throughout much of northern China.

Early Tang expansion

With tax revenues in kind, primarily as grain and silk, regular yearly corvée obligations for all able-bodied commoners, the well organized militias that provided crack troops without burdening the commoner population, and a still warlike northern nobility that voluntarily provided and even equipped mounted crack troops, the early Tang possessed formidable military power.

For a Tang mural painting of cavalry troops, see http://public.dha.ac.cn/content.aspx?id=802219439907

For a photo of the ruins of Subashi, at the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, see http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~pamlogan/silkroad/

Using this army, as well as auxiliary troops composed of Turks, Tanguts (Chinese: Dangxiang 党項), Khitans (Chinese Qidan 契丹), and other non-Chinese, and led by their own chiefs, the early Tang rulers from the founder Gaozu to empress Zetian extended their control beyond China proper. In 630 the Tang turned against their former allies the Turks and gained control over the Gansu corridor and thus the access to Central Asia. Over the next decades, the Tang continued their westward expansion. They gained dominance over the Tarim Basin and eventually made their influence felt as far west as Persia and northern India.

Besides, the Sui defeat at the hands of Goguryeo was not forgotten. In 644, Taizong led a carefully planned campaign against the kingdom. Although the Tang and their ally, the Southern Korean state Silla, much weakened the power of Goguryeo, as winter approached, the Tang army broke off an unsuccessful siege of a Goguryeo stronghold and withdrew.

Backed by its Chinese alliance, Silla proceeded to conquer Baekje. Finally, in 668, the combined efforts of the Tang and Silla armies brought the downfall of Goguryeo and a temporary assertion of Chinese power in northern Korea.

If we return to the Han-Tang analogy for a moment, we notice that it certainly does not work for the early Tang. While the Han experienced seven decades of careful reconstruction and defensive foreign policy before Han Wudi launched his great campaigns, Taizong moved from austerity and restraint to forceful expansion a mere six years after Tang rule had been established. The Sui had been ruthless and ambitious, they had caused a population decline after 609,141 nevertheless, their wars had not been as prolonged and devastating as those of the Qin. The Tang were the direct successors

141 The population of the Sui empire is estimated at 47 Mio. in 609, with a steep decline over the following decade. See Ge Jianxiong ed., Zhongguo renkoushi, vol. 1, pp. 130f.

to the Sui, continuing their policies with a new mandate, unlike the Han who rose as a new group from an utterly exhausted empire.

Wu Zetian142

The third Tang ruler, Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (reigned 646-683), remained in the shadow of his wife, empress Wu. This remarkable woman by the name of Wu Zhao 武照 (625-705), who had entered the palace at the age of 13 as a low-ranking concubine of Taizong, would rise to become the only woman in Chinese history who ruled in her own name.

How Wu Zhao managed to soon return to the palace after Taizong’s death, while her fellow-concubines were made to become nuns, remains unclear. By 652, however, she was back as Gaozong’s concubine and gave birth to his first son and heir apparent. Subsequently, she successfully maneuvered to have the empress removed and herself named empress. No less ruthless than the Tang founder, she had the former empress and another concubine killed. When Gaozong suffered a stroke in 660, she took full charge. Gaozong died in 683, but Empress Wu maintained power during the reigns of her two sons. Then, in 690, she proclaimed herself emperor of a new dynasty, the Zhou 周 and ruled as emperor Zetian 则天 for 15 years.

In neutral political terms, the reign of Wu Zetian was a solid continuation of the early Tang. An astute and ruthless politician, she was able to maintain the loyalty of leading and highly esteemed officials. Others were intimidated by a secret police. In terms of political symbolism and legitimacy, however, the rule of a women was almost impossible to defend. The empress heavily relied on Buddhism to legitimate her rule. Throughout her de factor rule from the 650s to 690, she was a great patron of Buddhism, commissioning or at least heavily contributing to the largest sculptures of the Longmen grottos and funding major translation projects. The year she began to rule in her own name, she circulated the Great Cloud Sutra (Dayun jing 大云经), which predicted the imminent reincarnation of the Buddha Maitreya as a female monarch, under whom the entire world would be free of illness, worry, and disaster.

Wu Zetian’s reign remained unchallenged until she was 80 years old. Finally, in 705, she was deposed in a palace coup and the Tang dynasty restored. Seven years of infighting at court followed, before her grandson Xuanzong ascended the throne.

Unlike Taizong, Wu Zetian’s efforts to create lasting legitimacy for a problematic ascension to the throne were unsuccessful. Later historians pictured her as an evil, sexually depraved usurper. We

142 Twitchett and Howard (1979), “Kao tsung (reign 649-83) and the empress Wu: The Inheritor and the Usurper.” For a very readable though older presentation, see Fitzgerald (1955), The Empress Wu.

may note, however, that her reign brought no disaster, but led up to the golden age of the first half of the eight century.

