The History of China - #95 - Tang 13: Xuanzong Can Fix It!

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

Wu Zetian’s grandson Li Longji (aka Xuanzong of Tang) is left to pick up the pieces of 50+ years’ worth of overindulgence, royal excess, and the rampant deconstruction of the entire imperial bureaucratic apparatus. Thanks, grandma. Fortunately, he’ll prove uniquely suited to the role of maintenance-man, and under his unexpectedly capable leadership, he’ll reign in his family members, do away with the thousands of excess positions, reform the government, and stabilize the regime. He’s building up to a second Golden Age for the Tang Dynasty… all he has to do is get his obnoxious Aunt Taiping out of the way first… Major Historical Figures: Li Longji (Emperor Xuanzong of Tang) [r. 712-756] Princess Taiping [d. 713] Li Dan (Retired Emperor Ruizong) [r. 710-712, d. 716] Yao Chong [650- ] Song Jing [663 - ] 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. Before we get in it today, let me take a moment to recommend that you take your ears on over

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Last time, we plunged through the decade of doldrums following Empress Wu's deposition, while following her children's struggle against one another, against their mother's clan, and against the imperial bureaucracy eager to once again resume their traditional role in the government. The whole debacle had culminated in mid-summer 712, when then-setting Emperor Ruizong read a comet passing through the night sky as an omen foretelling that the sovereign would soon be changed. Rather than wait for the coup d'etat against him, Ruizong sought to preempt the

prophecy by voluntarily ceding the throne to his son and heir, Li Longji, who would be enthroned as Emperor Xuanzong. The reign of Xuanzong of Tang will ultimately be remembered as one of Imperial China's last great golden ages, but he'll have a lot of work ahead of him before he makes that reality. So this time, we will be plunging into Shanzong's early period of reign as he attempts to restore the greatness of the Tang and bring an end to the excesses and corruption of his predecessors. And that, as you can well imagine, is no mean feat. Before launching directly into his reign, though, it's worth taking a couple of minutes to ask, just who was this guy again? After all, last episode, he just sort of popped into the narrative fully formed and then immediately launched into stardom.

But before his participation in the successful coup against the Empress Dowager Wei, what was Li Longji up to, and where had he come from? He'd been born in Luoyang in the year 685, the third of six sons to his father, the nominal Emperor Raizong. As you'll no doubt remember, however, at that point Raizong sat essentially imprisoned by his own mother in the inner cloister of the Imperial Palace. Longji's mother was one of Raizong's lesser consorts, the Lady Dou, rather than his Empress, which does explain why there had been such a question mark over succession and inheritance once Raizong determined that it was time to retire. He was by all accounts

a handsome and strapping child, who showed a great aptitude for just about anything he put his mind to. Professor Dennis Twitchett writes, quote, all were agreed, however, that he was a ruler out of the ordinary, who left his indelible print upon the history of his times. He was, moreover, a man of many parts, a skilled musician, a poet, a great calligrapher, patron of many artists and writers." In his personal life as well, he enjoyed the best of luck, and throughout his life maintained a close, personal, and loving relationship with his five other brothers. As cloistered as he and his family must have been over the latter half of the 680s, that isolation only increased in 690 with the formal abdication of Raizong to his mother, the Empress,

and now Empress-regnant, Wu Zetian. And from that point on, until 699, Longji's entire family was kept under strict house arrest and expressly forbidden from leaving the palace, or receiving any outside visitors, for that matter. In fact, as we mentioned back in episode 91, Reign of Terror, two court ministers fanned out the hard way in 693 that visiting the former imperial family meant their own executions. As for the family themselves, they were each subject to frequent beatings, as well as the capricious execution of several of Renzong's favored consorts,

critically, including Longji's own mother, Lady Dou. The beatings administered to the captive imperial family members were apparently so severe that, quote, Li Shouli, the oldest surviving grandson of Gaozong who shared their imprisonment, still suffered the effects of his repeated beatings half a century later, end quote. Between 699 and 705, the family of Lidong was at last released from their palatial prison and allowed to take up residence on imperial estates outside of the capital proper. But there can be little doubt that they would have nevertheless remained tightly controlled by Granny Zetian, at least until her overthrow in 705. With the successful accession of Longji's uncle, Emperor Zhangzong, however, prospects

improved for the progeny of Ruizong. Prince Longji was named to the post of Deputy Minister of Military Supplies shortly after Zhangzong's second enthronement, and was in 708 promoted to the Secretary General of Lu Prefecture. In early 710, he would be recalled to the capital, which was at that point still in Chang'an, thus placing him in exactly the right position to take part in Princess Taiping's coup against Empress Dowager Wei, following Zhang Zong's abrupt and quite possibly poisonous demise later that year.

