An Lushan rebellion
On 16 December 755 An Lushan, military governor of three north-eastern frontier provinces, rose at Fanyang with 150,000 men, took Luoyang, proclaimed himself emperor of Yan and in July 756 drove Emperor Xuanzong from Chang’an. The civil war, which after An’s murder was carried on by his son An Qingxu and then by Shi Siming and his son Shi Chaoyi, lasted until early 763; the Tang survived with Uyghur help but lost most of its Central Asian possessions, and much of its power passed to autonomous military governors.
- Date
- 16 December 755 – 17 February 763exact date · duration: ≈ 7 yearsDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Fanyang (Youzhou), where An Lushan roseapproximate locationtoday: Beijing, China · East Asia
- Route
- Fanyang (Youzhou) → Luoyang → Tong Pass → Chang’an
- Participants
- An Lushan, Tang dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Yang Guozhong, Yang Guifei, Guo Ziyi, Uyghur Khaganate, Tibetan Empire, Trisong Detsen
- Threads
- East Asia (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- An–Shi rebellion; Anshi rebellion; An Lushan Rebellion; An Lu-shan; Great Yan; Mawei Incident; Мятеж Ань Лушаня и Ши Сымина; Мятеж Ань Ши; Великая Янь; Инцидент у Мавэя; 安史之亂; 安祿山之亂; 大燕; 馬嵬驛之變
An Lushan, a general of Sogdian and Turkic descent trusted by Xuanzong, held the commands of Pinglu, Fanyang and Hedong on the north-eastern frontier. His feud with the chancellor Yang Guozhong gave him a pretext: on 16 December 755, says the Zizhi tongjian, he rose at Fanyang, near modern Beijing, with 150,000 men of his own armies and of the Tongluo, Xi, Khitan and Shiwei — ‘proclaiming 200,000’ — to punish Yang Guozhong. He took Luoyang on 18 January 756 and on 5 February proclaimed himself emperor of Great Yan. On 10 July his army took the Tong Pass, the gateway to Chang’an, after the Tang commander Geshu Han had been ordered, against his advice, to leave his defences and attack; four days later Xuanzong fled towards Sichuan. At Mawei, on 15 July, his hungry and angry guards killed Yang Guozhong and demanded the death of Yang Guifei, and the emperor gave the order; on 12 August the crown prince proclaimed himself emperor (Suzong) at Lingwu in the north-west.
An Lushan was murdered at the instigation of his son An Qingxu in January 757. The Tang counter-offensive, whose leading generals were Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, relied on the Uyghurs: in the autumn of 757 the Uyghur khagan sent his son with more than 4,000 picked horsemen, and an army of 150,000 — Shuofang troops, Uyghurs and contingents from the Western Regions — retook Chang’an on 14 November and Luoyang on 3 December 757. The war dragged on: An Lushan’s general Shi Siming killed An Qingxu in 759 and continued the fight until he in turn was murdered by his son Shi Chaoyi in 761. In November 762 the Tang and the Uyghurs of Bögü Qaghan recaptured Luoyang, which the Uyghurs plundered — ‘the dead numbered in tens of thousands’, says the Zizhi tongjian. Deserted by his generals, Shi Chaoyi hanged himself in a wood, and on 17 February 763 his head was brought to Chang’an.
