Tang dynasty

Administration and politics

Initial reforms

Taizong set out to solve the internal problems within the government that had constantly plagued past dynasties. Building upon the Sui legal code, he issued a new legal code that subsequent Chinese dynasties would model theirs upon, as well as neighbouring polities in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. The earliest law code to survive was established in 653; it was divided into 500 articles specifying different crimes and penalties ranging from ten blows with a light stick, one hundred blows with a heavy rod, exile, penal servitude, or execution. The legal code distinguished different levels of severity in meted punishments when different members of the social and political hierarchy committed the same crime. For example, the severity of punishment was different when a servant or nephew killed a master or an uncle than when a master or uncle killed a servant or nephew.

The Tang Code was largely retained by later codes such as the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644) code of 1397, yet there were several revisions in later times, such as improved property rights for women during the Song dynasty (960–1279).

The Tang had three departments (省; shěng), each of which was obliged to draft, review, and implement policies. There were also six ministries (部; bù) under the administrations that implemented policy, each of which was assigned different tasks. These Three Departments and Six Ministries included the personnel administration, finance, rites, military, justice, and public works—an administrative model which lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912).

Although the founders of the Tang dynasty drew on the glory of the earlier Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), the basis for much of their administrative organisation was very similar to that of the previous Northern and Southern dynasties. The Northern Zhou (6th century) fubing system of divisional militia was continued by the Tang, along with farmer-soldiers serving in rotation from the capital or frontier in order to receive appropriated farmland. The equal-field system of the Northern Wei (4th–6th centuries) was also maintained, though with a few modifications.

Although the central and local governments kept extensive records of land property to assess taxes, it became common practice in the Tang for literate and affluent people to create their own private documents and sign contracts. These had their own signature, along with those of a witness and a scribe, to prove in court (if necessary) that their claim to the property was legitimate. The prototype of this actually existed in the ancient Han dynasty, while contractual language became even more common and was embedded in Chinese literary culture in later dynasties.

The centre of the political power of the Tang was the capital city of Chang'an (modern Xi'an), where the emperor maintained his large palace quarters and entertained political emissaries with music, sports, acrobats, poetry, paintings, and dramatic theatre performances. The capital was also filled with incredible wealth and resources to spare. When the Chinese prefectural government officials travelled to the capital in 643 to present the annual report on the affairs in their districts, Emperor Taizong discovered that many had no proper quarters to rest in and were renting rooms from merchants. Therefore, Emperor Taizong ordered the government agencies responsible for municipal construction to build each visiting official his own private mansion in the capital.

Imperial examinations

Students of Confucian studies were candidates for the imperial examinations, which qualified their graduates for appointment to the local, provincial, and central government bureaucracies. Two types of exams were given, mingjing (明經; 'illuminating the classics') and jinshi (進士; 'presented scholar'). The mingjing was based upon the Confucian classics and tested the student's knowledge of a wide variety of texts. The jinshi tested a student's literary abilities in writing essays in response to questions on governance and politics, as well as in composing poetry. Candidates were also judged on proper deportment, appearance, speech, and calligraphy, all subjective criteria that favoured the wealthy over those of more modest means who were unable to pay tutors of rhetoric and writing. Although a disproportionate number of civil officials came from aristocratic families, wealth and noble status were not prerequisites, and the exams were open to all male subjects whose fathers were not of the artisan or merchant classes. To promote widespread Confucian education, the Tang government established state-run schools and issued standard versions of the Five Classics with commentaries.

An open competition was designed to draw the best talent into government. But perhaps an even greater consideration for the Tang rulers was avoiding imperial dependence on powerful aristocratic families and warlords by recruiting a body of career officials with no family or local power base. The Tang law code ensured equal division of inherited property among legitimate heirs, encouraging social mobility by preventing powerful families from becoming landed nobility through primogeniture. Contrary to older accounts that portrayed the imperial examination as marginal in Tang times, recent quantitative research shows that by the late seventh century the jinshi degree had already become the primary route to high office, while aristocratic family pedigree had largely lost its predictive power for bureaucratic appointment. The Tang examination system thus played a decisive institutional role in displacing hereditary privilege and fostering a bureaucratic elite selected by merit. From Tang times until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, scholar-officials served as intermediaries between the people and the government, their authority deriving less from lineage than from examination success.

Although the system was later further expanded under the Song, the essential transformation from aristocratic to bureaucratic governance had already taken shape during the Tang dynasty.

