The History of China - #108 - Tang 21: General Disaster

Episode Date: September 5, 2016

The echoes of the An Lushan Rebellion still reverberate destructively through Tang China even three decades after its conclusion. As the new emperor, Dezong, attempts to revitalize the glory days of old, he’ll kick off an new round of wars with the governor-warlords of Hebei who don’t want to have to listen to him anymore. Time Period Covered: 781-785 CE Major Historical Figures: Emperor Dezong of Tang (Li Kuo) [r. 779-805] Li Zhengji, Governor-General of Pinglu [d. 781] Zhu Tao, King of Ji Zhu Ci, Governor-General of Huaixi, Emperor of Qin/Han [d. 785] Duan Xiushi, Tang double-agent [d. 783] General Li Huaiguang General Li Sheng Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 108, General Disaster Last time, we left the Tang Empire in the hands of the new emperor, Dezong, who had assumed the mantle of command following his father Daizong's death in 779, and had immediately set about reforming the imperial policies of taxation to put its financial books in the black for once. Right out of the gate, his policies had proved to be a smashing success, and the central government had been, in the fiscal year of 780, able to collect more than double the previous year's revenue. But Dezong's early successes would belie what was to come for him and his regime beginning the following year,

and this time we'll see that the destructive echoes of the Anlushan Rebellion are still restless in Hebei almost 30 years later, and are still able to pull the empire apart, as it seems. We start today, then, not in the capital, Chang'an, but instead up in the northeast, where the nominal Jiedushi governor-generals, but de facto autonomous warlords, who had once been An Lushan's very lieutenants, now have a stranglehold over the whole region. That term that I just used, by the way, Jiedushi, was the official title of the office I've been referring to up until now as governor-general, since that seems to be the best approximate fit for the power of the position, in that they held authority over both military and civil rule in a

given region. That said, it can and has been translated a few other ways that you might stumble across in your own research, probably most evocatively as the office of the legate, of Roman Empire fame. I, however, have decided against using legate, primarily because it doesn't really accurately describe the office very well. The Geoduchia were far closer to a proconsul, if we're just going to go throwing about Roman imagery, but proconsul doesn't really sound nearly as sexy as legate. So you know what, let's just scrap the whole Roman imagery thing entirely, and I will just stick with governor-general. While the central imperial government had spent the intervening few decades desperately clinging

to life and trying to shore up its already greatly diminished strength, meanwhile the Habe governors had spent this period of reprieve from imperial meddling into their affairs to further solidify and consolidate their individual rules, as well as further enlarge their already enormous private armies. All in all, there were four major regions, which I've often as not simply been calling provinces because it fits the bill well enough, but were actually called dao, meaning circuits or paths. These four circuits were under the autonomous command of their respective governor-generals. They were Pinglu in modern Shandong province, Weibo and Chengde both in Hebei, and East Shannan in northern Hubei. And that last one especially gets really directionally confusing if we were to try

to fully translate it out, amounting to East South of the Mountains in Northern North of the Hu River. Yeah, let's just stick with East Shannan. Anyways, so the governors of these four regions in particular had taken the olive branch that had been offered by the exhausted Tang state at the end of the An Lushan Rebellion and just completely run with it. After paying some nominal lip service to promise to obey the throne and be a loyal subject of the regime, blah blah blah, the former rebel generals turned right around and then proceeded to assume virtually all of the official government prerogatives for themselves. Most noteworthy for

them, and most troubling for the capital, being the imposition, collection, and of course subsequent pocketing of, taxes over the whole of Hebei. And I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating once again, Hebei was still the richest and most densely populated region in the whole of the empire. Troubling as the situation was to the central government, there was precious little they could do or say about it, really, and for that matter, it wasn't even really confined just to Hebei or the former rebel governor-generals of the regions. Professor Dalby writes, quote, this sort of regime was found by 780 not only in Hebei proper, but also in the large and important provinces of Pinglu on the Shandong Peninsula,

