Chapter 5 The Renewal Of Empire: The Sui And Tang .

Chapter 5The renewal of empire: The Sui and Tang dynasties (589-ca.800)Key ideas:This chapter investigates the re-integration of empire in the Sui, the early and high Tang. This wasthe great period of aristocratic society, of internal control and external expansion. The investigationfocuses on issues of continuity from the previous period and on transformation that set in during thisperiod, heralding the fundamentally different Chinese society that became manifest in the Song period.The Tang 唐 dynasty is regarded as the greatest age of imperialChina. The tremendous influence of the empire through Eastern andSoutheastern Asia is reflected in the fact that “Tang” became thename for the country and its people in Korea, Japan and throughoutSoutheast Asia down to modern times. Denis Twitchett summarizedthe glory of the Tang:It was a time of unprecedented material prosperity, ofinstitutional growth, of new departures in thought and religion,of creativity in all the arts. What accounts for its tremendousvitality? First was its eclecticism – the way the T’ang drewtogether the many cultural strands from the tumultuous historyof the preceding four hundred years. Second was itscosmopolitanism – its openness to foreign influence of all kinds.These qualities of the T’ang civilization gave it a universalappeal. From T’ang China neighboring peoples drew theelements which transformed for all time their own cultures. Andto T’ang China came people from all over Asia: students andBuddhist monks from Korea and Japan; tribal leaders andwarriors from among the Turks, the Khitans, the Uigurs;emissaries, artists, and musicians from the oasis kingdoms ofCentral Asia; merchants from many lands – Samarkand,Bokhara, India, Persia, Syria, and Arabia among others. TheT’ang capital at Ch’ang-an was more than the functioningcapital of a great empire: it was a cosmopolis, the greatest cityin the world; it was the radiating center of civilization for thewhole of Eastern Asia; from it came the latest in Buddhistdoctrine, the latest in poetical modes, authoritative models forinstitutions, and so on, down to the newest in haute coutureand hair styles.133When looking for history in the Sui 随 and Tang periods, however,we need to be aware that the age of overwhelming glory mainlyrefers to the first half of the 8th century – of a dynasty that lastedalmost three centuries. Allowing ourselves also to investigate thecentury before and the one and a half centuries after the high Tang133Twitchett & Wright (1973), “Introduction,” p. 1.

as periods in their own right, we may discern longer-term traditionand transformation.The Qin-Han and Sui-Tang analogyIn exploring the history of the Sui and Tang, we have to deal withtwo major lines of interpretation, namely the parallel reading of QinHan 秦汉 and Sui-Tang 隋唐 histories and the image of the dynasticcycle and periodization.At first glance, parallels between Qin-Han and Sui-Tang may makeus inclined to think that history repeated itself. The Sui (581-618)like the Qin (221-209) was a powerful yet short-lived dynasty thatunified China through conquest. The Sui like the Qin came from theNorthwest and was regarded as semi-barbarian by many, and itbrought about its own downfall by overstretching resources inambitious military and infrastructure projects. In addition, the rise ofthe middle empire, like that of the first, was accompanied by theformation of a new powerful steppe polity. As the Han faced theXiongnu, the Sui and Tang were confronted with the confederation ofthe Turks (Tujue 突厥 in Chinese)134 who set up their steppe empirealong the Northern and Western frontier in 522 AD. The Tang, likethe Han, was a long-lived dynasty and is considered an age of greatglory. During the early decades of the new dynasty, the governmentpursued a cautious course of consolidation that subsequentlyenabled it to embark on powerful expansion. Much like the WangMang interregnum in traditional historiography appears as theturning point after which the once glorious dynasty would never bemore than a shadow of its former self, the An Lushan 安禄山rebellion (755-763) brought the dynasty to the brink of collapse andleft a weakened, de facto disintegrated empire behind.Closer investigation quickly reveals that many of the parallels are nomore than superficial similarities or coincidences. Yet, while theattempt to mutually explain different ages through simply aligningthem can hardly contribute to gaining a better understanding, thecomparative reading of the early and middle empire remainsimportant. Not so much because we want to prove or disprovehistorical repetition, but because Sui and Tang rulers, politicalthinkers and historians consciously used and defined themselves andtheir judgement through historical precedent.Continuities from the period of the Southern and Northern DynastiesThe Sui as the reunifying dynasty, and the early to high Tang as aperiod of great imperial power with the reign of Xuanzong 玄宗(reigned 717-755) as China’s golden age appears to delineate theSui-Tang age clearly from the preceding “dark ages” of foreign ruleand division. This periodization, however, can be quite misleading,when the demarcations of dynasties and the contrast of political134The Turks appear in the Chinese documents from the 6th century onwards as a tribal people basedon the Altai region and renowned for their ironwork.

disunity versus unified empire are overstated. After all, it were thesame northwestern elites who were in power from the Wei throughto the high Tang and they employed quite similar administrativestructures. Furthermore, the great age of religion in China, withgovernments sponsoring Buddhism and Daoism while toleratingother creeds and a sizeable proportion of the population opting formonastic life as monks or nuns, lasted through to the early 9thcentury. Although transferred to a reunified empire, theredoubtlessly existed strong continuities between the Northerndynasties and the Sui-Tang.Problems of dynastic periodizationMore importantly, the focus on dynastic and political history inhibits aperspective on socio-economic and cultural transformation that doesnot coincide with dynastic change. According to the traditional view,the Tang after the great rebellion were but a sad, lingering shadowof former glory, hardly worthy of dwelling upon. It was the longerterm, structural perspective of historical progress that enabledhistorians to recognize the later Tang as a great departure in socioeconomic structures and with regard to the role of the state, akin tothe Song rather than to pre 755 Tang.135 Taking into account this bynow received interpretation of a fundamental revolution taking placein the later Tang and Song, this chapter concentrates on the periodup to 755, leaving the exploration of the late Tang to Songtransformation to the next.The following survey of political events and at some key structuralissues will allow us to gain a more differentiated perspective on theperiod of the early middle empire.5.1Issues in the re-building of the Chinese empireFor a map of the Sui empire, see -map.cfm135This reinterpretation of Chinese history was initiated by the journalist-historian Naitô Torajirô in awork of 1914. While many details of his proposition have been contested, the general periodizationhas become received historical understanding.

The Northwestern aristocracyThe Sui rose as successor to the Northern Zhou. As it were, YangJian 楊堅 (541 - 604, reigned as Wendi 文帝 581-604), the founderof the Sui, was a general at the Zhou court and the father-in-law ofthe last Zhou emperor. Li Yuan 李淵 (565-635, reigned as TangGaozu 唐高祖 618–626), the founder of the Tang, was a Sui generaland a cousin of the second Sui emperor. The rulers of the newlyunified empire and their core aristocracy came from the samebackground of the Northwestern aristocracy.The centuries of political and social dominance of no

The Sui as the reunifying dynasty, and the early to high Tang as a period of great imperial power with the reign of Xuanzong玄宗 (reigned 717-755) as China’s golden age appears to delineate the Sui-Tang age clearly from the preceding “dark ages” of foreign rule and divisi