The History of China - #101 - AnShi 1: Heart & Belly, Claws & Teeth

Episode Date: June 19, 2016

The aged Emperor Xuanzong of Tang rest uneasily on his throne as 751 brings not just the sting of defeat at Talas, but also to the far south and northeast. He and his chancellor will become increasingly reliant on the Governor-General of Dongan Protectorate, the Sogdian-Turk An Lushan. But at a time when loyalty, ethnicity, and what it means to be Chinese is increasingly strained, how much pressure can the system take before it snaps? Time Period Covered: 751-755 CE Major Historical Figures: Li Longji (Emperor Xuanzong of Tang) Chancellor Li Linfu (d. 753) Chancellor Yang Guozhong Consort Yang Huiyuan Crowned Prince Li Heng An Lushan, Governor-General of the Andong Protectorate Geshu Han, Governor-General of the Anbei Protectorate An Qingzong (Gen. An’s eldest son and heir) Sources Cited: Abramson, Marc S. (2008). Ethnic Identity in Tang China. Chamney, Lee (2012). “The An Shi Rebellion and Rejection of the Other in Tang China, 618-763.” University of Alberta. Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1976). “The An Lu-Shan Rebellion and the Origins of Chronic Militarism in Late T’ang China” in Essays on Tʻang Society: The Interplay of Social, Political and Economic Forces. Twitchett, Denis. “End of the Reign” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3. De la Vaissière, Étienne, (tr.) James Ward (2002). Sogdian Traders: A History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history.

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own website, theagorapodcastnetwork.com. Thanks, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 101, Heart and Belly, Claws and Teeth. We are back today with our main narrative. When last we left the Tang Empire, the aged Xuanzong still sat on the throne, but his decades of stability and military adventurism had hit an unexpected speed bump in the form of the Chinese defeat at the Talis River, far to the west in Transoxiana, against the ascendant Abbasid Caliphate. It had been a defeat that, while embarrassing, had been almost casually brushed off as inconsequential at the time and by both parties. Well, if Talis was a barely registered speed bump,

today the school bus that is the Tang Dynasty is going to slam into the median and then careen off of a sheer cliff face while bursting into flames. And just a quick note, I have actually gone and posted two maps on the website, one of the Tang Empire just before the An Lushan Rebellion, and one of the rebellion itself. So please check them out if you'd like to follow along visually as well as aurally. And in addition, I've also posted on each of them what they looked like before I went and modified them, and exactly why that took me so long to get out. So I encourage you all to go and take a look.

We're going to start right off back in 751, and once again on the periphery of the Tang Empire. But this time, we'll be moving away from the far west and instead training our gaze on the far south, what the Tang Dynasty referred to as the An-Nan Protectorate, and what we would consider today as Northern Vietnam. Remember when I said last episode that each and every time the Chinese tried to invade the Southeast Asian kingdoms, they ran into a tremendous indigenous resistance, coupled with horrific diseases that just decimated their ranks? Yeah, well, this is one of those times. And I really shouldn't be using the word decimate, since that would have meant that 10% of the Chinese soldiers sent on such campaigns were KIA. Well, the Annan expedition of 751 would have loved a 10% mortality rate. What they got instead was upwards of 75% of the soldiers they sent into the steamy jungles

south of the Yunling Mountains, dropping stone dead while bleeding from every orifice. The expedition had come about as a result of a newly emergent state in the region, which the Chinese called Nanjiao, and what is today composed primarily of the Yunnan Autonomous Region of China. That's right, not province, autonomous region. It still hasn't been fully politically integrated into China even 1300 years later. So as you can tell, this is gonna go great. The Tang court had actually encouraged the formation of Nanjiao as a state over the course of the 730s, because they had thought that it could act as a bulwark and counterbalance to the ever-looming threat that was the Tibetan Empire.