Xiangyang in the lower Huai River Valley, and Huaixi on the upper Huai River in the south of modern Henan. In other words, virtually left, right, and center, the regional governors and Jieduxia commanders were realizing that the actual authority of the central government and the throne was fundamentally too weak to really enforce its own laws. The central hub of the imperial bicycle wheel had all but vanished, leaving the outer spokes to run things for themselves, pretty much however they saw fit. And that is exactly what they intended to do. Rather than act in any kind of a cohesive manner, though,

quite frequently these regional governors would prove that they were out only for their immediate and personal self-enrichment and interest, and would occasionally rub one another the wrong way, or attempt to enlarge their own holdings at another's expense. Meaning, of course, military skirmishes between their immense private armies were frequent. Against this kind of interprovincial squabbling, the throne had been able to do precious little, though the court had, in fairness, been able to successfully intervene in 775-76 when it had managed to stop the governor of Weibo from seizing another governor's territory outright. Still, on the whole, that was relatively small potatoes.

Though they might squabble and disagree, on the whole, most of the governor-generals remained aware enough of the larger political situation to see the value of remaining at least in a loose coalition of mutual support against the interference of Chang'an. Again from Dalby, quote, the key point on which they all agreed was that the right of succession to the governorships was theirs to determine. The idea was to ensure hereditary succession, of course, but even internal struggle for the post was preferred to court interference, end quote. Flying in the face of all imperial convention, which out and out forbade hereditary succession of official posts, well, that's exactly what these governor

generals intended on doing, going so far as to say that they would rather risk war between one another over a territorial dispute in the region rather than allow the imperial court at Shang'an to make the decision for them. That said, they did throw a bone to the imperial court, paltry though it was, that they would agree to allow the imperial government the opportunity to confirm the decision that they reached, once and only once they arrived at it internally, though. Gee, thanks, guys. When Emperor Dezong acceded to the throne, however, he wished to send a clear, unmistakable message to his governors at all corners of the empire that there was a new sheriff in town who wasn't about to shrink from enforcing the imperial prerogatives. Right out of the gate, Dezong wished to put his governors on notice that none of their monkey business was going to fly with him as their new sovereign.

Thus, in mid-781, following the death of the governor-general of Chengde, Dezong put the kibosh on the pretensions of his son, who had been making noises about succeeding his father in a hereditary fashion. It was a signal the governors both of Hebei and across the empire received loud and clear, but in its intended effect of squelching the would-be autonomy of the Jieduxia governors, it pretty massively backfired. Far from being brought to heel by this royal snub of the scion of Weibo, the other governors of Hebei, Shandong, and even Xiangyang took the flexing of the royal muscles as a clear challenge to their autonomy, and responded, in the words of Marx, of course you know this means war.

As the forces of the Hebei governors amassed to press their claim against the throne, the governor of Pinglu even attempted to cut off food supplies to the capital in an attempt to force the emperor's agreement to their terms without it coming to blows. But that attempt at a blockade would be foiled in late 781, when the imperial commander, General Zhang, was able to successfully escort the caravans of supplies through the harassment and intimidation of the Pinglu troops and deliver it to the capital unmolested. Interestingly, it would be the very governor-general of Weibo, named Li Zhengji, who would himself shortly thereafter be murdered by two of his own officers, prompting Emperor Dezong to once again flatly refuse to confirm or recognize the accession of his own son to the Jieduxia

post of Pinglu, and further calcifying the feelings of hostility between the throne and the Fanzhen provinces of the northeast. Dezong then managed to further step on his own toes when he also refused to reward the two loyalist assassins as they requested. Incensed, the two lieutenants turned right around and declared themselves and their armies to be in rebellion once again. In spite of Dazong proving that he indeed possessed backbone enough to challenge the authority of the powerful governors of Hebei, as Dalby puts it, quote, From the court's point of view,

the next five years were a nightmare as one military crisis after another threatened to overwhelm it, end quote. Now, as we discussed two episodes in 106, the imperial government had managed to bolster its own central armed forces against the power of the frontier guard armies commanded by the governor's generals

back in 763 with the palace guard's acquisition of the Army of Divine Strategy, or Shunseijun. But even that had not been nearly enough to boost the central government's directly controlled armies, enough to even consider committing them to a conflict on an empire-wide scale at this point. Sure, the Army of Divine Strategy had substantially increased the capital's ability to act and react defensively, but it was still in no position whatsoever to act in an offensive manner at all, especially against the likes of a border army, without significant reinforcements from loyal governors and allies.

