Podcasts about taizong

Cierra hoy la tangente que hicimos para descubrir al monje digno de llevar las escrituras al este. Xuanzang, nieto de Taizong, se convierte en el elegido de Guanyin para llevar a cabo la hazaña que incluirá un viaje por los infiernos budistas, un dragón decapitado, un juez fantasma y un rapto en el que interfiere el planeta Venus. Pasen a escuchar.

This episode we go back to the continent for a bit to see how things are going.  Hint:  not well.  While Yamato was building its new bureaucratic state, Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla were battling it out while the Tang empire and their ambitions loomed over them all.  Yamato is about to get pulled into the conflicts, but before that, let's look at what was happening from the point of view of the various penninsular polities. This episode goes back over some of the information in Episodes 107 and 109, but mainly to place it in context of what was happening in Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla as opposed to simply viewing it from the rise of the Tang Empire or the occasional mentions in the Nihon Shoki.  Much of it relies on what we have in the Samguk Sagi, the Korean annals of the Three Kingdoms. For more, check out our blogpost: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-115 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 115: Red Banquets, Fashion Disasters, and Other Continental Adventures It was the year 642, and the hall was decked out in the finest, with banners hung and tables set.  The scene was awash in gold and silk and silver.  The guests were no less opulently adorned: The crème de la crème of Burana, aka Pyongyang, capital of the state of Goguryeo.  The tables were piled high with food, and there was a low murmur as the assembled guests talked quietly as they waited for their host. These guests were among the highest nobles in the land.  180 members of the most powerful families.  As they mingled, they talked.  Much of it was gossip, the currency of court politicians everywhere. They discussed who was up and down in the constant fight for favor.  Who had made a misstep, or was seen talking to the wrong person?  Or how about that time that someone wore the wrong clothes, or misspoke in court? Other conversations focused outward, on the threats from beyond the border.  But the majority of conversation had to do with their host, a striking individual. The murmurs continued as they waited for him to arrive..  Yeon Gaesomun was a hard-liner, pushing his agenda for stronger defenses against Tang encroachment.  That might be understandable for someone stationed out east, as he had been, but the King himself and his supporters felt that relations needed a more diplomatic touch.  Now that Gaesomun was back in the capital of Pyongyang, would he change his approach? The conversation continued apace as people ate and drank.  The whole time they remained blissfully unaware of what was happening just outside.  Drowned out by the sound of the banquet, troops were quietly assembling just outside, girding themselves for what would soon be an irrevocable step forward.  As orders came down the line, they drew their weapons, and then they burst through the doors… Last episode we talked through much of the Hakuchi era, from 650 to 654.  This episode I want to finish out the era, in order to do so we're once again going to touch on what was happening over on the continent. Some of these events we've talked about already: Last time we did a deep dive into this subject, back in Episode 104, we focused primarily on the Tang dynasty and its rise.  We also talked somewhat about Yamato's conflicts with Tang, Goguryeo, and others in Episode 107.  But at this point it's useful to go back and put that Continental narrative together a little bit more clearly, to set the stage for what will be happening in Yamato in the next reign after Karu. This episode we are going to go back over some of that info, but I want to center the narrative a bit more on the peninsula, rather than on the Tang dynasty. As you may recall, the Tang dynasty started in approximately 618, taking over from the Sui.  By 628, the Tang had defeated the Gökturks, and they continued to expand.  They conquered Turpan and Gaochang, in the Western Regions, and their control over the Silk Road was substantial, opening up tremendous trade routes that brought in wealth and more.  The capital of Chang'an became a true center of learning, and the government instituted a national university that was attended by elites from both in and outside the empire. This episode, though, we are going to focus more on the area of the Korean and Liaodong peninsulas, where the countries of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla contended with each other.  Goguryeo was the largest and perhaps even the most powerful of the three, but it was also on the border with the Tang empire, who were nothing to sneeze at given their own string of military victories.  So Goguryeo was beset from all sides, and needed a sizeable force on their western border.  Everything was in a tenuous balance, of sorts. When it came to the Tang empire, Goguryeo walked a delicate line.  On the one hand, they wanted access to the trade goods and the knowledge that was accumulating in the Tang empire and making it the envy of most other nations in the region.  On the other hand, they had to be constantly on the lookout for a possible invasion, and so needed to show their strength.  This wasn't without some confidence.  After all, Goguryeo had defeated attempts by the Sui dynasty to invade, and so they had proved up to the challenge—at least so far. In 619, on the eve of the Tang dynasty's founding, King Yeongnyu of Goguryeo, whose personal name was Geonmu, sent a tribute mission to the Tang, to encourage good relations.  By 622, Goguryeo was responding to the Tang dynasty's request to return soldiers captured during the attempted invasions by the Sui.  They kept sending missions on an annual basis, playing the part of a friendly tributary. Further on the peninsula, Baekje and Silla were likewise reaching out to the Tang dynasty, similarly hungry for the trade goods available in the markets of Chang'an.  Baekje, sitting on the coast of the Bohai sea, had direct routes to the mainland; to both the Yellow river and Yangzi river deltas.  They may not have had an overland border, but the sea was open to them. Silla, on the other hand, was not so quite so fortunate.  They were mainly situated on the east side of the peninsula, and though they had some access through the Han river, near modern Seoul, their access was constantly threatened by both Baekje and Goguryeo.  In 626, a Silla mission to the Tang complained about this very thing, claiming that Goguryeo was attacking them.  In response, the Tang requested peace, and Goguryeo apologized and backed down.  That said, it is unclear if the Tang would have taken much action.  They were, at that point, more focused on the Gökturks and others.  That military action ended with the defeat of the Gökturks in 628, however, a victory for which Goguryeo sent congratulations.  One has to imagine, however, that the congratulations were a bit mixed.  After all, without the Gökturks to hold their attention, what was to keep the Tang dynasty from looking at further conquest? The question of how to react to the Tang Empire seems to be one that split the Goguryeo court.  Some members of the court wanted to appease the giant on their doorstep, with offers of tribute and nominal submission, with the goal of making it clear that they were not a threat and that military conquest was unnecessary.  They could all live in harmony, one with the other.  To that end, they would not want to be too blatant about building up their forces or defenses in an act that could be seen as a prelude to military action.  On the other side were the hard-liners: members of the court that felt that they had to maintain a strong military defense against the likely possibility of a Tang offensive.  To these hawks, military strength was the deterrent, as power only truly respected power.  To be seen as weak and submissive would be to seem vulnerable, and an easy target. Still, there seems to have been relative, if uneasy, peace for a time.  Goguryeo continued to build their relation as a tributary state, and most of the action seems to have actually been taking place in the peninsula.  For Silla, 632 was a banner year, as Queen Seondeok came to the throne.  She was the eldest daughter of her father, who had no sons to inherit, and so she came to the throne.  She is said to have been quite intelligent, and the Samguk Sagi gives various accounts of her Holmsian powers of deduction.  For example, upon seeing a picture of flowers, she immediately concluded that, though they were beautiful, they had no fragrance.  She noted the lack of bees and butterflies around the flowers, and based on that observation she deduced that the flowers must have no scent to attract them. Queen Seondeok would oversee Silla in a time when they were growing closer to the Tang and also seeing increased pressure from Baekje and Goguryeo.  We mentioned how, in 626, Goguryeo had blocked Silla's mission to the Tang court.  Then, in 636, a Baekje general led 500 troops to Mt. Doksan, to attack the Silla position there.  Two years later, Silla defeated Goguryeo troops outside Jiljung Fortress. This wasn't constant warfare, but it did mean that the armies had to be on a constant wartime footing.  You never knew when your neighbor might sense a moment of weakness and try to take advantage of it.  Of course, as the old adage goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.  Baekje and Goguryeo were more directly on the Tang Empire's borders.  And so we see Silla cultivating a special relationship with the Tang. This is nothing new, by the way.  Various dynasties in the Yellow River basin had used similar tactics for generations.  Immediate border countries were often treated more severely, with threats of punitive expeditions if they did not fall in line or give themselves over completely to become a direct vassal of the empire.  Countries just beyond the border were often treated with a lighter touch, luring them into complacency and even friendship with access to elite trade goods, and more.  As borders shifted, so too did the relationship between the empire and those on its borders. Goguryeo and Baekje fell into the former category, while Silla seems to have been in the latter—at least for now.  And yet all three were still trying to get what they could.   In 640, Seondeok sent her sons to enroll in the Guoxue, or National University, that Tang Taizong had set up in Chang'an.  This university had gathered Confucian scholars from all corners of the world.  The school is described as having some 1200 bays, with 3,260 students.  Besides Silla, Goguryeo and Baekje also sent their princes, who mingled with elites from Gaochang, Turpan, and elsewhere.  It was opportunities like this that made Chang'an so attractive: a place where the elites of Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje, could mingle with the members of the Tang Court and the western regions, beyond, sharing ideas and learning about the wider world. The following year, in 641, there are two items of note.  One is the inspection by Chen Dade of the Tang-Goguryeo border.  We talked about this back in episode XXX.  Under the pretense of a diplomatic mission, Dade arrived at the border with numerous gifts of silk, presenting them to the various fortress commanders and then asking to be shown around.  The Commanders were more than happy to show Dade their impressive fortifications, and they were exceedingly polite, but little did they know that Dade's true purpose was to scout for weaknesses in Goguryeo's defensive line.  His report back to Tang Taizong would be critical in what was to come. Also in this year, King Uija of Baekje came to the throne.  We talked about how Uija had sent his son, Prince Pung, to Yamato, and we've touched on him a few times here and there.  Uija was clearly a proponent of the alliance with Yamato, and, as we'll see, he was no friend to Silla.  The following year, in 642, Ujia's forces attacked Silla, capturing 40 strongholds, and pushing Silla's expanding borders back to the Nakdong river, retaking much of the area that had been under the control of the various Kara, or Gaya, confederacy.  This likely included places like Nimna and Ara, though we can't know for certain.  We do know that Baekje forces took Taeya fortress in the south of the peninsula, which gives us an idea of the extent of Baekje's victories. In response to Baekje's brazen attacks, Silla went  to a seemingly unlikely ally.  They reached out to Goguryeo.  In fact, they sent none other than Kim Ch'unch'u. Kim Ch'unch'u was the grandson of the 25th king of Silla, King Jinji.  Though his father, Kim Yonsu, had lost any claim to the throne when King Jinji was overthrown, he was still of “seonggol”, or “Sacred” bone rank, a concept somewhat similar to the kabane of Yamato, though in this case the “Sacred bone rank” indicated nobles specifically descended from the royal family.  These would have likely been the various Royal Princes and their families in the Yamato hierarchy.  Kim Ch'unch'u, in particular, seems to have been well regarded by the Silla court of his day, and since his own daughter had been killed by Baekje, he had a personal stake in the matter.  And so he led the embassy to Goguryeo's capital at Pyongyang to request that they send troops to aid Silla. There was only one problem.  Goguryeo was still fuming about territory that they had lost to Silla many years ago.  They agreed to send troops, but only if Silla would agree to a little quid pro quo.  Silla would need to return the Chungnyung pass and cede everything northwest of it back to Goguryeo.  This would return much of Goguryeo's territory north of the Han river and modern Seoul. Kim Ch'unch'u  rebuked their offer, calling it a threat against Silla.  This angered King Yeongnyu, and Kim Ch'unch'u was jailed for his disrespect.  Ch'unch'u was able to get word out of his imprisonment, however, and Queen Seondeok sent what the Samguk Sagi calls a “Death Squad” of 10,000 soldiers with the aim of breaking him out of prison.  As soon as Goguryeo heard that these troops were on the move, they decided that holding onto Ch'unch'u wouldn't be worth it, and they released him rather than fight.  Kim Ch'unch'u was returned safely, but without the support that he wanted. That said, there may have been other things going on in Goguryeo. The pro-appeasement camp and the hard-liners were fuming, and things in the court were coming to a head.  The two sides pulled against each other in the way that they shaped policy.  For the most part, King Yeongnyu was pro-appeasement, but there were powerful figures in the hard-liner camp, such as Yeon Gaesomun.  At 46 years old, he was a descendant of at least two previous “Magniji” court officials—a title roughly equivalent to that of a Prime Minister, and one of the most powerful roles a non-royal court noble could aspire to.  Gaesomun himself was the Western Governor, directly responsible for the fortresses that defended the border with the territory of the Tang Empire.  As such, it is little wonder that he may have been a bit more focused on the threat that they posed, and he likely held the loyalty of not a few troops. And perhaps this is why King Yeongnyu started to suspect him of being a problem, and why he plotted to have him killed.  Word of the King's plot reached Gaesomun, however, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. Returning to Pyongyang in 642, Gaesomun let it be known that he was throwing a lavish banquet to celebrate his rise to the position of Eastern governor.  He invited over one hundred of the opposing court nobles under this pretence.  But that is all it was. When the nobles had gathered at the banquet site, Gaesomun struck.  He had loyal forces rush in and kill all of his opponents, and then, before an alarm could sound, he rushed his troops over to the palace and murdered King Yeongnyu.  It was the Goguryeo's own Red Wedding, and it would hold a particular place of infamy in Korean history, which said  that the troops dismembered the corpse and discarded it without ceremony. In place of King Yeongnyu, Gaesomun propped up Yeongnyu's nephew, King Bojang.  Gaesomun then appointed himself the Dae Magniji, the Great Prime Minister, or perhaps more fittingly “Generalissimo”.  Though King Bojang sat upon the throne there was no question that it was Gaesomun who now ruled Goguryeo. Gaesomun's legacy is complicated.  Under the Confucian values of the time, many early historians vilified him for murdering the king, and blamed him and his harsh policies for the eventual downfall of the kingdom.  He is portrayed as a man lusting after power. We are given examples of his harsh demeanor, and the Annals state that when he got off of his horse he had high ranking nobles and military officials lie on the ground so that he could step on them, rather than touching the ground.  Of course, some of this we should likely take with a grain of salt, given the Chroniclers' generally dim view of him in general.   On the other hand, some modern histories believe that he wanted Goguryeo to take a tougher stance against the Tang.  Early Korean nationalists rehabilitated him, exalting him for taking such a hard stance against the Tang, or, in their eyes, China.  I suspect that he was a little of both.  A tyrant and a despot—as many rulers of the time were—but also dedicated to the defense of his nation. We mentioned this briefly back in Episode 107, but I wanted to touch on it here in more detail as it really leads to where we want to discuss.  A very brief mention of this lies in the Nihon Shoki, where it says that “Irikasumi” the “Prime Minister” of Goguryeo slew the king and over 180 others.  For the most part it tracks, though it does say that it happened in 641, which may easily just be a simple scribal error. The general narrative from here is that the Tang dynasty used Gaesomun's usurpation as a pretext for war against Goguryeo, but the narrative seems a bit more complex, and when we are reading we should keep in mind that none of the players in this drama knew the outcome beforehand.  And so, as is often the case, things are quite as straightforward as they may seem when we zoom out and take a look at the macro level of historical events, where we've already decide what events we believe to be important and which were less so, often based on knowing the outcomes.  Of course, the Chroniclers would have had similar narratives, but they were still trying to catalogue the events of each year as best they could. And that brings us to the year 643.  In this year, Silla went to the Tang dynasty to ask them for assistance against both Baekje and Goguryeo, who were planning to cut off Silla's access to the Tang court.  Tang Taizong agreed to help, but only if Silla would accept a Tang official who would come and oversee Silla.  Taizong's reasoning is given, which follows a typically misogynistic logic:  “Because your country has a woman as a ruler, neighboring states belittle it.  As you have lost the authority of the ruler, thus inviting the enemy to attack, no year will enjoy peace.”  He basically said that Silla needed a big strong man to help out, and he was willing to send someone—along with troops—to do just that.  Of course, I think we can all see how that was likely to end up, and any thoughts Silla had of being an equal partner in such an arrangement were nothing more than fantasies.  Tang Taizong was agreeing to assist, if Silla became a protectorate of the Tang court. The Silla envoy, for his part, took a very political stance.  No doubt knowing just how bad this was for Silla, but not wanting to disrespect the Tang emperor, whose assistance they still needed, he acknowledged the emperor's words without accepting the terms, returning without the promised help, but also without completely subordinating his country to the Tang empire. Although the troops were not forthcoming, the envoy's mission still had a positive impact.  Having heard that the envoy was traveling to the Tang court, King Uija of Baekje proactively withdrew the troops he had that were planning to attack with Goguryeo and cut off Silla's access to Chang'an.  