Well, that hadn't really panned out. And instead of an obedient little ally, they found themselves by 750 reading a flat refusal by the new Nanjiao king, Gullofeng, to assent to what amounted to legalized pillaging by the Annan governor-general. The governor responded in kind and sent a secret message denouncing the king to the throne, which of course eventually leaked back to Nanjiao. King Galaofeng was understandably pissed off at being denounced by the guy who had just tried to rob him blind for the crime of not agreeing to the robbery, and so raised up his own army and attacked the protectorate stronghold in 750, killing its governor-general outright,

and then proceeded to annex some 32 prefectures occupied by the various local tribes. Obviously, that was not going to fly back in Chang'an. And so, in due course, an expeditionary force of reportedly some 80,000 levied troops was amassed in Sichuan, which in the summer of 751, marched on Nanjiao to make an example of this uppity little kingdom. Well, as we discussed a minute ago, that didn't turn out quite as planned. Twitchit writes, quote, King Geleufeng offered to make restitution of the territories which he had occupied, but Xianyu, who was, as an aside, the new governor-general replacing the one that Nanjiao had killed, but Xianyu refused to listen and pressed on with his assault. The result was a catastrophe.

Gelefeng inflicted a crushing defeat on the Tang army. Zhenyu Zhongdeng barely escaped with his life, and the Tang army suffered 60,000 casualties, many of them through disease. End quote. The number of war dead, as always, is an up-in-the-air question that widely ranges. Twitchit says 80,000, but other

sources have inflated the number to north of 200,000. I tend to think that Twitchit's numbers are probably more reliable, but that's just me. Regardless of the number of soldiers sent, though, Governor General Shen Yu managed to conceal his crushing defeat from Emperor Shanzong and instead claimed great success. The reality of the situation, though, was both that Nan Zhao entered into a 40-year-long alliance with the Tibetan Empire against Tang China, which was, you know, the exact opposite of what the Chinese intent had been, and it also left the southern garrison in Sichuan badly undermanned and underpowered, but unable to request additional troops because their commander had,

you know, lied about it. And make no mistake, this weakening in the south will be coming back to haunt Tang China in short order. But first, let's head back to the north, to Hebei, and the Protectorate of Eastern Pacification, Andong, and our old friend, its governor-general, An Lushan. Unfortunately for An himself and the Tang in general, 751 had proved to be a tough year up north as well, a situation we can lay directly at the feet of An Lushan. Having just returned from the capital, he found that his longtime enemies, the Khitan tribes, were once again in disobedience, and so arranged an expedition to stomp them back down where they belonged. Critically, he conscripted some 8,000 Shi tribe cavalrymen that he had previously captured in a raid against their homelands,

and apparently thought that that was not going to go wrong at all or whatever. Well, guess what happened? Yep, they totally turned on An's forces mid-campaign, leading to a disastrous rout, all thanks to his overconfidence and seeming blindness to the unexpected. So, was An Lushan punished for his failure like he had been before? Nope, not at all. And to understand why, we're actually going to have to jump back a little bit more to see the wider political situation down in Chang'an, which led up to this point. It's important to keep in mind that Emperor Shanzong by this point is old, well into his 60s by the time that 750 was rolling around. And let's also remember that he had never appointed any of his consorts to be his official

empress at any point after his second one had died way back in 737, in spite of having toyed with the idea several times. That meant that there was a big question mark surrounding the line of potential succession, even though there was a designated crown prince, a man named Li Hung. This situation was both because of fierce opposition from the chief minister, or chancellor, of the court, Li Linfu, and the fact that Xuanzong's favorite consort, Consort Yang Yuhuan, was not the Heng's mother. Apparently, the crown prince was tired of just waiting around for dad to die already, and on several occasions was actively plotting palace coups to get him out of the way. As of 751, the same time as all these border expeditions were ending in defeat after defeat,

a plot was revealed to Xuanzong and his chancellor that the crown prince had enlisted the leaders of the Northern Army, which was now the largest central army remaining in the empire at this point, as opposed to the protectorate forces. Well, the Northern Army, or at least the bulk of its commanders, had apparently been in cahoots with the Crown Prince to oust Xuanzong and install Li Heng as his replacement. Imperial agents managed to catch this conspiracy just in time and arrested, and presumably executed, the would-be traitorous officials. However, since there was no direct evidence implicating the crown prince's involvement, Prince Li Heng remained in play and ever a potential threat to both the emperor and his chancellor, whom he despised, Li Linfu.

