The Tang Dynasty was a unified Central Plains Dynasty after the Sui Dynasty, with a total of 21 emperors and 289 years of the country. The first 150 years of the Tang Empire can be said to be the most powerful country in the world at that time, with a territory of more than 12 million square kilometers; it held control of the Silk Road in East Asia; it remotely led the countries in the western region; and foreigners came to exchange.
Territory of the Tang Empire
Since the Tang Empire inherited the military system of the "Guanlong Clique" and had a primitive impulse to expand, Tang Taizong relied on a group of fierce generals to expand wildly after a little tolerance. On the basis of the Juntian system and the prefectural military system, Tang Taizong won the title of "Heavenly Khan", and Tang Gaozong reached the maximum value of his territory and dominated Asia to become the "Emperor of Heaven"!
However, the Tang Dynasty's desire for expansion and the empire's increasingly serious land annexation brought hidden dangers to future generations, when various factors led to the collapse of the Juntian system and the prefectural military system. Expansion that violates the level of productivity leads to the inevitable emergence of external strength and weakness in the later period. Tang Xuanzong's institutional reform and the appointment of a series of officials continued the strength of the Tang Empire, and the anshi rebellion broke out due to the conscription system and moderation.
Light purple is the territory of Tang Gaozong's territory at its peak
The Anshi Rebellion greatly shocked the imperial power, and the emperor was knocked out of the capital by the feudal officials, and the embarrassing scene led to the inability to suppress the feudal town jiedushi from then on. The Anshi Rebellion was such a large-scale rebellion that other dynasties would have been destroyed long ago. For the next 150 years of the Tang Empire, it basically relied on three things to lose half a life, that is, the taxation in Jiangnan, the contradiction between the Shen ce army and the fanzhen.
Before introducing these three points, let us first understand who the emperors after Xuanzong were.
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang's son was Emperor Suzong of Tang, who ascended the throne as emperor himself under Shuofang, and also under his leadership recaptured the two capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang. He was succeeded by Emperor Tang of Tang, who eventually quelled the Anshi Rebellion under his leadership.
Q version of the step diagram
Then tang dezong and tang shunzong did not do well. After that, Tang Xianzong did a great job, beating the disobedient fat and serving the central authorities with the obedient division of labor. After that, the trio of Muzong, Jingzong, and Wenzong Liankeng was bullied by eunuchs and fanzhen.
Then there was the last ZTE, Tang Wuzong and Tang Xuanzong, who did a good job in rectifying political malpractice, controlling eunuchs, and exterminating Hui. In the end, five consecutive emperors put an uneven situation, Yizong, Emperor Xianzong, Zhaozong, deposed Emperor Li Yu, and Emperor Lai, and then Emperor Ai was poisoned by Zhu Wen, and the Tang Empire ended.
The emperors of the late Tang Dynasty basically fought in the town of Fanzhen, and there was little mention of balance. We'll talk about it in detail.
Su, Dai, De, Shun, Xian
, Mu, Jing, Wen,
Wu, Xuan,
Yi, 僖, 昭, 废, 哀 (bold is a good job)
—— The first taxation of Jiangnan that did not fall into the Tang Dynasty:
After the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty zhongxing several times, although in the end failed to restore the grand Tang dynasty, but still a solid revival, external resistance to strong enemies, internal peace and strong domain, people's livelihood has also really improved, the most dependent is on the taxes of this Jiangnan. Because no matter what time, the money in your pocket is the most important!
The Ten Great Festivals During the Tianbao Period of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang
Before the An Lushan rebellion, there were only ten major festival envoys, and in the south, there were only Lingnan festival envoys and Jiannan festival envoys, and the rebellion mainly affected the Shanxi area of Hebei, and the north was considered to be completely chaotic. The economic center of gravity of the Tang Empire also began to shift from north China to the south. This is also due to the fact that the Sui Emperor of the previous dynasty opened the Grand Canal, from Yuhang along the Jiangnan River, Hangou and Tongji Canal to the eastern capital Luoyang, and then along the Yellow River to the Guangtong Canal to the capital Chang'an. Jiangnan could quickly supply a large amount of grain and money to the central government, and when he had money, he could recruit troops to buy horses and intimidate the town.