Thus, Silla's corridor was maintained. Goguryeo, for their part, continued to attack Silla's border, but even though Gaesomun was one of the hard-liners when it came to Goguryeo-Tang relations, his initial envoys to the Tang court took a conciliatory stance towards the Tang empire.  Gaesomun promoted Daoism over Buddhism, and had his emissaries request and bring back 8 Daoist sages from the Tang court. Many historians feel that this was actually something of a show.  Sure, they would get knowledge and learning from the sages, but more importantly was to put the Tang at ease and hopefully allow Goguryeo a chance to annex Silla before the Tang war machine got up and running.  For their part, the Tang were already considering their next moves against Goguryeo, with some suggesting that they use proxies, like the Khitan and the Malgal, to make an attack.  Emperor Taizong's advisors suggested that the best course of action would be to lull Goguryeo into a false sense of security prior to a massive assault.  And so there were no major attacks that year. In 644, however, the Tang sent a message to Baekje and Goguryeo that they would need to stop invading Silla, and that if they didn't do so, the Tang would attack.  Gaesomun was actually leading troops in an attack on Silla when news of the messenger arrived at Goguryeo's court in Pyongyang.  Gaesomun's response was that he was simply trying to reclaim the territory that Silla had previously stolen from them many years earlier.  Along with their excuses, they sent along gold and 50 hostages from the Goguryeo court, but they were refused by the Tang.  It was probably pretty clear at this point that things were coming to a head—and diplomatic relations finally broke down in 645. That year the Tang dynasty—in conjunction with Silla, the Samguk Sagi tells us—launched a massive invasion of Goguryeo.  The pretext of which was, as I mentioned, Gaesomun's usurpation of the throne, but let's not kid ourselves:  The Tang dynasty were not shy about pushing out their borders. The Tang troops, who had been preparing for the past year, invaded in a two prong attack.  An overland attack struck at Gaemo—modern Shenyang—while naval forces landed on the Liaodong peninsula.  These forces initially swept through the border fortresses along the Liaodong penninsula with seeming ease.  Remember Chen Dade and his little factfinding mission?  No doubt all of his work came in quite handy.   Things were going well, and Tang Taizong himself joined the campaign. Still, each fortress took time, so that even though the invasion started in April, they reached Ansi by June. We are told that Goguryeo had amassed over 150,000 forces at Mt. Jipul, near Ansi, a walled fortress town with an estimated population of around 100,000.  Those numbers may be exaggerations, but the context is clear:  This was not just a small fortress and Goguryeo sent a lot of troops to reinforce the area. On the other side, Goguryeo was facing odds that were probably more like 3 to 1, with a massive Tang invasion force, which, since they had split, were attacking from two different directions.  Sure enough, the Tang were able to catch the defenders out of position, with the troops that had crossed the sea assaulting from the front while the overland forces attacked Goguryeo's rear.  It is estimated that over 50,000 Goguryeo troops were killed or captured in the battle. And that left only the fortress of Ansi, with a garrison of maybe 5,000 troops, to face the Tang, who had otherwise swept through previous defenses in relatively short order.  It would have been understandable had they capitulated.  There were still other fortresses between the Tang armies and the capital of Goguryeo at Pyongyang, not to mention the extremely mountainous terrain between the Liaodong and Korean peninsulas.  And yet, the Ansi garrison refused to give in.  The Tang forces, for their part, knew they could not leave an enemy to their rear, and so rather than continuing on, they set a siege to the fortress town. Although we are told that the Tang forces brought siege engines with them, the garrison at Ansi held out.  In fact, they held out for three months, and fall was beginning to turn to winter.  Winter in northeast Asia would bring snow and mud.  Furthermore, the Tang supply lines themselves were fairly long at this point.  Eventually, the defenders won out, and the Tang forces turned back.  On the march back towards Chang'an, Tang Taizong and his troops were caught in an early winter blizzard, which killed more of the soldiers.  Emperor Taizong founded Minzhong Temple—known today as Fayuan Temple, in modern Beijing—to commemorate his fallen soldiers. Although the Tang forces retreated, it is hard to say that Goguryeo was truly victorious in the outcome of the war.  Many Gogouryeo troops perished in the fighting, while Tang could now regroup.  Goguryeo was unlikely to be a major and immediate threat to Silla, as they would need to continue to maintain troops and rebuild the fortresses taken by the Tang, but that didn't mean that Silla was off the hook, either. Through this all, Baekje had taken the opportunity to harass Silla's western border.  They sent wave after wave against Silla, whose forces in that area were under the command of general Kim Yusin.  The Samguk Sagi mentions that his forces would turn back one attack, and he'd be almost back home, when another attack would come and he would have to go back out.  In one particularly poignant moment, he even got so close as to see his house, but he could not stop, and so he marched straight past the gates as he prepared to repel yet another invasion from Baekje. Winter brought a pause to the fighting, and in 646, things seem to have been relatively calm, if still quite tense, as all sides recovered from the events of the previous year.  Nonetheless, this is seen as the start of what is known as the Goguyreo-Tang war, a series of conflicts that would continue for approximately the next 20 years.  Goguryeo, for their part, attempted to normalize relations with the Tang, even sending two women—specifically the Annals state that they were two beautiful women—as a peace offering.  Tang Taizong politely refused them, however, claiming he wouldn't dare to separate them from their families.  In reality, he was rebuilding his forces, preparing for another assault, but that would take time.  In the meantime, diplomatic channels remained open, which really demonstrates the political situation in general, at the time.  Even if two sides were attacking one another, diplomatic envoys were still being exchanged.  Furthermore, though the trade routes may have been slightly less stable, trade continued, regardless.  The following year, 647, Emperor Taizong launched fresh assaults against Goguryeo.  This time, rather than a larger army, he instead had them focus on small-scale attacks that would weaken the kingdom of Goguryeo, forcing them to constantly be on guard and to pour resources into supporting their borders.  At the same time, Silla suffered tragedy as Queen Seondeok died, and Queen Chindeok took the throne.  Later in that year, Baekje troops attacked three Silla fortresses.  They were pushed back, but the Silla troops took heavy casualties.  As we can see, the fighting continued throughout the peninsula. Meanwhile, over on the Japanese archipelago, they were busy incorporating the new reforms.  Envoys from Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo would continue to travel to the Yamato court, which one imagines made for some rather tense State dinners. The year after that, in 648, while Tang forces continued to harass Goguryeo, Baekje attacked and took ten Silla fortresses.  Upon hearing this, Silla general Kim Yusin rallied the troops, counterattacked, and destroyed the invading forces.  Silla's Prince Ch'unch'u himself, the one who had previously gone to Goguryeo to ask for support against Baekje, traveled to the Tang court in Chang'an.  There he requested assistance against Baekje's continual harassment of Silla's borders. It is unclear how firmly Baekje and Goguryeo were allied together and coordinating attacks, but  it does seem clear that they were aligned in their goals.  Baekje may not have been in direct conflict with the Tang, but their attacks on Silla likely kept Silla from further harassing Goguryeo, who was actively involved in defending against Tang attacks.  So whether there were formal treaties or not, lines were drawn, but these were still independent states with their own goals and aspirations. And so, when Ch'unch'u's ship was returning from Chang'an and ran into a Goguryeo patrol, one can understand their apprehension.  Ch'unch'u was known to Goguryeo, and if we was captured it is unlikely that he would live long enough to be rescued by an elite Silla death squad once again.  And so, his men devised a plan, and a man named On Kunhae put on the clothes of a high official—possibly Ch'unch'u's own.  When the Goguryeo patrol captured the ship, they killed him, believing he was a Silla noble or at least an important envoy.  Unbeknownst to them, Ch'unch'u himself had been transferred to a smaller, less assuming ship, which quietly made its way past the patrol and back to Silla controlled territory. And so, once again, we see us how dangerous things were getting at this point.  Travel was risky at the best of times, but now, with the possibility of being intercepted by a hostile country's forces, who knew what might happen. Hostilities continued until 649.  That year, Tang Taizong passed away, and shortly before he did, he pulled back the troops.  His death only brought a brief pause, however, as his son and heir, Tang Gaozong, took the throne and would launch his own series of wars against both Goguryeo and Baekje.  In 650, Gaozong received Prince Kim Ch'unch'u once again as an ambassador from Silla, this time with a poem penned by Queen Chindeok herself.  In the form of poetic verse, she asked for help against Baekje, who had continued their attacks.  Throughout the previous year attacks had continued back and forth.  Silla general Kim Yusin again managed to push back and defeat the Baekje forces, but one can only imagine the toll this was taking on Silla's ability to defend itself over time.  This was the content of the note.  Prior to this, Silla really had gone all in on strengthening their ties with the Tang dynasty, going so far as to institute Tang court dress—both in their robes and caps.  This point had been specifically negotiated by Prince Ch'unch'u with the previous emperor, Tang Taizong.  It sounds as if Silla was trying to have the Tang court recognize their own court nobles and put themselves in a place to receive Tang court rank, though how, exactly, they received said rank is unclear—did it come from the Tang or was it granted by the Queen of Silla. Either way, it was clearly seen by other nations—or at least Yamato—as an unwelcome statement.  In 651, Silla envoys arrived at Tsukushi—modern day Kyushu—wearing their new Tang style clothing and they were turned away.  Specifically the Dazaifu sent them back claiming that they weren't dressed as envoys from Silla should be.  On top of this, we are told that Kose no Omi then suggested that *rather than go to war* over this, they should just make a show of force when the envoys came back.  And let me reiterate that: according to the Nihon Shoki this was such an affront that Yamato was considering whether they should launch a punitive military strike against Silla for sporting the wrong fit.  Talk about a fashion disaster! In the end, they took Kose no Omi's advice, which was that the next time Silla arrived they would have ships lined up all along the Seto Inland Sea as the envoys made their way to Yamato so that there was no doubt in the envoys' minds about just what Yamato could do. This is a great demonstration of how something we might consider innocuous was clearly a Big Deal for the people at the time.  I suspect that there were at least two possible reasons for why this was, besides just considering themselves the arbiters of fashion.  For one, remember that Yamato considered Silla to be subordinate to them, at least in their worldview.  Just like they had been concerned about at least maintaining the fiction that Nimna was still an active and independent entity, this broke the illusion that Silla was a tributary of Yamato. At the same time, it may have just been that they were putting on airs and it was seen as impersonating and even speaking for the Tang court.  After all, if a Tang envoy showed up, I doubt that Yamato would turn them away. In either instance, we can see the lines being drawn, with Silla taking a clear stance in connecting themselves with the Tang court while Goguryeo, Baekje, and even Yamato were still in contact with them, but from a more independent capacity.  In 652, for instance, we know that Goguryeo again sent tribute to the Tang court, no doubt in an attempt to normalize relations.  Still, the alliances were firming up. In 653 we have two items of interest:  one from the Samguk Sagi and one from the Nihon Shoki.  In the Samguk Sagi it explicitly mentions that Baekje and Wa formed an alliance.  This is significant in that the Samguk Sagi really doesn't mention Wa nearly as often as we would expect it to, while the Nihon Shoki is constantly discussing Baekje and Yamato relations.  I imagine that there must have been a significant escalation of Wa involvement around this time for the Samguk Sagi to mention it. On the other hand, the Nihon Shoki doesn't really mention it.  Sure, there are annual tributes mentioned from Baekje and Silla—and occasionally Goguryeo—but they were more focused on another event: an embassy that the Yamato court sent to the Tang dynasty.  This was the first embassy to be sent in some time—at least according to the Nihon Shoki—but it was quite the affair.  Two ships were prepared.  The first ship was led by Kishi no Nagani and his assistant, Kishi no Koma, along with the envoy, Nunobara no Mita.  They were accompanied by numerous students and student priesets, all sons of court nobility, including Jou'e, the son of none other than Nakatomi no Kamatari the “Naidaijin” or central prime minister.  In total, there were 121 people on board the ship. The other ship was led by Takada no Nemaro and his assistant, Kamori no Womaro, as well as their accompanying envoy, Hashi no Yatsute.  Along with various students, they had 120 on board the ship.  Two ships, each with an individual in charge of the particular embassy, meant that even if they met with an accident along the way, they would have someone to carry on the mission.  And that foresight proved unfortunately necessary when the ship carrying Takada no Nemaro sank in the straits of Takashima off the coast of Satsuma.  The ship went down and only five men survived, largely by lashing themselves to a plank and drifting ashore at Takashima island.  There, one of the survivors, Kadobe no Kogane, gathered bamboo and made a raft, by which they made it to Shitojishima.  They surived six days and nights without any food, but they made it.  When he heard about it, the sovereign congratulated Kogane and rewarded him with rank and various presents for his work to bring people back home. Another mission, launched the following year, shows that being lost at sea wasn't the only danger for international travelers back in the day.  In the 2nd month of 654, Takamuku no Kuromaro led another embassy to the Tang court.  He was the Controlling Envoy, though the Chief Ambassador was Kahabe no Maro, assisted by Yenichi no Kusushi, a name that Aston suggests translates to something like “Doctor Yenishi”.  A list of other names are given as well of those who were also on the mission.  More sobering is the outcome of the mission, where we are told what happened to everyone.  Though they reached the Tang court, not everyone would make it back.  According to the author Yuki no Hakatoko—an interesting tidbit in that they seem to be giving us the author of one of the accounts that they used in the compilation of the Nihon Shoki, and we'll come back to him in a later episode—according to Hakatoko, the student priest Enmyou died in Tang, while the student priests Chisou and Chikoku both died at sea.  Another person named Chisou, but using different characters, returned in a Silla ship in 690.  Gakusho died in Tang and Gitsu died at sea.  Joye returned in 665 in the ship of Liu Tekao.  And then others—about 12 total—along with two individuals who were considered Japanese born abroad, came back in 654 with returning envoys.  We are even told that Takamuku no Kuromaro, one of the figures who helped set up the government and played a major role in diplomatic relations with the continent, passed away on this mission as well. So going on one of these missions may have given you some awesome opportunities to see the world like nobody else, but they were anything but guaranteed.  For many people, it was a one way ticket, and we should keep that in mind when we hear about the people going on them. There were other intricacies to deal with as well—including navigating the pathways to the Tang court.  You may remember that Yamato was allied with Baekje in some way.  And yet the 654 mission we are told went by way of Silla and then anchored in Laichou, on the Shandong peninsula.  Later that same year, the previous mission, with Kishi no Nagani and others, returned to Yamato escoted by envoys from both Silla and Baekje.  While the narrative largely focuses on what they obtained, one imagines there were probably some tensions in all of that.  After all, just a year before we are told that Baekje and allied with Wa—which is to say Yamato—against Silla.  So had Silla not yet heard about the alliance?  Or was that just considered par for the course at the time? The year 654 would have more direct considerations for all concerned, however.  In that year, Queen Chindeok of Silla died, as did Karu of Yamato.  In Silla, the new King was none other than Prince Kim Ch'unch'u, known to history as King Muyeol.  As we touched on, earlier, Ch'unch'u was intimately familiar with the Tang court and had spoken directly with the Tang emperor, so this likely only further cemented ties between the Tang and Silla.  Meanwhile, in Yamato, Queen Takara Hime, aka Kyougyoku Tennou -slash- Saimei Tennou, was re-ascending the throne, rather than making way for Prince Naka no Oe, a truly interesting state of affairs. Moving forward, the alliances would continue to solidify, though diplomatic missions would continue to travel between the various countries.  After all, they didn't exactly have many other means of communicating with each other—no email or telephones back then. Tang Gaozong would continue to attack and harass Goguryeo, though Yeon Gaesomun would continue to fend off attacks, while Baekje and Silla would continue their struggles as well.  Both Goguryeo and Baekje would ally against Silla, who in turn would call upon the might of the Tang empire.  All in all, it was a time of great conflict, generally known as the Tang-Goguryeo War, and it was a long-term conflict punctuated with times of peace in betwetween the various offensives.   Yamato was less directly involved, but still affected.  After all, they were closely aligned with Baekje, and they had to wonder what would happen if Silla came out victorious.  Would they be cut off from the continent entirely?  Or would they be forced into a new state of having to send tribute to Silla as an inferior country if they wanted access to continental goods and knowledge?  While we know how it played out, today, at the time the outcomes were far from certain. All of that will continue to provide a backdrop for the second reign of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou.  A part of me wonders if this wasn't also part of the reason to move the capital back into Asuka, in the Nara Basin.  I imagine that a capital sitting on the edge of the water, relatively speaking, while good for trade and foreign relations, also felt rather exposed if anyone were to sail a fleet down the Seto Inland Sea.  Or it may have just been a return to the more familiar lands of Asuka. As conflict on the continent continued to escalate, Yamato would not be able to stay unaffected.  The question is whether or not they would be ready when and if anything came their way.  It was a tense period, certainly. And we'll get more into that as we move forward in the next episode with the second reign of Takara-hime, aka Saimei Tennou. Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.   Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