Religion and politics

From the outset, religion played a role in Tang politics. In his bid for power, Li Yuan had attracted a following by claiming descent from the Taoist sage Laozi (fl. 6th century BC). People bidding for office would request the prayers of Buddhist monks, with successful aspirants making donations in return. Before the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Buddhism and Taoism were both accepted. Religion was central in the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756). The emperor invited Taoist and Buddhist monks and clerics to his court, exalted Laozi with grand titles, wrote commentaries on Taoist scriptures, and established a school to train candidates for Taoist examinations. In 726, he called upon the Indian monk Vajrabodhi (671–741) to perform tantric rites to avert a drought. In 742, he personally held the incense burner while patriarch of the Shingon school Amoghavajra (705–774) recited "mystical incantations to secure the victory of Tang forces".

Emperor Xuanzong closely regulated religious finances. Near the beginning of his reign in 713, he liquidated the Inexhaustible Treasury of a prominent Buddhist monastery in Chang'an, which had collected vast riches as multitudes of anonymous repentants left money, silk, and treasure at its doors. Although the monastery used its funds generously, the emperor condemned it for fraudulent banking practices, and distributed its wealth to other Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, and to repair local statues, halls, and bridges. In 714, he forbade Chang'an shops from selling copied Buddhist sutras, giving a monopoly of this trade to the Buddhist clergy.

Taxes and the census

The Tang government attempted to conduct an accurate census of the empire's population, primarily to support effective taxation and military conscription. The early Tang government established modest grain and cloth taxes per household, encouraging households to register and provide the government with accurate demographic information. In the official census of 609, the population was tallied at 9 million households, about 50 million people, and this number did not increase in the census of 742. Patricia Ebrey writes that, notwithstanding census undercounting, China's population had not grown significantly since the earlier Han dynasty, which recorded 58 million people in 2 AD. Adshead disagrees, estimating about 75 million people by 750.

In the Tang census of 754, there were 1,859 cities, 321 prefectures, and 1,538 counties throughout the empire. Although there were many large and prominent cities, the rural and agrarian areas comprised 80–90% of the population. There was also a dramatic migration from northern to southern China, as the North held 75% of the overall population at the dynasty's inception, which by its end was reduced to 50%. The Chinese population would not dramatically increase until the Song dynasty, when it doubled to 100 million because of extensive rice cultivation in central and southern China, coupled with higher yields of grain sold in a growing market.

Military and foreign policy

Protectorates and tributaries

The 7th and first half of the 8th century are generally considered to be the era in which the Tang reached the zenith of its power. In this period, Tang control extended further west than any previous dynasty, stretching from north Vietnam in the south, to a point north of Kashmir bordering Persia in the west, to northern Korea in the north-east.

Some of the kingdoms paying tribute to the Tang dynasty included Kashmir, Nepal, Khotan, Kucha, Kashgar, Silla, Champa, and kingdoms located in Amu Darya and Syr Darya valley. Turkic nomads addressed the Tang emperor as Tian Kehan. After the widespread Göktürk revolt of Shabolüe Khan (d. 658) was put down at Issyk Kul in 657 by Su Dingfang (591–667), Emperor Gaozong established several protectorates governed by a Protectorate General or Grand Protectorate General, which extended the Chinese sphere of influence as far as Herat in Western Afghanistan. Protectorate Generals were given a great deal of autonomy to handle local crises without waiting for central admission. After Xuanzong's reign, jiedushi were given enormous power, including the ability to maintain their own armies, collect taxes, and pass their titles on hereditarily. This is commonly recognised as the beginning of the fall of Tang's central government.

Soldiers and conscription

By 737, Emperor Xuanzong discarded the policy of conscripting soldiers that were replaced every three years, replacing them with long-service soldiers who were more battle-hardened and efficient. It was more economically feasible as well, since training new recruits and sending them out to the frontier every three years drained the treasury. By the late 7th century, the fubing troops began abandoning military service and the homes provided to them in the equal-field system. The supposed standard of 100 mu of land allotted to each family was in fact decreasing in size in places where population expanded and the wealthy bought up most of the land. Hard-pressed peasants and vagrants were then induced into military service with benefits of exemption from both taxation and corvée labour service, as well as provisions for farmland and dwellings for dependents who accompanied soldiers on the frontier. By 742, the total number of enlisted troops in the Tang armies had risen to about 500,000 men.

Eastern regions

In East Asia, Tang military campaigns were less successful elsewhere than in previous imperial Chinese dynasties. Like the emperors of the Sui dynasty before him, Taizong established a military campaign in 644 against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo in the Goguryeo–Tang War; however, this led to its withdrawal in the first campaign because they failed to overcome the successful defence led by General Yŏn Kaesomun. The Tang entered into the Silla–Tang alliance, the Chinese fought against Baekje and their Yamato Japanese allies in the Battle of Baekgang in August 663, a decisive Tang–Silla victory. The Tang dynasty navy had several different ship types at its disposal to engage in naval warfare, these ships described by Li Quan in his Taipai Yinjing (Canon of the White and Gloomy Planet of War) of 759. The Battle of Baekgang was actually a restoration movement by remnant forces of Baekje, since their kingdom was toppled in 660 by a Tang–Silla invasion, led by Chinese general Su Dingfang and Korean general Kim Yushin (595–673). In another joint invasion with Silla, the Tang army severely weakened the Goguryeo Kingdom in the north by taking out its outer forts in 645. With joint attacks by Silla and Tang armies under commander Li Shiji (594–669), the Kingdom of Goguryeo was destroyed by 668.

