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LI SHIH-MIN, EMPEROR TANG TAI TSUNG 598-649 SON
OF HEAVEN
A
Biography of Li Shih-Min, founder of the T’ang Dynasty
BT
C
P. FITZGERALD
Chapter 1. The Downfall of the Sui Dynasty.
Chapter 2. Foundation of the Tang Dynasty, A.D.617-618.Chapter 3. The Conquest of Western China, A.D. 618-620Chapter. The Battle of Ssu Shui, A.D. 620-621
Chapter 5 . Pacification and Consolidation, A.D. 622-624Chapter 6 . The Hsuan Wu Gate, A.D. 626INTERLUDE. The Character of Li Shih-MinChapter 7. The Conquest of the Turks, A.D. 624-30Chapter 8. The Court of Ch’ang An, A.D. 630-640Chapter 9. The Tragedy of Crown Prince Ch’ing-Ch’ien, A.D. 643Chapter 10 . The Korean War and the Closing Years, A.D. 645-650
PERSONS OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY BilgA Khan. Turk.
Rival to Qadir Khan.
Chai Shao. General. Brother-in-law of Li Shih-Min.
Chang Chieh-YO. Concubine
of Li YOan.
Chang-Sun, The Lady. Empress, Consort of Li
Shih-Min.
Chang-Sun Wo-CHI. Minister.
Brother-in-law of Li Shih-Min.
Chen Shu-Ta. Minister. Scion of Chen dynasty.
Cheng Hsin. Boy minstrel. Favourite of Crown Prince Ch’eng-Ch’ien.
Chin Shu-Pao. General
Chuan Kai-Su-Wen. Regicide
and dictator of Korea.
Chur Khan. Ruler of the Turks.
Brother of Qadir Khan.
Chu Sui-Liang. Minister.
Chu-Tu Tung. Sui general. Submitted to
Tang dynasty.
Fang Hsuan-ling. Minister
and friend of Ti Shih- Min.
Fu-yun Khan. Tartar. Ruler of the Tu-yu-hun.
Hokan Chong-Chi. Assassin. Served Prince Li Cheng- Chien.
Hou Chun-Chi. General
Hsiao Hsien. Pretender of Liang dynasty.
Hsiao, The Lady. Empress.
Consort of Yang Ti.
Hsiao YU. Minister. Brother of the
Empress Hsiao.
Hsueh Chu. Pretender in Kansu.
Hsueh JEN-KUO. Son and successor of
Hsueh Chu
I Cheng, Princess. Sui princess. Wife of
four Khans
Kao K'ai-Tao. Pretender. Called Prince of Yen
Kao Shih-Lien. Minister. Uncle of Empress Chang-Sun.
Li Chen-Chien. Son of Shih-Min
Crown Prince.
Li Chien-Chieng. Elder
brother of Shih-Min. Crown Prince.
LI CHIN. Son of
Shib-Min. Afterwards Crown Prince
LI CHING.
General. Conqueror of the South.
LI SHIAO-KUNG.
Prince Chao. General. Cousin of Shih-Min
LI MI.
Pretender. Submits to Tang dynasty but rebels.
LI SHEN TUNG.
Prince Huai An. Uncle of Shih-Min. General.
LI SHING CHI. Formerly Hsi Shih-Chi. General.
LI TAI LIANG. General
LI TAI. Prince
Wei. Son of Shih-Mia by a concubine.
LI TAO SHUANG
Prince Huai Yang. Cousin of Shih-Min. General.
LI TAO TSUNG. Prince Jen Cheng. Cousin of Shih
Min. General.
LI, THE LADY.
Sister of Shih-Min. Wife of Chai Shao.
LI TZU TUNG.
Pretender in south-east China.
LI YU. Prince
Chi. Son of Shih-Min by a concubine.
LI YUAN. Father
of Shih-Min, Emperor Tang Kao Tsu,
LI YUANG CHANG.
Prince Han. Half-brother of Shih-Min.
LIANG SHIN TU. Pretender in north Shensi.
LIU HEI TA. Rebel in north China
LIU WEN CHING.