You may recall that this exact issue had plagued and very nearly destroyed the Tang regime back during the An Lushan Rebellion, and at this point Chang'an was certainly not nearly as capable of dealing with another civil war of similar magnitude as it had been even in the 750s. The following year, 782, would see Emperor Zazong again shoot himself in the foot following a successful subjugation of the rebellious regions of East Shannan and Chengde by the acting military commander of the neighboring loyalist prefecture, Huaixi. Though this series of victories seemed poised to break the spine of the growing rebellion against central imperial authority over Hebei, Dezong once again managed to piss off its governor, a man named Zhutao, by failing to

adequately reward his victory and outright denying Zhu's request for control of the Shen Prefecture, and indeed not giving him any piece whatsoever of the territory he had just promised in spite of an earlier royal promise. Thoroughly dispirited and alienated, General Zhu Tao would himself defect to the rebels just a couple of months later, and then, just for good measure, go ahead and cut off the grain supply to the capital altogether. It was, says Dalby, a, quote,

economic blow so severe that the court was forced to resort to drastic measures, end quote. These measures consisted of a number of extraordinary new tax measures to keep the government itself solvent through the crisis. You'll recall that up to this point, the Tang government, like those of the dynasties before it, relied almost solely on real estate taxation to fund itself. It had only been very recently indeed that the imperial court had even approved such measures as a monopoly and tax on salt production, a policy shift in itself that, while hearkening back to as early as the Han dynasty, was still significant enough to raise more than a few eyebrows at the time. Imagine then what the reaction must have been to the government's

new solution to its suddenly untenably dire economic straits, which was taxes levied on the urban populations of the capital itself based on household size rather than property holdings, a sales tax even later historians have characterized as exorbitant, forced quote-unquote loans from wealthy merchants to fill the government's coffers, in essence writing such men an IOU for their troubles, and commodity taxes as well, all of which had up until now been virtually unthinkable for the urbanite citizens of the empire. They were, to put it mildly, not exactly pleased. Though Emperor Dezong seemed even early on to have realized the enormity of his screw-up in

alienating his general, Zhu Tao, and then offered to placate the commander by giving him the title of Prince of Tongyi, Zhu would not be so easily bought off by imperial promises that he already had found to be worthless. Instead of accepting the imperial commission, on December 9th of 782, Jutou, alongside several of the other rebel generals, proclaimed himself the king of Ji, while the others proclaimed themselves the kings of Zhao, Wei, and Qi, respectively. And as a quick aside, I should point out that while these titles have typically been rendered in English as princes rather than kings, the Chinese title of wang is the same for both. So I've opted to use the translation of king to emphasize that this action was a clear political break from the Tang order and a statement of autonomy and sovereignty from the rebellious

governor's general turned kings, as opposed to an equivalent title within the imperial system to what had been on offer from the emperor. The political fallout from this move resounded across the Tang Empire and within the walls of Chang'an itself, perhaps most especially with none other than Zhu Tao's elder brother, Zhu Si, who had held the title of governor-general of Lulong, even though he had resided within the capital city since 778. After Zhu Tao's declaration of rebellion,

that voluntary residence in Chang'an had been converted into an enforced one by Dezong, who, even though he assured Zhu Zi that he did not suspect his general to have any part in his younger brother's treason, nevertheless wished to keep a close eye on him, and thus relieved Zhu Zi of his command post in the northwest and recalled him to Chang'an proper. And it would be from there that all hell would break loose. In early November of the following year, 783, an army that had previously been under the direct command of General Juzi was summoned to the capital to prepare for a campaign to the east in order to

subdue these self-styled rebel kings. But when this force, called the Jingyuan Army, arrived, what they found on offer from the central government was rather less than they expected, to put it mildly. Dalby writes, quote, The men erupted into riot when they learned, at the capital, that the court could provide them with only bare subsistence rations, end quote. Seeing that the army he'd been mobilizing against the rebels was now actively turning against him from inside the capital city's walls, Emperor Dezong, in what was by now practically a family tradition among the imperial Li clan,