Although they were formerly enemies, the Tang accepted officials and generals of Goguryeo into their administration and military, such as the brothers Yŏn Namsaeng (634–679) and Yŏn Namsan (639–701). From 668 to 676, the Tang Empire controlled northern Korea. However, Silla broke the alliance in 671, and began the Silla–Tang War to expel the Tang forces. At the same time the Tang faced threats on its western border when a large Chinese army was defeated by the Tibetans on the Dafei River in 670. By 676, the Tang army was expelled out of Korea by a unified Silla. Following a revolt of the Eastern Turks in 679, the Tang abandoned its Korean campaigns.

Although the Tang had fought the Japanese, they still held cordial relations with Japan. There were numerous Imperial embassies to China from Japan, diplomatic missions that were not halted until 894 by Emperor Uda (r. 887–897), upon persuasion by Sugawara no Michizane (845–903). The Japanese Emperor Tenmu (r. 672–686) even established his conscripted army on that of the Chinese model, based his state ceremonies on the Chinese model, and constructed his palace at Fujiwara on the Chinese model of architecture.

Many Chinese Buddhist monks came to Japan to help further the spread of Buddhism as well. Two 7th-century monks, Zhi Yu and Zhi You, visited the court of Emperor Tenji (r. 661–672), whereupon they presented a gift of a south-pointing chariot that they had crafted. This vehicle employing a differential gear was reproduced in several models for Tenji in 666, as recorded in the Nihon Shoki (720). Japanese monks also visited China; such was the case with Ennin (794–864), who wrote of his travel experiences including travels along the Grand Canal. The Japanese monk Enchin (814–891) stayed in China from 839 to 847, and again from 853 to 858, landing near Fuzhou, Fujian and setting sail for Japan from Taizhou, Zhejiang during his second trip to China.

Western and Northern regions

The Sui and Tang carried out successful military campaigns against the steppe nomads. Chinese foreign policy to the north and west now had to deal with Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in Central Asia. To handle and avoid any threats posed by the Turks, the Sui government repaired fortifications and received their trade and tribute missions. They sent four royal princesses to form heqin marriage alliances with Turkic clan leaders, in 597, 599, 614, and 617. The Sui stirred trouble and conflict among ethnic groups against the Turks. As early as the Sui dynasty, the Turks had become a major militarised force employed by the Chinese. When the Khitans began raiding northeast China in 605, a Chinese general led 20,000 Turks against them, distributing Khitan livestock and women to the Turks as a reward. On two occasions between 635 and 636, Tang royal princesses were married to Turk mercenaries or generals in Chinese service. Throughout the Tang dynasty until the end of 755, there were approximately ten Turkic generals serving under the Tang. While most of the Tang army was made of fubing Chinese conscripts, the majority of the troops led by Turkic generals were of non-Chinese origin, campaigning largely in the western frontier where the presence of fubing troops was low. Some "Turkic" troops were tribalised Han Chinese, a desinicised people.

Civil war in China was almost totally diminished by 626, along with the 628 defeat of the Ordos warlord Liang Shidu; after these internal conflicts, the Tang began an offensive against the Turks. In 630, Tang armies captured areas of the Ordos Desert, modern-day Inner Mongolia province, and southern Mongolia from the Turks. After this military victory, On June 11, 631, Emperor Taizong also sent envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to persuade the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners who were captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.

While the Turks were settled in the Ordos region (former territory of the Xiongnu), the Tang government took on the military policy of dominating the central steppe. As during the earlier Han dynasty, the Tang and their Turkic allies conquered and subdued Central Asia during the 640s and 650s. During Emperor Taizong's reign alone, large campaigns were launched against not only the Göktürks, but also separate campaigns against the Tuyuhun, the oasis states, and the Xueyantuo. Under Emperor Gaozong, a campaign led by the general Su Dingfang was launched against the Western Turks ruled by Ashina Helu.

The Tang Empire competed with the Tibetan Empire for control of areas in Inner and Central Asia, which was at times settled with marriage alliances such as the marrying of Princess Wencheng (d. 680) to Songtsän Gampo (d. 649). A Tibetan tradition mentions that Chinese troops captured Lhasa after Songtsän Gampo's death, but no such invasion is mentioned in either Chinese annals or the Tibetan manuscripts of Dunhuang.

