The History of China - #84 - Tang 3: The Khan Of Heaven

Episode Date: December 13, 2015

Li Shimin assassinated his two brothers and put his father out to pasture in order to snag the top job as Emperor Taizong. But a mere three weeks into his reign, this “rock star” monarch will face an existential challenge to his reign and the future of the Tang Dynasty as a whole: the wrath of the Göktürk Khaganate. It will prove to be a wild ride to determine whether Tang China will be doomed to remain a vassal of the Turks, or whether Taizong’s “true vision” will prove enough to rise to the challenge.Time Period Covered:626-630 CEMajor Historical Figures:Tang:Prince Li Shimin [Emperor Taizong]Retired Emperor GaozuGöktürk Khaganate:Illig KhaganTölis KhanLiang Dynasty (Turkic Vassal):Emperor Liang Shidu (d. 628)Xueyantuo Tribe (alt. Se-Yento, Syr-Tardush)Uyghur Tribe (alt. Huige, Hui-ho)Khitan TribeWorks Cited:Drompp, Michael. Tang China And The Collapse Of The Uighur Empire: A Documentary HistoryGrousset, René. The Rise and Splendor of the Chinese Empire.Weschler, Howard. The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest 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. Hello and welcome to the History of China.

Episode 84, The Khan of Heaven Last time, the Prince of Qin, Li Shemin, pulled off one of the most audacious and infamous coups in Chinese history when he outmaneuvered his two brothers at the Xuanwu Gate of Chang'an, and along with his faithful retainers, killed them both. As we ended off the episode, he had translated that fratricide into first becoming the crowned prince of Tang and then forcing his aging father, Emperor Gaozu, into a not-quite-entirely-voluntary early retirement, thereby succeeding him to the throne in 626. Today, we'll pick up there and chronicle the early period of this Chinese monarch, who had posthumously received the name,

all in all, Wenwu Dasheng Daguang Xiao Huangdi, or approximately, the cultured and martial great sage, great expander, filial emperor, which is certainly descriptive, but quite the mouthful. Fortunately then, history has come to know him by a much more abbreviated temple name, that is, Emperor Taizong. Taizong came to power when he was 28 years old, and not only was he more or less in the prime time of his life, but he was something of a political and military rock star even prior to coming to power. Of course, the crowning moment of his military glory had come with his decisive victory at Hulao Pass two episodes ago, marking him as truly a cut above even his elder brother, the crown prince, and sparking the latter's jealousy and the former's ambition. Professor of history Howard J. Weschler writes of Taizong's earliest period

in power, quote, "...a dashing and successful commander, his character had been formed by the time he seized the throne by years of arduous fighting in the field. He had a truly imperial bearing and cut an intimidating and magnificent figure at court. Much of his success in dealing with the Turks derived from his forceful personality and his heroic presence. Nevertheless, Taizong was an extremely self-conscious ruler, both within the period of his rule, but also, and perhaps even more so, concerned with how history would ultimately judge him. Taizong was perhaps one of the most, what we might call today, media-savvy monarchs of Chinese history. He had an abiding penchant for dramatic flair,

just the sort of thing he knew his court historians would love to include in their accounts of his reign. On one particularly notable example, two years into his reign, the capital region was inundated by a plague of locusts. Making sure that his court was all there to observe him, he conspicuously surveyed the damage the insects had caused to the imperial gardens, and then scooped up a handful of the locusts in his hands, and dramatically cursed them, saying, The people hold grain as the same as life itself, yet all the same you devour it. Better that you devour my own lungs and bowels. Then he theatrically lifted the scoop of insects to his mouth, brushing aside the protestations of his court that he might catch a disease with the retort,

It is for the people that we too must suffer this calamity. How then can we think to avoid illness? Then he ate the whole handful. Quite the dramatic, and disgusting, statement to make. Nor was his devouring of the locusts a singular incident. Indeed, through his early reign, Taizong repeatedly and conspicuously made grand, sweeping gestures aimed at both empathizing with the people as a whole, and showing deep respect for the opinions and advice of his court officials.