The golden age of the Tang143

The long reign of Xuanzong (713-756) was the period of Tang splendor. The emperor presided over a dazzling court and patronized some of the greatest poets and painters in Chinese history. Two poets of the high Tang would remain the most popular poets of China and a famous pair of opposite characters, the gregarious Li Bai 李白 (also transcribed Li Bo, 701 - 762) and the sober Du Fu 杜甫 (712 - 770). Chang’an became the world’s largest city with perhaps two million inhabitants.

For the famous kaiyuan tongbao 开元通宝, the coin outstanding quality cast in vast numbers during the Kaiyuan reigns in the High Tang, see: For Sui, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kai_Yuan_Tong_Bao,_early_type,_plain.jpg

The empire’s population exceeded the Han period maximum, reaching 59 Mio. in the official registers by 754 and perhaps 75 to 80 Mio. including unregistered people.144 Improvements in agricultural technique and economic integration created impressive wealth, not only at the capitals. Peace, the well-kept infrastructure of roads and waterways, standardization and a gradual re-monetarization of the economy provided the conditions for flourishing trade and the expansion of manufactures. In the first half of the 8th century, the output of 99 mints throughout the empire surpassed 300 Mio. copper cash, while prices for basic goods such as grain and cloth reached an all-time low in Chinese history.145 At the same time, however, commercial development remained tightly circumscribed through the state’s control over markets and much of the manufacturing industry. Official stipends continued to be paid partly in kind, while silk and other cloth remained an important form of currency.

Yang Guifei For a painting of court ladies at a musical get-together, showing the well-rounded figures made fashionable by Yang Guifei, see http://www.luosen.com/zw-ldmh.htm, select 宫乐图

143 Twitchett (1979), “Hsüan-tsung (reign 712-56).” 144 Ge Jianxiong ed. (2000), Zhongguo renkoushi, vol. 1, p. 182. 145 Peng Xinwei (1994), Monetary History of China, vol. 1, pp. 285f.

In the court-centered historical interpretation, Xuanzong’s passions in his old age led to the disaster that ended Tang greatness. In the 740s, as a man of almost 60, he became infatuated with a young concubine named Yang Guifei 杨贵妃 (Precious consort Yang, 719 - 756). The previously conscientious ruler began to neglect his duties, while allowing Yang Guifei to place her friends and relatives in important positions in the government. One of the men who rose to power during these years was An Lushan 安禄山, a probably illiterate but very able general of Sogdian descent who came to control three important military circuits along the northwestern borders. Conflict became inevitable when An Lushan clashed with Yang Guifei’s cousin Yang Guozhong (杨国忠, ? - 756 ) who had been promoted to the rank of chief minister in 752. In 755, An rebelled. Xuanzong had to flee from Chang’an to Sichuan, and the troops who accompanied the emperor forced him to have Yang Guifei executed.

Structural change and the An Lushan rebellion

More lay behind this crisis than an aging emperor’s foolish love. Yang Guifei, the most notorious femme fatale in Chinese history, probably contributed little to the tensions that led to the An Lushan rebellion. Population growth and social change had caused the Tang to outgrow the institutions of the northern dynasties. The most immediate problems that beset the central government was waning military power. While Turkish and the newly risen Tibetan states increased the pressures on the northern and western borders, the Tang faced mounting difficulties in recruiting troops for border defense.

The disintegration of warrior society and the militia system

While the early 8th century society remained thoroughly aristocratic, with the compilation of genealogies reaching new heights and developing into a historic discipline, it seems that it had left warrior

ideals and lifestyles behind. Whereas Taizong had relied on eager young aristocrats and lesser noblemen for his mounted elite forces, the militias of conscripts and volunteers had become ineffectual half a century later. The milita system that provided the backbone of the infantry meanwhile had gradually disintegrated. The main reason was that distribution of plots in accordance with the equal fields system could not be maintained, partly because of a shortage of available land after a century of population increase, partly due to an increasing trend towards large estates, pushing peasants into tenancy.

Xuanzong’s government tried to reorganize border defense by setting up a semicircle of military circuits under military governors. These governors, enjoying considerable power over areas much larger than units of civilian government, the prefectures, commanded greater military strength than the central government, especially as the capital militias were badly neglected. An Lushan was one of these military governors.

The rebellion of An Lushan was devastating to the Tang. Peace was restored only by calling on Uigur mercenaries, a Turkic people allied with the Tang, who reclaimed the capital from the rebels but then looted it. By 763, when the rebellion was finally suppressed, the rich area of Henan had been devastated, millions of peasants had been uprooted and several hundred thousand had perished. The central government never regained control of the military provinces on the frontiers. The loss of the steppe regions West of Guanzhong an in the Ordos region meant the loss of the great imperial and aristocrats’ studs. With large-scale horse-breeding no longer possible, cavalry dominance and horse culture gradually came to an end. The great changes of society and polity, which made China a different country, will be explored in the next chapter.

Before we turn to the transformation that became apparent after the rebellion, however, we need to take a closer look at the political, economical and cultural structures of the high Tang.

