The History of China - #96 - Tang 14: The Sacrifices of Feng and Shan

Episode Date: April 26, 2016

Military reforms mark our entrance into Xuanzong’s early-middle reign, which is more or less a basket of unicorn foals: external peace, internal stability… now if only that darned economy would fix itself! But the emperor will turn a fateful corner in the 724, when his official Zhang Yue convinces him to conduct the Feng and Shan Sacrifices: the highest ritual a Chinese ruler could conduct – a sacrifice to Heaven and Earth atop holy Mount Tai. Time Period Covered: 714 – 726 CE Important Historical Figures: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (Li Longji) [r. 714- ] Empress Wang [d. 724] Lady Wu Chief Minister Zhang Yue Minister Yuwen Rong Minister Cui Yinfu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. 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. From a revolution of hope and liberty to the infamous Reign of terror. You can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So search for the French Revolution today. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 96. The Sacrifices of Feng and Shan

We left Emperor Shanzong off on a bit of a low note last time, with his dual initiatives to attempt to solve the Tang Empire's ongoing currency and economic crisis falling flat and causing even more instability for the populace. Nevertheless, in spite of this last slip-up, his early reign had been a virtual study in return to good government and efficiently restoring the governmental institutions that had long fallen into disrepair and dilapidation. This week, we'll be marching ever onward into the middle reaches of Xuanzong's period of rule, in which he and his bureaucratic officials will seek to further the gains made in his initial push towards institutionalization of imperial power, as well as reining in the potential threat

posed by the rest of the imperial family. Before launching straight into the family business, however, it's worth the time to briefly go over the changing role and structure of the Tang military during this period, since they were no less affected by Xuanzong's institutional alterations than any other arm of governmental authority. Xuanzong had been fortunate enough to inherit an empire pretty much at peace, with its on-again, off-again rival neighbors to the north, west, and southwest. By that, of course, I mean the Tang Empire was not actively engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the Turks, or the Turgash, or the Khitan,

or, for that matter matter the most powerful and aggressively expansionistic neighbor of all, the Tibetans. This is not to say that everything was all sunshine and rainbows in the diplomacy department between China and its neighbors, as we will discuss a little later, but at least the borders were secure as they could hope to be. As I just mentioned, by far the greatest threat to Chinese territorial integrity was the Tibetan Empire of the Himalayan Plateau. Now, the heartlands of Chinese territory were fairly secure from any external incursion. From the Yellow River Valley on down south to the forests of Sichuan, the barbarians

might make the occasional raid, but couldn't have hoped to make any lasting gains against the Tang imperial forces garrisoned inside the major cities. That overall physical security, however, had one rather obvious exception, which was the far west Xiyu regions of the Tarim Basin, surrounding the Taklamakan Desert, and the Gansu Corridor that served as basically the only effective means for the Chinese to reach those distant territories, as well as the lands beyond. And I am planning on putting up a new set of maps on our website,

thehistoryofchina.wordpress.org, which, yeah, yeah, I know, I haven't done in, like, forever. When I get them up, though, they should effectively show just how incredibly remote and tenuous the link between China proper and its Western protectorates were. But if I may just briefly paint a picture for you here, if Tang China was a giant turkey, Gansu was its slender, delicate neck stretched way out and virtually begging for an axe to come and lop it off. The Tibetan aggressiveness had been temporarily stymied back at the turn of the 8th century by its own bloody civil war between its king and one of the empire's most powerful clans. Following Wu Zetian's overthrow and then death in 705, Emperor

Zhongzong's government had engaged in a protracted series of negotiations with the Tibetans in an attempt to establish a more lasting peace between the two powers, a process that lasted for some three years before finally being hammered out in 710 just before Ruizong's accession to the throne. And it would turn out that Zhongzong's diplomats were just as spineless in their negotiations as their emperor was in dealing with his empress and sister, and the Tibetan emissaries were able to extract immensely favorable terms from their Chinese counterparts. There would, of course, be an inter-dynastic marriage to seal this newfound alliance.