It was a dedicated and inarguably successful charm offensive of the highest order. He would adopt the pose of a humble, young, and eager-to-learn student of his chief ministers, and masterfully disarmed them with statements such as this, claiming how ill-prepared he was for rule over the empire, and note that when he says we, he is using the royal we, and in fact referring only to himself, not some group. Quote, When we were young and fond of archery, we obtained ten excellent bows, and thought none could be better. Recently we showed them to a bowmaker, who said, all are of poor quality.

When we asked the reason, he replied, The hearts of the wood are not straight, so their arteries and veins are all bad. Although the bows are strong, when you shoot the arrows, they will not fly true. We began to realize that we were not yet good at discriminating. We pacified the empire with bows and arrows, but our understanding even of these was still insufficient. How much the less can we know about everything concerning the affairs of the empire? End quote. These kinds of grand, overly saccharine statements like this were certainly for show,

rather than any real reflection of how Taizong truly felt about himself. After all, it wasn't as though the throne had simply dropped into his lap unexpectedly or anything. He'd actively sought it out, and murdered two of his brothers in the process. Not something an unsure and unready prince is likely to do. Nevertheless, we can't regard this type of sentiment entirely as political theater, either, because he did practice, at least to a degree, what he was preaching. From Weschler, quote, He scrupulously followed the Confucian precepts which called for scholar-official participation and authority in government, and proved unusually sensitive and responsive to literati advice

and pressure. He deliberately sought the frank criticisms of his ministers and advisors, and made honest attempts to employ their criticism to improve his administration. End quote. So he was not just blowing hot air up his ministers' robes, either. In this, we begin to see just how savvy, complex, and dynamic Taizong's reign was. It's hard to say how a man like Taizong might fare in a modern political campaign for election, but there is at least one criticism that has been bandied about quite a bit in the current

American election cycle that would definitely not stick to him, the charge of being a low-energy candidate, because Taizong was anything but that. His bedchambers and personal quarters rapidly became wallpapered with the imperial missives and memorials that he demanded to review personally, and thus stuck them to every available surface so that he could evaluate them at all hours of the day and night via candlelight. His officials and ministers, too, had to adjust to the prodigious work ethic of their new monarch, and were forced to accommodate his ceaseless summons and commands by sleeping in shifts so there would at all times be someone on call to answer the sovereign's questions on policy. Emperor Taizong was a man on a mission, and with a clear view in his mind's eye of what his empire could be and should be.

He was determined that the Tang would not follow the footsteps of the dozens of failed and short-lived imperial lines it had succeeded, and that it would do what they had not been able to accomplish, stand the test of time like the Han and the Zhou before it. It's certainly no wonder, then, that even on his very first day in office, he named his era of rule Zhengguang, the era of true vision. Indeed, Taizong has, throughout most of Chinese history, been held up by historians and Confucian scholars alike as a sort of model monarch of the chief Confucian ethics. As we just talked about, he encouraged open and honest advice and criticism from his officials.

But he was, in his early reign especially, also amazingly frugal with the state accounts. The massive construction projects of palaces, walls, and canals that had proved so stressful and ultimately ruinous for the Sui were massively scaled back under his direction, as well as the tax burdens on the populace significantly reduced. Taizong is recorded as having remarked to his court only a few months into his reign, quote, the ruler depends on the state, and the state depends on its people. Oppressing the people to make them serve the ruler is like someone cutting off his own flesh to fill his stomach. The stomach is filled, but the body is injured. The ruler is wealthy, but the state is destroyed, end quote. These sorts of declarations

delighted his Confucian officials, and the easing off of taxes and corvée labor requirements were, unsurprisingly, received by the peasantry with wide popularity. Did I mention he was something of a rock star in his time? But almost as soon as he had taken the throne, Taizong was faced with a tremendous foreign policy crisis. From who else? The Guqtar Khanate, of course. You may remember from the several previous episodes that the Khagan of the Turks had been looming large over this Chinese internecine period-slash-civil war, paying back in kind the decades of internal meddling and playing factions against one another that the Chinese had done to them when it had been strong and unified. Before he had set out on his ultimately successful campaign to reunite China under the banners of the Tang, Taizong's father, the now-retired emperor,