Historian Li Chamney states, quote, The severity of the threat from his heir apparent, Li Heng, should not be understated. While Xuanzong is often presented as a fool for not taking the threat of An Lushan's growing Regardless of whether or not he really felt that he could trust this Sogdian Turkic general, An Lushan, An had made it clear that he was the emperor's staunchest ally in this regard. During his previous visit to the capital, in fact, he had held his first audience with the emperor ever, and in a very strange way indeed, if the anecdotes are to be believed, actually displayed his loyalty through a ceremonial faux pas. When presented to the throne, An Lushan broke all court decorum by first bowing to Consort Yang, and then to Xuanzong. When it was pointed out to him by the shocked officials just how out of sorts such an act was. He explained that he was but a simple barbarian,

and his barbarian customs dictated that traditionally one should bow first to their mother and then to their father. Just a simple mistake is all. Or was it? Chamni doesn't think so, and says, quote, An Lushan, already one of the wealthiest early childhood was spent in the land of the Turks, who by many accounts did in fact perform obedience to their mothers first, his clan and community were Sogdians, who had a strongly patriarchal society, end quote. In other words, An Lushan's insistence that this was a mistake made by a simple barbarian was a line of pure BS, and it was instead a calculated political message.

He honored Consort Yang as though she was his mother, i.e. an empress. A strong political message of support for Xuanzong's decision and the current regime, as well as an opposition to Crown Prince Li Heng. Since, should Xuanzong decide to make Consort Yang his empress, her children would be elevated to the top of the pile in terms of succession, likely displacing the sitting heir. And An Lushan was able to communicate all this while not actually making any direct enemies in the process, all by simply saying, well, I didn't know better. I'm just a barbarian after all. And by all accounts, the emperor got the intended message loud and clear. That very visit, An was promoted to the president of the censorate,

a strong sign that both Xuanzong and Chancellor Li Linfu had placed their faith in the governor-general of Andong to serve as their regime's protector against what seemed to be an inevitable play by Crown Prince Li Heng, his literati administrator allies, and the Northern Army. This position was further enhanced in 750 when he was formally adopted into the imperial clan as the Prince of Dongping. Granted, the imperial court was not completely taken in by An's continual shows of servility and obedience. That same year, his eldest son, An Qingzong, was named to a full-time post within the capital itself, while Lu Shan was to return to his protectorate capital at Fanyang

garrison, which is modern Beijing. Though this post was ostensibly a high honor for the young man, in reality it was a measure of protection against political disobedience by the extremely powerful governor-general, and so An Qingzong would serve effectively as a hostage to the court to ensure his father's continued loyalty at the Northern Front. So that whole situation helps to largely explain the complete lack of punitive action following his defeat against the Catan in 751. An Lushan was by this point the pillar on which the regime's stability rested, and neither Xuanzong nor the Chancellor Li Linfu were about to go rocking that particular boat when there was already so much bad news flowing into the capital from every other direction. At this point, I feel like I should pause for a moment, because I have been and we will continue to be discussing quite

a lot about ethnicity in the lead up to this rebellion. And there's a good reason for such discussion. The events of the An Lushan Rebellion will mark a fundamental sea change in the Chinese conception of what ethnicity is, both their own and that of the foreigners which surrounded them. From before the rebellion to the period after, we might think of China as going from what might be best described as an open and relatively accepting society featuring international metropolises like Chang'an and Luoyang, to afterwards a far more distrusting, closed, and xenophobic Tang regime that would emerge from the rebellion's ashes. And even that statement requires a pretty careful explanation, since our own modern ideology of what ethnicity is would be a fundamentally alien

concept to 8th century Chinese. Once again from Chamney, quote, the use of contemporary cultural theory to examine the period of the Tang dynasty is hindered due to the inescapable influence of the modern context. For example, the words ethnic and ethnicity carry significant etymological baggage. Ethnicity is still used in a very racialized way, and is often a euphemism for race. As race is a concept with an excess of contextual baggage, the strong links between race and ethnicity render the concept inappropriate for non-modern cultural history.

End quote. The ethnicity I've been bandying about for Chinese is Han, and certainly today we would consider Han Chinese to fully be an ethnicity in the modern sense. But during and prior to the Tang dynasty, it was a more complex idea than simple bloodlines. It was something even more than that, an amalgamation of blood and ancestry, but also geography, moral principles, and cultural norms, and even shared history. This was in diametric opposition to the Who, which is often shorthanded or translated as barbarian. But again, that term should be understood to be a generalized capital O Other, applying to anyone who isn't us, even as it officially morphed in