And that's pretty much where we picked up his thread last time. Princess Taiping, the real brains behind the dethronement of the Empress and second accession of Rui Zong, had sought, much like her mother before her, to use men in her life as conduits of political power. In the beginning, Li Longji had been just another pawn in her game. But shortly after Raizong's enthronement and Longji's appointment as heir apparent, to her horror, Taiping realized that she'd accidentally let someone competent slip under her radar and into a position of power.

As we discussed last week, and as we'll get into further in just a minute, she'd spend pretty much the rest of her life trying to undo that mistake. Before we get there, though, it's important for us to take a minor detour into the Imperial Court and its revolving door of officials. Make no mistake, trying to keep track of the court officials in this period is an absolute nightmare. First, we had Empress Wu's track record of an 80% turnover rate from her officials, most of whom served only a few years before she grew displeased with them.

But then, it got worse. Following Wu's overthrow, the imperial bureaucracy had gone into overdrive, selling redundant posts to the highest bidder, ensuring that anyone trying to follow who actually had what job, and who only bought the title, eventually pulled their hair out. Fortunately, as we progress through the events of today's show, that whole courtly circus will be brought to an end. Though, we're not quite there yet.

In any case, following Zhongzhong's death, in the seventh month of 710, the majority of his chief ministers were finally retired from office, and replaced by four new chancellors, two of whom I will not trouble you with their names, because they're only going to last a few months in the office before their incessant public bickering became too much and they were shunted out of the court. But the other two are worth talking about, because it's in large part because of their combined efforts that Emperor Xuanzong's early reign took the shape it ultimately did. They were, respectively, Yao Chong and Song Jing. Yao Chong, now approaching

60 years old, had long been an eminent member of the imperial government, and had served it in one capacity or another since the time of Gaozong and Taizong. This was, in fact, not even his first stint as chief minister, but had served in the same capacity to the Empress Wu between 698 and her overthrow in 705, which, considering her propensity to rotate her officials in and out again just as quickly, was quite a tenure in office. As his longevity in office demonstrated, Yao Chong was above all else pragmatic and adaptable as a statesman, and quite adept at handling the everyday affairs of government. Complimenting him, then, was Song Jing, Yao's junior by about 13 years, but also

a distinguished and eminent imperial official at the time of his appointment to high office. Song was something of a wunderkind, and had passed the state examination and been appointed to the officialdom at the amazingly early age of 16. He built on this by establishing himself as a peerless writer and scholar, and rapidly advanced into and up the ranks of the imperial censorate, and then later on into the office of the secretariat. Through it all, he was known and respected as an unflinching paragon of integrity and principle, thus playing the morally unbending yin to Yao Chong's adaptable and sensible yang. Twitchit writes, Ray Zhong's court was in need of both qualities,

and the two ministers began a reformist program by attacking one of the most serious abuses of the previous reign, and abrogating all of the improper appointments to office which had been made by the Empress Wei and the Princess on low." You can probably imagine how well that went all over, particularly among the thousands upon thousands of so-called officials who had already bought and paid for their nominal titles thanks very much, and were now none too happy at the prospect of losing both their investment and their privileges. Nevertheless, and in spite of the uproar of their redundant officials, Yao and Song pressed forward with their reforms, culminating at the end of that year with the official selection of the new civil officials and military appointments. A procession of more than 10,000 hopefuls who

had just passed their examinations gathered to hear the rolls read and learn where they were to be sent and in what capacity. Shockingly though, of the 10,000 or more gathered, less than 2,000 would actually be appointed, while the rest were forced to return home, still jobless. The pair of ministers rabble-rousing against the excesses of the powerful women of the era roused the ire of, who else, Princess Taiping, the most powerful woman of the era, who in 711 joined her voice to the protestations of several spurned officials pleading for the continuation of their irregular appointments. Rézon, weak-willed as he ever was, caved before his sister

and removed both Yao and Chong from the capital for the remainder of his reign, thus ending, at least for the time being, their attempts at reformation. It would be the third day of the eighth month of the year 712 that Li Longji would ascend as Emperor Xuanzong, in spite of Princess Taiping's vociferous attempts to dissuade Raizong from doing so. As we mentioned at the end of the last episode, however, she was able to convince Rui Zong to retain a significant measure of his personal imperial authority by designating himself Taishang Huang, or the Retired Emperor. In an 8th century equivalent of backseat driving, though the newly minted Xuanzong would be able to hold court daily, his father was yet able to

hold court every fifth day, as well as make all appointments to high offices of the third rank and above. For Emperor Xuanzong, this was a very difficult situation indeed. It meant that his aunt, Princess Taiping, yet held sway over what by rights should have been his court. He deemed the situation so pressing and serious, in fact, that when military tensions flared up from the northeast once again against the Khitan and their allies, though Xuanzong made preparations to personally lead the frontier campaign, he ultimately never left the capital, in all likelihood for fear of the consequences of leaving Taiping alone with the court and his father. By mid-713, however, this open power struggle between sovereign and princess would reach its grisly conclusion.

Though unable to command her plots directly, Taiping was able to organize a group of like-minded members of the ministry and court loyal to her to act directly against Shanzong, ultimately settling upon poison to do the job. But somewhere along the line, word had slipped to some members of the aristocracy who were less than sympathetic to Princess Taiping. They, in turn, brought this shocking information to the emperor and urged him to act immediately and decisively against this clear act of treason. And unlike his spineless father, Xuanzang had no compunction against decisive action. Twitchit writes of the event, quote, On the ninth day of the eighth month, a group of 300 carefully chosen troops led by Wang Maocheng,

a general who had formerly been Xuanzang's personal slave, arrested the conspir month, a group of 300 carefully chosen troops led by Wang Maocheng, a general who had formerly been Xuanzong's personal slave, arrested the conspirators. End quote. Several of the leaders and the majority of the lesser conspirators were summarily executed on the spot, while at least two others were dragged before Xuanzong himself and then permitted the dignity of suicide. As for Princess Taiping, she managed to evade the emperor's trap, but only just. She abandoned the imperial palace and was able to successfully flee to a monastery enclave in nearby mountains and claim asylum within. However, either monastic life was really just that unappealing to a woman of Taiping's tastes, or she realized that not even tonsure was likely to

save her in the long run, because some three days after she'd slipped Xuanzong's net, she reappeared in Chang'an and turned herself in. She too would be permitted the courtesy of ending her own life within her home shortly thereafter. With the exception of one son who had publicly railed against her actions, her family would shortly join her in death, along with the entire family's estate and properties confiscated by the state. All of the classical historians agree on the point that at the time of in death, along with the entire family's estate and properties confiscated by the state. All of the classical historians agree on the point that, at the time of her death, Princess Taiping's personal holdings were so incredibly vast that it would take the imperial

court years to collect and account for it all. The scion of Wu Zetian was dead, and at last Emperor Xuanzang's hold on power was unchallenged. With his authority now affirmed and the threat within the capital neutralized, Xuan Zong was able at long last to take a deep breath and consider for the first time since his enthronement actually daring to leave the capital proper. Thus, in the autumn of 713, he personally participated in a grand hunt, which was in effect both a large-scale military exercise conducted against game populations, as well as a chance for members of the imperial bureaucracy, normally isolated from one another, to intermingle. The hunt was to take place within the Dongzhou region, to the east of the capital, which,

as it so happens, had been the prefectural post to which the former chief minister, Yao Chong, had been appointed following his banishment from the capital. As a matter of course, Prefect Yao received special invitation to personally hunt with the emperor. The elder statesman and the young monarch rode together on horseback, and following the day's maneuvers, the pair began to discuss politics and government. Xuanzong was suitably impressed by the 63-year-old, and offered him his old job back as one of the imperial chief ministers. But Yao Chong's response was surprising. He told the emperor that he could not in good conscience accept such a post, unless certain specific considerations were guaranteed by the

monarch first. Xuanzong listened patiently as Yao laid out a ten-point plan of reform that he felt was required to stabilize the badly listing dynastic government. The points were, one, that the government must be humane in its application of the law, rather than rely on brute force or terror. Two, the empire must refrain from military adventures or expansionism. Three, that the law must apply to everyone equally, up to and including the emperor's own family. Four, the unit class must in all cases be forbidden from taking part in political matters. Five, that taxes be levied fairly and to forbid local officials from extorting their taxable populations to curry favor with the throne.

6. That members of the royal imperial clan be prohibited from holding posts within the central administration. 7. That the emperor's personal authority must be reclaimed from his ministers. 8. That the emperor's ministers must be allowed to freely and openly express their thoughts, opinions, and disagreements with the emperor, free from fear of arbitrary punishment. Nine, that both Buddhist and Taoist construction projects must be indefinitely suspended. And finally, ten, that the families of the imperial consorts must not be granted special or excessive political powers. It was, in essence, a point-by-point indictment of just about every major agent of

corruption and chaos that had gripped the realm since the de facto seizure of imperial authority by Empress Wu some half-century before. Moreover, it was an earnest plea, in this instance voiced by Yao, but one that had been in various forms repeated again and again in official memorials to the throne since the 690s. It was a plea to re-implement the relationship between the sovereign and ministers during the Zhengguan era of Taizong, a healthy interplay of mutual respect and admiration between loyal, capable servants and virtuous, powerful emperor. This hearkening back to Taizong's often vaunted era of true vision

was especially understandable in light of the capricious instability of Zetian, Zhangzong, and Reizong's successive reigns. As Twitchit puts it, There was now a feeling of disenchantment, a desire for change, and a nostalgia for the better days of Taizong's court. The desire for a restoration of the Tang and a moral regeneration of its policies is a constant theme in the memorials of the period. But now, Emperor Xuanzong, without skipping a beat, agreed to implement each and every one of Yao Chong's demands for reform. Yao, in turn, accepted the offer of reappointment to the capital. Granted, not every one of Yao's policy pledges he had extracted from Xuanzong

could be acted upon or implemented immediately, but overall, the majority of the policies pressed for and enacted by the throne between 714 and 720 can be traced back to this set of grievances. Once back at the imperial palace, once more Chief Minister Yao was placed in charge of carrying out his renewed reform efforts, as well as empowering him as the President of the Board of War. In short order, Xuanzong began the process of dramatically reducing the number of chief ministers in service at any given time. 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. Traditionally, under the Tang regime,

there had been six total chief ministers of their various departments, at least assuming that all the posts were filled at any given time. But the supernumerary posts of the Empress Wei, under first Zhongzong and then Ruizong, had seen the number of nominal chief ministers balloon to almost triple that number, with a high of 17 briefly serving simultaneously between 705 and 709. Riazong's reign had somewhat tempered that number down to a mere 10 chief ministers, but that was still far too many to effectively conduct routine business, much less make key decisions. Later in Riazong's reign, he further parsed the number down to as few as four chief ministers, but even that wouldn't be nearly enough for the newly ascendant Xuanzong. He would pare his chief ministers down to just two, and only one of whom held actual titular authority. That lead member would obviously

have been Yao Chong, who took point on both his reform elements as well as the usual business of the court. We could go into the more technical reforms put into place during the early years of Xuanzong's reign, but they are all pretty, well, technical. And some of the most impactful in the long run would take years or even decades to really begin kicking into effect. The short version is that the two main departments of the government, namely the Chancellery and the Secretariat, would gradually grow together into a single governmental organ capable of both drafting and reviewing and approving policy and legislation. The upshot, before your eyes start to roll back into your head, is that under this new program, political power was steadily shunted back towards centralization around the chief ministers,

and in particular, the senior most among them, a dynamic that would last essentially intact throughout the rest of the Tang dynasty. One other critical change that would be implemented over this period would be the concerted effort to reopen official court business to public scrutiny. As you may recall, under Empress Wu, many matters had been concluded behind closed doors and outside of open court, most infamously under the huge leeway granted to her inquisitors of the censorette over the 690s, and all without court diarists present to transcribe what events came to pass. Under Xuanzong, these secretive and in many cases extra-legal uses of power were banned outright,

bringing the Tang court the closest to something approaching transparency as it had ever been. The next order of business on the docket was to, once again, repair the by this point thoroughly broken system of selecting and appointing candidates to office. As we've already discussed, the biggest issue by far was the sheer number of extraneous officials who had begged, bought, or stolen their way into office. Not only did this crush of redundancy gum up the political works of the Tang court, but in a far more acute sense they were bankrupting the realm. This trend had been exacerbated by the fact that the division of imperial officials within the court and those of the provinces had been irredeemably divided. Whereas in the early Sui and Tang, the officialdom had been a single and united body of men who could have been swapped in or out of the capital or to one of the provinces essentially at will,