Gaozhou, had been forced to submit himself as a nominal vassal of the Turks in order to secure their guarantee that they wouldn't stab the Tang armies in the back while they were busy cobbling China back together again. But even that agreement had broken down once the elder Shi Bi Kagan had died in 619 and been replaced by his younger brother Ilig Kagan, who clearly harbored nothing but contempt for any agreement struck with the Chinese throne, whomever might be seated on it. Capitalizing on the advice offered by one of the last living rebel leaders of the Sui Civil War, Ilikagan combined his forces with those of his nephew, Tulis Khan, and commenced with a massive invasion of northern China a little less than three weeks after Emperor Taizong had ascended to the throne of Tang. And as a quick aside, since we're going

to be throwing the two terms out quite a bit this episode, let's get into the two titles khan and kagan, which I think need a little clarification. A khan simply means leader or commander in Turkic and later Mongolian, whereas the second title, kagan, or if we're really trying to pronounce it totally correctly, kheyan or khehan, means essentially khan of khans, or great k Khan, the overall ruler of a Khaganate. So we can probably most closely think of a Khan as a prince while a Khagan is the steppe emperor. Alright, moving right along. So late in the 8th month of that year, a Turkic force of possibly as many as 100,000 troops descended into the Shanxi capital region, swiftly riding down all the way to the banks of the Wei River, a mere 10 miles or so from the walls of Chang'an itself. Naturally, this was hugely shocking for the officials of the Tang court,

since the Turks would have had to ride past the fortified and heavily garrisoned city of Jingzhou on their approach. How had the Turks managed to ride right past the garrison city without so much as a single Tang messenger beating them back to the capital to warn the court? As it turned out, the commander of the Jingzhou garrison was an officer named Luo Yi, who was only important to the story because he was a close personal friend of the late murdered crowned prince Li Jiancheng, who had met his end at Taizong's own hand back at the Xuanwu Gate. As such, it seems likely that Commander Luo may have just, oh, forgot to dispatch a messenger back to the capital, warning his dead friend's murderous brother of the enemy force's advance. Whoops. As the Turkic horsemen massed on the far side of the Wei River, Emperor Taizong and his

imperial city guardsmen rode out to meet them. And here our sources differ on what exactly happened next. The more traditional histories, such as the New Book of Tang and the Zizhi Tongjian, paint a suitably heroic picture of their obvious protagonist Taizong, spinning the yarn that the emperor employed clever stratagem to separate Ili Khagan from his main body and then surround the chieftain. The emperor then convinced the Kagan to sue for peace, and the terms were drawn up and concluded with the traditional sacrifice of a white horse as both parties stood on opposite spans of the Bien Bridge that spanned

the way. The Turkic army then withdrew. Quite moving, right? However, more modern historians, including Weschler, point to evidence that, quote, In fact, Taizong not only failed to capture the Turkish Khagan, but was also forced to part with a great deal of treasure to secure a Turkish withdrawal. End quote. Certainly a much more prosaic outcome than Taizong leading the charge and saving the day, in this account, he simply buys the Turks off once again. This outcome seems to be alluded to by Taizong himself, who would later sadly hearken back to the shame he had suffered at Wei River, a statement that makes little sense in the context of the older tellings, but makes perfect sense if he'd been

forced to empty out his treasury and promise them more payments in the future in order to send the enemy packing. It might have seemed that the Tang of Taizong would be forced back into the subservience of his father to Gukturk hegemony over China. But it was just about seemed that the Tang of Taizong would be forced back into the subservience of his father to guk-Turk hegemony over China. But it was just about now that the winds of fate, such as they were, shifted yet again. Within the Turkic Khanate, there was dissension within the ranks. Corruption in the upper echelons of government, combined with long-simmering disgruntlement among the Turkic tribes that their Ilig Kagan seemed to be preferring the Shonu elements of their coalition over his own tribal brethren, created a rebellious brew within the eastern steppes that by as early as 627 had begun to