There was a string of conflicts with Tibet over territories in the Tarim Basin between 670 and 692; in 763, the Tibetans captured Chang'an for fifteen days during the An Lushan rebellion. In fact, it was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, which the Tibetans then occupied along with the territory of what is now Xinjiang. Hostilities between the Tang and Tibet continued until they signed the Changqing Treaty in 821. The terms of this treaty, including the fixed borders between the two countries, are recorded in a bilingual inscription on a stone pillar outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa.

During the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–656), the son of the last ruler of the Sasanian Empire, Prince Peroz and his court moved to Tang China. According to the Old Book of Tang, Peroz was made the head of a Governorate of Persia in present-day Zaranj, Afghanistan. During this conquest of Persia, the Rashidun Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) sent an embassy to the Tang court at Chang'an. Arab sources claim Umayyad commander Qutayba ibn Muslim briefly took Kashgar from China and withdrew after an agreement, but modern historians entirely dismiss this claim. The Arab Umayyad Caliphate in 715 deposed Ikhshid, the king the Fergana Valley, and installed a new king Alutar on the throne. The deposed king fled to Kucha (seat of Anxi Protectorate), and sought Chinese intervention. The Chinese sent 10,000 troops under Zhang Xiaosong to Ferghana. He defeated Alutar and the Arab occupation force at Namangan and reinstalled Ikhshid on the throne. The Tang defeated the Arab Umayyad invaders at the Battle of Aksu (717). The Arab Umayyad commander Al-Yashkuri and his army fled to Tashkent after they were defeated. The Turgesh then crushed the Arab Umayyads and drove them out. By the 740s, the Arabs under the Abbasid Caliphate in Khorasan had reestablished a presence in the Ferghana basin and in Sogdiana. During the decline of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750, combined with Emperor Xuanzong's expansion policy, enabled Tang to reassert its influence in Transoxania and become the predominant power in Chinese Turkestan. However, this resurgence ended suddenly at the Battle of Talas in 751. The Tang army led by Gao Xianzhi was defeated by the Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih near present-day Tashkent. Sources differ on the force numbers and casualties with army sizes ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 for the Chinese side and 30,000 to 200,000 for the Abbasid side, although the larger numbers for both are likely exaggerated. Chinese sources state that the Tang army suffered 20,000 to 30,000 casualties while Arab sources state that 50,000 Tang soldiers were killed and 20,000 were taken captive. This defeat marked the end of Tang influence in Transoxiana and halted Tang westward expansion. The Abbasids then consolidated their rule in Transoxania. with also the spread of Chinese papermaking into regions west of China as captured Chinese soldiers shared the technique of papermaking to the Arabs. These techniques ultimately reached Europe by the 12th century through Arab-controlled Spain. Although they had fought at Talas, on June 11, 758, an Abbasid embassy arrived at Chang'an simultaneously with the Uyghurs bearing gifts for the Tang emperor. In 788–789 the Chinese concluded a military alliance with the Uyghur Turks who twice defeated the Tibetans, in 789 near the town of Gaochang in Dzungaria, and in 791 near Ningxia on the Yellow River.

Joseph Needham writes that a tributary embassy came to the court of Emperor Taizong in 643 from the Patriarch of Antioch. However, Friedrich Hirth and other sinologists such as S. A. M. Adshead have identified fulin (拂菻) in the Old and New Book of Tang as the Byzantine Empire, which those histories directly associated with Daqin (i.e. the Roman Empire). The embassy sent in 643 by Boduoli (波多力) was identified as Byzantine ruler Constans II Pogonatos, and further embassies were recorded as being sent into the 8th century. Adshead offers a different transliteration stemming from "patriarch" or "patrician", possibly a reference to one of the acting regents for the young Byzantine monarch. The Old and New Book of Tang also provide a description of the Byzantine capital Constantinople, including how it was besieged by the Da Shi (大食, i.e. the Umayyad Caliphate) forces of Mu'awiya I, who forced them to pay tribute to the Arabs.

Economy

Through use of the land trade along the Silk Road and maritime trade by sail at sea, the Tang were able to acquire and gain many new technologies, cultural practices, rare luxury, and contemporary items. From Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, the Tang dynasty were able to acquire new ideas in fashion, new types of ceramics, and improved silver-smithing techniques. The Tang also gradually adopted the foreign concept of stools and chairs as seating, whereas the Chinese beforehand always sat on mats placed on the floor. People of the Middle East coveted and purchased Chinese goods in bulk, including silks, porcelain, and lacquerwares. Songs, dances, and musical instruments from foreign regions became popular in China during the Tang dynasty. These musical instruments included oboes, flutes, and small lacquered drums from Kucha in the Tarim Basin, and percussion instruments from India such as cymbals. At the court there were nine musical ensembles (expanded from seven in the Sui dynasty) that played eclectic Asian music.