abandoned the capital and fled to a small town to the northwest called Fengtian. The Jingyuan army then called their former commander, General Zhu Ci, to come out of his enforced retirement and lead them once again to glory and victory, which he did with apparently little prompting. Once again, the force's military commander. That night, General Zhu took the very bold step indeed of personally moving into the imperial palace and declaring himself the acting commander-in-chief of the imperial armed forces. The following day, according to the Zizhi Tongjian, he issued a declaration that appears to be simultaneously welcoming the emperor back to the capital to resume control, while also managing to retain more than a hint of menace in its words. It read, quote, the soldiery of Jingyuan have long been out of the borders and in the wilds, and as such are

unfamiliar with proper etiquette. Their rough manner thus surprised the emperor in his palace, and he took leave from the capital to survey his western holdings. The Grand Marshal Zhu has thus taken temporary control of the armed forces. Those elements of the Imperial Guard, including the Army of Divine Strategy, privy to the knowledge of the Emperor's whereabouts, should report to his side at once, while all others should return to their assigned posts. In three days' time, any unit or soldier who has reported to neither place

will be deemed in rebellion and subject to summary execution." End quote. Nice words, but they actually belied Juzi's true feelings on the idea of the emperor returning to the capital at all. And when military officials who duly reported to him then suggested that he formally welcomed Dezong back to Chang'an, the Grand Marshal grew visibly upset at the prospect, prompting those army officers who remained loyal to the emperor to flee for Fengtian City before Juzi could move against them. In short order, and at the advice of several of his lieutenants, these temporary emergency measures imposed by the Grand Marshal grew more and more permanent in nature, and within

a day or so, Juzi began eyeing the throne of the imperial palace he already occupied, while Emperor Dezong sat impotently out at Fengtian. 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.

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to launch a surprise attack on the unsuspecting imperial guard once they arrived. This strike force seems very likely to have succeeded, excepting for the quick thinking of a double agent in the midst of Juzi's inner circle, a man who held the traitor general's confidence, yet secretly remained loyal to the Tang regime and Emperor Dezong. He was named Duan Xiushi, and he managed to forge a counter-order once the force of 3,000 had set off towards Fengtian. The messenger reached the army commander as they marched, and the documents instructed the army to turn right around and head back to Chang'an at once, thus aborting the regicidal plot.

But Duan was not done just yet. Alongside Juzi's other lieutenant commanders, he had been summoned to a top-level meeting to discuss Juzi's impending seizure of the imperial throne for himself and their respective places in this soon-to-be new world order. Once gathered, though, Duan Xiaoshi produced a weapon and attempted to outright murder the power-mad general then and there. this soon-to-be New World Order. Once gathered, though, Duan Xiuzhi produced a weapon and attempted to outright murder the power-mad general then and there. Duan was intercepted by Zhu's attendant guardsmen, however, and executed on the spot, even as Marshal Zhu, either in disbelief or

out of some sense of mercy, tried to call his guards off and spare the would-be assassin's life. Himself spared the assassin's blade, Zhu Zi would then seize the throne on November 6th, a mere four days after Emperor Dazong had fled the capital. He proclaimed the Tang Dynasty to be at its end, and the formation of the Qin Dynasty, version 2.0, with his younger brother, Juzhao, the King of Jin, as his crowned prince. Priority number one, of course, was then to get rid of the last vestiges of the old regime, i.e. Emperor Dazong, who, thanks to Duan Xiu Shi's interference,

yet remained holed up and safe and sound inside Fengtian. So long as the scion of the Li clan clung to life, Juzi's hold on power would never be secure. As such, Emperor Juzi personally marched his army against Fengtian to lay the small town to siege, and in short order, the Tang imperial retinue was in truly dire straits, with their supply lines severed and themselves completely cut off from reinforcement from any loyalist elements who might try to rescue them. This would be the situation for more than a month as the beleaguered defenders of Fengtian, and for that matter the Tang dynasty itself,

