The tang Dynasty is easily one of the greatest – if not the greatest – dynasties of pre-modern China. At the height of its power, the Tang dominated not only the Chinese mainland, but also parts of Korea, Vietnam and Central Asia.
However, it was also in this time of great power and prosperity that China experienced one of the most devastating events in its history, the An Lushan Rebellion. The rebellion’s origins could be traced back to one Li Linfu, the Prime Minister the Tang Dynasty at that time.
Now, Li was a shrewd and ruthless politician. He killed off his rivals, and he supported military governors of foreign descent to rule over distant cities and provinces. Li Linfu used foreigners because he knew that they had no ties in court, making them politically dependent on his patronage and also unable to challenge his power by rising up the ranks.
One of these foreigners was a man of Sogdian/Gokturk origin, An Lushan. An Lushan and Li Linfu maintained a cordial political relationship, and both benefited from the relationship in a quasi-nepotistic way. And then one day, Li Linfu died.
Li Linfu’s death meant that An Lushan no longer had a patron at the Tang court and was now vulnerable to attack by Li Linfu’s enemies, many of whom also considered him an enemy. Given the politics at that time, it was also possible that An Lushan may have been executed for purely political reasons.
An Lushan knew this, which is why he had no other option but to rise up in rebellion. So rather than wait for the inevitable, he took his 150,000 or so soldiers and marched towards the capital, and thus began one of the bloodiest civil wars in Chinese history.
The An Lushan Rebellion may have killed off 36 million people before it ended, a staggering amount considering the population at that time, but it’s hardly the only one. The Ming Dynasty, for example, was also brought down by rebellion. Likewise, the famous Chinese epic, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was fictionalized retelling of the events that took place during the fall of the Han Dynasty, also a bloody civil war.
The big take away here is that China’s history is filled with examples of massive and devastating civil wars, and they can happen at any time, even in periods of relative wealth and prosperity. The An Lushan rebellion took place at the height of the Tang Dynasty, one of the greatest, if not the greatest dynasty in Chinese history.
If you understand the lesson behind this rebellion then you understand something very important about the modern Chinese political mentality. Throughout history, the Chinese state has always been powerful but it has also always been brittle. This is why Xi Jinping and the Chinese ruling elite are eager to consolidate control and impose ‘totalitarian’ measures, because throughout Chinese political history, they are necessary; necessary for preventing civil war and necessary for preventing rebellion.
The PRC is very powerful now, but its leadership is also aware of the ever-present threat of rebellion and civil war, even in the midst of economic and technological opulence. After all, they rose to power in much the same way./PN