General. Early Tang supporter
LIU WU CHOU.
Pretender, in north Shansi. Ally of the Turk
LO I. General.
Governor of Yu Chou (Peking)
LO SHIH HSIN.
Young general
MA CHOU. Minister and censor
PHI SHI. Eunuch
in charge of Fén Yang Palace.
QACHASHAR.
Tark, Brother of Tutar Khan.
QADIR KHAN.
Ruler of the Eastern TurkS
SIBIR KHAN.
Elder brother of Qadir Khan. Ruler of the Turks
SUN CHING
KANG. General of Liu Wu Chou
TOU CHIEN TE.
Pretender. Called the emperor of Hsia
Tu Fu-Wei. Rebel against Sui. Submits
to Tang dynasty.
TU
JU-HUI. Friend and minister of Li Shih-Min.
TutAR Khan. Turk, Nephew of qadir khan
Wang Hsuan-Tse. AMBASSADOR TO INDIAN KIMGDOMS
Wang Shih-Chung. Pretender. Called Emperor
of Chéng.
Wei Cheng. Minister
Yang Chien. EMPEROR Sui Wén Ti, founder of Sui dynasty.
Yano HsUan-Kan. Rebel against Sui Yang Ti
YanG Ti.
Emperor Sui Yang GTU
Yang Tung. Sui Prince Yueh. Grandson of Yang Ti
Yang Yu. Sui
Prince Tai. Grandson
of Yang Ti.
Yin Hung-Chin. Maternal
uncle of Li Yu Prince Chi.
Yu-Chin Ching Te. General of Liu Wu-Chou,
later captain of Shih-Min’s Guard
Yu-Wen Hua-Chi. Regicide. Son
of Ye-Wen Shu. Pretender
YU-Wen shih-Shi. Son of
Yu-Wen Shu. Tang general.
Yu-Wen Shu. Sui general. Scoon of Northern
Chou Tartar dynasty.
Li Shih-Min. Second son of Li Yuan
Duke of Tang. Founder of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Tang Tai Tsung. Born, 600.
Ob. A.D. 649.
LI SHI MIN
NOMENCLATURE
In
this book, which deals with a subject unfamiliar to most western readers, I
have endeavoured to simplify the difficulties of
Chinese nomenclature. As far as is consistent with lucidity I have omitted the
names of minor characters. The reader who succeeds in memorising the names of persons which still remain may be comforted with the knowledge
that they all relate to people of importance, prominent in the history of the
time.
Place-names
have also been reduced to a minimum. With one or two exceptions the modern name
has been employed, seventh-century city names being used only when the city no
longer exists, or where, as is commonly the case in Shansi, Shensi, and Honan,
the old name is still in use. Turkish and Central Asiatic names have been
tendered in their native form, not as given in the Chinese texts. The Wade
system of romanisation for Chinese words has been
adhered to throughout, except in the case of some recognised variations, such as the names of the provinces.
It
should be realised that in Chinese the surname
precedes the personal name. Thus in “Li Shih-Min”, Li is the surname, Shih-Min
the personal name. Personal names may be single or double. “Li Yuan” is an
example of a single personal name. In the seventh century double surnames, now
rare, were still common. In such names as Chang-Sun Wu-Chi or Yu-Wen Shu, the
first two words, linked by a hyphen, are the double surname, the second pair or
single word, the personal name.
In
place-names I have omitted the hyphen sometimes placed between the words
composing the name, in order to avoid any risk of place-names being mistaken
for personal names.
PROLOGUE.CHINA IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY A.D.
The
significance of the life and achievements of Li Shih-Min, who reigned from a.d. 626-49 the emperor Tai Tsung of
the Tang dynasty, cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the age which
immediately preceded his birth. It is necessary to paint, as a background to
his life, a picture of sixth-century China, its social organisation and the political trends which dominated the times.
