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Throughout the Tang and Song Dynasties, most of the food grown on China's farms flowed into cities and towns, which were busy, crowded places. Chang'an, China's capital, was the...

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Learning Objective

Describe how the Tang dynasty prospered from trade

Key Points

Although the Silk Road from China to the West was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141-87 BCE), it was reopened by the Tang Empire in 639 CE when Hou Junji conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades.

The Silk Road was the most important pre-modern Eurasian trade route, opening long-distance political and economic relations between the civilizations.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, and religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies, as well as diseases, also spread along the Silk Road.

In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.

Chinese maritime presence increased dramatically during the Tang period, giving rise to large seaports and trade relations with Africa, India, and beyond.

Terms

Pax Sinica

A period of peace in East Asia, maintained by Chinese hegemony, during which long-distance trade flourished, cities ballooned, standards of living rose, and the population surged.

Silk Road

An ancient network of trade routes that for centuries were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

Through use of land trade along the Silk Road and maritime trade by sail at sea, the Tang were able to gain many new technologies, cultural practices, rare luxuries, and contemporary items. From the Middle East, India, Persia, and Central Asia the Tang were able to acquire new ideas in fashion, new types of ceramics, and improved silver-smithing. The Chinese also gradually adopted the foreign concept of stools and chairs as seating, whereas before they had always sat on mats placed on the floor. In the Middle East, the Islamic world coveted and purchased in bulk Chinese goods such as silks, lacquerwares, and porcelain wares. Songs, dances, and musical instruments from foreign regions became popular in China during the Tang dynasty. These musical instruments included oboes, flutes, and small lacquered drums from Kucha in the Tarim Basin, and percussion instruments from India such as cymbals. At the court there were nine musical ensembles (expanded from seven in the Sui dynasty) representing music from throughout Asia.

There was great contact with and interest in India as a hub for Buddhist knowledge, with famous travelers such as Xuanzang (d. 664) visiting the South Asian subcontinent. After a seventeen-year-long trip, Xuanzang managed to bring back valuable Sanskrit texts to be translated into Chinese. There was also a Turkic-Chinese dictionary available for serious scholars and students, and Turkic folksongs gave inspiration to some Chinese poetry. In the interior of China, trade was facilitated by the Grand Canal and the Tang government's rationalization of the greater canal system that reduced costs of transporting grain and other commodities. The state also managed roughly 32,100 km (19,900 mi) of postal service routes by horse and boat.

Although the Silk Road from China to the West was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) during the Han dynasty, it was reopened by the Tang in 639 CE when Hou Junji (d. 643) conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, during Empress Wu's period, it reopened when the Tang reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi originally installed in 640, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade.

The Silk Road was the most important pre-modern Eurasian trade route. The Tang dynasty established a second Pax Sinica and the Silk Road reached its golden age, whereby Persian and Sogdian merchants benefited from the commerce between East and West. At the same time, the Chinese empire welcomed foreign cultures, making it very cosmopolitan in its urban centers.

The Tang captured the vital route through the Gilgit Valley from Tibet in 722, lost it to the Tibetans in 737, and regained it under the command of the Goguryeo-Korean General Gao Xianzhi. When the An Lushan Rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire had once again lost control over its western lands, as the Tibetan Empire largely cut off China's direct access to the Silk Road. An internal rebellion in 848 ousted the Tibetan rulers, and Tang China regained its northwestern prefectures from Tibet in 851. These lands contained crucial grazing areas and pastures for raising horses that the Tang dynasty desperately needed.

Despite the many western travelers coming into China to live and trade, many travelers, mainly religious monks, recorded the strict border laws that the Chinese enforced. As the monk Xuanzang and many other monk travelers attested to, there were many Chinese government checkpoints along the Silk Road where travel permits into the Tang Empire were examined. Furthermore, banditry was a problem along the checkpoints and oasis towns, as Xuanzang also recorded that his group of travelers was assaulted by bandits on multiple occasions.

The Silk Road also affected Tang dynasty art. Horses became a significant symbol of prosperity and power as well as an instrument of military and diplomatic policy. Horses were also revered as a relative of the dragon.

Chinese envoys had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India since perhaps the 2nd century BC, but it was during the Tang dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence was found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, into Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, Aksum (Ethiopia), and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

During the Tang dynasty, thousands of foreigners came and lived in numerous Chinese cities for trade and commercial ties with China, including Persians, Arabs, Hindu Indians, Malays, Bengalis, Sinhalese, Khmers, Chams, Jews and Nestorian Christians of the Near East, and many others. In 748, the Buddhist monk Jian Zhen described Guangzhou as a bustling mercantile center where many large and impressive foreign ships came to dock.

During the An Lushan Rebellion Arab and Persian pirates burned and looted Guangzhou in 758, and foreigners were massacred at Yangzhou in 760. The Tang government reacted by shutting the port of Canton down for roughly five decades, and foreign vessels docked at Hanoi instead. However, when the port reopened it thrived. In 851 the Arab merchant Sulaiman al-Tajir observed the manufacturing of Chinese porcelain in Guangzhou and admired its transparent quality. He also provided a description of Guangzhou's mosque, its granaries, its local government administration, some of its written records, and the treatment of travelers, along with the use of ceramics, rice-wine, and tea. However, in another bloody episode at Guangzhou in 879, the Chinese rebel Huang Chao sacked the city and purportedly slaughtered thousands of native Chinese, along with foreign Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims in the process. Huang's rebellion was eventually suppressed in 884.

The Chinese engaged in large-scale production for overseas export by at least the time of the Tang. This was proven by the discovery of the Belitung shipwreck, a silt-preserved shipwrecked Arabian dhow in the Gaspar Strait near Belitung, which contained 63,000 pieces of Tang ceramics, silver, and gold. Beginning in 785, the Chinese began to call regularly at Sufala on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middlemen, with various contemporary Chinese sources giving detailed descriptions of trade in Africa. In 863 the Chinese author Duan Chengshi (d. 863) provided a detailed description of the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade in a country called Bobali, which historians suggest was Berbera in Somalia. In Fustat (old Cairo), Egypt, the fame of Chinese ceramics there led to an enormous demand for Chinese goods; hence Chinese often traveled there. During this time period, the Arab merchant Shulama wrote of his admiration for Chinese seafaring junks, but noted that their draft was too deep for them to enter the Euphrates River, which forced them to ferry passengers and cargo in small boats. Shulama also noted that Chinese ships were often very large, with capacities of up to 600-700 passengers.

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Describe how the Tang dynasty prospered from trade Although the Silk Road from China to the West was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141-87 BCE), it was reopened by the Tang Empire in 639 CE when Hou Junji conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades.

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Dynasty Transitions in China

Transitions of power are never easy. Even here in the United States, where the process is pretty elegant, a new presidential election can be met with recounts and political backstabbing. When the transition involves the fall of an entire dynasty, a line of rulers from the same family, then even massive empires can fall apart. That's what happened in China in the early 600s. The Sui Dynasty fell out of power, and then the empire dissolved into smaller kingdoms controlled by warlords fighting for power. This gave the next rulers, the Tang Dynasty, the incredible chore of putting China back together again. With all the king's horses and all the king's men.

The End of the Sui Dynasty

In the early 600s, China was in an age of peace and prosperity. Nobody expected the empire to fall apart, let alone the emperor of the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Yang. In 610, China was expanding its borders, and Emperor Yang demanded that the King of Goguryeo (modern-day Korea) pay homage to him. This would not mean that China controlled Goguryeo, but it did mean the Goguryeo recognized China as the superior power. The King of Goguryeo refused, and Emperor Yang decided to go to war in 612 and teach the smaller kingdom a lesson.

Nobody thought the war would last long. Goguryeo was much smaller than China, but by the end of 612, China had lost over 300,000 soldiers and withdrew. Emperor Yang attacked again in 613 and 614, both times without success. He was planning another invasion in 615, but never got the chance.

China was weak from wars, and local warlords started amassing their own armies and taking control of their own territories. By 617, the little rebellions had grown to control major portions of Northern China, with roughly ten major warlords fighting for power. Emperor Yang took his armies and moved south. His highly trained army was almost entirely from the north, and after months away from their homes and families, they began to desert. Those who were caught were violently punished, which lead the army to completely turn against the emperor.

Emperor Yang was killed in a coup by the army in 618. His supporters proclaimed his grandson the new emperor of the Sui Dynasty, but at this point, China had fallen apart. The Sui had to take refuge with one of the warlords, and in 619, the young emperor officially gave up his power, formally ending the Sui Dynasty.

Re-Uniting China Under the Tang

One of the warlords who built their own army as the Sui Dynasty collapsed was Li Yuan, governor of the state of Tang. Li Yuan's cousin was the general who killed Emperor Yang in 618, prompting Li Yuan to declare himself Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty. He set up his capital in the Tang city Chang'an and set about unifying China under his leadership.

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reunification of china in the tang dynasty - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Reunification of China in the Tang Dynasty - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Transitions of power are never easy. Even here in the United States, where the process is pretty elegant, a new presidential election can be met with recounts and political backstabbing. When the transition involves the fall of an entire dynasty, a line of rulers from the same family, then even massive empires can fall apart.