boil over into incidents of outright rebellion against the Kagan's authority. As Ilig Kagan was forced to spend valuable time and energy clamping down on these domestic disputes, several far greater threats to the cohesiveness of the Göktürk-Steppe coalition would begin cropping up. Now the timeline gets a bit hazy here, and who rebelled or defected exactly when differs from account to account. But between 627 and 628, at least three major factions splintered off from the main Turkic body. The first would be the Xuyantuo tribe, also pronounced as Seyinto or Sir Tardush, of the north-central Asian plateaus. The second important clan to rise against Turkic power was a tribe variously called the Huiga, the Huiho, and most commonly the Uyghurs of the

far-western frontiers region surrounding the Taklamakan desert, where most still reside today. These two factions actually together belong to a larger supergroup within the Turkic Empire, known variously as the Tiela or the Tshila, which seem to have coalesced under the domination of the Gukturks' predecessor, the Roran. As an identity, this group was documented by Chinese scholars as far back as the mid-540s. Finally, the third major splinter off of the Turkic Steppe Confederation would come the following year, in the form of the Khitan of the northeast, occupying much of modern eastern Mongolia and western Manchuria. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt.

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failed to suppress the revolts of the subject peoples, Ilig angrily imprisoned him and had him flogged. The personal split, which arose between the two leaders, further eroded Turkish strength." When Tules Khan was released from his cell, he was understandably rather miffed at his uncle. Saying essentially, well, the heck with this, he sent a secret letter to Emperor Taizong in Chang'an, requesting the sovereign's permission to defect to his court. Now, either this letter was intercepted, or perhaps Ilig Kagan was planning on attacking Tulis Khan anyway, but in any case, before any reply from the Chinese could be received, Ilig marched once again on his nephew's holdings, forcing the younger Khan to beg for Tang military assistance, a request that was denied. Paizong figured, why risk my men to stop the Turks from bleeding themselves to death? Either side winning is not exactly

great for me, so let's see how long we can string this little barbarian war out. Now here things start to get really interesting, because though in practice, China by this point had almost entirely been unified under the Tang government, the keyword there is almost. In fact, there was one last lonely holdout, rebel commander and pretender emperor still actively opposing Tang suzerainty, and that was a man named Liang Shidu, who had initially been an agrarian rebel leader against the Sui, based in the city of Shuo Fang. Though Liang Shidu had declared himself the emperor of yet another Liang, like many of the other anti-Sui rebel factions, the Tang included, he had accepted the support and alliance of the Guk Turk Khan in exchange for his vassalage. As such, his forces

carried into battle with them a wolf-headed standard, the symbol of the Turkic Khans they nominally served. Indeed, it had been on the advice of Emperor Liang Shidu that Ili Khagan had marched on Chang'an in 626, and forced Taizong to pay him off rather than attack. But by 628, with his Turkic master now fractured and large chunks of it peeling off and either defecting to the Tang outright or just killing one another, this last rebel pretender emperor found himself stripped of the protection the Khanate had provided up until now. The situation was further exacerbated for the Guk Turks, when in 628, Emperor Taizong publicly proclaimed his support for a rival Khan, dubbed Bijak Khan, who, in turn, acknowledged Tang domination of the Turkic Steppe Confederation. By the new year of 629, Taizong was absolutely assured of his victory, so much so that even favorable terms were brushed aside in favor of his total domination.

Weschler again writes, quote, By 629, Ili Kagan was reduced to such straits that late in the year he went so far as to publicly proclaim himself a vassal of the Tang. Taizong ignored the gesture and, now confident of total victory, sent more than a hundred thousand troops under the command of his generals Li Shichi and Li Qing against Ilig. Ilig's camp, at this time located to the south of the Gobi, was taken with a great slaughter of men and livestock. This fateful battle would occur near what is modern Hohat in Inner Mongolia. The Khagan himself was able to flee the carnage and retreated northwards to the Yinshan Mountains, bordering the great Gobi desert, but it was of little use. Though he repeatedly made further offers of submission to the Tang negotiator sent by Taizong,

it was determined by the Tang generals that the Khagan was merely stalling for time, and he did not truly intend to voluntarily submit to the emperor's will. As such, they attacked the Khagan's refuge on the 2nd of May, 630. In the course of the battle, Ilig's wife, who was in fact a princess of the Sui dynasty named Yicheng, was killed, and at last the Khagan himself was taken captive. His forces broken and his spirit shattered, he was taken in chains back to Chang'an and brought before Taizong on his throne to face Chinese justice. With this tremendous victory, Taizong had managed to completely turn the tables on what had been