That was just standard operating procedure, after all. The other terms were far less standard, though. Zhongzong's negotiators made the critical mistake of allowing the Tibetans to demand that they be given the territories of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, which is known as the Nine Bends. How they managed to blunder into agreeing to give that away is a question for the ages, since the Nine Bends had served since at least the reign of Empress Wu as one of the critical juncture points of the Tang defensive garrisons along the frontier.

And by just giving it away, the Chinese not only fatally compromised the defensive network, but gave the Tibetan Empire a near-ideal staging point to launch offensives eastward into the Chinese heartland, and even Chang'an itself. So yeah, we're gonna give that particular concession a big ol' whoopsie daisy. In 714, the Tibetans poured salt into that particular wound by concluding their formal peace treaty with the Tang government, but then immediately turning around and launching a major offensive against the city of Lanzhou, which is the capital of Gansu, and right at the base of the Big Turkey's neck. Though the Tibetan raiders were driven off later that year, Twitchit writes,

quote, their cynical treacher along China's other borders. Though the Turks under their Khan, Kappagan, did occasionally harass at Chinese defenses, as we mentioned in a previous episode, Kappagan's reign was one preoccupied on his holdings in Central Asia, and he was kept busy there until his death in 714. This substantial weakening of the steppe coalition at the top induced many of both the Xi and Khitan tribes to break off and pledge fealty to Tang once again. By 719, a permanent military garrison had been quartered in their tribal home territories, dubbed Yingzhou, and the restoration of dynastic authority to the northeast had been quartered in their tribal home territories, dubbed Yingzhou, and the restoration of dynastic authority to the northeast had been firmly reestablished.

At another time, under another administration, this might have been a moment for yet another push for renewed territorial expansion. Indeed, Emperor Xuanzong himself seemed to have been chomping at the bit for just that, and was only held in check by his chief advisors. Both Yao Zhong and Song Jing urged that the emperor rein in his militarism and instead pursue a course of caution, generous diplomacy, and a foreign policy of strong defense rather than offense. This defensive array, according to the official estimate of Chief Minister Zhang Yue in the Old Book of Tang, numbered more than 600,000 men strong across all the thousands of miles of imperial borderlands. More than simple numbers, though, the nature of these defensively postured armies

reflected a fundamental change to their control and deployment under imperial authority. The Chinese faced potential foes on all sides, and in all different stripes and types. Yet there was one commonality that ran through them all, which was that their forces were all chiefly characterized by nomadic horse archery, and quote, whose aims were not the permanent conquest of Chinese territory, but quick raids on the frontier districts to steal grain and other booty, capture people as slaves, and above all, drive off cattle and horses, end quote. This particular style of warfare, quick, mobile, and sporadic, both at the tactical and strategic levels,

required a flexibility and rapidity in the Chinese response that its old command structure had shown to be sorely lacking. By the time you called your lords, and then they raised their armies, and then those armies marched out in columns to face whatever threat had been reported, as had been the way it was done for hundreds of years, the mounted raiders were likely as not to be long gone back into the wilds of the Stepland. Over the 710s, 20s, and 30s then, that centralized command structure was devolved into a series of regional commands that held far greater independent operational authority to conduct defensive war against incursions. This independence of command

was formalized in 725, when the military governors of the frontier command were formally granted the use of the so-called wooden tallies, which was a kind of physical imperial pass card to conduct major financial and commercial transactions for the needs of his armies, as well as to exercise field command of those imperial forces, all without direct imperial oversight. That, of course, came with a significant degree of risk for the court. What was to stop a regional commander from, say, rising in rebellion against the throne now? So, to try to counteract that possibility, first imperial censors and then later court eunuchs were dispatched to each regional command as an official qianchun, or army supervisor, to observe and report back to the capital

on the governor's actions and to protect the court's interests. Such safeguards would be enhanced the following decade, when said military governors were replaced over time by civilian governors holding concurrent provincial posts, and with the full expectation that their command would be rotated to another region following a predetermined tour of duty, which was frequently no longer than four years. This ensured that they couldn't get too close with any single group of troops. Moreover, their status as aspiring civil officials also proved helpful, since such men would

typically see military commands as just a hoop to jump through on the way to their actual career path to high office in central government. Nevertheless, and in spite of these precautions, Xuanzong's administration took no action to unduly hamper the commands of their military governors, and they were granted great freedom of action and autonomy within their commands. This new system would prove to be a most valuable improvement to the defensive system, and would serve Xuanzong's interests as well by greatly enhancing border security across the empire as he consolidated his reign. Nevertheless, it remained a very sharp and very double-edged weapon for the empire to wield.