There was great interaction with India, a hub for Buddhist knowledge, with famous travellers such as Xuanzang (d. 664) visiting the South Asian state. After a 17-year trip, Xuanzang managed to bring back valuable Sanskrit texts to be translated into Chinese. There was also a Turkic–Chinese dictionary available for serious scholars and students, while Turkic folk songs gave inspiration to some Chinese poetry. In the interior of China, trade was facilitated by the Grand Canal and the Tang government's rationalisation of the greater canal system that reduced costs of transporting grain and other commodities. The state also managed roughly 32,100 km (19,900 mi) of postal service routes by horse or boat.

Silk Road

Although the Silk Road from China to Europe and the Western world was initially formulated during the reign of Emperor Wu (141–87 BC) during the Han, it was reopened by the Tang in 639, when Hou Junji (d. 643) conquered the West, and remained open for almost four decades. It was closed after the Tibetans captured it in 678, but in 699, the Silk Road reopened when the Tang reconquered the Four Garrisons of Anxi originally installed in 640, once again connecting China directly to the West for land-based trade.

The Tang captured the vital route through the Gilgit valley from Tibet in 722, lost it to the Tibetans in 737, and regained it under the command of the Goguryeo-Korean General Gao Xianzhi. When the An Lushan rebellion ended in 763, the Tang Empire withdrew its troops from its western lands, allowing the Tibetan Empire to largely cut off China's direct access to the Silk Road. An internal rebellion in 848 ousted the Tibetan rulers, and the Tang regained the northwestern prefectures from Tibet in 851. These lands contained crucial grazing areas and pastures for raising horses that the Tang dynasty desperately needed.

Despite the many expatriate European travellers coming into China to live and trade, many travellers, mainly religious monks and missionaries, recorded China's stringent immigrant laws. As the monk Xuanzang and many other monk travellers attested to, there were many government checkpoints along the Silk Road that examined travel permits into the Tang Empire. Furthermore, banditry was a problem along the checkpoints and oasis towns, as Xuanzang also recorded that his group of travellers were assaulted by bandits on multiple occasions.

The Silk Road also affected the art from the period. Horses became a significant symbol of prosperity and power as well as an instrument of military and diplomatic policy. Horses were also revered as a relative of the dragon.

Seaports and maritime trade

Chinese envoys had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to states of India as early as the 2nd century BC, yet it was during the Tang dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, into Persia, Mesopotamia (sailing up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq), Arabia, Egypt, Aksum (Ethiopia), and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

During the Tang dynasty, thousands of foreign expatriate merchants came and lived in numerous Chinese cities to do business with China, including Persians, Arabs, Hindu Indians, Malays, Bengalis, Sinhalese, Khmers, Chams, Jews and Nestorian Christians of the Near East. In 748, the Buddhist monk Jian Zhen described Guangzhou as a bustling mercantile business center where many large and impressive foreign ships came to dock. He wrote that "many large ships came from Borneo, Persia, Qunglun (Java) ... with ... spices, pearls, and jade piled up mountain high", as written in the Yue Jue Shu (Lost Records of the State of Yue). Relations with the Arabs were often strained: When the imperial government was attempting to quell the An Lushan rebellion, Arab and Persian pirates burned and looted Canton on October 30, 758. The Tang government reacted by shutting the port of Canton down for roughly five decades; thus, foreign vessels docked at Hanoi instead. However, when the port reopened, it continued to thrive. In 851, the Arab merchant Sulaiman al-Tajir observed the manufacturing of porcelain in Guangzhou and admired its transparent quality. He also provided a description of Guangzhou's landmarks, granaries, local government administration, some of its written records, treatment of travellers, along with the use of ceramics, rice, wine, and tea. Their presence ended in the vengeful Guangzhou massacre by the rebel Huang Chao in 878, who purportedly slaughtered thousands regardless of ethnicity. Huang's rebellion was eventually suppressed in 884.

Vessels from other East Asian states such as Silla, Bohai and the Hizen Province of Japan were all involved in the Yellow Sea trade, which Silla of Korea dominated. After Silla and Japan reopened renewed hostilities in the late 7th century, most Japanese maritime merchants chose to set sail from Nagasaki towards the mouth of the Huai River, the Yangtze River, and even as far south as the Hangzhou Bay in order to avoid Korean ships in the Yellow Sea. In order to sail back to Japan in 838, the Japanese embassy to China procured nine ships and sixty Korean sailors from the Korean wards of Chuzhou and Lianshui cities along the Huai River. It is also known that Chinese trade ships travelling to Japan set sail from the various ports along the coasts of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.