both his and his father's most dangerous foe. Gauzu, in fact, was still alive to witness this total destruction of the Eastern Turks at the hands of his son, and with it the last and greatest threat to the enduring stability of the political order he had helped establish. In the northern steppes, where their Khagan defeated and imprisoned, the Eastern Turkic Confederation did what confederations do once the force holding them together is removed. It disintegrated. The Blue Turks of the East, as well of course as the subsidiary tribes they had up until now

controlled, once again scattered in three primary directions. Some, of course, surrendered to the Tang and pledged themselves to the dynasty's will and service. Others further to the west would surrender instead to Tang's ally, the victorious rebel Xueyantuo tribes, who would come to quickly fill much of the power vacuum north of China following the eastern Turks' destruction, and would in time find themselves grating against the Tang much like their former masters. The third option, open to some of the Turkic people, was to flee west to the territories still controlled by the western Turkic Khagan. Regardless, Emperor Taizong wished to commemorate this truly dramatic turning of the tables, and his complete domination over this once-mortal foe. As such, in the late spring of 630, Taizong commenced with a magnificent ceremony in which

the several members of the tribes of the northwest formally requested that he personally take up the mantle of the Child of the Northwest, formally requested that he personally take up the mantle of the Child of the Open Sky and Khagan of the Turks. In his book, The Rise and Splendor of the Chinese Empire, René Grousset describes the proceedings as, quote, The Tang history complacently describes the imposing spectacle of the Turkish chieftains prostrate at the feet of Taizong. At a public audience, the emperor liked to see them all together, both the Khans recently conquered and those who had come over long ago. As soon as they had arrived in the audience chamber, they performed the respectful ceremonial of knocking their

foreheads on the ground three times at each of the prostrations. The chieftains of the loyalist hordes took precedence over Ileg Khagan, who was treated as a prisoner of war. However, after humiliating him, the emperor shrewdly granted him pardon and assigned him a place at the court, where he was kept in a state of semi-captivity. End quote. Taizong, after presumably demurring in typical ceremonial form, ultimately accepted their offer, and had himself officially dubbed the Tian Kehan, alternately the Tengzhe Kagan, but both of which mean the same thing, which is the Heavenly Kagan. It's rather unclear as to whether this very impressive-sounding title

actually conferred any authority apart from sounding very impressive. Some historians have argued that there was a formal political system which would come to be associated with the rank, but others, such as Weschler, find such assertions highly dubious. Indeed, even the appearance of the title holding any true authority over the steppe peoples would begin to break down within the decade, as tensions and hostilities would break out between the various tribes and the Tang forces once again. Nevertheless, he writes, quote, the ceremonies exalting the heavenly Kagan in Chang'an were very impressive, and much was made of the title by the Chinese, to whom it symbolized, however ephemeral its practical

implications, the complete reversal of their fortunes with the Turks, end quote. And indeed, the very idea of the Chinese emperor having some legal precedent of authority over the steppes would remain ingrained in the collective ideology of the Tang for much of the remainder of its lifespan. As late as the 840s, some two centuries from where we are now, the envoys of the Tang to the Kyrgyz people would still be referring back to Taizong and him being the heavenly kagan of all the Turkic peoples in an, ultimately futile, attempt to get the Kyrgyz to voluntarily submit. Back in 630, however, once all the pomp and ceremony over Tang's victory over the Turks had at last died down, the question remained, uh, guys, what exactly are we going to do with all

these Turks we're suddenly in control of? It was a good question, and one that needed to be sorted out ASAP. But as it turned out, the imperial court's officials held widely differing views on the solution. Some held that they should simply be left where they were, north of the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, and maintained as vassals to the throne. Still others felt that they should be resettled within China proper, but kept together and allowed to retain their cultural identity. But with each tribal leader being given a rank equal to the Khan of the Ashina clan, thereby breaking up the coalition. It seems, though, that the majority at court wished to scatter the Turks across China's

northern provinces, thus breaking down their tribal bonds altogether and over time, sinicizing them. The argument was that so long as they retained their non-Chinese culture or were kept together as a group, they would keep their ability to once again coalesce into a group that could threaten Tang China's stability. Only by diluting their numbers across the empire and turning them into us could tranquility be guaranteed. This was no idle speculation either, but history proved this argument was possible. As by now, I certainly hope you remember, China was by this point no stranger to resettled barbarians causing trouble within the empire. Yes, I'm looking at you, Xiongnu.