Twitchit points out the ominous music building in the background and the dark clouds looming when he writes, quote, It did, however, concentrate overwhelming military power in the hands of a very few men. So long as imperial authority remained unchallenged, and they remained loyal servants of the dynasty, all was well. But they remained a potent source of danger." So we're going to go ahead and leave that particular Chekhov's gun hanging right there on the wall for now, and move back instead over to the imperial capital, where the two most powerful court ministers are about to take a plunge. Song Jing and Su Ding had been two of Xuanzong's three key point men, as he had inherited the throne and then secured his reign. Song's last undertaking had, as we mentioned last episode, been to conduct an anti-counterfeiting operation

across the Yellow River Valley, in an attempt to stabilize the realm's currency. That, however, had skipped right by disaster and catastrophe and gone straight to out-and-out fiasco, when it not only failed to bring a halt to counterfeit coins pouring from the region, but actually managed to make the economic crisis even worse and more unstable than before, and all while ticking off the local population to no end thanks to the harsh and quote, inhuman methods, end quote, being used by Song Jing's agents to try to root out the counterfeiters. The blowback from the Yellow River anti-counterfeiting operation's failure hit the fan with such force and such public outcry against its excesses that Emperor Xuanzong felt compelled

to dismiss both Song Jing and Su Ding from the ministries altogether, though they would remain on at high court with high titular rank but little if any true authority anymore. Shortly thereafter, the third of the original three chief ministers, Yao Chong, died at the age of 71, bringing an end to the ministerial triumvirate. Historian Liu Fang memorialized the end of this era in his history, the Shi Hou Lun, as, quote, They were all great ministers, who were outspoken and unflinching. Their provinces were governed purely and peacefully. At court, there were clearly established principles. The inferiors had nothing for which they craved.

When the barbarians came to plunder, they were simply driven away, and that was all. When the common people grew abundantly rich, they were simply taxed, and that was all." End quote. Their replacements would have large shoes to fill indeed, and in that both Yuan Jianyao and Chang Jiaqian, if not exactly quite up to the sheer statue of their near-legendary predecessors, did quite well indeed. In the ninth month of 721, the third and final vacancy was filled by none other than Zhang Yue, who had previously served as chief minister during Rizhong's second period of rule, and had at last returned from his political exile that had begun in 713.

Zhang Yue took the point on military affairs right off the bat, and took personal command of the military governorship of the immediate north of Chang'an, leading its sizable contingent of troops against a group of Turks and Tanguts in the Ordos region that had risen in rebellion. Under Zhang's command, the rebellious tribes were crushed and the remaining 50,000 Nanhan peoples the imperial armies left alive were subsequently shipped off to the interior of the empire where they could be kept under much closer watch by the authorities. With the border problem settled, at least on this particular border at any rate, Zhang Yue then turned around and proposed that the frontier garrisons have their troop levies slashed by a full third, from 600,000 all along the borderlands down to 400,000

by sending the other 200,000 home to their families. Shen Zong was more than a little hesitant at the idea of cutting his defensive lines down like that, but Minister Zhang managed to effectively persuade the emperor that the troop levels of the garrisons was well above what was actually needed to combat the occasional barbarian incursion. Instead, he argued, the regional military governors were lobbying the throne to maintain their enormous troop levies for their own self-interested purposes. Now, whether this was true or not, upon hearing that his military commanders might have plans of their own to use the massive armies at their disposal, Emperor Shanzong saw the wisdom of Zhang Yue's plan and agreed to the troop demobilization. But Minister