Map of the Grand Canal
Of course, the emperor was also well aware of the importance of jiangnan taxes, and through a series of means of division and military conquest, he contacted the threat of force in the transport, and dredged the transportation route from Jiangnan to Chang'an. After Tang Xianzong, the danger of transportation was basically contacted, there was no major turmoil in Henan, and the southeast tax was continuously imported into Guanzhong, which formed the pattern of What Mr. Chen Yinke called "taking Chang'an culture as the center and looking up to the wealth of the southeast to survive".
The Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty Emperor, a performance maniac, can be said to have solved a big problem in the middle and late Tang Dynasty
In addition, Tang Dezong adopted Yang Yan's suggestion and formally changed the rent to the two tax laws. The two tax laws are taxed according to the field, that is, taxed according to assets, and the enlistment law of assigning servants according to ding and household is still retained. The two taxes are, from different perspectives, local tax and household tax, summer tax and autumn tax. The two tax laws pay taxes on each person's actual land and acres, which is an improvement over the rent adjustment. Under the various taxes after the Anshi Rebellion, the unification of the tax system was realized, and it received certain practical results in the early stage.
——The second army that tang fell and did not die rely on the divine strategy:
In fact, it is not specific enough to rely on the Divine Strategy Army, and it should be to rely on the Divine Strategy Army led by eunuchs. The Shen Ce Army was the main force of the Central Forbidden Army in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, and this force was originally only a small force against Tubo.
At the beginning, the number of Divine Strategies was small, but they were all elites who fought bloody battles in the Western Regions
Tubo was in fact a fixed rival of the Tang Dynasty, a fixed opponent of the empire, rising from the Songzan Gampo period to become a major enemy on the border of the Tang Empire, and in the early stage of the war, the Tang Dynasty had the upper hand in its own stronger fighting. During the Tianbao period, Tang and Tubo launched a tug-of-war, and after Ge Shuhan defeated Tubo, he applied for the establishment of the Eight Armies of Ningbian, Weisheng, Jintian, Wuning, Yaowu, Tiancheng, Zhenwei, and Shence in the thirteenth year of Tianbao. This army, which had consulted the Tang Dynasty several times, was officially born.
Just a year after the establishment of the Divine Strategy Army, the speculator An Lushan could not bear it and launched a rebellion, and the An Shi Rebellion began. The Shubian troops in the western part of the empire marched east to save the country, and Anxi, Beiting, Hexi, Longyou, and Shuofang Jiedushi all threw themselves into counterinsurgency battles. At that time, the Divine Strategy Army, which was only more than a thousand people, was also among them, fighting against the three thousand soldiers under Shi Siming's command.
It can be said that the right to speak of imperial power in the late Tang Dynasty was to rely on the Divine Strategy Army
It took nearly eight years to quell the rebellion and the Anshi Rebellion, and the original garrison of the Shen Ce Army had long been occupied by Tubo. The Shen Ce Army had to stay in the Guanzhong area. At this time, the central imperial power was tossed by An Lushanyi, eager to find an army loyal to him. The Emperor and the Divine Strategist Army looked at each other with a pair of eyes.
At this time, Tubo took advantage of the chaos to attack Chang'an, and the original forbidden army was vulnerable and quickly disintegrated. Emperor Tang had to flee to Shaanzhou. In Shaanzhou, the Tang Dynasty Emperor was greeted by the Shen Ce Army, which had been re-integrated by the eunuch Yu Zhao'en. The Shen Ce Army gradually became the emperor's concubine troops in the process of escorting, so later emperors attached great importance to the Shen Ce Army, and after becoming a forbidden army, the eunuch Yu Chao'en also expanded its army.
Gao Lishi in "The Legend of the Demon Cat", perhaps the eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty are such an image
Eunuchs managing the Shen ce army were actually helpless moves, and after the Anshi Rebellion, the emperor no longer trusted the "military generals", and the ability and prestige of the "civilian officials" were not enough to command the army, and sometimes caused rebellions. After the "Jingyuan Mutiny", Tang Dezong had no choice but to finally establish the system of banning the army as a eunuch chief. When a eunuch falls, tens of millions of eunuchs go up. Since then, the divine army and the eunuchs have been closely integrated, and the two have shared honor and disgrace, and at the same time they have prospered and at the same time they have also gone to extinction.
