Fall of the Tang dynasty

In 907 the Tang dynasty, which had ruled China since 618, came to an end. Zhu Wen, a powerful warlord based at Bianzhou (modern Kaifeng), forced the young Emperor Ai to abdicate and proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty, the Later Liang. The emperor, a teenager who had been a puppet for years, was killed the following year. With him went the last pretense of one government for all China.¹³

The collapse took more than a century. The An Lushan Rebellion of 755 to 763 nearly destroyed the dynasty, and to win the war the court gave regional military governors (jiedushi) control of armies and taxes. Many became hereditary rulers who obeyed the emperor only when it suited them. Rising taxes and the state salt monopoly burdened peasants, and floods and famine added misery. A salt smuggler named Huang Chao led a huge rebellion from 875 to 884 that sacked both great capitals, Chang'an and Luoyang. Zhu Wen began as one of Huang Chao's officers, switched sides to the court, and used the reward of high rank to build his own power while the emperors lost theirs. In 904 he had the court moved to Luoyang and had Chang'an dismantled.¹²⁴

After 907, China broke apart. Five short dynasties followed one another in the north, the Five Dynasties, while ten regional kingdoms rose in the south and west. Nomadic neighbors such as the Khitan, founders of the Liao dynasty, took advantage of the chaos. Unity returned only in 960, when the general Zhao Kuangyin founded the Song dynasty, and the Song completed the reunification of the Chinese heartland by 979. The fall of the Tang also ended an age of open, cosmopolitan culture centered on its great capital and the Silk Road, and later dynasties turned more inward.³⁴