Zhang was not finished with his reforms of the army, specifically that of the Palace Guard Corps. Now, the Palace Guards had been drawn from conscripted units of militiamen who were rotated in and out after relatively brief terms of duty, a fact which perhaps explains why they were proven to be almost comically unreliable over the past few decades. In their stead, Zhang pushed to recruit tough and warlike frontline troops that he dubbed Guoqi, or the Mounted Archer Corps. These elite troops were given special exemptions from secondary duties and placed around the capital as a supplement to,

and eventual replacement for, the old guard units. Maybe now the palace guards would do something other than simply open the gates the next time rebels marched on the capital. In fact, beginning in 723 and lasting all the way through 726, Minister Zhang Yue would come to completely dominate the business of the imperial court. This three-year period of control would mark the final time a politician who had risen to high office under the Empress Wu would control the politics of Chang'an, another end to an era. Over the course of his command, Zhang introduced and pushed forward a number of policies aimed at further centralizing governmental authority, and then to further those

that had been championed by the late great Yao Zong. It was under Zhang's authority that the post of chief minister went from a part-time consultative position, in which the appointed official had traditionally been expected to complete his duties before noon and then spend his afternoons within the context of his own ministry. Now, though, chief ministers would enjoy a fiefdom, with revenue stemming from 300 households' worth of taxes, the first time the position had come with a salary. In spite of the great strides made by Xuanzong and his government over the course of his early reign, by the third decade of the 8th century, there were clear signs that the political calculus

that had held his administration in balance had grown precarious at best. Rather than accept the growing instability of his rule, Xuanzong instead took action, first and foremost contending with that organ of the state that had proven itself so vital and yet so potentially destructive, which was the imperial family itself. In the ninth month of 720, Xuanzong's younger brother, Lifan, was caught up in what Twitchit describes as a curious incident. He, along with his brother-in-law, were accused of improperly consulting prophetic books, which is a polite euphemism,

typically meaning that they were conspiring to overthrow the emperor. It would seem to have been a pretty weak charge, though, since it did not result in any executions, as we might expect. Instead, the brother-in-law was divorced from his wife and then banished to the frontiers, and two of Li Fan's close associates were demoted. What's more, all fortune-tellers were then banned from visiting the homes of imperial officials, because you never can be too careful with fortune-tellers. Prince Li Fan himself, however, escaped from any punishment at all, and remained, as with the rest

of his brothers, on close personal terms with Xuanzong for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, the emperor was determined to rein in his family members, and shortly after the controversy, he recalled the rest of his brothers from the provincial posts to the capital in order to keep a better eye on their comings and goings. A far more serious problem, though, at least as far as Xuanzang was concerned, was the position of the empress in all this. The relationship between Xuanzang and Empress Wang had grown increasingly strained since his enthronement, owing in no small part to the fact that she appeared to have been infertile and had yet to produce a child. Now, normally we might say, well, what's the proof that Xuanzong himself

wasn't infertile? But in this instance, there can be no real doubt. To be sure, Xuanzong had children. Oh lord, did he have children. All told, he was the father to some 59 kids, 29 sons and 30 daughters, and that only counts the ones that were actually claimed. 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. But the fact that he didn't have any at all with the Empress put her in a really tight spot. Without a claim to the heirdom, her position was tenuous, and growing more so with each passing day that she didn't have a bump in her belly. There was, after all, nothing to stop the Emperor from simply deposing her and proclaiming another of his consorts the Empress instead. You know, like the one who had produced them in the air, like she was supposed to.

This increasingly desperate situation drove Empress Wang to desperate measures. In mid-724, her brother arranged for a Taoist monk to conduct a magical ritual and construct for her an amulet which would allow her to conceive. Unfortunately for the Empress and her brother, they were found out and then reported to Shenzong. Empress Wang was demoted to commoner status but still allowed to reside in separate quarters of the palace. Her brother, however, fared far worse. For the crime of conducting magic and consulting with sorcerers, he was exiled, divorced from his royal wife, and finally ordered to commit suicide.

With this rather ironic end of the first empress, speculation began to mount that the emperor might replace her with one of his favorite palace ladies. Of the two top contenders, the clear favorite was Lady Wu, who yes, was the grandniece of the late Empress Wu. And Shanzong is her grandson. You know what, let's just not think too hard about that particular coupling. Anyway, in spite of her being the clear favorite to become Xuanzong's second empress, she would not receive the title, but instead was named only as Huifei, or favored consort of the first rank. Rather, later on, in 726, Xuanzong would once again consider naming Wu as his empress, but when he floated the idea publicly, the outcry and protest against the idea caused him to back down again.