the influence of the empresses and the princesses had resulted in those truly talented members of the officialdom to avoid or decline provincial posts at all costs. There had been laid down for some time now a career path for those favored by the throne to enter the service of the imperial court directly from the metropolitan government of the capital, often with little or no provincial experience necessary. When Xuanzong had taken office, provincial posts, though in rank and pay equivalent to those of the capital, had effectively been relegated to either upjumped clerks who showed some spark of talent, or else to those officials from the capital who had either failed in their duties or been otherwise disgraced. Well, so what? You've got your city mice and

you've got your country mice. What's the problem? Well, the problem with this division was twofold. First, of course, the provincial posts were suffering from a lack of talent. But just as bad, those officials within the capital rapidly lost touch with the affairs of the empire as a whole, since their whole existence was wrapped up in the goings-on of the court itself. As we discussed, it wasn't Yao Chong's first time at this particular rodeo. He'd had himself driven out of the capital along with Song Jing back in 710, and all their efforts reversed the following year. Now, though, there were no longer any meddling imperial princesses to stand in the way, and Chief Minister Yao used that fact to his full advantage. Almost immediately upon taking office, Yao drafted and the emperor promulgated

an edict stipulating that henceforth all official appointments to the provinces should be selected from the promising candidates in the capital, and that even more importantly, any candidate seeking to fill a post within the imperial court must have first demonstrated a good record of service at a provincial post. This was a massive step toward normalizing the process of political appointment into a coherent system rather than the changeable whims of a powerful emperor or empress. It would be further revised the following year when Xuanzong issued a follow-up edict stipulating that all officials were to undergo an annual review of their performance and that, quote, men with good assessments were to be eligible for appointment to the capital, while no man was to be appointed to an official post in central government before having served

in the provinces as a prefect or magistrate." It was a major reform of the governmental appointment system that would, over time, be remembered as a cornerstone of continued Tang stability and longevity. For the time being, though, finding competent officials willing to serve in the provinces remained an uphill battle. The appointment system wasn't the only governmental institution in dire need of reform, either. The empire's entire legal system was, to put it mildly, in a state of disarray. What are laws, after all, if they can be casually ignored by the powerful?

Thus, over the course of 714, Yaochong presided over a commission tasked with the revision of the Tang Code of Statutes, Regulations, and Ordinances. The commission would complete its revisions in the third month of 715, and it was published across the empire, ultimately becoming known as the First Kaiyuan Statutes, so named after the second of Xuanzong's era names. A second round of statutes would be promulgated later in 719, called appropriately enough the later Kaiyuan statutes, which would follow up on and expand the 715 set of legal reforms. Together, these two sets of revisions would serve as the lasting basis of a, quote, centrally codified administrative law designed to bring China once more under a carefully drawn-up

system for uniform administrative rules and uniform practice, as was essential for the restoration of a strong centralized empire, end quote. That last part might sound strange or even ironic considering the personal centralized rule of Wu Zetian that we just left behind, but there is a critical difference. In the Empress's case, the driving factor behind her reign was her own force of personality, which took primacy over all else and at the ruinous expense of the bureaucratic machinery as a whole. With her singularly powerful personality now gone, her fundamental dismantling of the bureaucracy had allowed for the decade of malaise that had plagued China in the first ten years of the 8th century, and threatened to pull the unified empire apart into independent or semi-independent regional satrapies. And that could not be allowed. Yao Chong's Kaiyuan statutes would serve to reformat

and rebuild the stabilizing mechanisms of the officialdom into a system robust enough to outlast any single monarch. There was one problem for the Tang state, however, that had proven itself particularly problematic to combat, and potentially ruinous to the empire. And it was the economy, stupid. The economy of the Tang Empire had been in trouble even before Empress Wu's reign. But as we've harped on time and time again, her time on the throne, as well as her son's bookending her, had turned a bad situation into a kingdom on the verge of total fiscal collapse. Inadequate financial resources, failing revenue streams, and a lack of anything resembling an adequate treasury reserve were the primary drivers of the crisis, but all of that had inarguably been made even worse by overall disinterest in such

affairs, from the top right on down. Interestingly, the financial strain on the empire as a whole had actually been eased a bit by Empress Wu's infamous moving of the capital from Chang'an to Luoyang, in spite of the fact that for the local region, through which the imperial court repeatedly passed through, any such move was akin to a locust swarm descending on them all. The eastern capital, after all, had sat right on the banks of the Grand Canal system that crisscrossed the empire, making it far easier and cheaper to supply, as well as being far closer to the rice-producing regions of the eastern plains. Chang'an, on the other hand, sat far to the west of the main canal system, connected, and thus fed, only by the capricious Yellow River and the silt-clogged