At
the dawn of the seventh century China was neither so large nor so populous a
country as the modem republic. For more than two thousand years the Chinese
people had steadily expanded from their early home in the Yellow river valley, colonising new territories, absorbing or exterminating the
aboriginal inhabitants. This expansion had by the seventh century carried the
Chinese race and rule south of the Yangtze valley, but had not yet made a
permanent conquest of what are now the south western provinces of the Chinese
republic. The northern frontier of the empire was defined by the Great Wall,
beyond which lay the country of the nomad Tartars, the secular enemies of the
Chinese cultivators. To the south the boundary was less dearly marked. Canton
and the coastline had been brought under Chinese rule some centuries earlier,
but this strip was still a colonial territory largely inhabited by non-Chinese races.
The
south-western provinces, Yunnan and Kueichou (Guizhou), with
parts of Szechuan (Sichuan), Kuangsi (Guangxi) and Hunan, were not then
part of the Chinese empire, though strong dynasties had from time to time
established garrisons at various points. Even on the southern bank of the
Yangtze, in Hunan and Kiangsi, Chinese colonisation was as yet sparse, and aboriginal tribes were still found in the mountains.
The
Yangtze valley was thus the real southern limit of seventh-century China.
Farther south there was a colonial region standing ethnographically in the same
relation to the true Chinese territory as Indo-China and Malaya stand to the
modern republic. The important difference was that South China in the seventh
century had already been subjected to Chinese rule, whereas the modern Chinese
settlements in southern Asia are outside the frontiers of the Chinese state.
The centre of gravity in the seventh-century empire
was still the great plain lying between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers and the plateaux of the north-west. The powerful Han dynasty (106 bc-ad.220) had indeed ruled over a
far wider area, including Mongolia, Central Asia, Korea, southern Manchuria and
even Annam, but these far-flung dominions were in no sense part of “China”.
They were foreign conquests held by the power of the sword. By the end of the
sixth century these extraneous territories had all been lost.
The
great Han dynasty was succeeded, after a period of division, by the quarrelsome
Tsin dynasty (a.d. 265-419) under
which the defence of the northern frontiers was neglected.
In a.d. 511 invading Tartars
captured the Tsin emperor in his capital at Lo Yang and conquered the northern
part of China. The Tsin dynasty managed to retain the south, where in a.d. 518 the dynasty was re-established
with its capital at Nanking. The northern provinces were left in the hands of
several competing Tartar princes who were only prevented from conquering the
whole empire by their violent intestine dissensions.
This
disaster led to three hundred years of partition, The unity of the empire was
lost, the work of the Han dynasty utterly destroyed. The northern provinces
from the Great Wall to the southern edge of the great plain were divided up
between a number of short-lived Tartar dynasties, only one of which, the Wei (ad. 590-500), succeeded in uniting the
whole north under one ruler. The southern empire remained in Chinese hands, the
Tsin being succeeded by four other dynasties, none of which occupied the throne
for more than a lifetime.
During
this period of partition the situation in China closely resembled the condition
of Europe in the Dark Ages. Just as the Roman empire, partly overrun by
barbarians, only maintained its authority in the eastern provinces, so the old
Han empire of all China lost the north to the barbarian Tartars, but managed to
retain its hold an the southern provinces. Nanking, like Constantinople, was
the centre of the polite arts, the last refuge of
refined civilisation; and the southern Chinese
empire, like Byzantium, was preserved more by the incoherence of its enemies
than by its own military prowess. The sequel proved different. Europe remained
permanently divided, losing not only political unity but also the language and
culture of die classical past. The Chinese absorbed the Tartars, reconstructed
the old unified empire, revived the ancient culture and carried it to a perfection
never previously attained.
In
this splendid achievement, which changed the history of the eastern world, Li
Shih-Min played a major part, for the Chinese recovery was consolidated under
the dynasty which he founded. The reasons why the Chinese succeeded where the
eastern Roman empire failed are worthy of examination. There were two
important differences between the plight of Europe and that of China in the
fifth and sixth centuries. The Roman empire was assailed not only by the
Teutonic barbarians of the north, bur also by the Persians, and later by the
Arabs, from the south. The Chinese had only to contend with the Tartars of the
north, for no formidable power ever developed among the aborigines of South
China. Secondly the Graeco-Roman population hid for some centuries steadily diminished
and had never been an ethnographic unity; but the Chinese, a people bound
together by a common language and literature, were infinitely more numerous
than their enemies. Consequently the Tartar conquerors were rapidly absorbed by
the native stock, which yet remained essentially Chinese. In Europe the
descendants of Roman citizens and barbarian invaders blended to form new Latin
peoples, but in China the Tartars were too few to breed a new mixed race.
