On June 12, 756, Emperor Xuanzong publicly announced that he would take the imperial family to suppress An Lushan's rebellion.
Early in the morning of June 13, 756, the officials still went to the palace to prepare for the court meeting. But when they reached the palace gate, they could still clearly hear the leakage of the time as usual, and the honor guard stood solemnly in front of the palace as usual. However, after opening the palace gate, there was no Emperor Xuanzong or the prime minister, only the palace maids running around like flies, and the eunuchs rushed out and said that they didn't know where His Majesty was.
The events of June 756 of the Anshi Rebellion
Where did Emperor Xuanzong go? Of course, he fled.
At dawn that day, it was drizzling in Chang'an City, and Suzaku Street was silent. Emperor Xuanzong took his concubines, princes, princes, and grandsons, surrounded by personal eunuchs and janissaries, and quietly slipped out of the palace like thieves. It was not even too late, or there was no intention to notify the princes and ministers, imperial relatives and phoenixes and dragon grandchildren who lived outside the palace, and simply abandoned them like a piece of.
Soon after, An Lushan led his troops to occupy Chang'an City, which was a sea of fire, burning, killing and looting, and the purgatory on earth was staged in Chang'an City again.
However, the question to be asked is, why did Emperor Xuanzong give up Cheng'an City, the capital of one million people, without any care? Let An Lushan easily occupy it for one year and three months.
Map of Chang'an City
Chang'an City is located on the bank of the Weishui River in the Guanzhong Plain, with no terrain and natural hazards to rely on, just a prosperous city. The city covers an area of 84 square kilometers and has a circumference of 36.7 kilometers. Even if there were one soldier stationed on the city wall every one meter, 36,700 soldiers would be needed, and for insurance, at twice that would have required at least 100,000 troops, plus the reserves and the troops to maintain law and order in the city.
Garrisoned in such a plain city, if you want to successfully defend it under the attack of An Lushan's Hundred Battles Division, it will require these 100,000 people to be all elite soldiers. But this is impossible, if Emperor Xuanzong knows magic, it is possible. You must know that the elite soldiers of the Tang Dynasty are all guarding the border of the four directions, and most of the troops in Chang'an City are array troops who are good at military parades, and the possibility of going to the battlefield to fight with the rebels of An Lushan is almost none. What's more, Emperor Xuanzong didn't even have 100,000 ordinary soldiers, let alone 100,000 elite soldiers. If you don't abandon it and flee in a hurry, why can you do it?
Moreover, Chang'an City already has a population of nearly one million people, and it relies on a steady stream of foreign supplies to operate well and continue to prosper. But once the siege breaks out, the eating, drinking and Lazar of millions of people is the biggest hidden danger of Chang'an City, and there may not be any need for foreign enemies to take the initiative to attack, as long as they wait quietly outside the city, the people of Chang'an City themselves are very likely to break the city.
In addition, when Chang'an City was designed and built by Yu Wenkai, a great architect in the Sui Dynasty, he first attached importance to its political role, regarded it as the political center of the country, showing the authority of the Son of Heaven, and secondly, it was also used as a center of residence, economy, and religion, and became the center of the world, but it was never built as a military town. Although Chang'an City has been invaded many times since it was founded as the capital, its military function is still its worst place. Defending Chang'an City is the most stupid plan, and it is also a plan that is basically impossible to succeed.
The defense of a capital city like Chang'an City has never relied on this large and lonely city itself, and its defense comes from a strict defense system. The defense of Chang'an City relies on four fortresses in the four directions of southeast, southeast and northwest, namely Tongguan (Hangu Pass) in the east, Wuguan in the south, Dasanguan in the west and Xiaoguan in the north, which are the four dangerous fortresses, which are the largest defensive fortresses in Chang'an City, which is also the origin of the name "Guanzhong". As long as these four dangerous fortresses can be defended, Chang'an City will be safe and sound, and it will be left to its thousands of troops. If one of them is lost, it will step on the pass and drive straight to the city of Chang'an.
Under Yang Guozhong's foolishness, Xuanzong's personal brother Shuhan went out of Tongguan City to face An Lushan, and An Lushan used a plan to lure the enemy, not only defeated the Tang army, but also captured Gao Xianzhi alive, and Tongguan was broken. This is what happened on June 9th, at the dawn of June 13th, Emperor Xuanzong went out to Chang'an City and fled to Yang Guozhong's old nest Chengdu, but he lost his beloved concubine Yang Yuhuan and Aiqing Yang Guozhong in Ma Weiyi, and the crown prince Li Heng also parted ways and went to Wuling to preside over the rebellion, and sent Emperor Xuanzong to the position of Emperor Taishang by the way.
In addition to the four dangerous fortresses, the defense of Chang'an City also relied heavily on reinforcements, reinforcements from four directions: the Sichuan Jiannan Army from Dasanguan, the Longyou Xiliang Army from Xiaoguan, the Shanxi Hexi Army and the Shuofang Army from Hetao, the Jingchu Chu Army from Wuguan and the Huguang Jiangxi Army, and then the Central Plains and Lianghuai troops from Hangu, but this road was no longer passable. What I didn't expect was that the army led by An Lushan was too fierce, and Tongguan broke through too quickly, so Chang'an City couldn't hold on and couldn't wait for reinforcements to arrive. Besides, whether there were reinforcements from the Tang Dynasty at that time is also two theories.
Chang'an City has no danger to defend, it is also a political, economic and people's livelihood city, Tongguan was lost, the defense system of Chang'an City was broken, and the reinforcements did not have time to arrive. In this way, Emperor Xuanzong had to quickly abandon Chang'an City and flee for his life, and An Lushan could easily occupy Chang'an City.
#Anshi Rebellion##Chang'an##Tang Dynasty##History#