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Das erste Buch, Zhenguan Zhengyao (Politische Grundlagen aus der Herrschaft von Zhenguan), stellte der Historiker Wu Jing während der Tang-Dynastie zusammen. Die 40 Artikel in 10 Bänden enthalten die Dialoge zu Fragen der Staatsführung zwischen Kaiser Taizong und Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui und anderen. Es enthält auch Empfehlungen, Vorschläge und Eingaben von Beamten sowie wichtige politische und wirtschaftliche Initiativen. Es ist ausführlicher als andere Bücher über diese Zeit wie das Alte Buch der Tang, das Neue Buch der Tang oder das Zizhi Tongjian (Umfassender Ratgeber zur Unterstützung der Regierung)..... https://de.minghui.org/html/articles/2024/1/13/172654.html

Apologies for any degradation of the sound quality.  This was recorded while we were traveling, and the room setup was not ideal, so if sounds like I'm in a cave, you know why ;) This episode we head over to the continent to kick off the Tang dynasty.  The Tang dynasty was extremely influential on Yamato and later Japan, as well as the rest of East Asia.  And so we'll take a look at how it got its start and how it expanded along the silk road, while at the same time talking about the literally cutthroat politics of the period.  Especially in the royal house.  Nobody fights like family. For more information, check out the podcast webpage:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-104   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is episode 104: A Bloody Start to a Golden Age It was early in the morning on the fourth day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Wu De.    Brothers Li Jiancheng, Crown Prince, and his younger brother, Li Yuanji, were more than a bit annoyed--Their brother had apparently slandered them to their father, the Emperor, claiming that they had had illicit relationships with his concubines.  Although the accusations were false, they still had to come to the palace to clear their names.  So they left the crown prince's residence at the Eastern Palace and were traveling on horseback with a retinue of men through the private, forested royal park north of the city towards the Xuanwu Gate—the northern gate to the palace and to the great city of Chang'an. As they approached Linhu Hall, they noticed something was afoot: there were soldiers in the park, headed their way. It was immediately apparent that the accusations had been a ruse, and their brother meant for more than just to tarnish their honor.  As they fled eastward, back towards the Eastern palace, their brother, Li Shimin, came galloping towards them and called out to them.  Li Yuanji tried to draw his bow, but couldn't get to it in time, and Li Shimin shot and killed Li Jiancheng, their older brother and the crown prince. Li Yuanji himself fell from his horse as he dodged arrows from the attacking troops, but Li Shimin also became entangled in the brush of the park and had to dismount.  Li Yuanji ran up to his brother and tried to strangle him with his bow string, but soon he was chased off by reinforcements.  Li Yuanji fled on foot to Wude Hall, where he was finally caught and struck down with arrows.  Li Shimin's forces struck off the heads of the two murdered princes, and took them to the Xuanwu gate, where opposing forces were still fighting.  Seeing the heads of the two princes, it was clear that Li Shimin's ambush was victorious, and the princes' forces quickly dispersed. Three days later, the victorious Li Shimin was instated as the new crown prince.  Two months later, his father, Li Yuan, known to history as emperor Tang Gaozu, abdicated in favor of his son, who came to power as Emperor Taizong.  This was the start of the Zhenguan era, which would come to be seen as a golden age in the history of the various Chinese empires. --------------- Alright, so as may be apparent, we are deviating a bit from our discussion of Yamato to look at some of the events on the continent.  This is because the rise of the Tang dynasty would have an incredible impact on the Japanese archipelago.  For one, it was the alliance between the Tang and Silla that would eventually mean the removal of Yamato and its allies from the Korean peninsula.  In addition, however, the Tang dynasty's access to the silk road and its grandiose government would become an exemplar for Yamato and many other polities who wished to demonstrate their political and cultural sophistication.  Many of the laws and even court dress would mimic that of the Tang court—with a local flare, of course.  In addition, the Tang dynasty brought a relative stability to the continent that would last for over two hundred years.  Of course, none of that was known at the outset, and like many previous kingdoms, the Tang dynasty was born out of bloodshed. We've mentioned several times how the Sui Dynasty was growing increasingly unpopular in the late 6th and early 7th centuries.  Wars continued to cost money and lives, as did the giant public works projects of the periods - though the Grand Canal would be one of the greatest constructions of any age, uniting the Yangzi and Yellow River basins in myriad ways, powering the regions' economies for centuries to come. Into this Sui period came a man of the Li family named Yuan.  We mentioned him back in episode 102, but I figured he could do with a little more backstory.  Li Yuan's family originated in the frontier regions.  Official biographies had connected him to the founder of the Western Liang dynasty, and his family had served in various roles as the different northern kingdoms rose and fell.  The Li family had been providing military service since the time of Yuan's great-grandfather, and Li Yuan himself had been serving since the early 600s.  He was made a general and placed in charge of the Dongguang pass  in the Taihang mountains.  There, he largely stayed out of the limelight.  At one point, he was summoned to the palace and rather than going he feigned illness, instead. You see, around this time there was a prophecy flying around that someone with the surname of Li would try to take the throne from Sui Emperor, Emperor Yang, so it may have been in Li Yuan's best interest to avoid the court and anything that could draw Emperor Yang's suspicions.  He continued to do everything in his power to make himself seem unthreatening, even as rebellions were breaking out across the Empire. In 614, the Sui army was defeated by Goguryeo, and the Sui court was plagued by numerous uprisings.  Li Yuan may have sat it out if it weren't for his son, Li Shimin.  Like many youthful individuals, Li Shimin was less than invested in the current administration.  He and several of his close acquaintances began to scheme behind his father's back, with plans to join the other uprisings and hope to take a piece of the pie.  Eventually, they blackmailed Li Yuan into marching on the capital of Daxingcheng in 617, threatening to expose several illicit relationships from his time at the court—relationships that would have surely put him at odds with the Emperor.  At the same time, Emperor Yang had fled to the southern capital along the banks of the Yangzi River, but his son and heir, Yang You, was still in the capital.  Li Yuan marched on imperial city of Daxingcheng, near the ancient capital of Chang'an, claiming that he was coming to protect the young heir. Taking control of the capital city put Li Yuan at odds with imperial forces, who did not necessarily accept Li Yuan's altruistic claims.  Li Yuan and his sons, including Li Shimin and Li Jiangcheng, were drawn into fighting.  Even Li Yuan's daughter, Pingyang, the wife of general Chai Shao, contributed to the war effort.  She personally raised an army and led it into battle, becoming the first female general of what would be known as the Tang dynasty. In 618, Emperor Yang of Sui was assassinated by another general, Yuwen Huaji, and the throne passed to his son, Yang You, known as Emperor Gong of Sui.  However, Li Yuan pressured the newly made Emperor Gong to yield the throne to him.  Since Li Yuan had inherited the title “Duke of Tang” from his paternal line, he used that as the name of his new dynasty, and became known as Tang Gaozu—the High Founder of Tang. It wasn't enough to simply take the throne, though.  There were still many other warlords looking to take his place.  After all, unification had only come about some thirty or forty years prior.  Up to that point, there had been numerous, often competing kingdoms, especially in the north.  It was quite possible that the Sui dynasty was just a fluke, and most people no doubt expected the empire to fall once more into chaos. Still, although he definitely had to back it up with military might, often led by his sons and close confidants, Li Yuan went about the process of enacting his sovereignty.  This included various state rituals, as well as a reform of the administration.  For one thing, they renamed the capital.  Daxingcheng had been built nearby the ancient capital of Chang'an, and so they renamed Daxingcheng to the ancient name of Chang'an. In addition, he sought out various supernatural portents.  He also enjoyed the support of various Daoists, who believed that the founder of Daoism, Laozi, was from the Li family.  There was a belief at the time that a messianic ruler from the Li family would bring about the Daoist millennium.  And to better understand that, it may be useful to understand a little bit about Daoism. Daoism, first and foremost, is one of the more well known religions to come out of China, and often is found side by side what would seem to be its polar opposite, Confucianism.  However, the two have more in common than one might at first assume. The believed founder of Daoism is known as Laozi, though some later sources, including the Qin dynasty “Records of the Grand Historian”, by Sima Chen, would claim for him the name Li Er.  Laozi was said to have been a scholar who abandoned the world, and as he was leaving the empire for parts unknown, an astute guard recognized him and requested that before he left that he write down his accumulated wisdom before he would let the old sage leave.  That became the work known as the Dao De Jing, or the Classic of the Way and Virtue. The opening of the Dao De Jing is rather famous: Dao ke Dao, feichang Dao. Or, according to one translation:  The Dao that can be known is not the eternal Dao. However, no English translation truly does the original justice. Traditionally, Laozi is said to have been a contemporary of Confucius, and some of the earliest writings on him, in the Warring States period writings of Zhuangzi, often show Confucius in awe of Laozi.  That said, most tend to agree that Laozi himself likely never existed, and that the Dao De Jing was assembled over the years from various poems and sayings that fit with the general theme of formlessness and a general concept of following the Way, a rather ill defined concept of natural order, one which humans are constantly pushing against, often to our detriment. Truth is that both Confucius and Laozi—or whomever compiled the Dao De Jing—wrote about a thing called the “Dao” or “Way”.  Confucius was often talking about the “Way of Heaven”, describing an ordered universe where balance was kept by everyone remaining in their proper place, creating a series of rules around strict, hierarchical relationships, such as those between a father and son, or the ruler and subject.  According to Confucian thought, as long as things on Earth were properly ordered, that order would be reflected in the Heavens, and all of creation would be ordered as well. In Daoism, it is much less about attempting to order the universe, but rather about giving in to your natural place in the universe.  This is a much simplified version of both religions, but in general, where Confucianism tended to see serving at court as a virtue, Daoism tended to reject official life.  For many court officials, they would embrace Confucian ideals in their official lives, but often seek out Daoist pleasures in their free time. Religious Daoism, where it became more than simply a philosophical ideal, appears to have coalesced around the Han dynasty.  There are Daoist temples, though in this instance it is often intertwined with many other Sinitic philosophies and beliefs.  Thus things like the Queen Mother of the West and the Peaches of Immortality could be included in Daoist practice.  Things like the Yijing, the Book of Changes, and various divination methods could also be included. In many cases, “Daoist” seems to be used less to refer to a strict adherent to the philosophy of the supposed Laozi, and more as a general catchall for various folk beliefs.  Thus many people see the images of the Queen Mother of the West on Han Dynasty mirrors imported to Japan as evidence of a Daoist influence on the archipelago, while others note the lack of the further panoply of religious accoutrements that we would expect if it was truly a “Daoist” influence, and not just a few folk beliefs that made their way across the straits. However, by the time that Li Yuan was coming to the throne there was a thriving Daoist community in the Sui and burgeoning Tang dynasties, and if they believed that Li Yuan was an incarnation of Laozi—or at least a messianic descendant—who was he to dissuade them of such a notion? Li Yuan reached back into the past in other ways as well.  For one, he would reinstitute the Northern Wei “equal-field” system of state granted land, along with a system of prefectures and districts to help administer it.  This was largely an effort to help fill up the coffers, which had been emptied by the Sui and constant warfare, while also emphasizing state ownership of land, with individuals being mere tenants.  It also helped bring back into cultivation lands that had long lain fallow, often due to the constant fighting of the previous centuries. In 621, Li Yuan ordered the minting of new copper coins to help stabilize the currency.  Later Sui currency had been devalued by numerous forgeries as well as official debasement—mixing in less valuable metals to make the coins, while attempting to maintain the same denominations as before.  These new coins were meant to restore faith in the currency, but shortages would continue to plague the dynasty throughout its history, leading to the use of cloth as a common medium of exchange and tax payment, something that was also common on the archipelago, along with other goods, in lieu of rice or money. By 624, Li Yuan also announced a new legal code based on the old Han era code, although this was quickly expanded, since the needs of the code from the 3rd century Now initially, for all of their claims to the entire geographic area of the Sui dynasty, the newly established Tang dynasty really only had effective control over a small are of Guanzhou—the area around Chang'an itself.  Li Yuan hadn't been the only one to rise up, and just because he had declared himself the new emperor didn't mean that the other warlords were just giving up.  It wasn't like they had reached the end of a football match and everyone was now just going to go home. And so he and his sons found themselves campaigning for at least the next five years, and that was against the active threats.  Plenty of local elites, especially along the Yellow River basin, simply opted to hole up in their fortified settlements.  After all, they had no guarantees that this new Tang dynasty would last longer than any of the others in the past several centuries.  Often these local elites came under nominal vassalage of the Tang—and probably any other warlord that showed up—but in reality, based on how we see the Tang administration at work, it seems they were primarily left to their own devices, at least early on.  After all, Li Yuan and his sons had plenty of active threats to worry about. And it was definitely his sons who bore the brunt of the work.  Li Jiancheng, the eldest son, who would eventually be named Crown Prince, and Li Shimin each took charge of various troops against  the threats to the new Tang empire.  And they were, for the most part, successful.  They eventually brought a majority of the former Sui territory under their control, such that by 623 internal resistance had begun to wane, and by 624 the situation was largely under control. At least internally.  To the north and west there was another threat:  The khaganate of the Göktürks. Now for many people, if you hear “Turks” you might immediately think of the Ottomans in the region of modern Turkiye.  However, that is not where the Turkish people originated from.  In fact, the first mention of Turkic people appears to be out of the Altai mountains, in modern Mongolia, from around 545.  They appear to have been a nomadic group, as were many of the people of the steppes of central Eurasia.  By 551, only a short time after they were first documented by outside groups, they had established the Göktürk, or Celestial Turk, Khaganate, based in the Mongolian plateau.  From there they expanded in the 6th century, at one point spanning from the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian empires in the west all the way to the kingdoms and empires of the Yellow River basin in the east. Many of the ethnic Han kingdoms that clashed with the Göktürks instituted practices of basically paying them off to prevent raids and invasions of their territory.  Shortly after the founding of the Sui dynasty, the Turkic Khaganate split in two, after the death of the khagan, and so the Sui and Tang were actually dealing with what we know as the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.  