this period to specifically mean Indo-Iranian or Sogdian, just as Tujay was Goktark and Chuban was Tibetan. An Lushan was even known to use the term on himself, famously in an attempt to win over an enemy Turkic general by entreating him, quote, Now, if we were to simply go by the classic histories like Sima Guang's Zizitongjian, or the old and new books of Tang, respectively, we would be presented with a much starker, more racialized view of not just the rebellion, but of the Chinese worldview as a whole. That stems from the fact that all of the above were written in a post-An Lushan world, where the line between what was Chinese and what wasn't was much starker and firmer. Yet as we've seen over the course of this series on the Tang, and previously the Sui, and even before that into the period of disunion, pre-rebellion Chineseness was a far more porous concept. And you could really say that it was,

in many, if not most respects, a Sinoturkic amalgam that had fused together in the crucible that was the period of disunion, as the culture of the Yellow River and the culture of the Steppelands were forcibly slammed together for 400 years. Some mixing was bound to take place. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. By contrasting both the experiences of contemporaries and the conclusions of historians, Grey History dives into the detail and unpacks one of the most important and disputed events

in human history. From a revolution based on hope and liberty, to its descent into the infamous reign of terror, there's plenty to discuss and plenty of Grey to explore. One can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So if you're looking for your next long-form, binge-worthy history podcast, one recommended by universities and loved by enthusiasts, then check out Grey History, The French Revolution today. Or simply search for The French Revolution. Chalmney actually makes a point of comparison that absolutely blew my mind when I

read it, simply because I'd never sat down and thought about it in the terms that he puts it. He says, quote, by the time of the rebellion, Turkic or Sino-Turkic rulers had controlled the north of China for 450 years and the south for 170 years. To put this in perspective, by the time of the rebellion, people of Turkic ethnicity had controlled the north of China for a longer period of time than people of European ancestry have controlled North America." Even the Tang imperial family, ostensibly the most Chinese of the Chinese, the sons of heaven whose vaunted genealogy fictional by the way, genealogy,

traced their line back to the Han-era general Li Guang, and even back to Lao Tzu at the dawn of time. Yet historian Chen Sanping noted that there were quite a few giveaways of this supposedly Chinese Li clan that veritably screamed, we're Turks! They spoke Turkicic as well as Chinese and apparently preferred the former. Their successions had an odd habit of ignoring primogeniture. The likewise strained propensity for sons to rise up and kill their fathers in order to supplant them,

both of these last two being big no-nos in Confucianism. And, oh yeah, how could we forget the late Emperor Taizong's successfully gaining the status of Heavenly Khagan of the Turks a century prior. Chomny furthers the point, quote, All of this, of course, was duly edited completely out of the official histories, into which the Books of Tang and the Zizhi Tongjian were ultimately compiled, as part of a larger, sweeping, and expansive effort by the Lese to hide their Turkic roots behind a façade of outward Chineseness. So all of this is to say, in essence, that there

has been a fundamental re-understanding of the causes and nature of the An Lushan Rebellion that is starkly different from the tales painted by the likes of Sima Guang, who casts it first and foremost as a struggle of the Chinese against the foreign barbarians knocking down the gate and disrupting what had been some mythological period of peace and prosperity for all within the borders of the Middle Kingdom. I certainly hope by this point in our series that I've been able to disabuse us all of both of those notions. Tang China prior to the Anlushan Rebellion was hardly a land of eternal peace and prosperity for all, and neither was it some ethnically homogeneous purely Chinese bloc in opposition to the foreign other. It was, and long had been,

a melting pot that had been boiling and bubbling over again and again and again. If we need any reminder, not only did we have the borderlands catastrophes directly before the outbreak of the Great Revolt, but both Xuanzong himself and his two predecessors had all come to power through violent palace coups. Not exactly eternal peace in Chang'an. By the time of the 750s, though, that Sinoturkic society was already well into the process of separating itself out once again. French historian Etienne de la Vassière had described the time of Taizong as, quote, an equal partnership presided over by an emperor with one foot in each camp and an impartial regard for both, end quote. Yet notes that by Xuanzong's reign a century later, this

amalgam had morphed into a, quote, division of roles in which the barbarians acted as the claws And if that sounds like a rather lopsided arrangement, the border guardians, i.e. the claws and teeth, would have been very likely to agree. And then, those claws and teeth had been de-signified and professionalized by none other than Chancellor Li Linfu, who had sought to purge the military command structure of anyone with high political ambition and place a highly competent career officer corps and their efficient professional armies under his direct command. And that would all work fine, as long as Chancellor Li was alive to command it, which, obviously, would not be forever. Nevertheless, even before Li Linfu's death, there was already cracks beginning to appear in the relationship between the imperial court

and its professional barbarianized army, quite literally shoved to the periphery of the Tang society they were charged to protect. Following yet another failed rebellion at the hands of a Turkic army officer in 752, military command of the Shuofang border region fell to An Lushan's cousin, An Xushun, who was already the governor-general of Hexi province. This would prove to be rather foreboding, as Twitchit writes, From now until 755, the whole northern border from the Ordos to Manchuria was controlled by the Anz, who remained, for the time, supporters of Lillian Fu, end quote. Such an ominous turn of events was to be Chancellor Li's last big contribution toward the rebellion to come.