Political ascendancy was therefore easily recovered by the Chinese majority.
There
is no authority for positive statements about the size of the population of
China at the close of the sixth century. An estimate has been made, which,
while in conformity with such evidence as exists, does not conflict with
commonsense or historical probability. According to this
computation the population of the northern provinces which had been under
Tartar dynasties was, in the year ad 618, 102,300,000, that of the southern less populous region which had remained
under Chinese rule was 27,150,000. The population of the whole empire being
129,450,000.
The
re-assertion of Chinese supremacy was unquestionably mainly due to the fact
that, in spite of three centuries of Tartar rule, the overwhelming majority of
the population was still of Chinese race. Though the Tartars were always
formidable enemies, there is no reason to believe that their hordes compared in
point of numbers with the Chinese inhabitants of the empire. Such historical
references as can be found all point the other way. The Chinese historians prided themselves on their punctilious accuracy in matters of fact and date,
but they cared little for statistics. The histories tell of Tartar invasions,
wan and conquests, but there is no record of how many Tartan survived the war and settled in
China, nor of how many Chinese remained in the conquered territory.
The
researches of modern historians dealing with the very similar and almost contemporary
invasions of the Roman empire by the Teutonic barbarians have tended to
discount the traditional belief in vast overwhelming hosts which swept across
Europe terminating the inhabitants. It has been shown that such huge hordes
could not have come from the uncultivated forests of northern Europe nor
obtained provisions and transport for long inarches across the length and
breadth of the continent. Their success, itis now believed, was due, not so
much to their numbers, as to their superior fighting spirit and the listless
resistance of the degenerate subjects of Rome.
The
Tartar incursions in North China were unquestionably of the same character. It
is against reason to suppose that the semi-desert Mongolian steppe could ever
have supported a population equal to that of the North China plain, one of the
most highly cultivated areas on the earth’s surface. The Tartar tribes, then,
as now, were nomads, compelled to range over enormous distances to find pasture
for their flocks. Hardiness, horsemanship, and the dissensions among their
adversaries were the chief advantages of the Tartar raiders, who made up for
their small numbers by superior mobility. Just as the barbarians first gained a
foothold in the Roman empire as mercenaries in the service of the emperor, so
the Tartars were invited into China to assist in the fratricidal quarrels
between the princes of the Tsin dynasty.
When
they decided to assume the mastery themselves, they encountered only a feeble
resistance. The Chinese population, weary of the misgovernment of the Tsin
princes, accepted a Tartar ruler with indifference, if not with relief. The
later invasion in AD 390 was even easier. These Toba tribes who afterwards
founded the most enduring Tartar dynasty, the Wei, first entered China at the
expense of the earlier Tartar dynasty, which the Tobas conquered. It was not
until AD 450 that the new invaders tried conclusions with the Chinese empire
in the south. Their conquest of the northern provinces was not opposed by the
Chinese, who felt no interest in the fate of their established rulers. When new
Tartars attacked the old settlers, the real natives stood by content, no doubt
pleased at the spectacle.
The
Toba invasion was in fact a change for the better. The new conquerors were of Tungusic stock, a more intelligent and adaptable race than
the earlier Tartar invaders who were Huns (Hiung Nu).
The Toba Wei dynasty gave North China peace after a century of ceaseless wars.
The Tungusic newcomers speedily adopted the Chinese civilisation and freely intermarried with the natives of
the soil. A hundred years after the foundation of this Wei dynasty the Tartar
emperor himself issued a decree prohibiting the use of the Tartar language,
costume and customs, mnrirfag the change by
abandoning his name of Toba in favour of the Chinese
surname Yuan, which had the same mining. The Tartars were now so identified
with the Chinese that they built new lengths of the Great Wall to defend
themselves, in the Chinese manner, against the untamed nomads of the Mongolian
steppe.