They were known to the ethnic Han people as the Thuk-kyat people, a term that today is often transcribed as Tujue, due to the shift in Sinic pronunciation over time.  “Tujue” is often how you'll see it rendered in sources referencing Chinese documents. The Eastern Turkic Khaganate remained an issue for the Sui and Tang dynasties.  Initially, when the uprisings against the Sui began, the Göktürks actually pulled back for a bit, hoping to allow the internal conflicts to weaken their eastern neighbors, but as they saw the direction things were taking, with the Tang dynasty solidifying their power, they began to launch invasions and harass the border, forcing the Tang dynasty to send troops.  Initially Li Yuan attempted to by off the Eastern Turks, as previous dynasties had done, but while they were happy to take his money, the invasions did not stop. Eventually, things got so bad—and the internal conflicts were in a stable enough state—that Li Yuan, decided to send a force against them.  A fairly straightforward decision, supposedly, except, well… Throughout all of this conflict, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin had been building up their own influence.  Li Jiancheng, as the eldest son of Li Yuan, was the Crown Prince, but Li Shimin had built up his own power and influence, to the point that Li Jiancheng and his other brother, Li Yuanji, were starting to look at how they could take care of him before he got so powerful and popular that Li Yuan was tempted to make him Crown Prince instead of Jiancheng.  At one point, Li Yuanji proposed inviting Li Shimin over and just having him killed, but Li Jiancheng balked at such direct and obvious fratricide. Instead, Li Jiancheng reportedly pushed his younger brother into positions that would possibly get him killed, but Li Shimin continued to succeed, thwarting his brother's plans and growing his own fame and power in the process. Finally, Li Jiancheng decided to take a different approach, and he suggested to his father that the army to defend the empire against the Turks should be led by none other than Li Yuanji.  This would mean moving a large portion of the army out from under Li Shimin's command to his brother, Li Yuanji, who would also accrue much of the fame and respect if he proved successful.  This was a huge blow to Li Shimin, who had heard rumors that his brothers were out to get him. Before setting out on such a campaign, it would have been expected that Li Shimin and his other brothers turn out to wish Li Yuanji success in his campaign.  That would have put Li Shimin in an extremely vulnerable position, where he could be arrested or even killed, without the usual protection of his own forces.  And so Li Shimin decided to be proactive. Before the campaign could set out, Li Shimin submitted accusations against Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji that they were having illicit relations with the concubines of their father, the emperor.  This got Li Yuan's attention, and he called both of his sons back to the palace to investigate what was going on.  This is what led to that fateful incident known as the Xuanwu Gate Incident.  Unbeknownst to Li Yuan or his other sons, Li Shimin had forces loyal to him take over the Xuanwu gate the night before Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji were to have their audience.  Ideally, at least from Li Shimin's position, they would have both been assassinated at Xuanwu gate, but as I noted at the start of the episode, things did not go exactly to plan.   There were several moments where a single stray arrow could have completely changed the course of things, but in the end, Li Shimin was triumphant. As the fighting was going on, Li Yuan heard the commotion.  Apparently he had been out in a boat on the lake in the palace enclosure—and yes, you heard that right, the palace included a lake, or at least a very large pond, such that the emperor could partake in a lazy morning upon the water.  When he heard the commotion, he guessed that the tensions between his sons must be at the heart of it, and even surmised that Li Shimin was likely behind it.  He got to shore and surrounded himself with courtiers, including known comrades and acquaintances of his son, Li Shimin. Eventually, a representative of Li Shimin arrived, and he told the court that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji had risen up in rebellion, but that Li Shimin had had them both put to death.  With Li Shimin's troops literally at the gates of the palace, and Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji not exactly able to defend themselves, the accusation stood.  Several days later, no doubt under pressure from Li Shimin, Emperor Tang Gaozu, aka Li Yuan, officially made Li Shimin the Crown Prince.  Two months later, he abdicated in favor of Li Shimin, who came to power as Tang Taizong in 626 CE.  Li Yuan himself took on the title of Retired Emperor, and continued to live life in the palace, but with a much reduced impact on the political affairs of the empire. Li Shimin himself took the reins of power immediately, and set about cementing his rule in several different ways.  First off, to offset his particularly unfilial method of coming to the throne, Li Shimin engaged in performative Confucian virtue signaling.  He played the part of the dutiful son, at least in public, providing for his retired father and attempting to act the part of the sage ruler.  This was somewhat impeded by the cold relationship he and his father appear to have maintained after that point—apparently killing your siblings and forcing your father to abdicate are not exactly the kinds of bonding experiences that bring a father and son closer together.  Still, that was mostly kept in the confines of the private areas of the palace.  Publicly, he gathered accomplished military and civilian officials, and made sure to seek out their opinion.  The era of emperor Tang Taizong is known as the Zhenguan era, lasting from roughly 627 to 649, and it was considered to be synonymous with good governance by later historians and philosophers.  Granted, most of the examples of good governance only lasted long enough for Li Shimin to establish himself in his position as emperor.  Once he had solidified his power, and felt secure in his position, his rule changed to a more traditional and authoritarian model. Regarding the threat of invasion from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Li Shimin met the Turks at the Wei River, where he accused them of invading Tang territory and demanded restitution.  The Turks were impressed enough by his forces that they agreed to settle, offering thousands of horses and other goods, but Li Shimin declined their attempts to make it good.  Eventually, Li Shimin supported some of the more disaffected members of the Turkic Khaganate in a coup, and by 630 the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and their gateway to the Silk Road was under Tang dynasty control.  The Turks granted Li Shimin the title of Heavenly Khagan, placing him over both the Tang dynasty and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. He then went about resettling surrendered Eastern Turks while sending agents to foment rebellions and civil wars in the Western Turkic Khaganate, which controlled the area from Yumenguan, the Jade Gate, west of Dunhuang, all the way to Sassanid Persia.  Dunhuang is an oasis city at the western end of the Gansu corridor, and the Jade Gate was considered to be the entry way to the Western Regions. As Emperor Taizong, Li Shimin placed a puppet Khagan on the throne of the Western Turkic Khaganate in 642, and then sent numerous campaigns against the Western Turks in a series of wars against those who hadn't simply given in to his will—first against the kingdom of Gaochang, a city cut from the rock of a giant plateau, and then on to the cities Karashr—known today by the Chinese name of Yanqi—and on to Kuqa.  The campaigns would outlive Emperor Taizong himself, and the khaganate was completely annexed by 657, giving the Tang dynasty complete mastery over at least one part of the silk road out to Sassanid Persia and the west. This would be huge, not only for the Tang dynasty, but for all of the cultures on the far eastern end of that silk road.  There would be an increase in material and cultural items that traversed the routes.  Chinese court dress even came to incorporate Turkic and Sogdian dress and clothing styles, which would eventually make their way to the Japanese archipelago, where they would take the tailored, round-necked collar designs for their own, eventually changing them, by the late Heian era, into their own distinctive garments. It also opened a route to India for those Buddhist scholars who wished to go and study at the source, such as it was.  As for Emperor Taizong, by the 630s, with his title as Heavenly Khagan, Li Shimin seems to have stopped worrying about performative Confucian virtues.  He took more direct control, and more often would quarrel with his ministers on various issues.  In 637 he also reworked the Tang legal code, further refining the law. At the same time, there were family matters he also had to attend to.  It seems like father, like son—while Li Shimin's eldest son, Li Chengqian was the Crown Prince, Shimin appeared to favor another son, Li Tai.  As such, these two brothers became bitter rivals.  Li Chengqian started to worry about his position as Crown Prince, and he consulted with some of his close advisors and confidants.  Their solution was not to take his brother out of the picture, but rather to take his own father out of the picture.  And so Li Chengqian reportedly entertained the idea of overthrowing his father, Emperor Taizong, at least as a thought experiment. And really, at this point, I have some suspicions that Li Shimin might very well have been a bit of an absentee father, because does Chengqian even know whom he is talking about trying to coup? Sure enough, Li Shimin learned about his sons extracurricular activities in 643 and he was less than happy with all of this.  Li Chengqian's defense, appears to have been that they only discussed it, they never went through with anything.  As such, some of Chengqian's conspirators were put to death, but Chengqian himself was simply reduced in rank to commoner status, stripped of his titles.  When he died a few years later, though, Li Shimin had him buried as a Duke, and a later emperor would even posthumously restore his rank as an imperial prince. Of course, the question came up as to just what to do about the Crown Prince.  Li Tai seemed the obvious choice, as he had clearly impressed his father with his apparent talent and skill.  However, it was pointed out that Li Tai's competition with his brother is what had led to Chengqian's fear and thoughts of rebellion in the first place.  He hadn't exactly been the model of filial virtue. In fact, if he hadn't been scheming, none of this would have taken place.  And so it was decided to pass him over and to create Li Zhi, a younger brother, as Crown Prince.  Li Tai himself was demoted, though only down to a minor princely state, and exiled from Chang'an, making it extremely difficult for him to influence politics.  Records of the time suggest this was an extremely difficult decision by his father, but one that he considered necessary for the responsible administration of government. All of this was taking place in the early 640s, but it wasn't the only thing that Li Shimin had on his mind.  With the Turkic threat being handled in the west, the emperor let his ambitions get the better of him, and he turned his eyes towards Goguryeo, to his northeast.  Previously, Emperor Yang of Sui had failed in his campaigns against Goguryeo, and that was one of the things that had led to the popular uprisings and rebellion that had taken down the dynasty.  Now, Emperor Taizong seemed determined to succeed where the prior dynasty failed. And so the Tang dynasty allied with the kingdom of Silla, hoping to force Goguryeo into a war on two fronts.  Silla was already expanding on the Korean peninsula, and a natural ally for the Tang dynasty.  Furthermore, they were far enough away that they weren't an immediate threat if they decided to go back on their part of the deal. Unfortunately for the Tang, these campaigns in 645 were not exactly a cake walk, and they handed Li Shimin his first defeat since the attempts to unify everyone under the Tang dynasty.  Not exactly a great look.  Relations with Goguryeo were normalized for a brief time, but then Emperor Taizong decided to give it another try.  They started gathering ships and men for another invasion, no doubt having played out why they had lost the previous go round and hoping that it would be better in round two. The invasions, however, would come to naught.  As it was being prepared, Tang Taizong grew ill.  He called off the invasion, and then, in 649, he passed away.  His youngest son, the Crown Prince Li Zhi, came to the throne as Emperor Gaozong.  The reign of him and his wife, Empress Wu Zetian, would have an enormous impact on the rest of the 7th century. Through all of this fighting, bloodshed, and politics, this set the stage for the future of the Tang dynasty, which would once again place the area of modern China in the center of what many considered to be the civilized world.  Besides being a center for Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist religion, Chang'an became an extremely cosmopolitan city, with Sogdian and Turkic traders visiting the markets and establishing themselves in the city.  Many foreign families would adapt over time, integrating into the culture of their new home. These foreigners brought other ideas with them as well.  Zoroastrianism, a Persian religion, may have come eastward much earlier, but in the 6th and 7th centuries, both Manichaeism and Christianity—at least an eastern version of Christianity—had made inroads into the capital of Chang'an.  Manichaeism would have its ups and downs, especially in conflict with Buddhism.  Christianity, on the other hand, was not necessarily the Christianity of Rome, but typically connected with the Syriac church that existed in the Persian empire, where it was a decidedly minority religion.  Later proponents of Rome and the Latin rite would connect it with the supposed heresies of Nestorius, referring to the Church of the East as Nestorian Christianity, but this is not a term they would have used for themselves.  These religions kept some of their traditions, but also incorporated some aspects of the culture of their new home, such as the use of rice in place of bread in some rituals. This was an exciting time, and the court at Chang'an was fascinated with various customs of the Western Regions.  Music, clothing, and even pasttimes were influenced by contact with the western lands.  This would, in time, be passed on even to the archipelago.  For instance, the pipa was an instrument that had origins in the Western regions.  It is found in the area of modern China in at least the Northern Wei dynasty, but no doubt it grew more popular over time.  A version of this same instrument traveled west to Persia, where it became the oud, and further on to Europe, where it became the famous lute.  In the archipelago, the pipa became the Biwa, and while we can never be one hundred percent certain about early music, we have instructions from the Tang dynasty on music for the pipa, and Tang dynasty and early music, along with music from Goguryeo, came over to the Japanese courts in the form of gagaku, traditional Japanese court music, in the early 8th century. Moving forward in our story about the Japanese archipelago, we are going to see more and more about the kentoushi, the Japanese embassies to the Tang dynasty, and just what they would bring back.  At the same time, we will also see the reaction of the court to the alliance between the Tang and Yamato's largest competitor on the Korean peninsula, Silla.  That alliance, which outlived emperor Taizong and even the king of Silla, would dramatically shift the balance of power on the peninsula and in all of northeast Asia. But we need to get there, first.  For now, let's move our gaze back across the waters to the archipelago, where Prince Tamura was about to take the throne, later becoming known as Jomei Tennou.  Of course, he was dealing with his own politics, especially regarding the Soga house and the powerful hold they had over government.  Next episode we will get back to just what was happening over there. Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for her work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Did you know that the gospel arrived in China in the seventh century and that Chinese emperor Taizong ordered the building of a monastery? Did you know that the Chinese called Christianity "the luminous religion" and that Persian monks built monasteries all along the way from modern Turkey to China? Join Emma, Trinity, Mina, and Sophia as they explore this forgotten part of church history with the help of  Dr. Todd Godwin, author of Persian Christians at the Chinese Court: The Xi'an Stele and the Early Medieval Church of the East.   Show Notes To view Dr. Godwin's slides referenced in the podcast, click here.  Article written by Simonetta Carr regarding this time period in church history: https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/alopen-and-the-missionary-monks-of-the-church-of-the-east  