held fast against the siege, holding out the hope that somewhere, somehow, someone might be riding to their rescue. And as it would turn out, they were right. The Tang loyalist generals Li Huiguang and Li Sheng had both heard of what had occurred in the capital and now marched their armies with all due haste to meet the imperial court in exile at Fengtian. Li Huiguang's army would arrive at the besieged city on December 18th, finding Juzi's army's positions had been abandoned only shortly before his arrival. The usurper emperor's force had only just given up their efforts to force the city and had withdrawn back to Chang'an, fearing Li Huiguang's arrival. Having just saved the emperor's bacon, with the consensus even at the time apparently being that had General Li arrived even three days later than

he did, Fengtian would have been captured. We might imagine how off-putting it would have been for General Li to have essentially been given the brush off by Emperor Dazong, who rather than personally meeting with the general, instead issued impersonal orders to the commander to meet with a group of other imperial generals to discuss further strategy against the rebels and then to immediately march against Chang'an. As we've already seen time and again, Dezong's tone deafness regarding his subordinates seems to have reared its ugly, alienating head yet again and begun the process of turning yet another ally into an enemy. Dezong turned instead to a man who seems a very unlikely

choice for top imperial advisor. Lu Zhi was neither a venerated statesman nor a military commander, but simply a young pencil pusher from among the emperor's personal think tank called the Hanlin Academy, which had served in a secretarial and personal capacity for the emperors of the Tang Court since the time of Xuanzong, but served in no official governmental capacity. Still, this seems to have been the right choice on Dazong's part, for in the words of Dalbi, quote, Lu was a remarkably capable man, and as the emperor's chief advisor, he soon assumed effective direction of the government. He showed uncommon skill at analysis of political and financial issues and great endurance under the tedious production of state documents, end quote.

In fact, it would be under Lu Jia's advice that Dazhong was convinced to effectively abandon his idea to forcibly reunify the whole of the empire under central rule via military means, at least for now, and to instead conclude this untenable war with the governor-kings of Hebei in much the same way that his father, Taizong, had at last concluded the Anlushan Rebellion, that is, a general pardon and amnesty for the governor-generals currently in rebellion, as well as the standing offer, via an imperial act of grace, to retain all of the Jiedushi on at their current position and posts and with the amount of autonomy that they had had before the war. And, you know, we'll all just pretend that this little rebel kings thing never happened. Or, if we want to couch it in early 20th century Wilsonianism,

a peace without victory. That's right, all those rebels and traitors could simply return to their old jobs like nothing had ever happened, if they gave up the ghost here and now. That is all but one, the unpardonable arch-traitor Zhu Ce, who had crossed the uncrossable bridge and declared himself emperor of a new dynasty, an act that day by day was surely proving itself to be less and less of a good idea. Shortly after the abortive siege of Fengtian, Juzi found himself emperor of little more than Chang'an itself, with the remainder of the empire having either lined up behind the down-but-not-out Tang emperor or been placated by his promise to pardon their

earlier rebellions. Seeing that his fortunes were changing, and not for the better, shortly after the new year of 784, Juzi apparently tried to shift the tide of fate back in his favor by renaming his nascent dynasty from Qin, evocative of the powerful but disastrously short-lived first Chinese empire, to that of Han, a far more long-lived and venerable name, to be sure. But semantics alone were not going to save the day for Jiu Ci and his Qin come Han aspirations. He would need something far more than just that if he was going to pull himself out of this particular frying pan. And what's this? Lo and behold, who should crest the

hill but none other than General Li Huiguang, the general who had just saved the day for the Tang dynasty but was now grumbling angrily to himself about how he'd been snubbed by the emperor as he slowly made his way via imperial order to retake Chang'an as soon as possible. Taking note of the approaching Tang general's disgruntled demeanor, Juzi correctly interpreted his would-be enemy's aggrieved attitude and sent him a series of secret misses, privately offering to honor General Li as his elder brother and promising that they could both rule as emperors over their

own independent realms if only Li would join Jiuzi against the Tang emperor's unjust rule. Finally, seeing someone who would appreciate him for the great man he obviously was, damn it, Li Huiguang at last made his inevitable face-heel turn and declared himself to be in peaceful relations with the Han Emperor Zhu Zi and opposed to Dezong of Tang. Had Dezong in this court remained at Fengtian, the combined force of Zhu and Li would have posed a serious threat to the regime's survival indeed. But, as Dalby says, no one who had seen Li Huiguang glumly muttering to himself after the Emperor's survival indeed. But, as Dalby says, no one who had seen Lihuaiguang glumly muttering to himself after the emperor's snub was quite that stupid. He writes, quote,