History
confirms the theory that the Tartar invaders formed only a very small minority
of the North China population. In a.d. 500, when the Wei emperor issued his signifying decree, the province of Honan,
immediately south of the Yellow river, had a Tartar population of only 14,700.
Yet it was in this province that the Wei emperor held his court at Lo Yang. The
first Tartar invasion in a.d. 304
is said to have had a fighting force 50,000 strong. If the whole of this horde
counting women and children was five times as numerous, would still have been only a small fraction
of foe population of one Chinese province.
If
there was no likelihood that the Tartar conquest would result in the permanent
mutation of the Chinese race and its culture, language and civilisation,
as happened to the Roman population of the western empire, yet there seemed to
be a great danger that it would make an end of Chinese unity, effecting a
lasting partition into two or mote empires. It was the very limitation of the
Tartar strength that made for the permanency of the schism. In the dry plains
and plateaux of the north the Tartar horsemen found a
country admirably suited to their methods of warfare, the traditional Scythian
cavalry tactics, which are described by the Chinese historians in almost the
very words which Herodotus uses about the Scythian enemies of King Darius. But
when the Tartars raided beyond the confines of the central plain into the
valley of the Yangtze, they came into a country in every way unsuited to
cavalry. The swampy rice-fields, abrupt, wooded hills, and narrow, wet valleys
of the southern provinces were unfamiliar and dangerous ground for the northern
horsemen.
The
Tartar invasions of the Yangtze valley were in every case failures. Three
times, in ad 379, 450 and 467,
they raided to the very banks of the river, but each time they were defeated
and driven from the country. It was not until AD 540, when the Tartars,
almost entirely absorbed, were freely using Chinese armies, that they profited
by the dissensions of the south to make themselves overlords, through a
Chinese tributary, of the western half of the Yangtze valley. By that time the
pure Tartar blood was rate in the north: the descendants of the free horsemen
of the conquest had become elegant and cultivated courtiers, indistinguishable
from their Chinese colleagues.
The
southern Chinese, though they made several attempts, were equally unsuccessful
in their efforts to recover the northern provinces. Their troops were mainly
infantry, the horse being a rare beast in the south of China, where grazing
land seldom found. The southerners, however, excel as sailors and watermen.
Conducting amphibious operations along the navigable rivers, they three times
penetrated as far north as the Yellow river (ad 380, 417, 450), temporarily reconquering the whole central plain and part of
the western plateau. Unfortunately these conquests proved as transient as the
Tartar dominion in the Yangtze valley. China seemed doomed to be permanently
divided, but without the stability of a lasting clearly defined frontier.
No
geographical feature marks the boundary between North and South China. In the
west, mountain ranges, by no means impassable, provide an adequate frontier,
but in the east the great, dry, millet-growing plain south of the Yellow river
shades off imperceptibly into the flat, rice-growing valley of the Huai river,
which communicates by channels and lakes with the Yangtze. There is no
frontier, only a gradual, indeterminate change in the character of the country.
Consequently the history of all partitions of China is ceaseless border
warfare punctuated by short intervals of uneasy truce. Peace in China has ever
depended on unity.
This
border warfare in the fifth and sixth centuries was characterised by endless sieges, for the southern Chinese were skilful and obstinate in the defence of fortified places,
while the horse-riding Tartars were unused to siege work. The southern empire,
owing its preservation more to its frontier fortresses and its climate than to
the valour of the army in the field, seemed likely to
endure indefinitely, but entertained no real hope of reconquering the north.
Reunion, when at last it came, was the work of the northern Chinese. By the
middle of the sixth century the pure Tartar stock had practically disappeared,
but in the process of absorption the northern Chinese had acquired something of
the virile energy of the nomads, while retaining their Chinese character,
language and culture, to which the Tartars could make no useful contribution.
It was from this fortified race in the north, Chinese in all essentials, but
rendered more dynamic by the addition of some Tartar blood, that the artificers
of reunion were drawn, their work being facilitated by the dose relationship
existing between the aristocracy of both empires.