Different belief systems—and just differences in general—collide and merge in Journey to the West, the classic Chinese novel at the center of this season. “In Dungeons & Dragons terminology, you've got this lawful good monk and then you have this chaotic good monkey,” says Kaiser Kuo (co-founder of China's first heavy metal band and host of the Sinica Podcast) in this episode. And their quest succeeds: the combination of the monk Tripitaka's lawfulness and the Monkey King's chaos works out. That intertwinement of differences shapes Journey to the West, on multiple levels. It's about a quest for Buddhist texts, but Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, makes his way through Daoist self-cultivation and Confucian thinking, too. The divine realm includes Daoist deities such as the Jade Emperor, but it's also a Buddhist realm, including the Buddha and Guanyin. There's a playful engagement with everything here, and the translator Julia Lovell explains the world behind that kind of expansive interaction with various traditions: The novel sprang from a much older set of legends about a real historical character who lived around 600–664 CE as a subject of the Tang empire in China. Now the Tang is one of the great eras of Chinese imperial expansion, when the empire extends from the edge of Persia in the northwest to the frontier with modern Korea in the northeast. Taizong, the emperor on the throne in Tripitaka's time—he's the character who in the novel dispatches Tripitaka off to India to fetch the sutras—Taizong is the vigorous, ruthless ruler who pushes the frontiers of his empire out so far.  And in the decades that follow this, the Tang empire is awash with cosmopolitan products and ideas. And still today in China, the Tang is celebrated as this period of phenomenal cosmopolitan flourishing of the empire and ideas throughout China. In this episode, we think about how a wild novel gave that cosmopolitan attitude a new narrative life. Guests in this episode include Kaiser Kuo, host of the Sinica Podcast; Julia Lovell, whose recent translation of Journey to the West is titled Monkey King; D. Max Moerman, scholar of religion at Columbia; and Xiaofei Tian, scholar of literature at Harvard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Legends from the Pacific: Book 1 is available on Amazon. Get your copy today. https://amzn.to/3CIYo6m (Amazon Affiliate link) What are Menshen? They are Chinese door gods. Discover some of the beings who performed this divine job, and a dragon's role in this. Featured Song: "Permanent Holiday", by Mike Love, courtesy of HI*Sessions Join our email list https://legendsfromthepacific.ck.page/32ca50bd23 *We respect your privacy. We will not share your email. You can unsubscribe at any time. Visit our store: https://legendsfromthepacific.com/store Theme Song: "Mystery" by Tavana, courtesy of HI*Sessions Sound Effects: Sound Effects Factory Music Coordinator: Matt Duffy AKA DJ TripleBypass Link to this episode on our website: https://legendsfromthepacific.com/127-menshen Please give us a rating, write a review, subscribe, follow us, and share us with your friends and family. ***** Join our email list and claim your exclusive unaired episode today: "Hawaii's Faceless Ghost - Mujina" (Unaired Episode) https://legendsfromthepacific.ck.page/32ca50bd23 *We respect your privacy. We will not share your email. You can unsubscribe at any time. Listen to Kamu's unaired paranormal experiences by becoming a Patreon supporter today: https://www.patreon.com/legendsfromthepacific Send your unusual Pacific experience to be shared on a future episode. https://legendsfromthepacific.com/feedback  Visit our Fan Art Section: https://legendsfromthepacific.com/fan-artwork Instagram: legendsfromthepacific Twitter: LegendsPacific Follow Legends from the Pacific wherever you listen to audio. → Follow via Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legends-from-the-pacific/id1501091122 → Follow via Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/search/legends%20from%20the%20pacific → Follow via Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5qhdkYUl8R7hSw6OZYJLye → Here's our RSS feed: https://legendsfromthepacific.libsyn.com/rss www.LegendsFromThePacific.com