We don't know exactly how old he was, since his date of birth was not recorded, or at least that recording has not survived, but he had served as chancellor of Xuanzong for more than 18 years, by far the longest of the reign and one of the longest in the whole history of the Tang dynasty. But by the new year of 753, Li Linfu's health had taken an ill turn, and he lay on his deathbed. One of his last acts was to summon another of the high imperial ministers, and one who had long been his political rival, Yang Guozhong, actually the brother of the consort Yang. Chancellor Li summoned Yang to his bed and entrusted him with the care of his family

and the future of the empire. And then he died, almost immediately afterwards. Yang, now all at once the new imperial chancellor after 18 years of Li, studiously attempted to bring all due honor to the dying request of his now deceased political opponent, who had entrusted the care of his family and affairs solely to him. And by studiously attempted, I mean that he immediately brought charges up posthumously against Li Linfu on suspicion of aiding and supporting the previous failed rebellion. When it was found that Li may have legally adopted one of the rebellion's leaders, a damning piece of evidence in the eyes of the court, Li Linfu's coffin was exhumed and stripped

of all the grave goods he had been buried with, and then reburied as a commoner. His properties and wealth were confiscated by the state, his descendants holding office were all stripped of rank and title, reduced to commoner status, and then banished to the southern borders, in all totaling more than 50 kinsmen and their families. So yeah, Chancellor Yang, great job taking care of the Li family, you jerk. This petty act of revenge serves as a pretty effective marker of what kind of a guy Yang Guozhong was. Vindictive, spiteful, and just small. Puchit writes of the transition, quote, With Li Linfu's passing, the empire was left without a strong and responsible leader. Xuanzong had long since relinquished his active

role as monarch, and now followed the easiest path by acquiescing in the exercise of supreme political power by Yang Guozhong, who, for all his skill as a manipulator of court politics, and for all his personal influence on Xuanzong, was in no way comparable to Li Linfu as a practical So, uh, yeah. Uh-oh would definitely be the appropriate response right about now. Chancellor Yang took a look at the political and military situation that faced the Tang regime he'd come to dominate and came to one inescapable conclusion. The political power of the imperial court was now absolutely dwarfed by the sheer military might of the governor-generalships, and none more so than An Lushan up in northeastern Havai. It was a situation that he could not control, and thus he began searching very quickly for an effective counterbalance to what he perceived as a dangerously unstable state of affairs. To that end, he turned initially to his own former military command post, which was Sichuan. And you remember Sichuan, right? It's the province that just got

three-quarters of its army wiped out by disease in that campaign against Nanjiao at the beginning of this episode. As you might imagine, his reliance on the Sichuan military force was not very effective. When it became clear to Yang that Sichuan was too distant and too weak to serve his needs as a counterbalance to Governor An, his second choice would prove far more provocative than he might have anticipated. His second strange choice was a Turkish general by the name of Gusu Han, who was at that point the military governor of Hexi and Longyu to the northwest, and a longtime rival of both An Lushan and his cousin An Shushan in the northeast. The relationship between Ge Shu and the An's was so belligerent, in fact,

that their disputes had repeatedly broken out into open shouting matches at court when both parties had been present. Suffice it to say, if Chancellor Yang had wanted to stabilize the military situation with An Lushan, enlisting Ga Xuhang was about the worst possible choice to make. It's unclear, widely disputed in fact, exactly when An Lushan got it into his head to rebel against the throne. Classical histories speak in terms of it having been virtually an inevitability that had been in the works for years. From The History of An Lushan, a work composed a scant 50 years after the rebel general's death, for instance, quote, In the various districts, western merchants brought the precious merchandise of foreign lands,