Although
the Chinese feudal system properly so called had been finally overthrown by the
foundation of the centralised Han dynasty eight
hundred years earlier, Chinese society at the close of the sixth century was
still essentially aristocratic. With the collapse of the united empire under
the Tsin dynasty, many great families established in the south became locally
very powerful. Governorships were passed on from father to son; influential
dans dominated whole provinces, claiming an hereditary right to positions of
authority.
This
was the principal weakness of the southern empire, which was forever spending
its strength in suppressing rebellious governors instead of fighting the
Tartars. In the north political power was at first confined to the Tartar
ruling clans, the Chinese aristocracy having fled south when Lo Yang fell. But
as the Tartar stock became absorbed a new Chinese aristocracy rose to power,
these families often having some admixture of Tartar blood.
Throughout
the whole period of partition there was much intermarriage between the ruling
classes of both empires. Princes and governors of the southern state frequently
fled to the north when some political complication at Nanking made life in the
south unsafe; while the many and sanguinary revolutions in the Tartar kingdoms
sent another exodus of refugees across the southern frontier. The short
duration and violent perturbations of the dynasties ruling both empires tended
to depress the imperial authority and prestige. Few families occupied the
throne for more than forty or fifty years. A powerful minister or successful
general was always regarded as a potential future emperor. This absence of
established loyalties emphasised the selfish dan
spirit with which the aristocracy of both empires was imbued.
Yang
Chien, founder of the Sui dynasty, who first reunited the empire under one
sovereign, was a member of the northern Chinese aristocracy, and father-in-law
of the last emperor of the Tartar Northern Chou dynasty. Himself a Chinese,
Yang’s principal wife was of Tartar blood (the Duku family) and his daughter
was the consort of the Tartar emperor. In ad 580 Yang dethroned his sovereign and made himself emperor. The significant
change, which brought back a Chinese family to the
imperial throne, was performed without any opposition from the descendants of
the Tartars, who now felt themselves to be Chinese. Ten years after this
revolution, the new Sui emperor despatched several
armies which rapidly conquered the effete southern empire, then ruled by an
artistic but indolent emperor, who could not even be bothered to open the despatches in which his generals informed him of the
progress and approach of the enemy.
After
267 years of partition China was once more united under a dynasty of native
stock, but this dynasty was itself of short duration. Yang Chien, the founder,
was a man of slight education who made no attempt to conciliate the official
class. Indeed he retrenched the educational establishments which had existed
under his Tartar predecessors. His rule, though harsh and unsympathetic, might
have established a lasting dynasty had not his successor, the celebrated madman
Yang Ti, by his extravagant conduct and improvident expenditure, plunged the
empire into an anarchy more intolerable than the Tartar conquest.
The
foundation and consolidation of the dynasty which put an end to this anarchy,
the Tang, was the life’s work of Li Shih-Min, known to history under his
imperial posthumous title of Tai Tsung of the Tang dynasty. Although reckoned
as the second emperor of the new dynasty, Li Shih-Min was the original
instigator of his father’s rebellion. against the Emperor Yang Ti of the Sui
dynasty, and the final victory of the Tang army was
due to his leadership and genius.
The
first part of this book traces the course of the desperate warfare between the Tang leader and his many rivals for the throne. The second
part of the book deals with the reign of Li Shih-Min after he had succeeded his
father as emperor. In these chapters the success of the emperor as an
administrator is contrasted with his failure to control the evil propensities
of his own sons. The man who could achieve and consolidate the reunification of
the empire and extend its limits far beyond the confines of China proper, could
not reform the character of his heir, or train a successor worthy to maintain
the authority of the imperial throne.
Finally
an attempt is made to assess the historical importance of Li Shih-Min’s
achievements. By restoring peace, unity, and ordered government to the vast
territories inhabited by the Chinese race, Li Shih-Min saved the civilisation of eastern Asia fiom collapse and min His work made possible the glorious culture of the middle T’ang period, one of the great creative epochs in the
history of the world.
This
is his title to fame; and now that the ancient Chinese culture is becoming
known to the west, it is one which merits a wider recognition.
CHAPTER I.THE DOWNFALL OF THE SUI DYNASTY
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