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Kaiser Kuo, Dabbler in history
Answered May 12, 2015
The decline of the Tang,really began in the mid-8th century at the time of the An-Shi Rebellion. I''m going to dwell on this chapter of Tang history because it''s central to understanding the dynasty''s slow decline and eventual demise. Many of the problems that made the dynasty so weak after the rebellion are either evident in the rebellion itself, or resulted directly from it.
there are three other things I would focus on. They are 1) the dynasty''s persistent dependence on regional and often only semi-sinicized, semi-nomadic militarists; 2) the loss of control of the very important pastureland and the horse trade, which sapped the military might available to the very cavalry-dependent Tang military; and 3) the inward, anti-foreign turn that Tang state and society took, which stood in very stark contrast to the cosmopolitan embrace of the foreign that characterized the dynasty in its first, more vigorous half.
Yes, the dynasty continued on for another century-and-a-half (to 907) and there were actually significant stretches where stability and peace prevailed, where meaningful administrative reforms were implemented, and where culture continued to flourish. But fundamental problems were created by or exacerbated by the mid-8th century rebellion, and Tang never truly recaptured the glory of the Kaiyuan Shengshi, its belle epoch—the Xuanzong reign, 712–755.

唐王朝的衰落真正开始于8世纪中叶的安史之乱。我将详细讨论唐朝历史的这一章，因为它是理解唐朝缓慢衰落和最终灭亡的核心。起义后使王朝如此软弱的任何问题要么在起义本身中很明显，要么就是直接由起义引起的。
有三件事我要关注。它们是：
1，王朝对地区的持续依赖，而且往往只有半中国化的、半游牧的军国主义者；
2，失去了对非常重要的牧场和马匹贸易的控制，削弱了非常依赖骑兵的唐军可能拥有的军事力量；3，唐朝国家和社会采取的向内、排外的转向，这与前半个朝代更具活力的外向性拥抱世界形成了非常鲜明的对比。
是的，这个王朝又持续了一个半世纪(到907年)，实际上有很长的一段时间，稳定与和平占主导地位，实施了有意义的行政改革，文化继续繁荣。但基本问题是由8世纪中叶的叛乱造成或加剧的，唐朝从未真正夺回开元盛世的荣耀，它的开元盛世--玄宗统治，公元712-755。
First, a bit about the An-Shi or An Lushan Rebellion (in Chinese, literally "the Chaos of An-Shi," 安史之乱, An-Shi zhi luan). The "An" refers to An Lushan, and the "Shi" to a follower of his named Shi Siming, who carried on the rebellion after An''s death. An Lushan was an important military commander of Sogdian and Turkic descent. Lushan appears to have been the sinicized form of his Sogdian name, Rokhshan. A favorite of Yang Guifei, or "Precious Consort Yang," a favorite of the Xuanzong Emperor (a.k.a. Tang Minghuang, r. 712–755), An Lushan clashed with her cousin, Yang Guozhong, who was chancellor during the latter years of Xuanzong''s reign, and believing a plot was afoot to strip him of command, he rebelled in 755.
首先，关于安史之乱（中文，字面意思是“安史之乱”，）。“安”是指安禄山，而“史”则是指安禄山的一个追随者，他的名字叫史思明，他在安禄山死后进行了叛乱。安禄山是粟特人和突厥人后裔的重要军事指挥官。安禄山似乎是他的粟特人名字Rokhshan的中国化形式。杨贵妃（又名“贵妃，杨贵妃”，玄宗皇帝（又名唐明皇，R.712-755））的宠儿，安禄山与玄宗末年的大臣杨国忠（音译）的表妹发生冲突，他认为有阴谋要剥夺他的指挥权，于是于755年叛变。