the ill will borne by Lihuaiguang was so evident that the court moved once again to Liangzhou on the Sichuan border in order to forestall any possibility of harm should Lihuaiguang act on his feelings, end quote. Meanwhile, General Li's defection hadn't gone over terribly well with many of his own staff, who hadn't signed up, after all, to rebel against their sovereign, thanks anyway. In the aftermath of Li's announcement, several of his key officers de-defected and marched themselves and their men, under their command, to the nearest loyalist general to join up with him. That nearest general just so happened to be none other than Li Sheng, who had likewise arrived at the capital region to relieve the emperor right about the same time as Li Huiguang, and who Dalbi describes as, quote, the most stalwart of the imperial commanders,

end quote. Empowered by both an imperial commission as the overall military commander of the region, and all the more so by this slew of officer de-defections to his command by Huai Guang's former staff, General Li Sheng found himself in a position to launch a vigorous assault against both the pretender Emperor Zhu Si and his lackey, Li Huai Guang. At this point, though, the barely formedformed alliance between Zhu and Li Huiguang was already starting to fray. With the former Tang general's army now significantly reduced in strength thanks to his officers and their men abandoning ship, Li Huiguang suddenly proved himself to be not nearly the force to be reckoned with as he'd just seemed a day or so

prior. As such, in spite of his former assurances that oh you're just like my big brother and we can be co-equal emperor BFFs, all of a sudden, Jiu Ze started treating General Li like a subordinate rather than an equal. Both confused and royally ticked off at this sudden turn of events, General Li Huiguang quickly decided to take his ball and go home, withdrawing from the Chang'an region altogether and returning to his home base at Hezhong to adopt a defensive posture against the army of Li Sheng. Though Li Sheng was to face the same temptation as Huiguang coming from Juzi's messengers, he would prove far more resilient, and doesn't seem to have ever seriously

given the promises pouring forth from Chang'an any real heedance. Arrayed outside the walls of Chang'an, Li Sheng's army would be joined in early June by another imperial commander named General Hun Jian, and shortly thereafter by a force fielded by none other than the Tibetan imperial army, who had responded to the Tang emperor's calls for aid against the usurper, Juzi. In typical fashion, of course, the Tibetans were far more interested at the chance of booty and plunder than the success of either side in particular, and therefore it was no real surprise that Juzi was then able to bribe them off with an appropriate donation. Nevertheless, that still left two armies facing him down on the eve of June 12th,

when General Li Sheng would commence his assault of the city's defenses. The subsequent attack would last for little more than a week before the city gates were finally breached and Li Sheng entered the capital. Juzha managed to sneak out the back, though, and in what can be described as little less than a panicked flight, rode due west toward the perceived safety of the Tibetan borders. It would prove to be Jutsu's last ride. Along the way, his Jingyuan army, you remember them, right? They were the guys who convinced him to seize the capital in the first place. Well, they wound up deserting Jutsu as they were traveling through their home district's

capital, Jingzhou, killing their commander and defecting to the Tang loyalist governor of the prefectural city. Now down to a skeleton force consisting almost solely of troops from the Lulong army, Zhu was forced to continue his flight westward into the wilds of the Gansu Corridor. But soon enough, even those who had accompanied the usurper emperor this far grew fed up with Zhu Zi, and outside the city of Pengyuan, the first and last emperor of Han was struck with an arrow loosed by one of his own subordinates, and he fell from his horse into a shallow ditch. Before he could pick himself up, if indeed he was in any fit state to do so, another of his officers dismounted, drew his sword, and finished the job by beheading his lord before leading the remnant of

the rebel force to surrender to the Tang forces nearby. The Tang dynasty is once again safe from yet another existential threat in the form of a rebellion by the Jieduxia governor-generals. Yet if this series of revolts in the 780s sounds strikingly familiar, that's only because it totally is. If not quite a repeat, then it's certainly possible to at least classify the rebellion of the Hebei generals as nothing less than an echo of the An Lushan rebellion, in both form and rationale. Dalby puts it, quote, The similarities between the two hot war phases are striking. Provoked by the political pressure from Chang'an, hostilities were protractals was the final act of the An Lushan Rebellion of the 750s

