Tang Dynasty

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Wu Chao was one of T'ai Tsung's girlfriends. After he died, she became his son's girlfriend too! His name was Gaozong. She used Gaozong's love for her to get rid of all his other girlfriends (some she had killed) and eventually he married her, so she became the empress. As empress, Wu Chao (woo-CHOW) was very active in politics. When Gaozong had a stroke in 660 AD and was too sick to rule, Wu Chao took over the government of China. In 684 AD, Gaozong died, and Wu Chao became the regent for her young son. In 690, when she was 64 years old, Wu Chao forced her son out altogether and made herself Empress of China, ruling on her own. Wu Chao was a devout Buddhist, but also promoted Taoism. She was a great ruler, and China was very successful both militarily and economically under her rule.

But in 705 AD, Wu Chao (now 79 years old!) was forced out of power. Nobody could agree about who would come after her, and so there was a long civil war.

In 712 AD, Hsuan Tsung became the ninth T'ang emperor of China. Hsuan Tsung was a great emperor who ruled a long time, and he managed to greatly expand the borders of China, so that by 750 he ruled all the way to Tibet and Central Asia in the west, and north to Mongolia and Manchuria, and south to Vietnam, and even controlled Korea as the Sui emperors had wanted. In 751, the Chinese army fought the Arabs in a great battle at Talas (Samarkand) in Uzbekistan. They lost the battle, but they succeeded in stopping the Arabs from invading China.

But in the last years of his life, Hsuan Tsung turned to art and philosophy, and lost interest in running his empire. Some people say that he was more interested in his girlfriend, Yang Kuei-fei. His generals took over instead. One of these generals, An Lu-shan, controlled the troops of north-west China. In 755 AD, An Lu-shan led a rebellion against Hsuan Tsung. Hsuan Tsung ran away to Szechwan with a small part of his army. Soon his army rebelled too, and made Hsuan Tsung abdicate (quit) and let his son be emperor.

The son raised a new army, and by 757 AD he was able to get An Lu-shan assassinated. Still there was more civil war until 763. These wars wrecked China and killed millions of people. He never did really get command of China again. The generals of the armies in each province had more real power than the emperor did. There were also several revolts of the poor people in the countryside. In 881 AD a revolt under Huang Ch'ao ruined much of central China and destroyed the capital at Chang'an. The T'ang emperors had to move their capital east to Luoyang. They never became strong again.

To find out more about the T'ang Dynasty, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

Eyewitness: Ancient China, by Arthur Cotterell, Alan Hills, and Geoff Brightling (2000). For kids.

China (History of Nations), by Greenhaven Press (2002). For middle schoolers. The negative review on Amazon is actually for a different book - don't be alarmed!

Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty, by Charles Benn (2001). A general introduction for adults.

Women of the Tang Dynasty, by May Holdsworth (1999). A short introduction, with many pictures of T'ang period figurines.

The Court of the Lion: A Novel of the T'ang Dynasty, by Eleanor Cooney and Daniel Altieri (1990). Historical fiction, for grownups.

Tang Dynasty Art
Tang Dynasty Pottery
Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD)
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