What was a half-Turkic, half-Sogdian doing commanding some of Tang China''s most important military units? A bit of background about Tang is in order.
During the long period between the effective collapse of the Eastern Han dynasty in the late 2nd century (it formally ended in 220, but for the last 36 years or so was a fiction) until the Sui dynasty reunified China in the late 6th century, China was very much divided, with at best very short periods of quasi-unity. During that time, North China saw many different groups of proto-Mongolic, and later Tungusic and Turkic peoples cross the line between steppe and sown and carve out kingdoms for themselves on the corpse of the Han dynasty. By the time of the Sui reunification, the aristocracy of North China was heavily intermarried with these people from the steppe. They affected dress that was heavily influenced by Central Asia (trousers, mainly), they valued horsemanship and horseback archery, and they played a game that''s an unmistakable ancestor of polo.
The Li family dynasts who overthrew Sui in 618 to found Tang were very much of that Sino-Turkic aristocracy. The first great emperor of Tang, Li Shimin, even had a felt tent in his courtyard, and was known to be a great rider and archer. The Tang''s chief enemies were the more fully nomadic peoples to the north: Various Turkic confederations. They fought them in very much the same manner, with horse, composite bow, and lance.
This is why mounted troops were important. And because horse archery is a difficult skill to master and the best were those basically born in the saddle, Central Asian troops were always highly valued. The best forces were drawn from the border areas, the marches, that they were protecting mainly from people not much different from themselves. Think of Rome''s auxiliaries in the 4th century: Gauls, Franks, and Goths in the West, and further east, your Scythians and Sarmatians and what have you.

一个半突厥半粟特人在指挥唐朝一些最重要的军事单位是干什么的？必须得有关于唐的背景知识才能懂。
从2世纪末东汉王朝的崩溃(它在220年正式结束，但之前的36年左右是一个虚构的)到6世纪末隋朝重新统一中国，中国的分裂非常严重，充其量只有很短的准统一时期。在那段时间里，华北出现了许多不同的原始蒙古人，后来通古斯人和突厥人越过草原和农耕的界线，在汉朝的废墟上建立了自己的王国。到隋朝统一时，华北贵族与草原上的这些人大量通婚。他们影响了深受中亚影响的服装(主要是裤子)，他们重视马术和马背射箭，他们玩的游戏无疑是马球的祖先。
公元618年推翻隋朝建立唐朝的李氏家族王朝，很大程度上属于中国-突厥贵族。唐朝第一位伟大的皇帝李世民，甚至在他的院子里有一个毡帐，并且他被认为是一个伟大的骑手和弓箭手。唐朝的主要敌人是北方更全面的游牧民族：各种突厥人联盟。他们用非常相似的方式与他们战斗，用马，复合弓和长矛。
这就是骑兵之所以重要的原因。而且由于射马是一项难以掌握的技能，而且最好的是那些基本上出生在马鞍上的人，所以来自中亚军队一直受到高度重视。最好的部队来自边境地区，他们主要保护与自己没有太大区别的人。想想罗马在4世纪的辅助力量：西方的高卢人、法兰克人和哥特人，以及更远的东方人，斯基泰人和萨尔马提亚人以及你所拥有的一切。
（译注：斯基泰人（Scythians，希腊语Σκύθαι），是公元前8世纪—公元前3世纪位于中亚和南俄草原上印欧语系东伊朗语族之游牧民族。又译“西古提”人(（Skutai）、西徐亚人或赛西亚人；古代波斯人称之为Saka（萨卡人），分为戴尖帽塞人、饮豪麻汁塞人、海那边的塞人；古代亚述人称之为Ashkuzai，古波斯和古印度人称之为Saka；古希腊人称之为Skuthoi或Sacae；中国《史记》、《汉书》中称之为“塞”或“塞种”、尖帽塞人或萨迦人。）
（译注：公元前3～公元4世纪时南俄草原及巴尔干东部地区的居民。属东伊朗人种，操北伊朗语。原来生活在咸海沿岸及其以东地区。公元前6世纪时，开始向西北移动，进入乌拉尔丘陵地带。公元前 5世纪时，已占据乌拉尔河与顿河之间的草原。公元前4世纪时，萨尔马特人越过顿河，开始攻击斯基泰人。至公元前2世纪，已征服了大部分斯基泰部落，成为南俄草原的霸主。公元1世纪时，控制除克里木半岛以外的所有南俄草原地区，转而与罗马帝国为敌。）

An Lushan commanded such a force, centered around modern Hebei province in the area surrounding modern Beijing. (Indeed, during the rebellion he established a short-lived state in Beijing, called Yan after the Yan kingdom of the Warring States period).

The irony is that the commanders and troops that were raised to end the An-Shi Rebellion were also often drawn from this same type, but the price for their help was even greater autonomy. These jiedushi (节度使)— military governors or military commissioners of regional commanderies—were really just straight-up warlords. Both An Lushan and the most effective general who fought him and Shi Siming, a general named Guo Ziyi (who family legend, without any evidence I''ve ever seen, claims is my ancestor) were jiedushi. Their internecine power struggles, and their increasing independence from the court, would be a major cause of the Tang decline.

It''s significant that the first emperor of the Song dynasty, which (after a 54-year period of chaos and disorder that followed on the Tang''s actual collapse in 907) reunified China in 960, put an end to the jiedushi system basically by summoning all the military governors to a banquet and convincing them to take a nice severance package and retire from military life.

安禄山指挥着这样一支力量，以近代河北省为中心，在近代北京周边地区。（事实上，在叛乱期间，他在北京建立了一个短暂的国家，在战国时期的燕国之后被称为燕国）。
具有讽刺意味的是，为结束安史之乱而提拔出来的指挥官和部队往往也是从这一类型中抽调出来的，但他们帮助的代价是更大的自治权。这些节度使)---军事长官或地区指挥官的军事专员---实际上只是直截了当的军阀。
（译注：郭子仪（697年—781年），字子仪，华州郑县（今陕西渭南市华州区） [1] 人。唐朝名将，政治家、军事家。
早年以武举中第，入仕从军，累迁九原太守，未受重用。安史之乱爆发后，拜朔方节度使，率兵勤王，收复河北和河东地区，拜兵部尚书、同平章事。至德二年（757年），辅佐广平王李俶收复两京，迁司徒，封代国公。乾元元年（758年），拜中书令。乾元二年（759年）五月，承担相州兵败之责，罢职赋闲。
宝应元年（762年）初年，河东兵变后，封为汾阳王，起兵平定叛乱，事后解除兵权。广德元年（763年）冬天，吐蕃攻破长安后，奉命调兵遣将，驱逐吐蕃敌军。 广德二年（764年），仆固怀恩引领吐蕃和回纥入侵时，单骑说服回纥，合兵大破吐蕃。
大历十四年（779年），唐德宗即位后，拜太尉、中书令，充皇陵使，赐号“尚父”，增加食邑，剥夺实权。建中二年（781年），去世，享年八十五岁，追赠太师，谥号忠武，配飨代宗庙廷，陪葬建陵。）
一个阻止安史之乱最有效的将军名叫郭子怡(他的家族传说，没有任何证据，我从未见过，听说是我的祖先)是节度使。他们之间的权力斗争，以及他们日益独立于朝廷之外，将是唐朝衰落的主要原因。
宋朝的第一位皇帝在960年统一了中国，结束了唐朝在907年崩溃后长达54年的混乱和混战，并且基本上结束了节度使制度，召集了所有的军官参加宴会，说服他们接受一个不错的遣散费，然后从军中退休，这一点很有意义。

That''s the first factor, then: An Lushan''s uprising actually ushered in a period of even greater warlord power, with increasingly ineffective central control with all that entailed—declining tax receipts, no upkeep of important imperial projects like irrigation systems and canals, inability to suppress the inevitable peasant uprisings like the Huang Chao rebellion, which really delivered the mortal blow to the dynasty in the 880s.
The second factor I mentioned was the loss of control of vital pastureland and horses. (I believe this argument was one I came across in a work by Mark Elvin called The Pattern of the Chinese Past, but it''s been a long time!). After An Lushan rebelled, the Tang court was actually forced to flee the imperial capital, Chang''an (modern Xi''an). The largely unguarded capital was left wide open to the predations of other "barbarians," and the Tibetans advanced against the city in 763—they did not press their siege that time—and again in 765. This time, Guo Ziyi, who had led the first successful attack, managed to turn the Uyghur allies of the Tibetans against them, and brought them over to the Tang side of the fight. The Tibetan problem was solved, but Uyghurs thereafter dominated the horse trade out of Chang''an, and also came to control the strategic pasturelands of the Gansu Corridor. Tang thereafter had seriously reduced access to quality horseflesh.

这就是第一个因素：安禄山起义实际上带来了一个更强大的军阀统治时期，中央控制越来越无效，所有这些都伴随着，税收收入不断减少，灌溉系统和运河等重要帝国工程没有得到维护，无法压制不可避免的农民起义，比如黄巢起义，黄巢在880年代真的给了这个王朝致命的打击。
（我相信这一论点是我在马克·艾文的一部名为《中国过去的模式》的作品中遇到的，但已经很久了！）。安禄山起义后，唐朝实际上被迫逃离了帝国首都长安（现代西安）。
这座基本上无人看守的首都对其他“野蛮人”的捕食敞开了大门，吐蕃人在763年向这座城市进军--他们当时没有强行围攻--并且在765年又来了一次。
这一次，成功平顶安史之乱的郭子仪，设法使吐蕃的回鹘族盟友与吐蕃作对，并把他们带到了唐方的战斗中。吐蕃问题解决了，但此后回鹘人主宰了长安的马匹贸易，也控制了甘肃走廊的战略牧场。此后，唐朝严重减少了获得良马的机会。

And finally, the inward turn I mentioned. Tang China was famously cosmopolitan in its heyday, and much of its strength derived from the openness of and diversity of its society, and the syncretic nature of its cultural and intellectual life—a bit like America, perhaps, today. That changed after the An Shi rebellion. Things that were foreign were suddenly regarded with a certain distrust. Students of Chinese history, at least back in my day, would learn that this inward turn was best exemplified by an aggressively conservative Confucian scholar named Han Yu (768–824). Han Yu, who is widely regarded as a forerunner of the Confucian revival of the Song and Ming dynasties that would come to be called Neo-Confucianism, was (it is said; I can''t personally attest to this) an extremely gifted prose stylist and a very influential writer. Among his most famous works is memorial—a screed, really—against Buddhism, which he wrote on learning that the reigning emperor planned on erecting some monument for, and throwing a grand procession to commemorate, a Buddhist relic, reportedly the finger bone of the Gautama Buddha. He attacked Buddhism on the grounds that it was foreign, which was a tremendous change from the earlier half of the dynasty when there was a craze for all things foreign.
The blow that mortally weakened Tang was the Huang Chao rebellion, which raged for a full decade from 874 to 884. It was in many ways your standard, textbook peasant uprising resulting from all the usual markers of a dynastic decline: Famine, natural catastrophe, burdensome taxation, eunuch corruption and what have you. Huang Chao himself though was an interesting character. He was very wealthy, as the son of very successful salt merchants (or smugglers), and despite his first-rate education was a failed civil service exam candidate. He was able to basically buy himself a substantial private army. It was a lieutenant of Huang Chao, a first bought off by the Tang court, who finally brought the rotting dynasty to its final ignominious end.

最后，我提到了内心的转变，唐朝在鼎盛时期以国际化著称，其实力很大程度上来自于社会的开放性和多样性，以及文化和知识生活的融合性——也许有点像今天的美国。
安史起义后，情况发生了变化。突然间，人们对外国的东西产生了某种不信任。至少在我那个时代，中国历史的学生会发现，这种内向的转变最好的例证是一位激进的保守的儒家学者韩愈（768-824）。韩愈被广泛认为是宋明理学复兴的圣人，他是一位极具天赋的散文文学家和一位非常有影响力的作家。他最著名的作品之一是《祭十二郎文》，这是一部真正反对佛教的作品，他是在得知皇帝计划为一件据说是高达摩佛陀的指骨的佛教文物竖立纪念碑，并举行盛大的游行来纪念时写的。他攻击佛教是因为它是外国的，这是一个巨大的变化，从上半个王朝时，当时对一切外国的东西都很狂热。
（译注：韩愈（768年－824年12月25日），字退之，河南河阳（今河南省孟州市）人。自称“郡望昌黎”，世称“韩昌黎”、“昌黎先生”。唐代杰出的文学家、思想家、哲学家、政治家。）
（译注：《祭十二郎文》是唐代文学家韩愈一篇对其侄十二郎所写的祭文。文章既没有铺排，也没有张扬，作者善于融抒情于叙事之中，在对身世、家常、生活遭际朴实的叙述中，表现出对兄嫂及侄儿深切的怀念和痛惜，一往情深，感人肺腑。反正感觉就是说佛教是悲观主义）
唐朝受到的致命打击是从874年到884年，整整十年的黄巢起义。在许多方面，公认的说法会认为，这是教科书式的农民起义，是由王朝衰落的所有通常标志所导致的：饥荒，自然灾害，繁重的税收，太监腐败和你所拥有的一切。
不过，黄巢本人是个有趣的人物。作为一个非常成功的盐商（或走私者）的儿子，他非常富有，尽管他受过一流的教育，他还是一个考试失败的公务员候选人，他基本上能为自己买一支庞大的私人军队。黄巢的中尉只是他买的，所以是谁终于把腐朽的带向了耻辱的结局？
（译注：黄巢起义，指的是乾符五年（878年）至中和四年（884年）由黄巢领导的民变，是王仙芝起义的后续。也是唐末民变中，历时最久，遍及最大，影响最深远的一场农民起义。黄巢之乱转战近半唐朝江山，导致唐末国力大衰。）