In the classic tradition of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, here for the first time in English is the timeless wisdom of China's greatest emperor, Tang Taizong (AD 598-649), which will show anyone who leads or manages how to achieve unparalleled results and an enduring legacy. Tang Taizong was arguably the greatest emperor in Chinese history. In Asia many historians rank him with such rulers as Augustus, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon. When he founded the Tang dynasty, Taizong was only 28 years old, and his chief accomplishments were on the battlefield, where he personally slew 1,000 of the enemy. Ultimately Taizong would defeat the descendants of Genghis Khan's Huns, enact a vastly simplified code of laws, open up the Silk Road trading route, create a golden age of cosmopolitan culture, and, by his attitudes on religious tolerance, introduce Buddhism into Tibet and invite Catholicism into China. His dynasty would last 300 years. The Ruler's Guide is the first publication in English of the leadership principles modeled and articulated by this unusual ruler, who populated his court with advisors who were required to criticize him on a daily basis. Taizong's dialogues with the wisest of his counselors form the core of this book, which is a manual for managing in any sphere, whether it be government, business, the military, athletics, philanthropy, or even parenting. Here, author Chinghua Tang presents conversations between Taizong and his advisers that explain how to attain self-knowledge, evaluate people and appraise talent, lead effectively, grow power and influence, compete with rivals, listen to others with different views, treat subordinates, enhance organizational effectiveness, practice the art of war, achieve long-term success, draw lessons from the rise and fall of great empires, and craft one's legacy.

Known in English as Emperor Taizong Receiving the Tibetan Envoy, the painting Bunian Tu depicts a meeting between Tang Emperor Taizong and Gar Tongtsen Yulsung, a special envoy sent by Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo to propose a marriage alliance with the Tang in the year 640. What it doesn't show is how much bad blood there had been in the years leading up to this historically significant moment. Today, we're going to talk about  this traditional Chinese painting that has, despite its understated solemnity, endured the kind of tumultuous life you might see depicted in one of the many costume dramas so popular on Chinese TV these days.

Wu Zetian is known as China's only recorded female Emperor. She founded the Zhao dynasty, smack in the middle of the prestigious Tang dynasty, which was filled with powerful male rulers.Wu was initially a highly educated consort of Emperor Taizong. She went on to become the wife of the next emperor, Gaozong.Her path towards being a consort (or "concubine", as it was termed back then), was curated for her. But her path to being a ruler was cursed with bloodshed, poisonings, corruption, kidnappings, casual executions, summary executions, false accusations of witchcraft, putting in place puppet kings, and of course, drowning people in wine. And this was at a time when Confucian ideology formed the crux was Chinese society, which viewed women as meek, obedient, and best to run a household.Wu said to no all of that.Between 665 AD and 705 AD, Wu ruled China with an iron fist.She killed her enemies one by one, including other wives and consorts of the emperor. She did not trust the aristocracy, because they were hell-bent on kicking her off the throne.Instead, all her policies aimed at appeasing the common folks -- setting up agriculture and trade opportunities, fortifying the borders of the country, and allowing commoners to participate in the civil services.In the past, she was seen as a ruthless ruler who did not care for her people, her political allies, or her family. However, today history treats her as benevolent, smart, engaging, and politically savvy. And of course, a great ruler.ALSO!! Please fill out our merchandise survey – https://forms.gle/ENMZgR4LBjjK9ThT9Find out more at - https://ivmpodcasts.com/miss-conduct-blogYou can follow our hosts on Instagram.Miss Conduct: https://instagram.com/missconductpodRagavi: https://www.instagram.com/ragi.dosai/Nisha: https://www.instagram.com/just.nishful.thinking/You can listen to this show and other incredible shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/

Last time, we discussed Tang Taizong's domestic policies - what about his foreign policy? That's this topic of this week episode! Enjoy the show!

This episode is all about Tang Taizong's policies when he starts his career as emperor of China. We examine his policies which really shape the Tang dynasty up to be the Middle Kingdom of the world at the time. We look at his lenient policies and his willingness to listen to his advisors. All in all - great leader in my opinion. What's yours? Music came from freesound.org and the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjWPNa1Ml0&t=1445s