Wei River, the latter of which had fallen into such disuse and neglect over the past several decades that it had become almost completely impassable, while the former threatened any who would brave its reaches with the deadly series of rapids at the Three Gates Gorges, or the Sanmen Xia. While the capital had been at Chang'an prior to Empress Wu's ascendancy, her predecessors had tried various methods of working around these formidable barriers to supplying the western capital. Emperor Gaozong, for instance, had ordered the construction of an overland road system around the Sanmen Rapids, and later a series of tow ropes from the cliffs above them to pull the ships through. Both schemes, however, had ended in failure. Later on,

the riverways were successfully dredged, at great expense, it should be said, but even that failed to significantly reduce the economic burden of ensuring that Chang'an remained fed. Twitchit writes, quote, even during the peak in the early years of Gaozong's reign, it seemed that only about 200,000 bushels of tax grain were shipped to Chang'an each year, end quote. 200,000 bushels for a city with a population of between half a million to a million, which is to say, nowhere near enough. When the capital was officially returned to Chang'an from Luoyang at the opening of the 8th century, those same logistical problems were right there waiting for him. And on top of that, a running string of natural disasters. And it seriously sounds like something out of the Book

of Exodus. Listen to this. 705 had seen the flooding of the Way Valley, and then in 706 a terrible drought that would last all the way through the summer of the following year and caused terrible famines throughout the region. Then this was followed up with yet more famines in 708 and 709 across the region. 711 saw an enormous earthquake rock the area, and then 712 a drought in the spring and then another in the summer. Winter of 712 and 713 saw another serious famine, and then 712, a drought in the spring and then another in the summer. Winter of 712 and 713 saw another serious famine, and then again the following year. 714 saw the whole region devastated by a major typhoon, and 715 saw major spring floods,

followed that summer by, get this, a literal plague of locusts. It was, to put it mildly, a rough time to be living in or around Chang'an. All that's really missing is turning water into blood and the taking of the firstborn. But even with Xuanzong's accession to the throne, there was little that he could immediately do to ease the burden of the Chang'an populace, since his own reign was still too new, and therefore unstable, to risk a costly move back eastward. As we said before, especially in the first year of his reign, he couldn't even afford to personally leave the capital for fear of the Princess Taiping's machinations, thus the removal of the imperial seat back to Luoyang would have to wait.

In the meantime though, Xuanzong resolved that the means of transportation to Chang'an, both overland and water, were in dire and immediate need of modernization and improvement. This reorganization of traffic to the western capital was so successful that it would see the annual shipment of tax grain to Chang'an increase five-fold from the time of Gaozong, from a mere 200,000 bushels of rice to more than one million per year. This welcome relief would be aided and expanded upon in the same year by the establishment of a nationwide network of the Changping Cang, or the price-controlled granaries. As their name would imply, in the years of plenty, these government grain silos would buy rice at above market price, and then, during times of famine, sell it off at below market price, thus smoothing out cost fluctuations for the region's populations. As we'll see in the episodes to come, these granaries would come to

play a critical role, especially in the latter stages of Xuanzong's reign, since their huge stockpiles of accumulated rice would greatly cushion the string of natural disasters that would plague northeastern China over the 730s and 740s. 714 would also see the reconstruction of the junction between the Wei River Canal and the Greater Yellow River, thus reopening the long-abandoned direct route between Luoyang and Chang'an. In spite of this dramatic improvement of the imperial transportation infrastructure to and from the current capital, it was still nevertheless at pains to keep up with the level of demand coming from the northwestern region of Hebei. As such, by 717, Emperor Xuanzong was forced to once again move the capital back to Luoyang,

a costly, difficult journey that took his entourage some 24 days to accomplish. There he would stay for the next two years, but over the course of his reign, Xuanzong would carry on the legacy of his grandmother by moving his court back and forth and back and forth between the two capitals no fewer than ten times over the next twenty years. The final issue we, and Xuanzong, will attempt to tackle today was the financial crisis. As we should all be well aware of by now, it had been an ongoing, ever-spiraling calamity at this point for decades. And with the previous several rulers taking one look at that massive economic knot and boldly kicking the can right down the road. Beyond mere transportation difficulties to and from the capital, the far more fundamental

