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Until this century dynastic families have provided most of the rulers over the human race. Kinship formed an in-group network to support the power holder (or rival) as well as a principle by which to settle (or dispute) the explosive question of the succession of to power. Out of all the dynasties, of the world, none ruled as large a state as China or maintained such a monopoly of central government. As institutions of government, the major Chinese Dynasties are in a class by themselves. Neither Japan, India or Persia produced regimes comparable in scope and power. One such Chinese dynasty was called The Tang Dynasty.
This dynasty ran from 618 - 907. The Li clan of the Tang provided 23 emperors and imperial china became one of the wealthiest and most powerful regions of the world. It began when the middle kingdom was united under a Chinese emperor, but that emperor, but that emperor was greedy, selfish and cruel, killing his faithful, sturdy people with his overwork for his own pleasure. There were rebellions in the northern provinces and robber bands roamed freely about the country. A young man of 20 years old had another picture in mind, a peaceful, busy, land, its simple people singing at the work.
The young man went to seek his father who was in command of the army in that province. He talked his father into rebelling against the emperor, and drive Yang Ti off the throne. These two men belonged to the family of Li. The father was the prince of Tang and the sons name was not a man to stand against such a family as this and fled. Li Shi-mins father was made the new emperor, giving his own title of Tang, a name whose glory rang all over asia and even into Europe. He came to the throne in 618 and it took 6 years to put the whole country in order.
He worked with his brilliant son Li Shi-min who was a general and brave soldier. Soon the empire was quiet and the rule of the Tangs was accepted from the Eastern Ocean to the Jade Gate. It was Li Shi-min who founded the dynasty, it was he who had united and pacified the empire, he alone was able to rule and guide it. When his father retired, he left the throne to his son, who he was so proud of.
Li Shi-min became the new emperor, who was 30 years old and took the title of Tai Tsung. There were four main characters that explain the success of the Tang Dynasty establishing a unified political system. They were foreign relations, a unified national culture, a centralized government; and fiscal policy. The emperor and his court paid close attention to foreign relations. The Tang empire established its dominance over the Turkish tribes in the north and west and established military protectorates to exert control over much of central Asia. They later gained control of the Tibetan people in Turn.
Tang also welcomed trade with India, Persia, and Byzantium. Trade was possible because Tang maintained peace among the various peoples along the Silk Road. Foreign merchants and goods were welcome in Changan, and foreign religions built their churches there. (Zoroastrianism, Manicaeism, and Nestorian Christianity) Tang continued policy that tried to create a unified culture that included culture that included cultural and social traditions of southern China and those of the north, which had been ruled for long periods by foreign invaders. Scholars of the court compiled the Confucian learning since the emperor Tai Tsung believed Confucius is to the Chinese what water is to fishes.
The government expanded school systems in both the capital and the provinces and greatly increased the national library. A common standard of education helped maintain a bureaucracy that operated according to universal rules and shared values. The Tang government encouraged religion supporting Davis and Buddhist institutions. Its religious policy, which tolerated all faiths, encouraged influential religious communities to support the new government. This helped integrate members of separate religions into the new society. Achieving political and cultural unity was the success for the Tang Dynasty.
The last great Chinese empire to do that was the Hans dynasty (206 - 220) The Tang court strived for a centralized government. At the capital, the ministries and their various bureaus oversaw the workings of the entire government and kept pain staking records of everything. The ministries issued detailed legislation on procedures and regulations. The ministry of personnel assigned officials in civil service and hired censors from the capital who would periodically inspect local administration. Officials were to serve short terms in local office and then move to a different place as they slowly rose through the ranks. The Tang government adopted a uniform legal system, updated it regularly, and applied it universally.
The legal code spelled out crimes and their punishments. Administrative law defined the tasks of the central and local administration as for fiscal policy. The Tang rulers combined policies to exact resources from population with legislation which in turn guaranteed the livelihood for all farming families. All Qualifying men were guaranteed a certain amount of farm land until they reached the retirement age of 60. Some of this land could be passed on to their sons but most of the land was returned to the government for redistribution. In turn each adult male owed the government a set amount of grain and cloth and could be called upon to preform labor service for 20 days per year.