“In the West there is a province called Kafje-Guh, in which there are forests and other places of difficult access. It adjoins Qara-Jang and parts of India and the coast. There are two towns there, Lochak and Hainam and it has its own ruler, who is in rebellion against [Kublai Khaan]. Toghan, the son of the [Khaan], who is stationed with an army in Lukin-fu in the [south of China], is defending [China] and also keeping an eye on those rebels. On one occasion, he penetrated with an army to those towns on the coast, captured them, and sat for a week upon the throne there. Then all at once their army sprang out from ambush in the sea[shore], the forest, and the mountains and attacked Toghan’s army while they were busy plundering. Toghan got away safely and is still in the Lukin-fu area.”       So the Ilkhanid historian and vizier Rashid al-Din, writing in the first years of the 1300s, describes events less than twenty years prior but very far away. Rashid al-Din transcribed a very brief, but recognizable sketch, of the Mongol invasions of Vietnam in the 1280s. Having covered for you the first half of Kublai’s reign up until the end of the 1270s and his conquest of China, we will now take you to the beginnings of his failures. Back in July we already presented the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, so now we’ll turn our gaze southwards, to the efforts to extend Mongol suzerainty over the kingdoms of what is now Vietnam. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Before we discuss the military operations, it’s useful to set the scene and establish Vietnam’s 13th century status. As has been so often over this series, for context we must go back to the fall of China’s Tang Dynasty in 907. For roughly a thousand years, starting from the Han Dynasty in 111 BCE, the northern half of what is now Vietnam was under Chinese dominion, broken up by a few decades of revolts and brief independence here and there. Of course, the Chinese Dynasties were not dominating a ‘Vietnam’ in any modern sense. Rather, they were exerting control or tributary relationships with the Viet, or Kinh, peoples around the Red River, or Hong River, Delta. This delta is usually described as the cradle of Vietnamese civilization, the most densely populated and fertile part of the country even today. Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, sits in this region. The long period  of Chinese rule and influence left an undeniable mark upon Vietnamese conceptions of state, and every succeeding Viet dynasty has born obvious echoes of it.       With the collapse of the Tang in 907, the Chinese presence in the north of Vietnam weakened, and local groups began to exert independence. Some of the Tang’s successors in Southern China invaded and briefly brought the Red River Delta back under Chinese rule. But by the middle of the tenth century, the first fully independent Vietnamese Dynasty in centuries, the Ngô Dynasty, was established… and collapsed into feuding warlords by 965. It was not until the Lý Dynasty, founded in 1009, was stability reached. Under the Lý Emperors- though only Kings, if you asked the Chinese- the recognizable aspects of medieval northern Vietnam were built. The capital was moved to Thăng Long, modern day Hanoi. Buddhism was adopted as the state religion, and in 1054 a new emperor declared a new name for their state; Đại Việt,, meaning ‘great Viet,’ by which we most commonly know the medieval and early modern state. Administrative and military reforms made it the most stable and powerful Vietnamese kingdom yet, and the state expanded both north and south. Agricultural expansion and land reclamation fueled population growth and a steady Viet colonization southwards.       Good times for the Lý Kings did not last. By the start of the thirteenth century their rule had weakened, local warlords exerted their independence and the monarchs were generally inept with few heirs. In a series of political alliances and marriages, the Trần family gathered power and began to try to force the Lý Kings to be their puppets. Warfare broke out. The Lý Kings maintaned the throne, but with the Trầns the power behind it. The final ailing Lý King abdicated the throne in 1224 with only two daughters. His 7 year old daughter, Lý Chiêu Thánh, was enthroned as the only queen-regent in Vietnam’s history. Throught the machinations of the Trần “mayor of the palace,”  Trần Thủ Độ married the young queen to his nephew, Trần Cảnh. The queen soon abdicated the throne, making Trần Cảnh the reigning monarch- the first ruler of Vietnam’s prestigious Trần Dynasty, known by his temple name Thái Tông, the Vietnamese rendition of that classic Chinese temple name, Taizong. His father was posthumously made Taizu, and the scheming uncle Thủ Độ became the chancellor and the major powerbroker within Đại Việt until his death in 1264.       The powerful new Trần Dynasty of Đại Việt centralized power and continued the expansion begun the Lý  Dynasty. Further reclamation efforts and dykes to control the flooding of the Red River continued to increase the agricultrual production of the north. Adminsitration, territories, taxes, the army, the law code, all were reorganized under the Trần. Confucianism influenced the government but did not replace Buddhism, and Chinese was the official language of the court. Relations were stabilized with their most important neighbours; the Song Dynasty to the northeast, to which Đại Việt paid tribute and nominal allegiance in exchange for expensive gifts and lucrative trade; to the northwest, trade flowed with the Dali Kings in Yunnan; to the south, a cordial period began with the Chams.    The Chams are a part of the far flung Austronesian people, inhabiting central and southern Vietnam for millenia. For most of their history they were a collection of small, competing Hindu and Muslim kingdoms, but in the 12th century entered a new period of unity in the face of an invasion by the Khmer Empire of Cambodia, the builders of the famed Angkor Wat. United under a ‘king of kings,’ the Chams repulsed both the Khmer and Đại Việt when it attempted to take advantage of perceived Cham weakness. Though not unified or centralized in the manner of Đại Việt, from the mid-12th century onwards there was a King of Kings based out of Vijaya who wielded more influence over the other Cham kings and princes- the kingdom of Champa, as it’s sometimes called. And hence, by the 13th century we can say that Vietnam was divided into two states; Đại Việt in the north, ruled by the Trần Dynasy and known as Annam to the Chinese, and Champa in the south. You can get your references to twentieth century North and South Vietnam out of the way now.    Đại Việt was the first of the two to encounter Mongol armies in the 1250s. As we’ve discussed a few times before, in 1253, on the orders of his brother the Grand Khan Mongke, prince Kublai marched into Yunnan and conquered the Dali Kingdom. Though Kublai quickly returned north, his general Uriyangqadai stayed in the region and continued to subdue the local peoples. Uriyangqadai, the son of the illustrious Sube’edei, led a series of wide ranging campaigns across Yunnan, the edges of Tibet to the small kingdoms on the western edge of the Song Dynasty. In this process, Uriyangqadai came right to the northern border of Đại Việt. At this point Mongol imperial ideology was well entrenched: of course Đại Việt would become subject to the Grand Khan. The more immediate strategic concern though was to prevent the Trần kings offering any sort of support to the Song Dynasty, against which Mongke was planning a massive assault upon for 1258. With Đại Việt’s trade and tribute contacts with the Song, the Mongols were not willing to allow a possible enemy in their rear. With his envoys to the Trần court at Thăng Long illicting no response, in the winter of 1257 Uriyangqadai and his son, Aju, led the army over the border, some 10-30,000 men, Mongols supported by locally raised troops from Yunnan.   Splitting his forces into two, Uriyangqdai ordered the vanguard to cross the Thao River, north of Thăng Long, but not engage the Việt forces; Uriyangqadai knew of the river fleets used by Đại Việt, and desired to draw them into an ambush and thus neutralize their mobility. The vanguard commander did not listen and immediately engaged with the enemy, and a frustrated Uriyangqadai then advanced to support him. Despite the insubordination and the Vietnamese fielding war elephants, the Mongols had the better of the battle; Aju is said to have ordered archers to shoot into the eyes of the elephants. However, a defiant rear guard allowed the Trần leadership to escape the battle on the ships, and the always strict Uriyangqadai ensured the foolish vanguard commander paid for this with his life.   The Trần forces again attempted to stop the Mongol advance, occuping a bank of the Phù Lỗ river at the start of 1258 and cutting down the bridge. The Mongols cleverly found a ford; shooting arrows into the sky, when they fell and disappeared -meaning they had sunk into the mud- that indicated an area shallow enough to cross. They met and routed the Trần army, and now they rushed onto the capital, Thăng Long- only to find it abandoned. The Trần King, government and most of its population had evacuated before the Mongol arrival, taking most of the foodstuffs with them.   Vietnamese and the Chinese sources differ on the precise details of what followed, but generally it can be said that Uriyangqadai withdrew, and was harassed by local forces as went, and the Trần King offered tribute to keep the Mongols at bay. It may have been that the heat, humidity and tropical disease wreaked havoc on Mongolian men, bows and horses and he wanted out of there as quickly as possible, only escaping with heavy losses. It may have been that due to the timetable Mongke had set for the assault on the Song, Uriyangqadai simply did not have time to stay in Đại Việt any longer. Indeed, upon his return to Mongol occupied Yunnan, he was almost immediately leading forces into the Song Dynasty’s southwestern border.   The Trần Kings now sent tribute to the Mongols, expecting it would be a continuation of the relationship they had had with the Song: tribute once every three years, a nominal submission to keep the peace. For almost two decades, this was essentially what followed, as the Mongols were too preoccupied with the succession struggle after Mongke’s death and Kublai’s ensuing war with the Song Dynasty to press the matter further. Likewise, Champa began to send tribute to the Khan. With the Song still a buffer between them, the kingdoms of Vietnam felt some security from the Mongols.       However, Kublai began asking for both monarchs to submit to him in person and confirm their allegiance, which both put off in favour of continued tribute missions. Other demands had to be met as Mongol vassals, such as censuses, allowing daruqachi to be posted in their cities and demands for labour and materials- all were requirments neither kingdom had yet to meet.  The end of Song resistance at Yaishan by 1279 to Kublai’s Yuan Empire removed  the buffer between them, and now the excuses of the Trần and Cham kings was far less acceptable, as was their housing of fleeing Song officials. In 1280 Kublai demanded that if the Trần king could not come in person, then he must send a massive golden likeness of himself with pearls for eyes, as well as increased amounts of tributes, as well as demanding the kingdom’s most skilled doctors and artisans, most virtuous scholars and most beautiful women every three years. The Great Khan’s demands grew ever greater, the intention clear: the submission of Đại Việt and Champa must be total.   Kublai’s eyes were also going further afield. Dreaming of completing the conquest of the world, the fall of the Song, the greatest single independent power not subject to the Mongols, seemed to open up access to valuable maritime trade routes.  It has been speculated that Kublai saw Champa as key to controlling the south-east Asian trade, essentially a landing strip jutting out into the trade routes darting from India, Indonesia and China. After years of perceived insubordination, once the Chams imprisoned Yuan envoys in 1282, Kublai had his pretext for war and a chance to seize the sea trade. Striking at Champa first had the added benefit of putting Đại Việt in a vice grip between Yuan China and an occupied Champa, and hopefully bring it to heel as well. Having overcome the formidable Song Dynasty, the often politically fragmented Champa would have seemed an easy target in comparison. Officials in Guangxi province had sent encouraging messages to the court, saying less than 3,000 men would be needed to overrun the Chams. After the failure of the second invasion of Japan in 1281, Kublai was also hungry for a quick and easy victory. Though the 1270s had been successful, they had worn Kublai out; by the 1280s, he was no longer the patient man he had been in the 1250s, planning out every detail of the Dali campaign with his experienced generals and advisers. His most loyal and critical advisers had died over the 1270s, and Kublai had outlived the most veteran commanders. Having come to expect total victory regardless, Kublai now demanded it immediately.       In December 1282, Sogetu, a hero of the final war against the Song Dynasty and governor of Fujian, departed with 5,000 men drawn from former Song territory aboard a hundred transport ships, arriving near the Cham capital of Vijaya in February 1283. After brief resistance, Vijaya fell to Sogetu, who found that the Cham leadership, its King Indravarman V and Prince Harijit, had fled into the mountains. After wasting a month in fruitless negotiation with Cham envoys, once Indravarman executed his envoys, in March 1283 Sogetu set out on the attack.  In the jungle his men were ambushed and driven back, and Sogetu retreated to the coast where he cleared land to plant rice to feed his men. There, he sent envoys to the Khmer Empire (who were detained) and sent messages to the Yuan court for aid.        Initially, the court’s response was slow, still planning for a third invasion of Japan. Ariq Khaya, the Uighur commander who had helped crush the last of Song resistance, was ordered to raise thousands of Jurchen, Northern Chinese and former Song troops to aid Sogetu, but failed to do so. It was not until March 1284, after plans for the third Japanese invasion were finally abandoned, when an army of 20,000 was dispatched to aid Sogetu. Setting out by sea and delayed by a brief mutiny, they arrived the next month to link up with a campaigning Sogetu, who had begun sacking Cham cities along the coast. The Cham King Indravarman sent word he was willing to submit, but would be unable to offer tribute due to the plundering. Such concerns did not really bother the Mongols.       By August 1284 the Yuan court had received maps showing the land routes through Đại Việt to Champa, and it was declared that Kublai’s eleventh son Toghon would lead a force overland to assist Sogetu. Đại Việt was ordered to help supply this army, but they refused: it was immediately apparent in the Trần court that this was almost certainly a pretext for a Yuan conquest of Đại Việt. At that time, the reigning Trần King was Trần Khâm, temple name Trần Nhân Tông. His father, the previous king Trần Thánh Tông, was still alive: the Vietnamese had a similar institution to the Japanese, wherein the previous monarch would ‘retire,’ abdicating the throne for their heir and as ‘emperor-emeritus,’ tutor their successor while stepping out of all that strict court protocol. So it was in 1284 that the 15th century chronicle the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, records a famous episode. The ‘emperor-emeritus’ Trần Thánh Tông, once it was apparent that the Mongol attack was forthcoming, summoned elders and advisers from across Đại Việt to discuss the best course of action and strategy. Supposedly, they all shouted in unison, “Fight!”   So the Trầns began to prepare for the assault, readying officers and men. Of these, one man is the most famous for his preparations, Trần Quốc Tuấn, though you may know him better by his later title, Prince Hưng Đạo. Part of Hưng Đạo’s long standing popularity in Vietnamese history was his character, worth a small digression. Hưng Đạo’s rise to prominence was an unexpected thing. He was the nephew of the first Trần King, the son of his rebellious older brother. While his father died disgraced and as a traitor, Hưng Đạo made himself a shining beacon of loyalty and filial piety- two very good traits to have if you want to have Confucian inspired historians write nice things about you. Hưng Đạo actively made himself appear the most loyal of all the Trần King’s servants, perhaps to overcompensate for his father’s actions. His charisma, natural talent and skill made his life an exemplary subject for chroniclers to fawn over,  with one notable exception: when he was around 20 years old, Hưng Đạo had an affair with an imperial princess already engaged to another man. It was a scandal resolved by marrying the two, but was nonetheless an embarrassment. When it became apparent that war was coming, Hưng Đạo marked himself out by preparing and training men and officers, before taking a leading role in the strategy himself.    In January 1285, Prince Toghon and Ariq Khaya led some eight tumens over the border from Yunnan into Đại Việt. He had with him an ousted member of the Trần royal family, Trần Ích Tầc, who the Yuan had declared the new King of Đại Việt and were going to place onto the throne. In addition, another column came further west, led by Nasir ad-Din, the Khwarezmian appointed by the Mongols to govern Yunnan; he was the son of the first Mongol appointed governor of the province, a skilled figure named Sayyid Ajall. The forces sent against Toghon, Ariq Khaya and Nasir ad-Din were quickly overcome, and captured ships allowed them to cross the Phu-luong River in February.  Meanwhile, Sogetu was marching north, a great pincer movement on Đại Việt. Prince Hưng Đạo divided his forces to try and prevent Sogetu from linking up with Toghon, but Sogetu overwhelmed them, capturing 400 renegade Song officials. By the time Sogetu linked up with Toghon, the Prince had constructed a full river fleet and placed them under the command of Omar, one of the Yuan’s top naval commanders and Nasir ad-Din’s son. Together, they undertook a full offensive against Đại Việt, Omar driving the King out to sea while Toghon and Sogetu captured the capital of Thăng Long. Armies sent against them were annhilated and many Trần generals defected to the Yuan forces.       With Thăng Long’s seizure, the Yuan experienced their final success of this campaign. Again, Thăng Long had been skilfully evacuated to deny the Mongols access to supplies or the royal family, thus preventing the city’s occupation from being a true strategic gain. In Thăng Long, Yuan forces and supply lines were overextended, running low on food while heat and disease took their toll. In June one of the Yuan commanders, Li Heng, was killed by poisoned arrows and his force decimated by ambushes. A former Song Dynasty officer and his entourage, fighting alongside the Vietnamese, donned their old Song style uniforms and armours, which panicked  the Yuan detachments thinking they were now facing long-lost Song reinforcment! The fallen Vietnamese were found to have tattooed “kill the Tatars!” on their own bodies, angering, frustrating and frightening the Yuan forces- many of whom, it should be noted, were not Tatars but conscripted Chinese and others who would be forced to share their fate. All bodies with such tatoos were ordered to be decapitated. Toghon, seeing their position was untenable as morale crumbled, decided to call a full retreat back to Yuan territory. So swiftly was this done that Toghon failed to inform Sogetu of the retreat, who suddenly realized he was left isolated deep in enemy territory.  Hurriedly he forced his way north, but the Vietnamese harried him. Sogetu was captured and killed in battle, and the remainder of his force was largely surrounded and destroyed at Ssu-ming on the Yuan border.       This was a disastrous end to the campaign. The Mongols had suffered reversals, loss of commanders and had to turn back from campaigns before. Battles had been lost of course, but major defeats like the Japan invasions could be explained away as the interventions of nature and the heavens. But the Vietnam campaign was a direct military fiasco, one of Kublai’s own sons failing to deliver victory.  Kublai was so furious he refused to allow Toghon back to the capital. Frustrated by failures and his mind increasingly clouded by drink and depression, Kublai ordered a third invasion of Đại Việt. Special care was taken for this invasion. The Trần pretender Trần Ích Tầc was once again to be promoted, to hopefully encourage dissension, and great effort was taken to prevent the logistical issues of the previous campaign. Supply ships were ordered from all along the southern Chinese coast to ferry troops and provide the food necessary for the great army being assembled: 70,000 Mongol, Jurchen and Northern Chinese, 6,000 troops from Yunnan, 1,000 former Song soldiers, 6,000 local troops from Guangxi and 17,000 Loi people from the island of Hainan, for a total of 100,000 men not including the crews of the 500 warships and transports. Toghon was placed in overall command again, his final chance to redeem himself before his aging father.        While it is easy to focus on the Yuan losses, it must not be thought it was an easy experience in Vietnam. As per custom, the Mongols had metted out savage reprisal on cities; we know from elsewhere that when frustrated, as when denied a chance to meet the foe directly in battle, it only resulted in increased devastation on those they fell across. Crops and rice patties were destroyed by the tred of armies and horses, and we cannot imagine what starvation and horrors greeted the population caught in the middle of this conflict. Many thousands fled into the wilderness to escape the Yuan armies, and few could have been prepared for the experience. Their suffering from disease, lack of water and resources goes unmentioned in the sources. The capital of Thăng Long had been looted and occupied for the second time in thirty years. In Champa the evidence is less clear, but it seems Sogetu burned his way through many of the most prominent city’s along the coast in his march north. In the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, in the entry for the year 1286 Prince Hưng Đạo provides this assessment to the King:   “Our kingdom has been at peace for a long time. The people do not know about military matters. Previously when the Yuan came and raided, there were those who surrendered or fled. By relying on the potent awe of the imperial ancestors, Your Highness’s divine [perspicacity] and martial [awe] wiped clean the dust of the nomadic barbarians. If they come again, our troops are trained at fighting, while their army fears a distant campaign. They are also dejected by the defeats of Heng and Guan. They do not have the heart to fight. As I see it, they are sure to be defeated.”   Hưng Đạo, as fitting his character, comes across optimistic and eager to fight. Yet, he recognized that many had quickly defected or routed before the Mongols. The Vietnamese needed to prepare to meet the Mongols again ahead on, rather than simply rely on the ‘awe’ of the King.       In October 1287, the third invasion began. The army  into three major forces: Toghon took the main army overland, 6,000 traveled west of the main army to act as a diversionary force and 18,000 were taken by Omar and Fan Yi aboard war ships sailing along the coast to find and neutralize the Việt navy. The large transport fleet followed some days behind Omar’s armada, anticipating that Omar would have cleared the way of enemy ships for them. In December the main army crossed the border in two columns and defeated several Đại Việt forces, marching to Vạn Kiếp on the Bạch Đằng River to await the arrival of Omar’s fleet, who arrived after fighting off a Vietnamese navy. Despite early success, neither force had brought much for food supplies, expecting to be supplied by the transport fleet.       Toghon waited for the supply fleet until the end of January 1288, but unbeknownst to him much of the supply fleet was blown off course by a storm, and the rest were attacked by the Việt  navy. The commander Trần Khánh Dư held his fleet in secret up a river near the coast at Vân Đồn, and allowed the Yuan warships under Omar to pass by. Once Omar and the warships were beyond reach, Trần Khánh Dư  fell upon the unguarded, slower moving Yuan supply ships. By seizing and scattering these, he ensured the breakdown of the massive Yuan army. With food supplies running low, Toghon marched onto Thăng Long, hoping to resupply there. The city fell without opposition in February 1288, but to their horror they found there wasn’t a grain of rice left within: the defenders had once again stripped it in their flight. The increasingly desperate Yuan forces went to great effort to gather food until learning of the disaster which befell the supply fleets at Vân Đồn. Toghon ordered the army back to stockades they had constructed at Vạn Kiếp, and by the end of March, once his men were on the verge of starvation, he ordered a general retreat back to China. It was now the Việt forces sprung their trap. The Yuan army’s route north was harried by continual ambushes and the destruction of roads and bridges to hamper their movements. Arrows flew out from the trees to strike men down. Tropical diseases the Mongols were unused to spread among them, humidity warped their bows and the trees howled with the sounds of alien creatures ensuring sleepless nights. Toghon, great-grandson of Chinggis Khan, showed his pedigree by hiding in a copper tube on the march, then abandoning the troops to board a warship and sail back to the Yuan realm.       On April 9th, 1288, Omar’s fleet was sailing past the mouth of the Bạch Đằng river when a group of Vietnamese ships, commanded by Prince Hưng Đạo, sailed out to meet him at high tide. Eager for some sort of victory, Omar took a portion of the fleet and attacked. The Vietnamese routed before the Yuan warships, fleeing back up the river whence they had come. When the Yuan fleet pursued up the river, the trap was sprung: while the smaller and lighter Vietnamese craft had cruised by in safety, wooden stakes placed along the river bottom impaled the larger Yuan vessels, holding them in place as the tide receded. With the Yuan ships immobilized, the Vietnamese turned about and attacked: helpless, many Yuan soldiers jumped into the river, drowning or picked off by the arrows of Đại Việt, and Omar was captured. The other fleet commander, Fan Yi, attempted to rescue Omar, but his vessels were surrounded and boarded, Fan Yi himself killed in the fighting. Some 400 ships were captured, capping off a campaign which saw most of its land forces destroyed in the wilderness.       1288 proved to be a total fiasco for the Yuan. Only a few years after the destruction of the great armada off the shores of Kyushu, another fleet and army were destroyed with little to show for it. Toghon was sent into political exile after both disastrous campaigns, his son another disgrace to add to Kublai’s troubles of the 1280s. Unlike earlier, thoroughly planned and prepared campaigns, the Mongol leadership was unable to gather the information they needed to properly orchestrate their attacks. The destruction of the cities did not sway or put adequate fear into the Vietnamese monarchs, the sufferings of the population could not move them and unable to capture the enemy leadership, the Mongol were denied many of the strategic tools they had commonly employed to disable the enemy defense. In the dense and rugged jungles and mountains, the Mongols’ greatest tactical advantage, the mobility and range of their horse archers, was neutralized, while the heat, humidity and diseases wrought havoc upon troops and horses unused to such a climate. While victorious in the primary field engagements, the Yuan were unable to transform these battles into strategic successes. And crucially, the Mongols struggled to supply themselves. Small foraging parties could be picked off by the locals, supply lines could more be secured and larger armies were dependent on those supply fleets. When the supply fleets of the third invasion were destroyed by Trần Khánh Dư  at Vân Đồn, the massive army commanded by Toghon became a huge, unreadable, liability. All of these were compounded by the fact the Yuan leadership totally underestimated Vietnamese resilience and the Yuan commander, Toghon, was an inept and inexperienced general: in contrast, the military leaders of  Đại Việt were able to maximize their strengths and strike at the Yuan when they were their most vulnerable.    While Bạch Đằng was a masterfully executed victory by Prince Hưng Đạo, Đại Việt and Champa had suffered terribly over both campaigns, and both kingdoms, to avoid another invasion began sending tribute and recognized Kublai’s authority. Still, their resilience and refusal of either monarch to come before him left Kublai wanting another invasion, the Trần pretender Trần Ích Tầc again readied to be put onto the Trần throne, but as with much else, such thoughts were abandoned on Kublai’s death in 1294. After Kublai’s death, relations were eased between Yuan, Đại Việt and Champa. The kingdoms in Vietnam paid their tribute, and they were spared another Mongol assault. Relations between Đại Việt and Champa improved, and a marriage alliance was organized. The former Cham Prince Harijit, now King Simhavarman III, married the daughter of the Trần King, only to die suddenly in 1307. The death of the Cham king brought a new round of tension between the two states, eventually turning into a continuous conflict between them that ultimately culminated in the Viet seizure of Vijaya in 1471.   Today, Bạch Đằng is a highly celebrated episode in Vietnam’s history, the tactics and strategy of Hưng Đạo studied by the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. The introduction of the idea of the nation-state to Vietnam has seen Hưng Đạo turned into a symbol of the nation, a single person embodying the ideals of resistance to powerful, foreign foes.  But for Kublai, the disasters in Vietnam were only the start to a rough decade, which we will explore over our next episodes, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. To help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This script was written and researched by Jack Wilson, with the kind assistance of Phú Võ for accessing Vietnamese and Chinese materials. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