The Chinese engaged in large-scale production for overseas export by at least the time of the Tang. This was proven by the discovery of the Belitung shipwreck, a silt-preserved shipwrecked Arabian dhow in the Gaspar Strait near Belitung, which had 63,000 pieces of Tang ceramics, silver, and gold (including a Changsha bowl inscribed with a date corresponding to 826, roughly confirmed by radiocarbon dating of star anise at the wreck). Beginning in 785, the Chinese began to call regularly at Sufala on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middlemen, with various contemporary Chinese sources giving detailed descriptions of trade in Africa. The official and geographer Jia Dan (730–805) wrote of two common sea trade routes in his day: one from the coast of the Bohai Sea towards Korea and another from Guangzhou through Malacca towards the Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka and India, the eastern and northern shores of the Arabian Sea to the Euphrates River. In 863, the Chinese author Duan Chengshi (d. 863) provided a detailed description of the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade in a country called Bobali, which historians suggest was Berbera in Somalia. In Fustat, Egypt, the fame of Chinese ceramics there led to an enormous demand for Chinese goods; hence Chinese often travelled there. From this time period, the Arab merchant Shulama once wrote of his admiration for Chinese seafaring junks, but noted that their draft was too deep for them to enter the Euphrates River, which forced them to ferry passengers and cargo in small boats. Shulama also noted that Chinese ships were often very large, with capacities up to 700 passengers.

Culture and society

Both the Sui and Tang dynasties had turned away from the more feudal culture of the preceding Northern Dynasties, in favour of staunch civil Confucianism. The governmental system was supported by a large class of Confucian intellectuals selected through either civil service examinations or recommendations. In the Tang period, Taoism and Buddhism were commonly practised ideologies that played a large role in people's daily lives. The Tang Chinese enjoyed feasting, drinking, holidays, sports, and all sorts of entertainment, while Chinese literature blossomed and was more widely accessible with new printing methods. Rich commoners and nobles who worshipped spirits wanted them to know "how important and how admirable they were", so they "wrote or commissioned their own obituaries" and buried figures along with their bodies to ward off evil spirits.

Chang'an

Although Chang'an had served as the capital during the earlier Han and Jin dynasties, after subsequent destruction in warfare, it was the Sui dynasty model that comprised the Tang-era capital. The roughly square dimensions of the city had 10 km (6.2 mi) of outer walls running east to west, and more than 8 km (5.0 mi) of outer walls running north to south. The royal palace, the Taiji Palace, stood north of the city's central axis. From the large Mingde Gates mid-center on the main southern wall, a wide city avenue stretched all the way north to the central administrative city, behind which was the Chentian Gate of the royal palace, or Imperial City. Intersecting this were fourteen main streets running east to west, while eleven main streets ran north to south. These main intersecting roads formed 108 rectangular wards with walls and four gates each, each filled with multiple city blocks. The city was made famous for this checkerboard pattern of main roads with walled and gated districts, its layout even mentioned in one of Du Fu's poems. During the Heian period, cities like Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto) were arranged in the checkerboard street in accordance with traditional geomancy, following the Chang'an model. Of Chang'an's 108 wards, two were designated as government-supervised markets, and other space reserved for temples, gardens, ponds, etc. Throughout the entire city, there were 111 Buddhist monasteries, 41 Taoist abbeys, 38 family shrines, 2 official temples, 7 churches of foreign religions, 10 city wards with provincial transmission offices, 12 major inns, and 6 graveyards. Some city wards were literally filled with open public playing fields or the backyards of lavish mansions for playing horse polo and cuju (Chinese soccer). In 662, Emperor Gaozong moved the imperial court to the Daming Palace, which became the political center of the empire and served as the royal residence of the Tang emperors for more than 220 years.

The Tang capital was the largest city in the world at its time, with the population of its wards and suburban countryside reaching two million inhabitants. The Tang capital was very cosmopolitan, with ethnicities of Persia, Central Asia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, India, and many other places living within. Naturally, with this plethora of different ethnicities living in Chang'an, there were also many different practised religions, such as Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, among others. With the open access to China that the Silk Road to the west facilitated, many foreign settlers were able to move east to China, while the city of Chang'an itself had about 25,000 foreigners living within. Exotic green-eyed, blond-haired Tocharian ladies serving wine in agate and amber cups, singing, and dancing at taverns attracted customers. If a foreigner in China pursued a Chinese woman for marriage, he was required to stay in China and was unable to take his bride back to his homeland, as stated in a law passed in 628 to protect women from temporary marriages with foreign envoys. Several laws enforcing segregation of foreigners from Chinese were passed during the Tang. In 779, the Tang issued an edict which forced Uyghurs in the capital, Chang'an, to wear their ethnic dress, stopped them from marrying Chinese females, and banned them from passing off as Chinese.

Chang'an was the center of the central government, the home of the imperial family, and was filled with splendor and wealth. However, incidentally it was not the economic hub during the Tang dynasty. The city of Yangzhou along the Grand Canal and close to the Yangtze was the greatest economic center during the Tang.