that had never really reached a decisive conclusion. The one big difference we can really draw between the War of the 750s and that of the 780s was that the Hebei generals had had the time that they needed to actually build a more effective fighting force against central Tang control, and likewise had limited themselves and their objectives to retaining their existing holdings rather than aspiring to total imperial dynastic pretensions, with Jiuzi being the obvious exception, and his downfall being as telling as those of the An and Shi emperors of the initial rebellion. In fact, taken together, the holdings secured by Dezong's act of grace for the Hebei generals

was actually quite a bit larger than all of the territories the armies of An Lushan had ever successfully held. Dalby says as to how this had come to be the case, quote, by the 780s, the various Hebei governors, self-styled kings, emperors, and so on, in each case had built up an army and the rudiments of legitimacy in a given piece of territory. Although these new conditions did not make large-scale coordinated military operations easy for the rebels to undertake, they did prevent the rebel movement of the 780s from breaking up because of internal dissension.

And that specter of internal dissension, you'll remember, had been one of the pivotal downfalls of the commanders of the An Lushan Rebellion some three decades prior. Even after the ultimate re-establishment of political authority of Hebei in the years and decades to come, the provinces carved out by the Hebei governors would nevertheless survive more or less intact and under far greater autonomy from the Chang'an court than might otherwise have been expected.

The fact that Dazong's court could not achieve the only real victory conditions it could hope for is as unsurprising then as it was humiliating for the prosecutors of the war. While his great-grandfather, Emperor Xuanzong, might have been forgiven for not seeing the treachery of An Lushan coming and thus being tragically underprepared for the betrayal, in contrast, Emperor Dazong chose this war against the Hebei governors as part of an ill-thought-out plan to re-establish the glory days of old for him and his dynasty. What he got instead, largely through his and his lieutenant's incompetence, was the near destruction of his whole family line, the breakup of his

entire Tang empire, and even with its ultimate survival, the recalcification of the very governors he'd initially sought to oust, but whom he had been forced to reconfirm by his own hand in order to deal with the usurper dynasty that had popped up literally right out from under him. Dalby puts it, quote, In any case, Dezong had clearly made a grave error in stirring up the conflict before he was certain that he could win on the field. Ironically, once Dezong gave up the role of crusading general

and accepted the division of the realm, no matter how painful it was, he proved himself quite adept at holding the line and extracting the maximum advantage for himself from a highly complex, decentralized political system. End quote. In spite of his repeated shooting himself in the foot and creating new enemies out of allies through his repeated missteps, Emperor Dezong has nevertheless, somewhat inexplicably even, managed to pull victory from the jaws of total defeat. Well, okay, not quite victory. Or at all, really. Look, what I'm getting at is that the Tang Dynasty has not been pulled apart piecemeal or supplanted by a usurper general. In all things considered, as of 785, sometimes you just have to take what you can get. And what was on offer for

Emperor Dezong as of 785 was an empire divided, weakened, and terribly complicated by the machinations of a hundred moving bureaucratic pieces, but an empire nonetheless. What he needs at this point is someone in his corner, an inner core of highly dependable, deeply skilled individuals who could cut through the bureaucratic red tape and start repairing the damage his misadventures and warfare had done to the empire. The imperial court certainly wasn't the solution. They were already widely despised for their unscrupulous methods and overtly self-serving natures. And neither could the army be counted on. It had by this point a startling tendency to produce as many traitors as it did

loyal soldiers. No, what Dezong needed was something entirely new, something on par with Xuanzong's Hanlin Academy and Empress Wu's Scholars of the Northern Gate, a body that existed outside of the government mechanism, but that could cut through it to get the imperial will done without all the bureaucratic red tape. And so next time, we'll be introduced to the body that will come to be remembered as the most important and effective political development of the late 8th century China, the Tang Inner Court. Thanks for listening. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves.

And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. and I'm Rich and we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.