the total value of which can be estimated at a million cash. Every time that the merchants arrived, An Lushan, in Hu dress, remained seated while incense was burnt. The crowd of Hu then surrounded An Lushan and prostrated themselves at his feet to implore the blessings of heaven. Lushan had the animals prepared and arranged for the sacrifices. The sorceresses beat the drums, danced, and sang. Following this, he ordered the crowd of Hu into the various districts in order to secretly sell pieces of gauze or silk, as well as robes made of red silk or violet silk, purses embellished with gold or silver containing insignia in the forms of fish, dults which are worn around the End quote. But more modern scholars like Chamni have pointed out that the sheer amount of specific details

about what was supposed to be happening in these extremely secret meetings, complete with black magic rituals and sorceresses, is unlikely at best. Not only that, but what is described is nothing so much as a mishmash of quote-unquote barbarian-ish customs, rather than anything close to what either Sogdians or Turks, which again were An Lushan's twin ethnic identities, practiced. Taken together, it makes the story of An Lushan's meticulous network of Sogdian traders amassing wealth on his behalf for almost a decade in order to finance his impending rebellion sound far more like the product of a very active and wildly inaccurate imagination

rather than a historical truth. As it turns out, An's decision to rise against the imperial throne may have been far more spur-of-the-moment than traditionally thought. Even the year prior to the breakout of hostilities, 754, he might have been only then reaching any firm decision point. Historian Edwin G. Pullibank points out that the governor-general, far from being some mastermind, may have, by 755, been brought to the point of mental instability and irrationality as a result of an untreated chronic disease. He writes, quote, Lushan's extraordinary obesity is referred to in many well-known anecdotes. He also suffered from boils and skin ulcers, and by the time he became rebel emperor was losing his eyesight. It is probable he suffered from diabetes. As a result of his

disease, he became increasingly irritable, and his attendants went in terror of being flogged, That doesn't sound like some chess master planning ten years ahead, but more the product of a severely diseased and sick mind lashing out. And the fact that he would raise his rebellion's flags against the Tang authority while knowing full well that his eldest son and heir remained an imperial hostage in the capital, likewise speaks to him being rather less than thoughtful about the whole affair. But we'll get into that more next time. Whatever the timeline of his plans to rebel, it virtually guaranteed to have been the case

that Chancellor Yang's backing and reliance on Ge Shu Han to counterbalance An Lushan's military might did little more than to poke the sleeping bear that was the Andong Protectorate, and put General An on notice that the new chief minister was no friend of his like Li Linfu had been, but was instead a foe to be dealt with accordingly. And then, Chancellor Yang went ahead and not only poked the bear, but shoved his stick straight into its eye. In the winter of 753-754, Yang implored the emperor that An Lushan was sure to rebel against him, and implored that Xuanzong should summon him to Chang'an as a test. If he refused the imperial summons, well then he was surely planning to rebel. Xuanzong issued the order to Andong.

But much to the chancellor's surprise and confusion, General An duly reported to the imperial palace, and once again assured the emperor of his undying loyalty, and reportedly fell to his knees and begged Xuanzong to save him from Yang Guozhong's malice. Now more assured than ever of An Lushan's allegiance, Xuanzong heaped further rewards and titles onto the governor-general, and even, to Yang Guozhong's horror, drew up plans to name him an ad hominem chief minister, on par with Yang's own position. Quickly, Chancellor Yang urged the emperor to abandon his plan to promote An to this highest political post, citing the fact that An, though a

polyglot capable of speaking at least four different languages, was nevertheless illiterate and thus unfit for such an appointment to office. Xuanzong reluctantly agreed, but instead named An Lushan the vice-presidency of the Department of State Affairs, as well as the Commissioner of the Imperial Stables and the Imperial Horse Pastures in Longyu Province. Those last two would prove especially important in the years to come, because that gave An control of the cavalry mounts of the north, which had formerly been within the domain of Ge Xuhan, as well as the pasture lands on which all Chinese cavalry depended. From Twitchit, quote, Word of this change of plan seems to have leaked to An Lushan before he departed the capital, that he had been slated for a chancellorship only to have it revoked at Yang's insistence. The emperor's chief eunuch reported to him upon seeing him out of the city in the third month of 754 that the general had been very discontented for this reason, a fact that deeply