In some places the man were required to preform military service instead of labor. This became the basis of Tang military power. This tax system was the meant for the agricultural economy of self-sufficient rural communities and was based on the assumption that most people owned approx. the same amount of land. However, members of the imperial clan and high officials owned great estates and Buddhist monasteries had large tax-free landholdings. Countries and prefectures had land holdings with rental income from tenants.
As these non-taxable holdings increases, the land held by the farmers decreased. This reduced government revenues. From the end of the 6 th century onwards the Chinese grew stronger, richer, and better organized. They sought to extend its influence abroad and push back the people who made incursions into its territory. The Tang expansion from Korea to Iran and from the Ili valley to central Vietnam was undoubtedly the most important Phenomenon in the political history of Asia in the 7 th century. It implies a remarkable military and administrative organization with quick-moving striking forces of cavalry, efficient horse breeding, the establishment of military colonies for provisioning of the armies in central Asia, a system of relay stations and intense diplomatic activity, this exrodinary expansion, made the Tang China the greatest power in asia at this time.
The first half of the 8 th century was the most brilliant period in history for the Tang dynasty. Chinas influence was at its zenith. The capital Chang-an was the center of a cosmopolitan civilization colored by the influences of a central Asia, of India and Iran. Classical poetry and buddhist studies shone with their greatest lustre. An Lushans rebellion in northeastern China in 755 led to significant changes in chinas government and society.
The rebellion of an Lu-shan and Shih Ssu-ming may be regarded as one of the turning points in the history of the Chinese world, for it was accompanied and followed by a clear change in direction in every domain. The crisis seemed to have hastened changes which were only the beginning in the first half of the 8 th century. External relations, policy, the economy and society, and intellectual life all changed rapidly from the terrible years 755 - 63 onwards. War prompted waves of refugees to migrate south, particularly to the lower Yangtze valley region in the southeast at the base of the grand canal. This increased population is the south (which in the 11 th century was the heart of China) This massive population shift was in part responsible for the Tang dynasty giving up two main components o f the traditional economy of self sufficient farming communities: controle over trade and urban life, and controle over landholding. With lost tax revenues from the north it had to rely on new forms of taxation.
These new forms of taxation undermined economic order. To raise revenue the court insured a salt monopoly, which controlled the production, distribution and sale of salt by merchants, by 780 trade was a major source for government revenue. Copper currency grew in importance as a medium of exchange, which facilitated trade. The ideal of taxing all farmers equally also changed.
Instead, it allowed provinces to assess taxes according to the amount of land a family held, value of the house and property. The new tax system is called the Duel Tax System and allowed subjects to buy and sell their land holdings. Small farmers became tenants on their own farms. One of the most important social changes was the disappearance of me devil clan- education system the Tang Dynasty had created increasing numbers of talented, newly educated men eager to serve this once made members of the old family unique) Along with rebellion and invasion, the decline in aristocracy was a result of the growing awareness that lineage was less valuable than talent.
The Tang court gradually lost power and became irrelevant along with the great clans. A man called Chu Wen, who occupied the strategic point of kai-feng in eastern honan, founded the new empire of Liang in 907. This date marke's the nominal end of a dynasty which had lost any real power by 885. Tangs the greatest empire to that point in history. The Tang period was a cosmopolitan era which foreign teachers and traders were welcomed. The later Tang period set in motion economic and political changes that began to spread through China in the 8 th century and were Tangs greatest legacy to the states that followed its disintegration as well as to later dynasties.
Those who gained the most from Tang were the new states in Japan and Korea who had sent emissaries to Tang to learn its culture. They brought back with them Chinese literature and Chinese writing which was adopted in both countries even though they spoke different languages. They learned to write with brushes on paper to drink tea, and to eat with chopsticks. They learned how to build square cities with broad avenues like Changan, and water wheels, how to govern through laws and instructions, employing bureaucracy to create a controlled national government that was capable of effectively taxing its subjects and keeping peace. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on 8 Th Century Tang Dynasty
