Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [50]
THE TWILIGHT OF THE TANG AND
THE RISE OF INTOLERANCE
As with the ancient Roman and Persian empires, the very tolerance that was indispensable to the extraordinary reach and influence of the Tang Empire also sowed the seeds of its decline. Ironically, the fall of the Tang can be traced to an attack by a foreigner who was allowed too much power. And once the Tang Empire began to decline, intolerance set in.
The Tang policy of strategic tolerance meant that the empire never tried to impose a Han Chinese identity on its non-Chinese subjects. As a result, no common political, linguistic, or cultural “glue” bound “barbarians” and Chinese together in the sprawling Tang Empire. On the contrary, even in the early eighth century Ming Huang found himself ruling over large numbers of distinct, fiercely independent communities with no loyalty or even goodwill toward their Chinese overlords.
To maintain order across the empire, Ming Huang had to rely on an ever-larger proportion of foreign forces, particularly Turkic peoples like the Xi and Khitan. The chiefs of these tribes were made military governors who commanded great permanent frontier armies and wielded virtually unchecked power over civil, economic, and military affairs. Between 712 and 733, the Tang established nine such military governorships. The military governors often acted on their own initiative to expand Tang borders. Because successful aggression was rewarded, independent military actions grew more frequent. As a result, loss of central control and military dominance by foreigners grew more pronounced over the course of Ming Huang's reign.
In one sense, the power and autonomy granted to non-Chinese military commanders reflected the extraordinary success of the Tang effort to cross the divide between the Chinese and the “barbarian” peoples of the steppe. But the vast foreign armies enlisted by the Tang remained just that—foreign armies. When these Turks or Tibetans or Mongolians, led by their ambitious generals, began to feel used and manipulated by the Chinese, they quickly turned on the Tang. In the end, the great Tang dynasty was brought low by foreigners, who never really came to see themselves as part of the Middle Kingdom.
The fatal blow was the An Lushan Rebellion of 755. In the 740s, at around the age of sixty, Ming Huang fell hopelessly in love with one of his son's consorts, Yang Guifei. In a very short time, Yang Guifei had almost total control over the smitten emperor, and the imperial court was filled with her corrupt relatives and lackeys. It was through Yang Guifei's influence that An Lushan, an obese military man, acquired the power to organize a revolt that would forever change China.
Historians differ on the precise ethnic origins of An Lushan. According to one source, he was a Turk of the Khitan tribe; according to others, he was Turk-Sogdian. There is a consensus, however, that he was non-Chinese, grossly fat, illiterate, and of vulgar wit. It is also clear that An Lushan was a man of considerable cunning, adept at pleasing his superiors. By 750, he had attained the rank of general and become a court favorite, captivating the fancy of Yang Guifei and entertaining the emperor with his clownish buffoonery.29
Although others in the imperial family suspected An Lushan's motives, Yang Guifei took him under her protection, even adopting him as her son. As a result, he had the unheard-of privilege of visiting her in the inner palace, which suggests, as many historians have speculated, that the two had an affair. In any case, despite his low birth and alien heritage, An Lushan accumulated extraordinary power. In 754, to the horror of the emperor's relatives, An Lushan was appointed commissioner of the imperial stables, a strategically important post. On the eve of the An Lushan Rebellion, the general had sole military command over three critical northern regions, including modern-day Beijing, Shanxi, and Shandong, with