In which the emperor's attempts to keep all the promises he made in the afterlife leads to the building of a grand temple and the commencement--once and for all--of the Journey to the West. If you were wondering what the hell was going on (pun intended) with this extended detour involving a Dragon King, royal brothers, that loan made out in the afterlife, this chapter gives you all the answers. It all had to happen so that Guan Yin could find the right disciple to get the scriptures. Join Richard & James this week to see how it all went down!

Al comienzo de la dinastía Tang, el emperador Taizong de Tang ordenó a Kong Yingda crear una edición canónica del I Ching . Escogiendo el Zhouyi zhu del siglo III como el comentario oficial, le agregó un subcomentario que describe los niveles más sutiles de las explicaciones de Wang Bi. El trabajo resultante, el Zhouyi zhengi , se convirtió en la edición estándar del I Ching a través de la dinastía Song. En el siglo XI, el I Ching estaba siendo leído como un trabajo de filosofía intrincada. Entendamos el relato…

We go from commoners and lords to emperors and gods in this week's chapter of Journey to the West. Starting with an Ancient Chinese rap battle and ending with one of China's greatest emperors passing away into the great beyond. A dragon head will roll in this week's episode. Don't miss it!

Tang Taizong made China the largest, richest, and most powerful country of its time. He ruled from 626 to 649 BCE. Not only known for his mind on the battlefield, defeating the invading Turks, but he was more renowned for his ability to maintain the peace. His dynasty lasted for hundreds of years and Tang Taizong's reign became the model against which all future emperors were measured. The Tang dynasty is considered the golden age in Chinese history and was treated as required studying material for future crown princes. Another difference between Tang Taizong and Marcus Aurelius was their ability to spot talent and avoid bias. Aurelius made Commodus his heir, which many blame to be part of the reason Rome fell. And Aurelius was also betrayed by his wife, Faustina. However, Tang Taizong despised nepotism, and his wife, Empress Wende, was one of his wisest advisors. As Marcus wrote his rules for leadership in Meditations, I will do the same and provide for you Emperor Tang Taizong's meditations on leadership and the good life. But, in my own words... Books I Recommend: The Ruler's Guide: China's Greatest Emperor and His Timeless Secrets of Success – Chinghua Tang (https://amzn.to/2Pr7tas) The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations – Marcus Aurelius (Author), David Hicks (Translator), C. Scot Hicks (Translator) (http://amzn.to/2gVZOjD) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb (http://amzn.to/1OSNo4p) Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman (http://amzn.to/1z100o6) Music Theme – Chosen by Ross Bugden Springish – Gillicuddy Dream – Chan Wai Fat Only Our Footsteps in the Sand – Mid-Air Machine Aguirre, the Wrath of God – Gary Lucas Mission of Danger, Yangtzse River – Lobo Loco If you'd like to support my podcast and help me do this full-time, become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/musttriumph (a site where you can monetarily support your favorite content creators). As a thank you, you will get access to bonus episodes along with transcripts for every episode (including this one).

Song's second emperor, Taizong, wants to achieve the heights of Chinese glory, power, and territory just like the Tang and Han before him. But aspirations are easier than results, and he's going to have to contend with neighbor states on all sides far more powerful than his predecessors - and with his own position far weaker. Still it's either that or the utterly unthinkable: acknowledge that China is no longer the preeminent superpower of the East, but now just one state among equals. Time Period Covered: 976-986 CE

Song's second emperor, Taizong, wants to achieve the heights of Chinese glory, power, and territory just like the Tang and Han before him. But aspirations are easier than results, and he's going to have to contend with neighbor states on all sides far more powerful than his predecessors - and with his own position far weaker. Still it's either that or the utterly unthinkable: acknowledge that China is no longer the preeminent superpower of the East, but now just one state among equals.Time Period Covered:976-986 CE  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chris Stewart (History of China), Steven Guerra (History of the Papacy), Ben Jacobs (Wittenberg to Westphalia) and Thom Daly (American Biography) evaluate Marcus Aurelius and Tang Taizong head-to-head in the Duel of the Philosopher Kings! Musical attribution: opening and exit music by Brandon Liew (edited) used under a Creative Commons license (link below). Collection 1 (Brandon Liew) / CC BY 4.0 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Li Shimin assassinated his two brothers and put his father out to pasture in order to snag the top job as Emperor Taizong. But a mere three weeks into his reign, this “rock star” monarch will face an existential challenge to his reign and the future of the Tang Dynasty as a whole: the wrath of the Göktürk Khaganate. It will prove to be a wild ride to determine whether Tang China will be doomed to remain a vassal of the Turks, or whether Taizong’s “true vision” will prove enough to rise to the challenge. Time Period Covered: 626-630 CE Major Historical Figures: Tang: Prince Li Shimin [Emperor Taizong] Retired Emperor Gaozu Göktürk Khaganate: Illig Khagan Tölis Khan Liang Dynasty (Turkic Vassal): Emperor Liang Shidu (d. 628) Xueyantuo Tribe (alt. Se-Yento, Syr-Tardush) Uyghur Tribe (alt. Huige, Hui-ho) Khitan Tribe Works Cited: Drompp, Michael. Tang China And The Collapse Of The Uighur Empire: A Documentary History Grousset, René. The Rise and Splendor of the Chinese...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After coming to power in a series of violent and deceptive acts, including tricking his father into cuckolding the Emperor, Li Shimin went on to become a ruler whose reign as Emperor Taizong has been hailed as a model of good government throughout East Asia. Jack W. Chen‘s recent book... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After coming to power in a series of violent and deceptive acts, including tricking his father into cuckolding the Emperor, Li Shimin went on to become a ruler whose reign as Emperor Taizong has been hailed as a model of good government throughout East Asia. Jack W. Chen‘s recent book explores the ways that Taizong shaped the representations and meanings of his empire by shaping the literary representations of power as he and others embodied it. The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty (Harvard Yenching Institute, 2010) is a journey through those articulations of sovereignty in the course of a masterful analysis of the literary world of early medieval China. Several fascinating themes run through this highly transdisciplinary work, which contributes meaningfully to larger histories of corporeality and the body, of historiographical practice, of experiences and articulations of space and movement, and of the historical ethics and rituals of rulership. It is a treat for the scholar of literature and the historian alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After coming to power in a series of violent and deceptive acts, including tricking his father into cuckolding the Emperor, Li Shimin went on to become a ruler whose reign as Emperor Taizong has been hailed as a model of good government throughout East Asia. Jack W. Chen‘s recent book... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After coming to power in a series of violent and deceptive acts, including tricking his father into cuckolding the Emperor, Li Shimin went on to become a ruler whose reign as Emperor Taizong has been hailed as a model of good government throughout East Asia. Jack W. Chen‘s recent book explores the ways that Taizong shaped the representations and meanings of his empire by shaping the literary representations of power as he and others embodied it. The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty (Harvard Yenching Institute, 2010) is a journey through those articulations of sovereignty in the course of a masterful analysis of the literary world of early medieval China. Several fascinating themes run through this highly transdisciplinary work, which contributes meaningfully to larger histories of corporeality and the body, of historiographical practice, of experiences and articulations of space and movement, and of the historical ethics and rituals of rulership. It is a treat for the scholar of literature and the historian alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laszlo is back after a holiday illness to continue where we left off in 705 with the passing of Wu Zetian. After an initial golden age during the Taizong emperor, the Tang will reach new heights of glory under Tang Minghuang a.k.a. the Xuanzong emperor. The magnificent city of Chang'an is once again the center continue reading >> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laszlo is back after a holiday illness to continue where we left off in 705 with the passing of Wu Zetian. After an initial golden age during the Taizong emperor, the Tang will reach new heights of glory under Tang Minghuang a.k.a. the Xuanzong emperor.