5.3 Structures of the early and high Tang The state and society

When we try to fathom how the Tang dynasty succeeded to establish a stable empire after long centuries of political volatility, control seems to be the most immediate answer. Tang society was tightly controlled and regulated. The main measures to achieve this were the equal field system, codified law and centralized administration. We need to briefly return to these structures in order to get a clearer picture of Tang relations between state and society.

The Tang code146

146 Gernet, Chinese Civilization, pp. 244f., Hansen, The Open Empire, pp. 197-199.

The first Tang code was compiled in 624 and continued to be regularly updated until 737. It is the first Chinese legal code that came down to us complete. In about 500 articles it defines a large range of criminal and administrative transgressions and a scale of punishments. The severity of the crime depended not only on the crime itself, but on the social relations of perpetrator and victim., taking into account both kinship relations and social standing. The punishment, too, would be modified according to social standing, age and sex of the offender.

In adjudicating ordinary cases, district magistrate functioned as examiners and judge. In fixing the punishment, however, he was supposed to simply identify the crime – or the most similar offence listed in the code – and set the penalty accordingly. All cases punishable by capital punishment had to be revised by the emperor.

The Tang code aimed at a clear and rational, in fact almost mechanical legal system, contributing to government authority and uniformity of general standards throughout the empire. It thus greatly contributed to integrating society across different regional customs and identities. In the long run, the reliability of the juridical system encouraged long distance trade and provided merchants with a not always conducive but reliable framework.

It seems that the Tang code successfully combined legalist principles of rule by law and of employing law as a deterrent with Confucian tenets of social relations and the rule by setting examples. The code was adopted in part or in full by all subsequent dynasties, as well as by Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese states.

Taxation and the equal field system For a scene of plowing and harvesting in a Dunhuang mural painting, Tang period, see http://roll.sohu.com/20111209/n328417251.shtml

For excerpts that give you a concrete impression, see Ebrey, Patricia, ed. (1993), “The Tang Legal Code.” In Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, part 3, chapter 26.

With the fiscal laws of 619 and the agrarian ordinances of 624, the Tang government confirmed the equal field system and taxation based on taxes in kind and corvée. Both systems interlocked, with fiscal laws laying down taxation to be collected in grain and in silk – or in other types of cloth in regions unsuitable for the raising of silkworms, and the two types of equal fields – larger plots held for a person’s lifetime for growing grain and small plots held by families in perpetuity for growing mulberry trees (or substitutes in areas not suitable for mulberries) – providing the commoner population with the means to pay these taxes, while keeping them under close supervision, thus making sure that they stayed put and provided the services required.

With land allocation to individuals and mostly restricted to use for their lifetime and taxation per person, state revenues relied on exact census and land surveys. Statutes required an exact population register to be updated every three years. For a long time, historians thought it unlikely that a medieval state was actually capable of carrying out an administrative task of this magnitude. Findings of considerable numbers of everyday contracts in the oasis settlements of Dunhuang and Turfan, however, changed this opinion. Casual references to life shares of land and to census registers prove, that the equal field system did actually function.

While we cannot draw conclusions for the rest of the empire from examples of these semi-colonial settlements in the Far West of Tang China, it is now generally assumed that the system was indeed implemented in much of the Tang empire. The Tang registers are considered the most exact of Chinese history.

Significant adaptation to local circumstance seems, however, certain. After all, no more than one or two imperial officials to a Tang district, i.e. an area inhabited by between one and several ten thousand. Imperial officials were strangers to the region and were appointed for terms of three years. For their administrative work, they had to rely on local staff and the support of local gentry. We may safely assume that how and with which modifications central policies were implemented would have been the result of constant negotiations between the magistrates and local interests.

In the southern rice-growing areas in particular, it is hard to imagine that the system was ever fully implemented. As the opening up of new agrarian land, the levelling of fields, the building and breaking of dikes for rice paddies and the improving of saline soils for cultivation were intensive long-term efforts, with fields as well as irrigation and draining ditches becoming fixed and hard to change once successfully installed, it seem unlikely that fields could actually be allocated for the lifetime of farmers only. We do not know, however, how land was distributed and owned. All in all, nevertheless, census and equal field system certainly show a high degree of control and administrative presence of the state in the countryside.

Surveillance of urban society and trade

Control and surveillance were not restricted to the countryside, either, but extended to trade and urban life as well. Chang’an 长安, the planned city of the Sui in the vicinity of Han period Chang’an that was filled up during the early Tang to become the great cosmopolis of the high Tang, exemplifies ideals of a controlled society.147

Tang Chang’an148

The rectangular city was subdivided into a regular chessboard pattern by 14 avenues running from north to south and 11 from east to west. These avenues were enormously wide, between 150 and 70 m, bordered by ditches and rows of trees. They demarcated 110 wards and two major markets, each of them walled in and accessible only by guarded gates. City, ward and market gates were closed at night and reopened in the morning.