Yangzhou was the headquarters for the Tang government's salt monopoly, and was the greatest industrial center of China. It acted as a midpoint in shipping of foreign goods to be distributed to the major cities of the north. Much like the seaport of Guangzhou in the south, Yangzhou had thousands of foreign traders from across Asia.

There was also the secondary capital city of Luoyang, which was the favoured capital of the two by Empress Wu. In 691, she had more than 100,000 families from the region around Chang'an move to Luoyang. With a population of about a million, Luoyang became the second largest city in the empire, and with its closeness to the Luo River it benefited from southern agricultural fertility and trade traffic of the Grand Canal. However, the Tang court eventually demoted its capital status and did not visit Luoyang after 743, when Chang'an's problem of acquiring adequate supplies and stores for the year was solved. As early as 736, granaries were built at critical points along the route from Yangzhou to Chang'an, which eliminated shipment delays, spoilage, and pilfering. An artificial lake used as a transshipment pool was dredged east of Chang'an in 743, where curious northerners could finally see the array of boats found in southern China, delivering tax and tribute items to the imperial court.

Literature

The Tang dynasty was a golden age of Chinese literature and art. Over 48,900 poems penned during the Tang, representing over 2,200 authors, have survived to the present day. Skill in the composition of poetry became a required study for those wishing to pass imperial examinations, while poetry was also heavily competitive; poetry contests among guests at banquets and courtiers were common. Poetry styles that were popular in the Tang included gushi and jintishi, with the poet Li Bai (701–762) famous for the former style, and poets like Wang Wei (701–761) and Cui Hao (704–754) famous for their use of the latter. Jintishi poetry, or regulated verse, employed stanzas of eight lines, each consisting of five or seven characters with a fixed pattern of tones, and required the second and third couplets to be antithetical. Tang poems remained popular and great emulation of Tang era poetry began in the Song dynasty; in that period, Yan Yu (嚴羽; fl. 1194–1245) was the first to confer the poetry of the High Tang (c. 713 – 766) with "canonical status within the classical poetic tradition". Yan Yu reserved the position of highest esteem among all Tang poets for Du Fu (712–770), who was not viewed as such in his own era, and was branded by his peers as an anti-traditional rebel.

The Classical Prose Movement was spurred in large part by the writings of Tang authors Liu Zongyuan (773–819) and Han Yu (768–824). This new prose style broke away from the poetry tradition of piantiwen (駢體文; 'parallel prose') style begun in the Han dynasty. Although writers of the Classical Prose Movement imitated piantiwen, they criticised it for its often vague content and lack of colloquial language, focusing more on clarity and precision to make their writing more direct. This guwen (archaic prose) style can be traced back to Han Yu, and would become largely associated with orthodox Neo-Confucianism.

Short story fiction and tales were also popular during the Tang, one of the more famous ones being Yingying's Biography by Yuan Zhen (779–831), which was widely circulated in his own time and by the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) became the basis for Chinese opera. Timothy C. Wong places this story within the wider context of Tang love tales, which often share the plot designs of quick passion, inescapable societal pressure leading to the abandonment of romance, followed by a period of melancholy. Wong states that this scheme lacks the undying vows and total self-commitment to love found in Western romances such as Romeo and Juliet, but that underlying traditional Chinese values of indivisibility of self from one's environment, including from society, served to create the necessary fictional device of romantic tension. In addition, Tang literature often discussed gender expression. Literary texts such as "Tiandi yinyang jiaohuan dale fu" and "You xianku" depicted how the Tang nobility emphasized Taoist sexology. Many male Tang poets and literati conveyed their love for male companions when they perceived their wives—often illiterate—to be incapable of understanding their troubles.

Large encyclopaedias were published during the Tang: the Yiwen Leiju was compiled in 624 under chief editor Ouyang Xun (557–641), Linghu Defen (582–666) and Chen Shuda (d. 635). By 729, the team led by scholar Gautama Siddha (fl. 8th century), an ethnic Indian born in Chang'an, had finished compiling the Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era, an astrological encyclopaedia.

Chinese geographers, such as Jia Dan, wrote accurate descriptions of places far beyond Tang territory. In his work written between 785 and 805, Jia described the sea route going into the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and that the medieval Iranians had erected 'ornamental pillars' in the sea that acted as lighthouse beacons for ships that might go astray. Arabic authors writing a century after Jia, such as al-Masudi and al-Maqdisi, also mentioned these structures in their accounts, confirming Jia's reports. The Tang diplomat Wang Xuance travelled to Magadha, in present-day northeast India, during the 7th century. Afterwards, he wrote the Zhang Tianzhu Guotu (Illustrated Accounts of Central India), a book which contained a large body of geographical information.

