As one of the most brilliant dynasties in China's ancient history, the Tang Dynasty ranked first in the comprehensive national strength of the Tang Dynasty in the world map at that time, worthy of the name of the Heavenly Dynasty. However, the Tang Dynasty, which was so powerful, also underwent several changes, among which the turmoil that greatly damaged the tang dynasty's national strength was the famous Anshi Rebellion. After the Anshi Rebellion, the tang dynasty, an incomparably prosperous country, had reached the end of its might, and its national strength was rapidly declining.
At present, many historians believe that the Anshi Rebellion reversed the prosperity and strength of the Tang Dynasty and pulled the Tang Dynasty into a trough, which was not only a turning point for the entire Tang Dynasty, but also a turning point in ancient China. After the Anshi Rebellion, the Central Plains Orthodoxy was no longer able to resist the invasion of the frontier ethnic minorities. Let's take a look at the beginning and end of the Anshi Rebellion and see how the Tang Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline.
First, the frontier was unstable, and An Lushan raised troops
An Lushan was not a Han Chinese of the Tang Dynasty, and as the old saying goes, "If you are not of my race, your heart will be different." "He was born in a small country in the western region, and it turned out that he was not surnamed An, but was called Rolling Mountain. An Lushan changed his surname to his father's surname after following his mother Ashde to remarry an yanyan, a general of the Right Yu Lin Army.
In 732, An Lushan met a nobleman in his life, Zhang Shoujue. An Lushan, tired of living with his father, had already fled the Turks and came to Youzhou. At that time, An Lushan had become a merchant, but it was still difficult to change his petty theft, and as a result, he was caught by the garrison when stealing sheep.
After interrogating An Lushan, Zhang Shoujue found that An Lushan was a very clever and intelligent person, sleek but very likable. Therefore, he admired An Lushan very much and promoted An Lushan to his own general. Subsequently, An Lushan relied on his own means to move in the Tang Dynasty officialdom.
In just a few years, An Lushan had already been promoted by Tang Xuanzong to become an envoy of Hedong Jiedushi, and even became the adopted son of Tang Xuanzong's favorite concubine Yang Guifei.
However, the hearts of non-my race must be different. An Lushan had great respect for the Tang royal family on the surface, but secretly he was preparing to launch a rebellion. He began to build a new city in the northern part of Fanyang County, telling Tang Xuanzong that it was to strengthen the defense of the frontier areas, but in fact to store weapons and grain and prepare for the uprising.
Yang Guifei's brother Yang Guozhong had told Tang Xuanzong many times that An Lushan was preparing to rebel, but Tang Xuanzong was confused by An Lushan's rhetoric and did not believe Yang Guozhong's words. When An Lushan had raised an army to attack Luoyang, Tang Xuanzong still did not believe this fact. It was not until eight days later that he made a series of defensive measures and sent troops to suppress An Lushan.
Second, An Lushan died, and Shi Siming raised an army
An Lushan led 150,000 troops to capture the rebel yang Guozhong, Qing Junfang and other slogans began to attack the Central Plains from the frontier, and captured Hebei and Luoyang in less than a month. In order to boost the morale of the army and destroy the confidence of the resistance army, An Lushan began to send people to slaughter the city.
As An Lushan prepared to attack Henan, his eldest son An Qingzong, who remained in the capital, was killed by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Angered from his heart, An Lushan ordered all the captives of the Tang Dynasty who surrendered to kill each other, this time directly killing more than 7,000 people. After that, An Lushan began to slaughter every city he attacked to vent his anger.
In the Battle of Tongguan, hundreds of thousands of Tang counterinsurgency troops prepared to suppress An Lushan. As a result, they were ambushed by the elite troops under An Lushan, and hundreds of thousands of counterinsurgency troops were completely annihilated, all of which were killed by the rebels, and none of them survived.
However, at this time, An Lushan's body could not hold up. He was too obese and suffered from illness for many years. By this time, he was completely blind in the eyes, and his temper was even more grumpy, and if he didn't agree, he would beat his generals to death, and even his own son and military master Yan Zhuang were often beaten violently.
The resentful Yan Zhuang and An Qingxu beheaded An Lushan in a tent one night in 757 AD and buried An Lushan's body on the spot. Subsequently, he announced to his subordinates that An Lushan was seriously ill and had passed the throne to An Qingxu before his death.
Although An Lushan was already dead, Shi Siming, another initiator of the An Shi Rebellion, was preparing to ascend to this chaotic era that belonged to him.
Shi Siming made many great achievements in leading the rebels to attack the Central Plains, and gradually became dissatisfied with An Qingxu's jurisdiction and prepared to go it alone. Shi Siming, who had an idea in mind, directly defected from An Qingxu's troops and agreed to surrender to The Tang.
However, he only superficially submitted to the Tang Dynasty, but secretly there were still ideas of rebellion. Shi Siming followed the Tang Dynasty's large army to suppress the rebellion and successfully surrounded An Qingxu. In this war, the phenomenon of cannibalism is not uncommon. In order to end the war as soon as possible, Shi Siming summoned An Qingxu into the camp and killed him, and in April of the same year, Shi Siming proclaimed himself Emperor Yingtian of Great Yan in Fanyang and rebelled.
The three- and eight-year rebellion was finally settled
The rebel army led by An Lushan and An Qingxu was not easy to suppress, but the general Shi Siming betrayed the Tang Dynasty and raised an army to claim the title of emperor. However, although Shi Siming did not have the extraordinary military talent of An Lushan and Yan Zhuang, he had been honing on the battlefield for many years and already had a wealth of experience.
In order to suppress Shi Siming's army, Li Guangbi and Guo Ziyi joined forces to attack and defeat Shi Siming in the Battle of Heyang. This battle successfully contained the end of the rebels' frantic attack, and the Tang army captured several of Shi Siming's generals, and also pinned down the main force of the rebels, winning a breathing space for Tongguan and Chang'an.
Shi Siming's ending was just like An Lushan's, and he finally died at the hands of his son. However, as soon as Shi Siming died, the rebels began to fall apart internally, and the overall strength of the rebels was also hit. Compared with Shi Siming, Shi Chaoyi did not have enough authority to suppress his subordinates.
In order to prove his strength, Shi Chaoyi prepared to attack the southeastern region of the Tang Dynasty, but was defeated by Li Guangbi. The rebel generals who experienced this battle felt that Shi Chaoyide was not worthy of the position and began to surrender to the Tang.
In 762, the Tang forces attacked Luoyang and successfully drove Shi Chaoyi to Hebei, and Shi Chaoyi, who was cornered, committed suicide on the way to Mozhou. The Anshi Rebellion, which lasted for eight years, ended with Shi Chaoyi's death.
4. Summary
Throughout the Anshi Rebellion, the north of the Tang Dynasty had all fallen into war. In the past eight years, the population of the Tang Dynasty has decreased sharply, by nearly two-thirds compared with the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The Anshi Rebellion not only pulled the Tang Dynasty off the altar, but even destroyed the overall economy of the Central Plains, and the sharp decline in population also made it impossible for the Tang Dynasty to restore its former grandeur.
The Anshi Rebellion also led to the inability of the later dynasties of the Central Plains to face the attack of the Western Regions Iron Horse, and completely lost control of the Western Regions. In this rebellion, not only the corruption and incompetence of Tang officials were exposed, but also the rulers were too complacent and arrogant, and lacked a sense of crisis.