For a reconstruction of the layout of Chang’an, superimposed upon modern Xi’an, see http://www.jxlsxk.com/Photo/ShowPhoto.asp?PhotoID=1152

147 The second capital Luoyang was planned along similar lines on a lesser scale. Due to interruptions in construction work, however, the fully symmetrical plan was not realized. 148 For a an excellent description of Chang’an, presented as a reconstructed walk by the Arabian traveler Ebn Wahab around 870, see Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats, pp. 8-29. For quick surveys, see Hansen, Open Empire, pp. 203-213; and Gernet, Chinese Civilization, pp. 239-242.

The layout of the city in itself was a representation of imperial rule: The palace was placed along the north wall, allowing the emperor symbolically to gaze southwards over the government area and the living quarters of officials and commoners beyond. The only high buildings in the city were Buddhist pagodas. Otherwise, the city walls and those encircling the palace city with their great gates were the most impressive structures. The great avenues were made for enormous parades held by the emperor, and sometimes by leading ministers or eunuchs as well. On those occasions, however, the beating of drums told all lesser inhabitants to retreat behind the walls and keep their gates shut. Secrecy rather than open glamour served to keep the population in awe of their rulers.

Certainly, Tang urban life was rather different from urban life as we know it. Nevertheless, Tang Chang’an also was a teeming metropolis. Merchants from the West not only offered exotic wares but founded their own communities with their own religions and churches. Examination candidates and others hoping for official employment flocked to the city. Famous courtesan areas catered to elite scions.

Yet markets, where urban lives of all occupations intersect, were also closely supervised. The East and West Markets of Chang’an were densely built-up quarters with their own population of resident traders and craftsmen and inns. At the centre of each market was the Market Office that enforced trading hours, supervised weights, measures and the quality of money and goods, and issued certificates of sale for such commodities as salves and lifestock. Lists of prices were drawn up every ten days in order to maintain prices at a fair level.

Other Tang cities149

The situation in other Tang cities was quite similar. Although the regular grid pattern could not have been realized in these smaller and older cities, here too people lived in walled wards and frequented closely supervised markets. As was the case with the equal field system, however, we may assume a gradual relaxation as to the details of control from Northwest to Southeast.

As early as the Sui period, we hear of a much less strictly ordered situation in Bianzhou 汴州 (modern Kaifeng 开封). In 595 the Sui founder Wendi 文帝 stopped in this city and was offended to observe flourishing commercial activities and war walls torn down to provide direct access to the streets. The prefect of the city ordered the rebuilding of wall wards and people to return to agriculture. We do not know, to which degree his orders were followed.150 It seems clear, however, that commercial prosperity tended to overcome too strict regulations. It should be noted, for example, that Tang market

149 Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats, pp. 36-50. 150 Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats, p. 48.

regulations (as those of the Han had done before) concentrated on settled traders in the markets. The travelling merchants, meanwhile, were controlled by tolls and barriers, but had considerably greater means to buy their way through. The nouveaux riches who began making their mark in the high Tang, mostly came from the ranks of successful travelling merchants.

The Ever normal and righteous granaries151

An intimidating level of control? Time-travel to the Tang would probably lure none of us. When we take into account the living memories of Sui and Tang men and women, however, we may come closer to understanding the widespread acceptance of the Tang as a great age, not only for its external glory. The early Sui and the early to high Tang may have placed heavy burdens on taxpaying peasants and controls on trade and urban life, yet they established lasting internal peace. Walls and surveillance constricted life, but unlike the previous period, when war, raids and exactions had to be expected at all times, Tang controls were in fact able to provide a high degree of security and accountability.

Furthermore, there was another factor that probably greatly contributed to ease general acceptance of Sui and especially of Tang imperial rule, namely the system of relief granaries. The granary system, both for concentrating supplies at the centre and as a precaution against harvest failure in the regions, had been reconstructed under the Sui. It were the Tang, however, who set up a systematic network of granaries to serve prefectures and districts. These were the Ever Normal granaries (changping cang 常平仓) located at the prefectures, and the Righteous granaries (yicang 义仓) that were established at the district towns for the exclusive purpose of providing famine relief.

As it were, the Tang were fortunate to enjoy a much lower occurrence of major natural disasters than the preceding age, due to a generally warmer and more humid climate.152 In addition, it seems that measures by local officials and the central government to provide relief in times of need were relatively efficient.

Aristocratic society and social control

We may be inclined to consider all this control as rather bureaucratic and hardly compatible with aristocratic society. In the perspective of the preceding period and the rise of the Northern aristocrats, however, this is not the case. Rather, we may picture the Sui and early Tang emperor’s and elite’s attitude towards society as none too different from the aristocratic landlord: They took upon themselves a paternal responsibility to provide for their retinue’s livelihood, while demanding strict control and service in return. They needed to keep

151 Bray (1984), Science and Civilisation in China. VI,6: Agriculture, pp. 417-419; Will and Wong (1991), Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China 1650-1850. pp. 8f., Ai Chong (1997), “Sui-Tang Yongfeng cang kaolun” 152 Liu Zhaomin (1992), Zhongguo lidai qihou, p. 100-111.

track of productivity in their fields and workshops in order to be able to provide for everyone’s needs, those of their noble warriors and friends necessary for the defence of their manors above all. Tang society at the outset was not much different from this model. Its very success, the long peace that led to impressive population growth and prosperity, which in turn made society more complex and enabled some among the formerly lowly servants to rise as merchants or scholars, eventually dislodged the aristocratic elite and created a fundamentally different society.