The rebellion changed the Tang for good. Pardoned rebel generals kept their armies and provinces as military governors, beginning an age of regional warlords that lasted for the rest of the dynasty. Elite frontier troops recalled from the west left Hexi and Longyou to the Tibetans, who in November 763 even occupied Chang’an — they entered the city on 18 November, set up a puppet emperor and plundered it until Guo Ziyi’s ruses drove them out on the 30th — and by 790 the Tang had lost the Tarim Basin. The registered population fell from about 52.9 million in 755 to about 16.9 million in 764, but historians such as Hans Bielenstein attribute most of the fall to the collapse of registration rather than to deaths. The rebellion ended the golden age of the Tang and began its long decline.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- Reign of Emperor Xuanzong: the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras8 September 712 – 12 August 756 · East AsiaThe military governors whom Xuanzong trusted on the frontiers turned against the dynasty in 755
Related events
- Li Yuan founds the Tang dynasty18 June 618 · East AsiaThe rebellion ended the golden age of the dynasty founded in 618
- The Uyghurs overthrow the Turks: the Uyghur Khaganate744 · Central and Northern AsiaUyghur horsemen sent by the khagan helped the Tang retake Chang’an and Luoyang from the rebels in 757
- Battle of TalasJuly 751 · Central and Northern Asiato fight An Lushan’s rebellion (from 755) the Tang recalled its western frontier armies and lost most of its Central Asian possessions
- Tianbao War: Nanzhao destroys the Tang armies750 – between 25 June and 23 July 754 · East AsiaGao Lishi warned Xuanzong in 754 that the Yunnan disasters and the power of the frontier generals threatened the dynasty
- Bögü Qaghan makes Manichaeism the religion of the Uyghursbetween 762 and 763 · Central and Northern AsiaIn 762 Bögü, who by the Chinese histories had first marched south at Shi Chaoyi’s invitation, went over to the Tang against the last of An Lushan’s rebels and met the Manichaean priests at Luoyang
- Trisong Detsen: the Tibetan Empire at its height and the founding of Samyebetween 755 and 756 – 797 · Central and Northern Asiain 763, with the Tang weakened by the rebellion, a Tibetan army held Chang’an for about two weeks (fifteen days according to the Old Book of Tang) and set up a puppet emperor
Same place
- Fall of Zhongdubetween April and June 1215 · East Asia
- Proclamation of the Yuan dynasty1271 · East Asia
- Travels of Marco Polo1271–1295 · East Asia
- Death of Kublai Khan18 February 1294 · East Asia
- Altan Khan’s raid on Beijing1550 · East Asia
- Abdication of the Qianlong Emperor9 February 1796 · East Asia
Adjacent events in the thread
- Kim Dae-seong builds Bulguksa and the Seokguram grotto751 – c. 775 · East Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Abd al-Rahman I founds the Emirate of Córdobabetween 14 May and 15 May 756
- Donation of PepinApril 754 – 756
Eastern Europe
- Volyntsevo culture: the Slavs of the Dnieper Left Bank in the Khazar agebetween 700 and 750 – between 813 and 833
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
Balkans and Anatolia
- Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843
Middle East and Egypt
- Founding of Baghdad: al-Mansur’s Round Citybetween 30 July and 2 August 762 – between 766 and 767
- Abu Hanifa and Malik: the oldest surviving Sunni schools of lawbetween 737 and 738 – 795
Africa
- Founding of Sijilmasabetween 757 and 758
Central and Northern Asia
- Bögü Qaghan makes Manichaeism the religion of the Uyghursbetween 762 and 763
- Trisong Detsen: the Tibetan Empire at its height and the founding of Samyebetween 755 and 756 – 797
South Asia
- Krishna I carves the Kailasa temple at Ellorabetween 756 and 774
- Gopala becomes king: the rise of the Pala dynastybetween 750 and 756
- Lalitaditya Muktapida rules Kashmir: the Sun temple of Martandbetween 724 and 725 – between 760 and 761
North America
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
Latin America
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): An Lushan rebellion
- Wikipedia (English): An Lushan
- Wikipedia (English): Yang Guifei
- Wikipedia (Russian): Мятеж Ань Лушаня
- Цзычжи тунцзянь, гл. 217–223: 755–763 гг. (кит. текст, Викитека)
- Цзю Тан шу, гл. 9: анналы Сюань-цзуна, 741–756 гг. (кит. текст, Викитека)
- Pulleyblank E. G. The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan. — London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
- Twitchett D. (ed.) The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 3: Sui and T’ang China, 589–906. Part 1. — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
- Wikidata: Q253774