- The third tang that declined without death relied on the situation to the town of Pingfan
With money, it is possible to raise an army; with loyal eunuchs to manage a loyal divine army. Then you can deal with the relationship with the world's festivals.
As a result of the conscription system and the system of moderation, the Tang Dynasty developed the imperial centralized system into a system of decentralization, with the imperial court delegating to the localities and the localities to the subordinate local individuals. Soldiers are very prone to mutiny, and generals can rebel against the center. The lowest-ranking soldiers dared to kill the general, the general dared to kill the superior for the commander of the town, and the commander of the town dared to rebel against the imperial court.
An Lushan threw himself into his favor, and the big fat man practiced the Hu Whirling Dance
After the Anshi Rebellion, Tang Suzong and Tang Dynasty Emperor began to quell the rebellion, at which time the various festivals took the opportunity to become bigger and help put down the rebellion. Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, the two great restored fathers, were also from the bottom of the Army of Fanzhen. The emperor of the Tang Empire eventually relied on the town of Pingfan to balance the chaos. The leader of the Hebei rebels in the Anshi Rebellion was wiped out, leaving behind the low-level army, and the actual control of the town remained unrecovered.
Because the external pressure at this time was also very huge, the Turks, Tubo, Hui, Dangxiang, Nanzhao, etc. all threatened the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, in order to resolve external contradictions, it is not possible to eradicate the actual control of the rebel clan in time. Only the new feudal towns could be used to balance the opposing feudal towns, and the Tang Empire was completely divided.
Each administrative unit is the territory of the emissaries, defensive envoys, or inspectors
These clan towns are interesting and can basically be divided into five categories:
1． Mortal enemy division type: headed by the three towns of Heshuo, Fanyang, Wei Bo, and Chengde (Hebei to Anyang). The most disobedient are more independent, with self-determination in the appointment and dismissal of commanders and subordinates, financial independence, and military confrontation. Hereditary rule.
2． Kinship Prevention Type: Most of these belonged to the imperial court's pro-clans, and the peripheral protection index clan towns and Jiangnan Caifu clan towns. Protect caoyun, will be more arrogant and indulgent, listen to the tune and do not listen to the announcement.
3． Frontier Imperial Side Type: Such as Shuo Fang, but the Divine Strategy Army has received three times the military expenditure of the general army. Later, the Shen Ce Army was controlled by eunuchs and became the main force in counterinsurgency.
4． Southeast financial source type: the financial pillar of the central government of the country, if there is no such Thing, the Tang Dynasty will have perished long ago.
5． Gyeonggi Surrounding Type: Guard directly under the domain town. Such as the state defense envoy, the Shaanxi observation envoy, the Tongguan defense envoy, the Heyang Jiedushi envoy, and so on.
In the end, the three magic weapons also have a day of failure
In this way, the emperors of the Tang Dynasty have been busy balancing the parties, and the Tang Dynasty has maintained its rule for more than a hundred years. But this is only a delicate and fragile compromise, and once someone comes out to upset this balance, everything is irretrievable.
Huang Chao can be regarded as the most hard-core student in history, a song full of golden armor to express the great talent in the chest
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the wind and clouds rose up, and Huang Chao, a scholar who fell on the list, launched a peasant uprising, and finally cut off the way for Jiangnan to tax and enter Beijing, and Yang Xingmi and others finally took Jiangnan by suppressing the uprising. After losing the taxes in Jiangnan, the central government of the Tang Empire completely lost its right to speak.
After Tang Xianzong, the prestigious Divine Strategy Army participated less in the war, resulting in a decline in the combat effectiveness of the army. It is also because the imperial court is too generous to treat, attracting many rich children to enter, the combat effectiveness is not as good as a day. Under the management of eunuchs, there was often a phenomenon of personnel trading, and accompanied the emperor to hunt and play. During the Huangchao Rebellion, when the eunuch Tian Lingzi led tens of thousands (known as 100,000) Shen Ce army to guard Tong Guan, the rebel army took only one day to conquer Tong Guan, and the Shen Ce army had no strength in a battle.
When it was strong, it was doomed to destroy the Tang Dynasty
The emperor, who had no money and no soldiers, could not perform the art of balance. In the end, zhu Wen and Li Ke became the leaders of the world with those martial artists.