The empire, it seemed, was still not ready for another Empress Wu. The opponents of her promotion argued that, as a member of the Wu clan, she was tacitly a member of a faction that had been the enemy of the Tang regime. Further, they pressed, she was not the mother of the heir to the throne and had no sons of her own. Therefore, her empress ship could place the line of succession in jeopardy. As such, she would never officially become the empress, though she remained Xuanzong's unquestionable favorite for the rest of her life. Of all the political changes sweeping through the

Tang Empire in the 720s, though, maybe the most serious of all was the revival of the old Guangzhong aristocracy as an active force in the halls of government. Guangzhong, in the region northeast of the capital, was the home to the old and great families that had traditionally been the just incredibly incestuous well from which governmental ministers had been drawn from. That of course had all changed with the,, let's call it rigorous enforcement of the examination system as the one and only entry point into the government of Empress Wu.

You might remember that we brought up the top families of the Guanzhong region when discussing the rise of Empress Wu. They were, in essence, the old guard aristocrats that Wu had spent much of her early period in power fighting against and stripping of their primacy. Well, now they're back. The dismantling of genealogy as a measure of competence in government conducted under Empress Wu had proven to be somewhat less than permanent in nature, and over the course of Xuanzong's early reign, it had undergone a revival among both scholars and the officialdom as a whole. In fact, once again official genealogies were published and

distributed across the empire, running as long as 200 chapters in length and detailing, court historiographer Liu Cheng, merely the differentiation between the scholar-official lineages and those of the common classes. Twitchit, however, is skeptical of this rationale and writes, quote, however, thereempowered hereditary aristocratic class would, from the 720s onward, filter into the holders of high office at an accelerated rate. Still, at least for the time being, Emperor Xuanzong had managed to move beyond his pair of earlier failures and forge his reign into a strong, secure, and victorious one in virtually every regard. This, by almost every account, seems to have rather gone to his head. Many of the classical historians characterize the first half of the 720s as a kind of turning point for his tenure, where Xuanzong essentially goes from frugal, cautious,

and benevolent ruler and starts down the path towards foreign adventurism and conquest and grander and yet more expensive projects. As this metamorphosis occurred, he came to be surrounded by a new cabal of ministers who gained favor and position by proposing financial policies that, surprise, just so happened to enable and facilitate the increasing extravagances of their monarch. Of these, the man named Yuan Rong was the first, and as a consequence, by far the most criticized by subsequent historians. Yuan Rong represents as well one of the resurgent numbers of officeholders who inherited their titles as a function of hereditary privilege instead of formal examination,

as he was a descendant of Northern Zhou nobility from the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms. He had come into high office in 721 within the censurate, and as such, his primary preoccupation had been from the outset the many, many financial problems that faced the regime, that we've by this point covered pretty extensively. You remember, right? Taxation, counterfeiting, and payments to the regional lords. In his time there, he proposed and enacted a policy that sought to use a combination of carrots and sticks to entice unregistered or vagrant families that had ducked tax collectors'

attempts to get them back onto the official registries. It was a proclamation that everyone across the empire would now have 100 days to turn themselves in and to re-register without penalty, either in their old homelands or wherever they had fled and resettled to in order to avoid the taxman. Those that did so voluntarily would receive a special dispensation of six years' worth of tax exemptions following a nominal light tax upon their initial re-registration.

Very favorable terms indeed. Those that remained unregistered after the 100 days grace period, however, would be summarily rounded up and then exiled to the frontiers, though that wound up being a threat that carried more bark than bite and was never seriously enforced. Nonetheless, the measure would prove to be a resounding success in re-enrolling families onto the tax rolls, and its generous terms helped to ensure that it was popular even amongst those it targeted. It really picked up steam in 723, though, when Yuwen was granted a special appointment

to the office of Chuan Neng Shi, or the Commissioner for Agricultural Encouragement, which granted him a dedicated staff that he put to good use rolling out his re-registration policies. By 726, Yu Wen could claim that his efforts had seen the re-enrollment of more than 800,000 families across the empire and the revenues of their corresponding lands. And just to be clear, this was a figure representing approximately 12% of the entire registered population, according to the registry promulgated that year. An absolutely enormous increase for the empire, and all thanks to Censer Yi-Wen. His successes ensured that in the halls of central government, he and his plan were lauded

