Crisis And Reconstruction

This thesis aims at the crisis and renewal of the Tang dynasty after An Lu-shan’s rebellion. The crisis of the Tang dynasty was from the military cliques in the north peripheral region. An Lu-shan’s rebellion was just the obvious representation of this crisis. After An Lu-shan’s rebellion, the powerful new provincial administrations emerged, which has long been regarded as the symbol of the decline of the Tang political authority. However, I think the provinces’emergence witnessed the effort to deal with the crisis from the military cliques and to renew the political authority by the Tang central government. And the effort which was to eliminate the old military cliques from the north peripheral region was very successful. At the end of the Xianzong era, the crisis was almost over. However, when the old military cliques exited, the new local cliques rose. They finally replaced the former and became the new host of the provinces. This thesis provides a comprehensive study of the collapse process of these military cliques. By choosing some important incidents about provinces from the four important regions, Henan, Guanzhong, Hepei and Yangtse-Huai regin, and placing these incidents in a broad context of the late eighth and ninth century polities, this thesis argues that the relationship between the provinces and the court and the provincial power structure were changing radically during the late eighth and ninth century. At the same time, two important trends appeared clearly. One is the increasing contact and dependence between the different regions coupled with the centralization. The other is the rise of the local force coupled with the centralization as well. And they were just the important representation of "Tang-Song transformation"...