problem was that the system of taxation across the empire was essentially broken, and had been, again, for decades. The problem was household registration of taxable families, or rather, lack thereof. Since at least the 690s, a huge percentage of the taxable population had ducked the periodic registrar's sweeps of the empire, and thus hidden themselves from collection, meaning that the revenue the central government thought it should be getting was quite a bit less than what it actually wound up with year after year. The registration problem was compounded, however, by the fact that a large number of the households who did duly pay their allotted taxes year in and year out saw that money earmarked as maintenance fees for their local and regional lords' estates,

rather than filling the coffers of the capital. How many? Well, in 709, a member of the court named Wei Shuli gave an official estimate that at least 600,000 taxable households' income, totaling some 8% of the empire's entire tax revenues, was being directed towards as few as 140 normal families' fiefdoms. Twitchett writes, quote, designation as a fief household was commonly considered worse than conscription in the army, since they were often deliberately excluded from any remittance or reduction of taxes which might be granted in times of dearth, end quote. This situation, in turn, led to even more designated households opting to duck out

of the system entirely by just moving to a new area and avoiding registration there, which obviously only furthered the overall problem of revenue. On the other side of the economic coin were the coins themselves. Counterfeiting had become such an endemic problem to the empire that for a period of years at the opening of the 8th century, the central government had actually authorized certain models of counterfeit coins to be used as official units of currency. This unusual measure had come about because official minting of coinage had in no way, shape, or form kept up with the economic demands of the vast empire. Even with the temporary use

of counterfeit coins, though, there was still only enough hard specie in circulation to serve the barest minimum needs to just keep the economy functioning at all. And that produced its own set of problems. Quote, in 713, an imperial counselor complained that the quality of coin current in the capital was debased to such an extent that its standard was too low to be used anywhere else. End quote. It would be a bit like a government today, authorizing monopoly money for use as legal tender. Sure, the government can say it's so, but you're probably still not going to find too

many businesses willing to take it. Xuanzong's early administration gave what was really the first solid, focused push towards solving the counterfeit and economic crises since the rise of Empress Wu to power. Yet, in spite of this focus, he found that his efforts would prove little more successful in reviving the imperial economy than Wu's short-term expedience had ever been. Over the course of the second decade of the 8th century, Xuanzong's administration would attempt two major methods of enacting positive economic reform, both of which were implemented in 718. The first of which was the re-establishment of the death penalty for the crime of counterfeiting, in order to act as a deterrent to counterfeiters, while the second was to dispatch an imperial censor to the heart of the empire's counterfeiting industry, which had long been known to be the Yellow and Huai River valleys of the North China Plain. The censor's job was to find, round up, and then destroy all the illicit coinage he could.

Both efforts would backfire, though, in rather spectacular fashion. Rather than easing the crisis and stimulating the economy, they instead had the effect of destabilizing the economy further, resulting in wild price fluctuations, entire sectors of the commercial economy simply coming to a grinding halt as they ran out of physical money to make transactions with, and a spike in anti-imperial sentiment among the put-upon populace. By the decade's end, as Twitchit puts it, quote, the prohibition had to be relaxed, the problem remained unsolved, end quote. Though it is a shame to leave Xuanzong on the low note of his two early policy failures, take heart. In spite of the economic crisis raging on,

he's nevertheless been able to make huge strides in repairing the damage to imperial stability and power that his predecessors had inflicted. He's been able to wrestle imperial authority back into the control of the throne itself rather than those surrounding it, while at the same time reviving the practice of a rule of law rather than of personal whim. Further, under him, the Tang government has reinstituted the policy of open court sessions, clear legal precedents, and a respect for ministerial advice and even dissent that had been notably absent from the courtly proceedings for more than a generation. He had likewise taken large steps toward paring down the sheer size and expense of the imperial government by eliminating many of the redundant and superfluous positions that had been enriching the elite at the treasury's expense,

and ground the bureaucratic gears in the imperial court to a standstill. He had, by all accounts, even at the time, restored faith not only in the Tang regime, but in the monarchy as an institution, and had proven to be an immensely capable leader. And next time, we'll see how his early efforts at restoration would result in a return to the Golden Age of the Tang, an era that would see the return of glory's thought long gone. Good government, external peace, and internal prosperity. Thank you for listening. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume,

a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax.