Day of Empire

by Amy Chua

  Moreover, China's religious landscape had completely transformed since the fall of the Han dynasty. By the time the Tang emperors took power in 618, Buddhism—founded in India and brought to China by merchants and missionaries—had become China's predominant religion, with more followers than indigenous Taoism. Buddhism adapted itself to China by accommodating and absorbing local elements. While Buddhist and Taoist priests often fought bitterly, most ordinary Chinese had no problem worshipping Buddhist, Taoist, and local deities simultaneously. For the layman, Buddhism's promise of paradise was also far more appealing than the traditional Chinese view of the afterlife, in which a tiny few achieved immortality, with everyone else relegated to gloomy underworld jails.6

  Finally, at least in northern China, the sharp line between Chinese and barbarians had blurred. During the centuries of anarchy between 220 and 581, a number of “barbarian” rulers conquered parts of northern China and established independent kingdoms. Many of these rulers adopted Chinese customs and intermarried with socially powerful Chinese families, giving rise to a mixed-blooded aristocracy who rode on horseback, supported Buddhism, and spoke both Chinese and Turkic languages. (Because most nomads had no written language, mastery of Chinese was crucial for any official position.) The control of the north by sinicized, often highly cultured former nomads and the prevalence of intermarriage complicated the traditional view in which Chinese were civilized and barbarians were not. Indeed, the Tang emperors themselves, while claiming descent from the famous Han general Li Guangli as well as the Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu, hailed from north China's mixed aristocracy and were probably no more than half Chinese.7

  These and other factors converged to produce a dynasty more tolerant of foreign cultures, religions, and influences than any other in Chinese history. This tolerance was exemplified in the person of Taizong, the second Tang emperor, whom many regard as the wisest and most heroic of China's rulers. Historians often describe Taizong as “the real founder” of the Tang dynasty, although his ascension to the throne involves a surprisingly grim story.

  THE EMPIRE BUILDER

  Taizong was born Li Shimin, one of several sons of Gaozu. It was Li Shimin who, as a youth of seventeen, provoked his father into rebelling against the Sui rulers in 617. After his father's taking of Changan, the emerging Tang regime faced hundreds of rebellious movements as well as challenges from powerful rival clans. Over the next seven years, Li Shimin led troops to one decisive victory after another, outmaneuvering far larger armies while keeping the Turks neutralized on the northern border. By 624, the Li family had consolidated power in both north and south China. Absolutely critical to Tang military success was the use of foreigners. The Li family built its conquering forces by incorporating foreign armies whose leaders were allowed to continue to command their troops and govern the territory they brought with them into the empire.8

  From the moment the Tang dynasty was established, Li Shimin and his brothers contended for power. In 626 Li Shimin murdered his older brother, the heir apparent, and stood by as one of his officers killed another brother. He then deposed his own father and went on to rule as Emperor Taizong for more than two decades (626-649). Despite his brutal treatment of his family, Taizong is a revered figure in Chinese history—noted, surprisingly, for his benevolence.

  Taizong's goal was to establish a universal empire in which Chinese and barbarians would be equals and in which he would rule over all, both as emperor and as Turkish khan. In Taizong's own words: “The emperors from ancient times all appreciated the Chinese and depreciated the barbarians. Only I view them as equal. That is why they look upon me as their parent.” Like his father, Taizong incorporated submitted peoples into the empire, making particular use of Turkic and other foreign leaders as generals, granting them Chinese titles, marriage alliances, and even the royal surname Li. His claim that the Turks looked upon him as a parent was no empty boast. Taizong was adept in both Chinese and Turkish customs. Even as a child, he formed close friendships with a Western Turkic prince and an Eastern Turkic khan. Such relationships later helped make him acceptable as ruler of the nomads.

  Taizong was a brilliant military strategist, and vast lands were brought under Middle Kingdom control during his reign. Whereas the Han emperors had been content to leave the northern steppes beyond China's Great Wall to the nomads, ruled by their own “khan,” Taizong was even more ambitious. In 630, through a combination of “personal charisma, bluff, nomadic ceremonies, and battle tactics,” Taizong so impressed the Mongolian Turks that their chieftains offered him the title of Heavenly Khan. Taizong accepted, becoming the first Chinese ruler to establish dominion over the steppes.9

  Taizong's simultaneous accession to the titles Son of Heaven and Heavenly Khan was unprecedented. The Turkish title Heavenly Khan, with its deep roots in nomadic tradition, legitimized Taizong's authority beyond the Great Wall. Just as striking was Taizong's surprisingly modern rhetoric of tolerance. “The Yi and Di [peoples of the steppe] are also just human beings,” he argued, “and their natures are not different from those of the Chinese. A ruler's concern is that the beneficence of his virtue may not extend to them, and he should not suspect them because of racial differences.”10

  Taizong's egalitarian rhetoric should not, of course, be taken entirely at face value. It was probably more propaganda than a true description of policy, intended more for the Turks than for the Chinese. Still, it is important to keep in mind that Taizong's pronouncements ran directly counter to imperial precedent and the Chinese worldview at the time (and, arguably, the Chinese world-view even today).

  By combining Turkic and Chinese forces, Taizong extended Tang control throughout central Asia and across the Pamir Mountains into modern-day Afghanistan. Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent all became Chinese administrative districts. Tibet and Turkic tribes as far west as the Caspian Sea submitted to Chinese suzerainty. Without the nomadic forces behind him, these conquests would not have been possible. Taizong's successors further extended Tang rule, engulfing Manchuria, most of the Korean peninsula, central Vietnam, and parts of present-day Iran. During Taizong's reign, no other empire in the world came close to the Tang in size, population, or military power.

  From the start of his reign, Taizong recognized the potential benefits of trade. Early on, while his empire was still recovering from extended warfare, Taizong emptied the coffers of the state to renovate the Silk Road. Simultaneously, he worked to wrest control of the western regions and oasis states from the Western Turks, completing his conquest of that empire in 658. With the Silk Road made safer than ever by greater Tang control and protection, foreigners and their goods poured into Changan, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, from central and south Asia. Foreign goods and fashions flowed to the rest of China from there. Embassies came from as far west as the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian empires.

  Tang China eventually had official contacts with more than three hundred countries and regions. Diplomacy and commerce in-termeshed, often indistinguishable: Much exchange of goods resulted from the tribute system, and foreign missionaries and merchants often traveled in single convoys. A complex bureaucracy worked to manage every aspect of foreign relations: corresponding with foreign envoys; arranging emissaries’ travel and accommodations within China; bestowing Chinese titles on foreign kings; registering tribute goods and gifts to the emperor; employing translators; compiling information on foreign customs, geography, and products. All Chinese foreign officials, bureaucrats, and even Chinese princesses married to foreign rulers were expected to report back with information about foreign states.

  The massive increase in foreign interaction corresponded with a broad love of foreign things: “The Chinese taste for the exotic permeated every social class and every part of daily life.” Chinese in Changan and Luoyang wore Turkish and Persian clothing, men and women both favoring barbarian hats, especially when going riding. The fashionability of Turkish things even led some Chinese in the bustle of the capital to live in tents.
South Asian forests were denuded for exotic timbers to go into Chinese gaming boards, furniture, decorative and religious carvings, mansions and palaces, temples and monasteries. Chinese cherished foreign drugs, foods, and spices for their medicinal and magical properties. Powerful Indian aromatics were highly coveted. Court ladies were so heavily scented that a procession could reportedly be detected several miles away.

  Foreign animals delighted the ruling classes and the common people alike. Lions, rhinoceroses, and elephants were all presented to Tang emperors by foreign emissaries as gifts. Foreigners themselves were often cherished “goods.” Wealthy Chinese families bought foreign slaves to serve in their households, and foreign musicians, dancers, dwarfs, and courtesans were sent to the Tang court as gifts from foreign rulers. Though there were periodic attempts to wean themselves from corrupting foreign exotics, the Chinese simply could not get enough foreign goods.”

  Love of foreign things, however, should not be confused with love of foreigners. Among most Chinese, suspicion and hatred of foreigners always coexisted with love of their products. Indeed, Taizong's alliances with barbarian tribes were deeply opposed by his own largely Confucian court, which remained stubbornly committed to the idea of inherent Chinese superiority.

  This ethnocentric worldview was reflected in the enormously influential Tang Code, promulgated by Taizong's legal advisors and later adopted, sometimes in its entirety, by subsequent dynasties, as well as by rulers in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. At least on paper, the Tang Code called for the segregation of Chinese and non-Chinese. Under the code, foreign settlements were generally limited to the trade centers of Changan, Luoyang, Canton, and Yangzhou, and to the corridors along the land trade routes. Moreover, foreigners were not supposed to talk to Chinese unless they had business with them, and Chinese who married foreigners were to be exiled to a distance of 2,000 //’ (roughly 400 miles).

  These provisions, however, were not strictly enforced. Indeed, it is difficult to square the segregationist Tang Code with the realities of the Tang imperial family. Taizong himself was the product of Chinese-barbarian intermarriage, and strategic marriages with the ruling families of the steppe were a common Tang device for cementing critical alliances. In addition, Taizong was extraordinarily receptive to foreigners and foreign influences. For example, Taizong relocated 70,000 people from Korea into China; Korean aristocrats and officials who settled in China were given honorific titles. At another point, over the intense objections of some advisors, Taizong brought a hundred Turkic families to Changan, to test whether they could be assimilated into Chinese culture. He also ensured that Chinese and non-Chinese soldiers served together in integrated military units.

  Moreover, Taizong was conspicuously open to foreign religions. Around 645, China's most famous Buddhist monk, Xuan-zang, returned to Changan after a sixteen-year pilgrimage in central Asia and India, bringing with him more than 650 Indian texts and 150 “authentic” relics of Buddha. Emperor Taizong received the home-coming monk with great honor, showering him with gifts and granting him a title. At the emperor's request, Xuan-zang recorded his travels, describing in colorful detail his adventures in Bactria, Persia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and eventually India, where he had been warmly received by the great Hindu king Siladitya.12

  With Emperor Taizong as his patron, Xuanzang devoted the rest of his life to translating the Sanskrit texts he had brought back. The emperor was deeply influenced by the monk. The year before he died, when poor health led him to seek Buddhist longevity drugs, Taizong declared Buddhism superior to Chinese religions. (Some historians now believe that the Buddhist drugs, administered by an Indian doctor claiming to be two hundred years old, unfortunately may have poisoned the emperor.)13

  In fact, Taizong's reign was one of the most religiously pluralistic in Chinese history. Taizong welcomed not only Buddhism but the new, unfamiliar religions that foreigners from even farther west brought with them to Tang China. During his reign, Zoroastrian-ism, Manichaeism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity—all introduced to China by travelers along the Silk Road—were freely practiced by their largely foreign followers. In Changan's Western Market, where the foreign population clustered, Persian merchants sacrificed live animals at Zoroastrian fire altars, while in the mornings and evenings muezzins atop minarets summoned the Muslim faithful to prayer. Today, a great mosque complex with both Chinese and Arabic inscriptions still stands in Changan.14

  Nestorian Christianity, a mixture of Christian and Near Eastern religions, also came to China under Taizong. In 635, a Nestorian monk known by the Chinese as O Lo Pen (possibly a translation of “Ruben”) arrived at the imperial court. Taizong granted him several audiences, pressing the monk each time with questions about his beliefs and at one point ordering the translation of his sacred books. Favorably impressed, Taizong not only authorized the construction of a Nestorian temple in Changan but issued the following edict:

  The Way has more than one name. There is more than one Sage. Doctrines vary in different lands, their benefits reach all mankind. O Lo Pen, a man of great virtue from [the Roman Empire] has brought his images and books from afar to present them in our capital. After examining his doctrines we find them profound and pacific. After studying his principles we find that they stress what is good and important. His teaching is not diffuse and his reasoning is sound. This religion does good to all men. Let it be preached freely in Our Empire.15

  Taizong's rule had unsettling effects on China's traditional social hierarchy. In 632, Taizong ordered that a genealogy be compiled of the empire's most important families. This proved humiliating. While intermarriage between Chinese and non-Chinese was not uncommon during the Tang period, China's most aristocratic clans remained “pure-blooded” Chinese, who looked down on the “semi-barbarian” clans of the northwest no matter how sinicized they were. To Taizong's fury, the report ranked the emperor's own family in lowly third place. Taizong rejected the draft, with instructions for its revision. Needless to say, the second edition of the report came back with the imperial family ranked first.

  The new genealogy also did something else, of great import. It raised the status of the families of Taizong's highest ministers— whom the emperor selected on the basis of ability and Confucian learning—over China's most powerful hereditary clans. This change had two significant implications. First, it elevated the scholar-official over mere aristocratic lineage. Second, it foreshadowed the rise of meritocracy in Chinese government through the civil service examination system. The latter institution, which would transform not only Chinese but much of East Asian society, was not established by Taizong himself. The person principally responsible for its development was the extraordinary Empress Wu, a former concubine who became the first and only woman officially to rule China.16

  THE EMPRESS AND THE APHRODISIACS

  The son chosen by Taizong as his heir was an unusual personality, perhaps mentally disturbed. He refused to speak Chinese, insisting instead on speaking Turkish, following Turkish customs, and wearing Turkish dress. His homosexual affair with a court entertainer infuriated his father, who ordered the lover killed. Eventually the heir-prince himself was killed, and another of Taizong's sons ascended the throne as Emperor Gaozong. But Gaozong was weak and indolent, and for most of his long reign (649-683) he ruled as the puppet of his wife, the Empress Wu.

  Wu Zhao was a woman of exceptional beauty and intelligence and ruthless political opportunism. At the age of twelve, she became a concubine in the elderly Emperor Taizong's court. According to custom, after Taizong's death in 649, Wu Zhao should have shaved her head and become a Buddhist nun, along with all the other concubines who had not borne children. Whether she did or not is the subject of debate, but in any event, Wu Zhao quickly infatuated the new Emperor Gaozong, becoming his favorite consort and giving birth to his son in 652. In 655 she was elevated to the status of empress. Shortly afterward, to remove any threat to her power, she reputedly disposed of Gaozong's first wife and a rival concubine by or
dering their arms and legs cut off and then dumping both women in a wine vat. When her husband suffered a paralyzing stroke in 660, she became the de facto ruler of China. In 690, seven years after Gaozong's death, Wu Zhao officially seized the throne, adopting the title of emperor and proclaiming a new dynasty called Zhou. For the first and only time in Chinese history, a woman assumed the Mandate of Heaven.17

  A woman openly ruling as emperor of China violated the Confucian order, in which women obeyed men. (Not surprisingly, traditional historians, most of whom were Confucianists, did not treat Empress Wu kindly.) Empress Wu, however, shrewdly used Buddhism to legitimize her rule. With the help of one of her lovers—a cosmetics and aphrodisiac peddler turned monk— Empress Wu in 694 declared herself the reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, a messiah who would one day rule over a future paradise. Empress Wu also funded fantastic monuments such as the giant Longmen Cave Buddha, carved out of solid stone and rising fifty-five feet high. Under the empress's rule, Buddhism in China, already a powerful economic and political force, grew increasingly sinicized, branching off into new, highly influential Chinese sects and schools. In the eighth century China became a leading source of Buddhist dissemination, with foreign pilgrims and even monks from India traveling to China to honor Chinese bodhisattvas.18

  Empress Wu further transformed China's traditional social structure. She removed from government positions members of the northwestern aristocracy, who had monopolized power in China for centuries. At one point she ordered hundreds of these aristocrats executed. The empress also systematized and expanded the civil service examination system, creating a new class of government officials selected by competition, not bloodline. The result was by no means a pure meritocracy: Only people from well-placed families had access to the Confucian education necessary to prepare for the examinations. Nevertheless, the empress's innovations marked a turning point in Chinese history. The newly established state examination system reflected the radical new principle that government officials should be recruited solely on the basis of their education and literary talent, as opposed to hereditary privilege.19