by the imperial ministers and the emperor both. Indeed, it allowed Xuanzong to shelve plans to re-implement the positively ancient imperial policies of state monopolies on iron and salt mining, which had been abandoned during the Han dynasty now half a millennia ago, and plans that Twitchit says would have, if implemented, threatened to cause yet more economic instability than they could have possibly solved. He writes, Thus, Yuan Rong was able to translate his newfound golden boy status into an appointment to the vice presidency of the Board of Finance, as well as the censorate,

greatly increasing both his prestige and power. We'll finish out today, though, with the event in 724 that was meant to mark Emperor Shanzong's ascent to the highest echelons of power and prestige, the Feng and Shang sacrifices atop the holy Mount Tai. If that sounds familiar, that's because we last talked about these holiest of rites during the joint reign of Empress Wu and Emperor Gaozong back in episode 88. Well, here we are half a century later, and at the urgings of Chief Minister Zhang Yue, Xuanzong was preparing to undertake the ritual once again. But unlike his grandmother and grandfather's ceremony, the Tang dynasty of Xuanzong was in a significantly less ideal position to be conducting

such an august event. Jonathan Karam Scaf writes in his book Sui-Tong China and Its Turk-Mongol Neighbors, quote, the ensuing six decades until Xuanzong's Feng and Shan ritual brought great turbulence to foreign affairs. Although by 725 the Tang had reached modest vivendi with the neighboring powers of Tibet, the Turgesh, Khitan, and Ke the Mongolian equivalent of the Mandate of Heaven, or right to rule. In other words, the Feng and Zhang sacrifices were by their very nature only to be performed when an emperor was so revered and august that peace had enveloped the empire on all sides. It was intended to announce achievements to heaven. How appropriate could the rights be, if the Turks remained rebellious to the throne? After brushing off Zhang Yue's suggestion that he simply increased border defenses ahead of the sacrifice, Xuanzong instead

heartily agreed with his minister of war that it was not appropriate to show fear towards the barbarians, and was convinced that there was a way to neutralize Turkish aggression outright without violence. The Turkish Khans were, like almost all of China's neighbors, deeply interested in marriage alliances with the Tang imperial clan. Indeed, you might remember that it had been Empress Wu's repeated snubbing of the Turkish Khagan that had led him to reopen hostilities against the Chinese in the first place. Thus, high officials were sent to parley with the Khagan and once again entice him with the prospect of marriage to a Chinese imperial princess. Like his grandparents' ceremony before, this sacrifice to heaven and earth was to be witnessed by both high officials of the realm as well as foreign emissaries from far and wide.

With the notable exception of the Turks, virtually all of Tang China's neighboring states and vassals sent their emissaries to the slopes of Mount Tai to witness the rites. Goguryeo, Khitan, Tibet, Kamer, Khotan, Silla, and even delegates sent by the far-off Wajib Han, India, and the Umayyad Caliphate would come to take part, and they descended one and all upon the plains below Mount Tai's imposing peak. Karamskaf writes, quote, The enormous mobile retinue of Xuanzong created majestic spectacles. Their camps filled the imposing peak. Karamskaf writes, quote, Wang Maozhong, glorified his possession by supplying several tens of thousands of horses that were clustered according to color. When seen from the distance, the groups of equines seemed like multicolored clouds." Xuanzong's ritual at Mount Tai also offered him the unique

opportunity to reinforce and glorify his role as the patron and autocrat of both the empire proper and its client kingdoms. Four days after the rite had been concluded, for instance, the emperor held a special audience in the open sky for both civil and military officials as he was seated atop a purpose-built altar on the plains beneath the mountain, and following its conclusion there was a grand day-long banquet for all in attendance. In their purpose to reaffirm the emperor's pretensions to universal sovereignty, as well as enhancing his personal charisma by, quote, dazzling all in attendance with the sacred power and patrimonial generosity of the emperor, end quote, Xuanzong's Feng and Shan sacrifice ritual was a grand success, in spite of the ongoing turbulence with the Turks, though it should be said for them that in spite of their non-attendance, the Turks did not take advantage of the emperor's absence from the capital to mount an attack. Such spectacle, however, came with steep costs to the surrounding countryside.