The state, the elites, and administration

How, however, was the newly reunited empire able to gain lasting support from the proud aristocratic elites?

Aristocratic and monastic elites

An important factor certainly was the fact that aristocrats were not the only leading group. Rather, they were complemented by an often overlapping, yet in its aims and culture quite distinct group: the monastic elite of high monks and leading clerics.

The Sui and early Tang emperors worked hard to gain the support of both groups, as well as drawing legitimation from symbolic systems of Buddhism, Daosim and those associated with the Confucianism tradition and state cosmology of the Han. As a result, the early and high Tang were the period of the greatest flourishing of Buddhism and the rise of Daoism, while the developments in both religions remained closely linked to imperial patronage. From the perspective of state politics, the court thus succeeded in using religious teachings for its aims of legitimation and glory, while maintaining the supremacy of worldly power.

Thus, when Xuanzang 玄奘 (602? – 664), the most famous Buddhist scholar of the Tang period,153 returned from India in 645, after an absence from China of 16 years, he was interviewed by emperor Taizong. The emperor, it seems, was however mostly interested in the regions and peoples Xuanzang could provide first-hand information on. Subsequently, Taizong made available the facilities and staff needed for the greatest translation project of Sanskrit texts into Chinese. Altogether 657 texts were translated. As a side-product, the translators developed a standard set of characters used for the transliteration of foreign names, a system still in use today.

Schools and the examination system154

As for the aristocracy, we have noted in the previous chapter, that aristocratic elites in China remained associated to government structures. A break-up into independent feudal entities did not take place. As the Tang dynasty became established, leading aristocratic

153 For a very readable biography of Xuanzang, see Wriggins (1996). Xuanzang: A Buddhist pilgrim on the Silk Road. 154 McMullen (1987), State and scholars in T'ang China, pp. 29-66; Herbert, (1988), Examine the Honest, Appraise the Able; part 1; Lee (2000), Education in Traditional China, pp. 70-77.

families continued to gravitate towards the court, confirming their own status by rendering support to the dynasty. Generally, cooptation, exercised through the recommendation system and patronage, remained the usual path for the recruitment of officials high and low.

Early on, however, the new dynasty strengthened meritocratic aspects and an education oriented on Confucian classics and civil rather than military ideals. A system of higher schools and academies was set up at the capital and prefectural levels, and passing the state examination became an additional proof of qualification, almost standard for higher office. Although state schools and academies at no point provided numerically important numbers of graduates, they had an exemplary function for a largely privately organized school system.

Similarly, only a minority of officials was recruited through the various state examinations, but their prestige was such that is shaped the goals and contents of education. The highest and most prestigious doctorate examinations (jinshi 进士), held at the capital and comprising essays on Confucian classics, statecraft and poetry, became a prerequisite for a very small group of men who served in the highest positions. Competition in this examination was enormous: An average of 1000 candidates would qualify and compete for a quota of 25 successful placings.

The prestige of the examinations in turn had effects not only on the education provided by schools, but also on the standing and popularity of argumentative essays and poetry. It is considered a major factor in the great age of prose and poetry that was the high and later Tang.

While the aristocratic backgrounds of the men in leading capital positions remained fairly stable, it seems that social backgrounds became more complicated when we turn our attention to officials in the regions. Although sons of the lowly classes as well as of merchants and artisans were excluded from taking the exams, the lower examinations were (theoretically) open to all "good people," and the higher examinations to petty officials as well as to all members of the scholar class. Examination candidates therefore could and did come from lower and less wealthy background than old leading aristocratic clans. As long as the Tang administration expanded, this situation was perhaps tolerable to all involved, when the great rebellions led to military and financial crisis and to the contraction of administration, however, it were the old aristocratic families that disappeared into oblivion. It would seem that the value of education and merits, established over one and a half century through schools and state examinations, had eroded claims for position based on birth alone.

Material culture

Major changes in material culture become visible in the 8th century and would become the natural order of things by the Song period. They give us a sense of the transformation of life brought about by Tang prosperity and a changing society. The Tang period constitutes the high point in Chinese horse breeding. It was also the time when the Chinese lifestyle, which we now consider as typically Chinese, began, including cuisine and furniture. Elite cuisine of the high and later Tang already combined much the same ingredients as Chinese cuisine nowadays: white rice as the best staple food, accompanied by a great range of side-dishes composed from various meats, fish and a large array of vegetables and condiments.155 At the same time, tea changed drinking culture, chairs transformed house interiors, and the robes of monks and scholars became a standard throughout East Asia. In the following, we will look at a few facets of the changes in material culture.

Interestingly, four important changes in material culture are all linked to Buddhism. We will briefly investigate the introduction of chairs, the spread of sugar and tea and the beginnings of printing.

Horses and horse-breeding156

Horses were essential to Tang elite culture, to the military and to communications. Northern nobles continued the traditions of the period of the Northern Dynasties. They placed great emphasis on hunting, horses and martial abilities, especially on shooting from horseback. The Tang government and leading aristocrats became great horse-breeders. By advances in breeding and the inbreeding of Turkish and Arab horses, Chinese horses changed. Prized horses of the Tang were large, stout animals with slender legs. At the peak of imperial horse-breeding in the mid-7th century, there were over 700 000 horses on the imperial studs, providing mobility for the court and probably for a proportion of the army and the courier system. Riding was not a male domain among Northern aristocrats. The popularity of polo at the Tang court and depictions of outings on horseback of noble ladies attest to the horsemanship of Tang elite women. The place horses occupied in painting and sculpture also underlines their importance in elite culture.

For a painting of one of the emperor’s horses, attributed to Han Gan (active 742–756), see http://www.art-virtue.com/painting/history/tang/tang.htm For mounted ladies, see http://www.vip968.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=13&Id=1052

155 Schafer (1977), “T’ang.” 156 Cooke (2000), “The Horse in Chinese History,” pp. 46-56; Zhang Qun (1990). “Tangdai zhi mapi maoyi.”

The crack troops of the early Tang armies was a light cavalry. These warriors were members of the militias, a recruit system in which cavalrymen had to bring their own horses and equipment. This in effect means that it was a two-tier system, with young nobles serving in the cavalry and commoners as auxiliary infantry. Mercenaries from the steppe were added to these armies, these were also mounted warriors.

The key network holding the empire's administration together were the imperial roads and the courier system. The Tang road network and the courier infrastructure with stations roughly every 30 km providing new horses for courier messengers and horses and hostel

services for officials en route, has been reconstructed in considerable detail. Altogether, it was a vast infrastructure that kept the lines of communication open, provided well kept roads that furthered trade and economic integration, while also maintaining surveillance over movements of peoples and goods.

Both horse-breeding and the horse-focussed warrior culture gradually lost ground during the High Tang. Aristocratic lifestyles and careers gradually became oriented towards Southern refinement and the civil administration. In the mid-8th century, as a result of the An Lushan rebellion and the Tibetan encroachments on the Western frontier, the Tang lost the important horse-breeding grounds in what are now Gansu and Qinghai province. This was the end of large-scale horse-breeding within the empire. The later Tang, like most of their successors became dependent on importing horses from the steppe peoples. As horses were in increasingly short supply, military and communications had to be adapted. The structure of transportation, of warfare and of empire changed.

Tea157

The cultivation of the tea bush probably originated in Western Sichuan. Tea as a beverage made by pouring boiling water on fermented tea leaves was already known in the Han period. In the Six Dynasties period, tea became fashionable among the Southern elites. Anecdotal evidence shows, however, that by the time of the Sui foundation in the late 6th century, tea was consumed only by a small groups of Southerners, while fresh or fermented milk was the main beverage of the Northern elite. It was only during the Tang period that tea (and actually also the secret Chinese national drink kaishui 开水 “boiled water”)158 became a popular beverage throughout China and beyond.

The take-off of local habit to a general feature first of elite and then of better-off Chinese life can be located in the high Tang. A book, Lu Yu's 陆羽(born 733) Book of Tea (Chajing 茶经, ca. 760) was instrumental in spreading tea enthusiasm among the elite. The book itself was a great success. A contemporary of Lu Yu commented that "those near and far were enarmoured [of tea sets], and a set was kept in the house of every enthusiast."159 Tea houses soon sprung up, changing public lifestyle. Tea plantations, the processing of tea leaves and trade became major fields of economic activity. By the late Tang, the state made first attempts to tax the tea trade, indicating that tea trade had reached considerable volume.

Weng Junxiong pointed out that the new fashion spread along the transport canal, exemplifying that tea drinking, the growth of

157 Kieschnick (2003), The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, pp. 262-273; Smith (1991). Taxing Heaven's Storehouse, 51-56; Zhu Zizhen and Shen Han (1995). Zhongguo chajiu wenhuashi, pp. 34-48. 158 Ceresa (1993). La scoperta dell’acqua calda. 159 Quoted in Kieschnick, Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, pp. 265f.

commercial networks and the new link between the Old South and the capital regions were closely connected.160

John Kieschnick has shown that Buddhist practice and monasteries played an important role in the rise of tea. Not only was Lu Yu an orphan brought up in a monastery where he probably acquired his knowledge of tea cultivation, fermentation, and the delight of drinking tea, but the network of monasteries as well as the important role of monastic gardens in the cultivation of plants contributed much to spreading and furthering both the cultivation of the tea bush and the availability of tea leaves. Furthermore, monastic life with its emphasis on meditation made tea a welcome beverage that helped monks to fend off sleep while meditating.

Chan (Zen) Buddhism, a religious and philosophical school particularly popular among the educated elite, greatly cherished tea. The parallel rise of Chan and tea suggests that Chan popularity helped along the spreading of tea drinking, while the elegant beverage may in turn have contributed to the attractiveness of the Buddhist sect.161

In short, the rise of tea was the nationwide adoption of Southern lifestyle that probably had originated in Sichuan. The elegance of the habit, the association with clearing the mind, and its disconnection with nourishment so strong in drinking milk as well as alcoholic beverages constituted a major departure in drinking culture. Being a rare concentrated and storable source of Vitamin C, tea would have also improved the diet. As tea, being durable, valuable and lightweight, was also an ideal commodity, its rising popularity had a considerable effect on and was in turn promoted by the developing commercial economy. Finally, by the Song period, it effected a major change on Chinese foreign trade in general and on relations with the steppe peoples in particular. We will come back to the last points in the next chapters.

Sugar162

Befitting the image of a relatively affluent society, Tang China also was the time when sugar production and consumption were much developed. Prior to the Tang, maltose and honey were the main sweeteners used in China. Honey of domesticated bees, however, was always in limited supply, while maltose as a grain product was also a luxury product that potentially interfered with food security, because it used large amounts of grain that thus was not available for basic consumption.

Cane sugar had been known in northeastern India since 800 to 700 BC. The juice of the sugar cane and semi-dry sugar produced from this tropical plant first appears around the second century AD in the

160 Weng Junxiong, Tangdai renkou yu quyu jingji, p. 553f 161 Zhu and Shen. Zhongguo chajiu wenhuashi, pp. 35-39. 162 Mazumdar (1998), Sugar and Society in China, pp. 13-28; Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, pp. 249-262

context of expanding Chinese control over the southern coast. Up to the early Tang, however, refined, crystallized sugar was regarded as a Western product and Emperor Taizong dispatched an overland embassy to northern India specifically to learn the art of sugar-making. The plant and its processing techniques thus seem to have reached China via both the sea route and the Silk Road. Over the subsequent centuries, cane sugar came to be used widely in Chinese cooking and baking, for preservation, luxury and travellers' foods.

John Kieschnick has argued that Buddhism was crucial in the technology transfer from India, in developing cultivation and processing of sugar cane and in spreading the new habit. Buddhist monks were the mobile group who linked Chinese and Indian cultures. Buddhist monasteries were large establishments and active in the cultivation and adaptation of new plants, while possessing the equipment and scale of production needed for the processing of cane into crystallized sugar. Moreover, they were highly motivated. As monastic rule prohibiting monks to eat solid food after noon, cane juice was an important allowed nourishment for monks and nuns in the second half of the day. The use of cane juice was already common in Indian Buddhism and certainly adopted in monasteries of Southern China. The perishable tropical plant was, however, not available in the North. It would seem that processing sugar, as a storable form of sugar cane, would have constituted an important enterprise for easing monastic life in northern China.

Chairs163 For a painting from the late 7th century, showing a scholar in conversation with two monks - seated on a wicker chair, a sitting drum and a low platform respectively, see http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yan_Liben._Xiao_Yi_Trying_to_Swipe_the_Lanting_Scroll._National_Palace_Museum,_Taipei.jpg （蕭翼賺蘭亭圖） For a 10th century painting of an extravagant evening party with rich furniture, see http://www.gongpin.net/UserDocument/10871/201105130608065767.jpg (韩熙载夜宴图)

163 Fitzgerald (1966), Barbarian Beds; Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, pp. 222-249.

It is common knowledge that Chinese sit on chairs while Japanese and Koreans sit on the floor. Why, however, and when did Chinese adopted chairs? Erudite Chinese of the 11th and 12th century, who naturally sat on chairs, were greatly mystified when they realized that the ancients used to sit on mats and regarded the kneeling position as the most proper posture (as, we may notice, is still the case in traditional Japanese or Korean settings). What had happened?

Research in the history of furniture and into the question of the adoption of the chair in China in particular has shown that various kinds of foldable stools and sitting platforms had been known for a long time and but that the general adoption of chairs took place in a period of little over one century in the late Tang. In the early and high Tang, depictions of court scenes show emperors and other important personalities sitting on low wooden platforms. These lifted the person from the ground, distancing the seated person from the ground's dust and providing insulation, while providing space to seat one or several persons in cross-legged or kneeling posture.

Why, however, should people switch to sitting on much higher chairs with their legs hanging down? Gerald Fitzgerald argued that the rise of the chair accompanied the southward move of Chinese culture. In the more humid southern climate, it became important to raise beds and sitting utensils well off the ground, thus making the chair a general feature of life. John Kieschnick has shown that in this aspect of material culture, too, Buddhism played an important role in establishing a new habit. He suggests that Buddhists were familiar with the seated position on a chair from Buddha figures and commonly used small platforms with arm- and backrests for meditation. In Buddhism the image of the chair therefore was entirely positive, associated with holy men and meditation. Mentionings from the 8th and 9th centuries indicate familiarity with chairs, which however were not everyday objects but used in special, often Buddhist settings. We may surmise, therefore, that the general adoption of the chair was made possible by the positive associations

provided by Buddhism and took off with the southward orientation of Chinese culture that took place after the An Lushan rebellion.