disturbed Xuanzong since such decision-making was supposed to be completely confidential. Indeed, quote, during An Lushan's stay at the capital, the enmity of Yang Guozhong had become so apparent that when he left to return to his command at Fanyang, he went post-haste by boat, traveling night and day and never leaving his boat at any of the cities he passed, for fear that Yang Guozhong would have him pursued and detained, end quote. It seems that, though An might have indeed entered the imperial city without any firm plans to revolt in his heart, and perhaps even truly meaning when he said that he remained loyal to Xuanzong, by the time he left, Chancellor Yang's myopic bungling and abrasive enmity toward him

might have convinced him that there was only one course of action to ensure his position and hold on power, armed rebellion. Between early 754, when An departed Chang'an, and December of the following year when he rose in rebellion, events unfolded at an increasingly frenetic pace. There are indications that An Lushan attempted to have his son recalled from the capital and taken out of harm's way if, and when, hostilities broke out. Whatever measures he might have taken, though, what is clear is that Xuanzong had no intention of relinquishing what was supposed to be his trump

card, that is, the young An Qingzong's life. This seems to have had the opposite effect, however, since his son repeatedly sent him missives informing Liu Shan that Chancellor Yang was time and again insisting that the emperor should remove him from power. Moreover, it appears that Chancellor Yang commenced with a campaign to remove supporters of Lushan from their offices in central government, having some merely removed to distant provincial posts to the far south, and still others outright executed. But in any event, further isolating Lushan's power base from the affairs of the capital. I'm sure Yang must have been very pleased with himself and his own cunning to have effectively painted on into a corner that seemed to have no way out. But he was obviously missing the huge, armed and armored elephant in the room

that was the fact that he was aggravating and baiting the man who single-handedly controlled the most effective fighting force in the empire, and that any man or animal backed into a corner was liable to lash out against his persecutor. Yang was playing with matches, and An Lushan was a tanker full of gasoline. Yet again, in early 755, Chancellor Yang once again managed to cajole Emperor Shanzong into issuing a summons to An in order to test his loyalty, and to see whether or not he intended to rebel. This time, however, the governor-general refused the summons,

with the excuse that he was too sick to travel. Though Yang was probably jumping up and down by this point, saying, See? See? He's going to rebel! Shanzong wished to make a more thorough assessment of his trusted general, and so dispatched a eunuch envoy to his headquarters at Fanyang to assess for himself the general's intentions. Apparently, however, An heavily bribed the eunuch official and convinced him to report back to the capital that he, as ever, remained completely loyal to the dynasty. Time and again over the course of 755, summons would arrive bidding him

to come to Chang'an, including a letter written in the aged emperor's own hand commanding that he attend his own son's wedding that summer. But time and again, Lushan waved them off with the excuse that his sickness precluded him from travel at all. It was a pretty transparent excuse, all things considered, and especially as he was continuing to launch raids northward. As such, it was becoming increasingly obvious, even to Emperor Shanzong, who had until this point been steadfast in his belief in An's professed loyalty, that there was now something rotten in the protectorate of Dong An. A fact cemented when proof of his eunuch agents having accepted a massive bribe to give his glowing review of the

general came to light. The eunuch was executed, and another dispatched to Fanyang at once to, for reals this time, see just what An Lushan was up to. In the words of Twitchit, quote, When the emperor's envoy arrived in Fanyang, An Lushan received him seated and refused to even make the customary obeisances. After a few days, the envoy was sent back to Chang'an without having another audience. It was now clear that rebellion was only a matter of time. End quote. And so it was. On the ninth day of the eleventh month, year 755,

personally leading a combined army of Han, Tongra, Khitan, Shi, Shui, and Turkish tribesmen, numbering somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 strong, the general An Lushan officially declared his rebellion against the Tang regime, claiming that he had received a secret edict from the emperor Xuanzong himself, begging him to come to the capital and overthrow the chancellor Yang Guozhong, who had seized control of the government for his own nefarious purposes. As we will see in the episodes to come, this was little more than a fiction, an excuse to launch his campaign, and soon enough his true intent will

become clear to all. But for now, under the guise of assisting the Emperor, the 100,000 plus strong force departed their mustering grounds surrounding Fanyang and headed southward at the command of their rebel Governor-General. And next week, we will follow the rebel army on its Blitzkrieg campaign towards the secondary capital of Luoyang that will take Emperor Shenzong and the Tang Dynasty as a whole completely by surprise, and serve as the opening salvo of what will go down in history as one of the most destructive conflicts of all time. Thanks for listening. civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's

descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms, or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.