On the other hand, there was quite a lot to gain by having the Turks remain, well, Turks. As steppe riders, their skills with the horse and bow were unmatched, well, by pretty much anyone, anywhere. So it's easy to see the lure that potentially harnessing that power to his own purposes might have held for Taizong. Still, it would require a delicate balancing act. He'd need to keep the Turks intact, and not only together, but specifically away from the influences of Chinese culture. If the Xianbei were anything to go by, the relatively soft living of settled, civilized society would quickly strip them of the hard edge life on the steps afforded them. It was a situation that would be discovered and rediscovered across time,

as time and again, the terrifying horsemen of the North had, and would again in the future, find themselves slowed and fattened by the easy lifestyle of the South. And so, with that in mind, Taizong arrived at his decision. He opted to carry out the plan put forth by his chancellor, Wen Yanbo, who stated that the Turks should be resettled within China, but only along the borders of the northern provinces, retaining their tribal form, and only on lands that had not yet been settled by the Chinese. It was, in effect, a plan to sort of put them on a human wildlife reserve, and thereby be able to retain their strength and ferocity, while still being able to employ them for the Tang dynasty's own purposes. Two commandants would oversee the resettled Turks, but they would otherwise be pretty much left to their own ways and customs. And as for those who might think of

rousing their former confederates to resistance, most prominently, say, the high-ranking members of the Ashina clan, they would be resettled in Chang'an directly, granted use of the imperial surname Li, and granted princely titles. Surely, everyone has their price. Still, it would be a bitter pill for many of the Turks to swallow, and a long-simmering point of shame and hatred to be laid so low. In fact, to this day, in the Orkhon Valley of central Mongolia, two stone monuments still stand. These monoliths, called the Orkhon Inscriptions or alternately the Kuşut-Saidam Monuments, were erected in the early 8th century to commemorate two great leaders of the Turks, Bilge Kagan and his younger brother Kul Tegin. These monuments stand as the oldest known

example of old Turkic script, though it is also translated into Chinese, a sort of Asian steplens rosetta stone, if you will. Originally, each of the monument's four sides were covered from top to bottom, with the message to eternity the great Khan ordered carved, though some of the writing has been rendered unreadable through time. Still, large sections of the monument do remain readable, detailing Bilge Khan's life and conquests, and of him reuniting his people. But another section describes his attitudes towards the Chinese, and his predecessors who had, at least in his view, taken the coward's way out by ever submitting to them. The section reads, quote, of a want of harmony between the nobles and the people, and because of the Chinese people's cunning and craft and its intrigues, and because the younger and the elder brother chose to take

counsel against one another and bring discord between nobles and people, they brought the old realm of the Turkic people to dissolution and brought destruction on its lawful Khagans. The sons of the nobles became the slaves of the Chinese people. Their unsellied daughters became its servants. The Turkic nobles gave up their Turkic names, and bearing the Chinese names of Chinese nobility, they obeyed the Chinese emperor and served him for fifty years. For him, they waged war in the east toward the sun's rising, as far as Bokli Khagan.

In the west, they made expeditions as far as Tai Mirkapig. For the Chinese emperor, they conquered kingdoms and power. End quote. I have been a people that had its own Kagan. Where is my Kagan? Which Kagan do I serve? It would be a question that the Turks, and those who would inhabit the plains of Asia after them, would have time enough to ask themselves in the centuries to come. Because now, with his empire made whole, and his enemies thoroughly defeated, in the year 630, there could only be one answer to the question, which Khagan do I serve? And that is Emperor Taizong of Tang. Next time, we'll continue our look

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