Initially a piece of furniture used by the elites, the use of the chair then had major consequences for indoor life. Tables and windows had to rise accordingly, while mats on the floor were no longer useful. Positions for talking and eating, for reading and writing, as well as for showing respect and disdain changed.

The gradual trajectory explains the absence of the chair in Korea and Japan: These cultures received their formative impression of Chinese culture during the high Tang, when the chair had not yet become a common piece of furniture. Besides, we need to allow for considerable regional variation within China as well. Among the common people, especially in the North, chairs high enough to hang the legs down never became common. People moved off the ground, but sat on small, low stools or on the Kang, the large, heated bed built of bricks and clay.

Conclusion

The Tang empire in its glory, its culture and religions, its administrative and political structure, came to be looked upon as ideals both by contemporary neighbours and by Chinese of later ages. As the Han, the Tang was a period, when Chinese superiority in all respects was unchallenged and respected, a sense of self-assuredness allowing for open, outward-looking attitudes. Buddhism had created an ecumenical culture that encompassed most of the Asian world east of India. In East Asia, Daoism developed into a secondary, more elitist but culturally important belief system. From Northern Vietnam to Central Asia to Japan, written Chinese became the lingua franca. From the 8th century onwards, printed books facilitated cultural exchange. Korean and Japanese states, which were in the final stages of state formation in the 7th century, were closely modelled on the Tang. They adopted government structures, the symbolism and ideology of Confucian rulership, as well as many cultural aspects, such as literary, clothing and building styles. The Silly and Yamato capitals followed the grid-layout of Chang’an. Over the following centuries, the early Vietnamese state followed a comparable path, while northern and western states also adopted

key institutions, such as the courier system164 and large grid cities as capitals.165

Investigations of political, social and cultural structures of the Sui and the first one and a half centuries of the Tang have shown, that the society dominated by Northern warrior aristocrats at the outset of the period, had become a quite different world by the end of the period. In the next chapter, we will follow the extent of change over the subsequent centuries.

164 The Tang courier system was perhaps the most efficient system of state communications of imperial China. It consisted of a network of great overland roads that was considerably denser than that of the Han period. Along the roads relais stations were set up at regular intervals, the distance between them varying with the terrain and the frequency of use. These stations were major institutions with stables and pastures for up to several hundred courier horses, as well as providing catering and lodging for travelling officials. The courier system mainly fulfilled two purposes: its couriers dispatched government documents through the relais system at great speed to their destination, while the larger stations provided the infrastructure of travelling officials and embassies. In addition, couriers were employed to deliver special goods for to the court. Thus Luoyang courtiers could enjoy seafood from the coasts of Shandong or Jiangsu! 165 In the formation of the Khitan Liao state in the 10th century and the Jurchen Jin state in the 12th, the setting up of capitals constituted an important step. The nomadic Khitan set up five capital cities, linking Manchuria, the northern end of the North China Plain and eastern Mongolia; the sedentary Jurchen from Northeastern Manchuria largely followed the Liao pattern. Tru to the raiding traditions of the northern Frontier, however, the Liao and Jin cities were initially populated with captivated Chinese craftspeople from conquered cities of China.

Further reading:

Hansen, Valerie (2000), “China’s Golden Age.” In The open Empire: A History of China to 1600. Chapter 5. New York: Norton. For a picture of society, religion, law and individual stories.

Gernet, Jacques . “The aristocratic empire.” In A History of Chinese civilization, chapter 11. for a survey of institutional and political structures.

Ebrey, Patricia, ed. (1993). “Emperor Taizong on Effective Government.” In Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, part 3, chapter 25.

Ebrey, Patricia, ed. (1993). “The Tang Legal Code.” In Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, part 3, chapter 26.

Ebrey, Patricia, ed. (1993). “The Dancing Horses of Xuangzong’s Court.” In Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, part 3, chapter 28.

Ebrey, Patricia, ed. (1993). “The Examination System.” In Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, part 3, chapter 30.

For the seriously interested, the following works provide well-written studies on specific issues: Heng, Chye Kiang (1999). Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats: The Development of Medieval Chinese

Cityscapes, chapter 1: “The Tang City.” Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai'i Press. for a detailed description of Tang Chang’an of the 870s, as the Arab traveler ?? might have seen it.

Somers, Robert M. (1990). “Time, Space and Structure in the Consolidation of the T’ang Dynasty (A.D. 617-700).” In Dien, Albert E., ed. State and Society in Early Medieval China, pp. 369-400. for an analysis of Tang legitmiation

Wriggins, Sally Hovey (1996). Xuanzang: A Buddhist pilgrim on the Silk Road. Boulder: Westview. for a very readable biography of the most outstanding Buddhist monk and scholar of the Tang period