With neither its power, its wealth nor its population having been equalled by any predecessor, the dynasty known in history as Tang (618-907) enjoys a legacy much admired amidst all of those collectively constituting the imperial Chinese cultural heritage.
Therefore, the destruction - largely through the actions of a single individual - of the intricate and expansive empire that was the splendorous Tang stands as one the great ironies of world history.
Contrary to what we might expect, this decisive vanquisher of the Tang was neither an inept emperor, a malfeasant courtier nor a seditious general. The undermining of the dynasty resulted neither through imperial overreach, court mismanagement nor a traitorous coup. Instead, the glorious Tang was felled by an uprising sparked and led by a disgruntled commoner, a well-off but - owing to his repeated failures to advance at all in the state- sponsored civil service examinations - disaffected illegal trader in salt named Huang Chao (d. 884).1In addition to feeling compelled to act by his outsized hostility over the perceived injustice against him in the examinations, Huang Chao very likely also launched his rebellious assault upon the state out of sheer competitiveness, entrepreneurial and otherwise. Being a native of what is today Shandong province, in China's coastal north-east, Huang Chao raised forces and first commenced his revolt locally in the spring of 875, largely in response to an insurgency that was already in progress (since the previous year) led by [53] another illegal dealer in salt and rival, Wang Xianzhi (d. 878). Wang Xianzhi quickly incurred the conventional misfortune of being captured and executed and thereupon Huang Chao opportunistically incorporated Wang's suddenly leaderless troops into his own peasant forces.[54]
Thereafter, the insurgency of Huang Chao became transformed into an insurrection. Nonetheless, finding the imperial capital of Chang'an too well defended against encroachment, the rebel leader appropriated the newly contrived and presumptuous title of ‘Heaven-Storming Generalissimo' (Chong Tian dajiangjun)[55] and drove his forces - already numbering perhaps in the tens of thousands - south.
The generalissimo and his troops swept across the Yangzi river and into large parts of what are the modern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian. Relying on the age-old populist platform of claiming to deliver much-sought egalitarianism to all followers, in these southern locations he massacred with impunity all of the fleeing Tang officials and loyalists he could capture but unwisely failed to substitute either personnel or stabilising structures of governance of any kind in their place.The drive south climaxed in 879, with the sacking of the city of Guangzhou (later Canton), which at that time was pre-eminent among East Asian ports of international trade. Here also another feature of Huang Chao's rebellion, one that was doubtless an integral component and extension of his own personality, was fully unleashed - namely, deadly xenophobia. Chinese sources are silent on this matter but Arab sources record that Huang Chao's forces exterminated the entirety of the non-Chinese population of Guangzhou, which consisted mainly of Muslims but also Christians and Jews, along with most of the Chinese inhabitants of the great entrepot. Overall estimates of those slain range between 120,000 and 200,000. The indeterminate but sizeable number of foreign dead attests to the scope and scale of trade between China and West Asian lands at the end of the ninth century. The deaths of nearly all of the China-based foreign merchants engaged in the trade led to its collapse, from which it would not recover until well into the tenth century.4
Midway through 880, Huang Chao and his troops returned north, crossing the Yangzi and capturing the secondary Tang capital of Luoyang by the end of the year. At the beginning of 881, Huang and his forces took and at last occupied the principal Tang capital of Chang'an, forcing the reigning Tang emperor to flee westward into exile. Huang then announced the establishment of his own Qi dynasty.[56]
Such success would mark the pinnacle of everything Chao ever achieved as a rebel.
As a usurper, his indiscriminate purging of all or nearly all eminences of the old regime alienated the many younger low-level officials who might otherwise have potentially been allies. The mass executions of the trapped and defenceless members of the old Tang imperial clan were also repellant. Similarly, the unbridled and undisciplined plundering of private as well as royal properties that Huang's rebel troops committed provoked bitter outrage.Within two years, as restoration armies mobilised against him, Huang Chao was forced to flee Chang'an in early 883. Tracked down and cornered near his birthplace by 884, he was killed resisting capture on 13 July. Despite all of its fury and destruction, the Huang Chao Rebellion was more of a death-knell than an overthrowing of the established order. Whereas it succeeded in fatally crippling the once-mighty Tang, the true denouement was more than two decades later in coming, when in 907 the dynasty was at last extinguished by Zhu Wen (852-912; r. 907-12), the future emperor of the Later Liang dynasty (907-23), who had the ironic distinction of having previously served and risen through the ranks under Huang Chao.[57]