Twitchett writes, quote, The imperial cortege stretched for miles along the road, and whenever they halted, laid waste to the countryside, end quote. In fact, the going and return trips to and from Mount Tai had to be carefully planned to be by two very different routes for the imperial retinue, since, quote, no place, however healthy, could bear the expense of two halts by the court within a few weeks, end quote. The great success of his brainchild ensured that the ritual at Mount Tai would be marked as one of Chief Minister Zhang Yue's crowning achievements. And yet, ironically, its very success would also mark the beginnings of his downfall, which would occur less than a

year later. You see, over the course of the ceremonies, Zhang had managed to cause deep offense to more than a few members of the court by arranging the best seating assignments to his own men, rather than according to rank and title, as was customary. He simultaneously managed to tick off the military commanders by only granting them honorific ranks, while distributing substantive promotions to the civil officials participating. Thus, he managed to paint himself into a particularly dangerous corner, with both civil and military officials now hostile to his tenure in office. The following year, his chickens came home to roost, following a failed bid to elevate one of his own men to the presidency of the censoret. The emperor rebuffed his fairly naked power grab, and instead appointed his own personal choice to office, a man named Sui Yinfu, who was one of the many enemies Zhang

had earned for himself following Mount Tai. The newly promoted vice president of the censoret, once again, Yuan Rong, was likewise anything but friendly to the brash impudence of Zhang Yue. So, all of a sudden, the two top officials of the censorate, which was the imperial organ charged with judicial proceedings and impeachments of any minister no matter how exalted, were now his foes. Still, Zhang remained confident in his own position, and when urged by an underling to take measures to defend himself against the attack that was sure to come, Zhang simply scoffed and replied, what can those rats possibly do to me? Famous last words, indeed. Zhang Rui's enemies in the censorate would show exactly what they could do to the minister

in the spring of 726. When following Zhang's repeated suppression of their memoranda to the throne, they brought up formal charges of bribe-taking, inappropriately consulting astrologers, personal extravagance, and abuse of authority in pursuit of private interests against Zhang and initiated impeachment proceedings. After a full investigation headed by the highest officials in government, the charges against Zhang were substantiated,

and he was proclaimed guilty. Nevertheless, it seems that at least some measure of Zhang's apparent overconfidence in his security was warranted after all, since after some deliberation, Emperor Xuanzong proclaimed that in light of his great services to the throne over the course of his career, his punishment would be limited only to his removal from the position of chief minister, and that he would be allowed to retain all of his other offices, privileges, and revenues. It was even less than a of his other offices, privileges, and revenues. It was even less than a slap on the wrist,

especially when compared to the penalties that might have been for anyone else. Nevertheless, it would mark Zhang Yue's final fall from the center point of power. He would the following year then be ordered to retire from public office entirely, following the emperor finally losing patience with the old minister after yet another open clash between him and the two heads of the censorate, Yuan Rong and Cui Yinfu. So, Emperor Xuanzong has literally reached the pinnacle of his reign, and next week, we'll start down the other side of the slope.

Absolute power, so the saying goes, corrupts absolutely, and given enough time, even those virtuous and able of men can succumb to its excesses. We've celebrated the grand heroic rise of Xuanzong to revitalize and stabilize the Tang dynasty, but beginning next episode, we'll begin to see why he's ultimately remembered as a tragic hero consumed by his own fobils in the end. Thank you for listening. He also hosts a number of shows in German. To check his shows out, as well as all of our other members, please visit www.agorapodcastnetwork.com. That's A-G-O-R-A podcastnetwork.com. One other post script. As I mentioned in the episode, I'll be posting yet another of my fabled companion posts at thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com in the next few days.

I hope you'll take the time to check it out, and if you like the show, please leave a review on iTunes or whichever podcast service you happen to use. Please also consider supporting the show financially. You can do so through either PayPal or Patreon, and we have all the details about how on the Support the Show page of the website. Again, that's thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com. Thank you again, and see you next time. 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 by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax.