The Army and the System of Government

Another major institutional basis of the Tang that had evolved in the Northern dyn­asties and then disintegrated in the first half of the dynasty was the army. The mil­itary forces in the first century of the Tang were composed of hereditary military households of high social status, supplemented with foreign allies and mercenaries.

The most famous element of the early Tang system was the fu-bing, the “regi­mental army,” but it also included the hereditary Northern Army of the capital, the princely guards recruited from the sons of elite families, and non-Chinese nomadic mercenaries.^[1091] The regimental army, formally refounded in 636 and based on the Sui central army, was composed of about 600 fu, or regimental headquarters, each of which controlled between 800 and 1,200 men. These fu were concentrated in the areas around the capital. Each man received an allotment of land. Initially, men came from large, well-to-do families who would provide labor while one adult male devoted himself to military training. In this way the troops could attain near profes­sional quality, without draining the state's budget. Members of the regiments were expected to provide basic weapons and provisions, with armor and more elaborate weapons provided by the state.

In addition, the Tang army at the capital—the core of the dynasty's military forces—consisted of the princely guards, who were selected from sons of the elite families of the area, and the Northern Camp army, composed of descendants of the Tang founder's army. Frontier garrisons were made up of elements of the regimental armies and non-Chinese mercenaries. Expeditionary armies consisted of men from the regimental army, the armies of the capital, and non-Chinese allies, primarily Turks, who were assembled for a single campaign. This was intended to field well- trained soldiers, reduce costs, and prevent frontier armies from developing per­sonal ties to their commanders through protracted time together in the field.^[1092]

Gradually the threats of Tibet in the west, the Khitan and Bohai in the east, and a renewed Turkish Empire to the north rendered the Tang armies obsolete. Instead the Tang had to keep large armies at the frontier for indefinite periods.^[1093] At the same time, regiments in the Guanzhong region could provide their turns of duty in the capital and service in expeditionary armies only by increasing the number of men recruited. This led to the forced induction of men from poor families, reducing the prestige of military service. Elite families consequently began to avoid service, so the regimental army increasingly relied on ill-trained peasant levies. Thus the cap­ital armies and foreign mercenary armies at the frontiers supplanted the old military households, and in 749 the calling up of the regimental armies to serve in the central army was abolished.^[1094]

Large armies permanently at the frontier thus emerged as the major Tang mil­itary force. This entailed three major changes: a new style of soldier, a new geo­graphic distribution of forces, and a new structure of command.

The Tang forces were also distributed in a new manner. As of742 they were organ­ized into 10 regional commands, stretching in an arc from Liaodong in the east to Sichuan in the west. One large army was located at each commander’s headquarter under his direct control. The rest of the forces were distributed in forts. These static forces defended the borders against low-level incursions, while the headquarter ar­mies formed a strategic reserve against larger forces of invaders.^[1095]

Finally, the standing commands also developed a new style of officer corps. Whereas the leadership of earlier armies had been drawn from members of the local elite who commanded forces from their own communities, the officers in the mid­eighth-century armies were largely promoted from the ranks. They thus constituted an elite among the new professional forces and, like the men they commanded, they were drawn largely from poor Tang subjects or from nomad soldiers.^[1096] The officer corps thus became a major avenue for social mobility in the late Tang.

At the peak of this new style of officer were the “military governors” who coordi­nated and commanded the armies stationed at the frontier. To facilitate performing their role, these governors received powers of civil administration in their regions. By the mid-eighth century they had become de facto provincial governors, attaining such power that they threatened the central government. However, the needs of fron­tier defense trumped any concern at court about rebellion.

The Tang court also gradually changed the nature of these military governors.

These military reforms continued into the second half of the Tang, and indeed were extended. Most important was the appointment of military governors in in­terior provinces. Seeking new sources of men to fight An Lushan, the Tang court set up military governors throughout the areas under their control. The army that ultimately defeated the rebels consisted of forces from nine military governors, of which only three represented frontier commands that had existed prior to the re­bellion. By the end of the rebellion in 763 there were approximately 40 commands distributed throughout the north, commands whose generals held concurrent of­fice as the civil governors of the regions under their control. Such commands con­tinued to rule most of northeastern and central China for the rest of the Tang, with only brief periods in which the court was able to assert control.^[1098]