Many histories of previous dynasties were compiled between 636 and 659 by court officials during and shortly after the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang. These included the Book of Liang, Book of Chen, Book of Northern Qi, Book of Zhou, Book of Sui, Book of Jin, History of Northern Dynasties and the History of Southern Dynasties. Although not included in the official Twenty-Four Histories, the Tongdian and Tang Huiyao were nonetheless valuable written historical works of the Tang period. The Shitong written by Liu Zhiji in 710, was a meta-history that surveyed the tradition of Chinese historiography to date. The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, compiled by Bianji, recounted the journey of Xuanzang, the Tang era's most renowned Buddhist monk.

Other important literature included Duan Chengshi's (d. 863) Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang, an entertaining collection of foreign legends and hearsay, reports on natural phenomena, short anecdotes, mythical and mundane tales, as well as notes on various subjects. The exact literary category or classification that Duan's large informal narrative would fit into is still debated among scholars and historians.

Religion and philosophy

Since ancient times, some Chinese had believed in folk religion and Taoism that incorporated many deities. Practitioners believed the Tao and the afterlife was a reality parallel to the living world, complete with its own bureaucracy and afterlife currency needed by dead ancestors. Funerary practices included providing the deceased with everything they might need in the afterlife, including animals, servants, entertainers, hunters, homes, and officials. This ideal is reflected in Tang art. This is also reflected in many short stories written in the Tang about people accidentally winding up in the realm of the dead, only to come back and report their experiences. Taoist ideologies surrounding the medical and health benefits of heterosexuality pervaded. Although such ideologies did not necessarily prevent homosexual or bisexual practices, they advocated for a blueprint of health and wellness that conformed to heterosexuality.

Buddhism, originating in India around the time of Confucius, continued its influence during the Tang period and was accepted by some members of imperial family, becoming thoroughly sinicised and a permanent part of Chinese traditional culture. In an age before Neo-Confucianism and figures such as Zhu Xi (1130–1200), Buddhism had begun to flourish in China during the Northern and Southern dynasties, and became the dominant ideology during the prosperous Tang. Buddhist monasteries played an integral role in Chinese society, offering lodging for travellers in remote areas, schools for children throughout the country, and a place for urban literati to stage social events and gatherings such as going-away parties. Buddhist monasteries were also engaged in the economy, since their land property and serfs gave them enough revenues to set up mills, oil presses, and other enterprises. Although the monasteries retained 'serfs', these monastery dependents could actually own property and employ others to help them in their work, including their own slaves.

The prominent status of Buddhism in Chinese culture began to decline as the dynasty and central government declined as well during the late 8th century to 9th century. Buddhist convents and temples that were exempt from state taxes beforehand were targeted by the state for taxation. In 845, Emperor Wuzong finally shut down 4,600 Buddhist monasteries along with 40,000 temples and shrines, forcing 260,000 Buddhist monks and nuns to return to secular] life; this episode would later be dubbed one of the Four Buddhist Persecutions in China. Although the ban was lifted just a few years after, Buddhism never regained its once dominant status in Chinese culture. This situation also came about through a revival of interest in native Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism. Han Yu (786–824)—who Arthur F. Wright stated was a "brilliant polemicist and ardent xenophobe"—was one of the first men of the Tang to denounce Buddhism. Although his contemporaries found him crude and obnoxious, he foreshadowed the later persecution of Buddhism in the Tang, as well as the revival of Confucian theory with the rise of Neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty. Nonetheless, Chán Buddhism gained popularity among the educated elite. There were also many famous Chan monks from the Tang era, such as Mazu Daoyi, Baizhang, and Huangbo Xiyun. The sect of Pure Land Buddhism initiated by the Chinese monk Huiyuan (334–416) was also just as popular as Chan Buddhism during the Tang.

Rivaling Buddhism was Taoism, a native Chinese philosophical and religious belief system that found its roots in the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi. The ruling Li family of the Tang dynasty actually claimed descent from Laozi, traditionally credited as the author of the Tao Te Ching. On numerous occasions where Tang princes would become crown prince or Tang princesses taking vows as Taoist priestesses, their lavish former mansions would be converted into Taoist abbeys and places of worship. Many Taoists were associated with alchemy in their pursuits to find an elixir of immortality and a means to create gold from concocted mixtures of many other elements. Although they never achieved their goals in either of these futile pursuits, they did contribute to the discovery of new metal alloys, porcelain products, and new dyes. The historian Joseph Needham labelled the work of the Taoist alchemists as "protoscience rather than pseudoscience". However, the close connection between Taoism and alchemy, which some sinologists have asserted, is refuted by Nathan Sivin, who states that alchemy was just as prominent (if not more so) in the secular sphere and practised more often by laymen.

Islam was introduced to China during the early Tang dynasty, from the Chang'an to Fujian-Guandong. Chinese scholars consider the second year of Tang Yonghui regin (651 AD) as the year when Islam was introduced to China, the first Muslims were merchant that did business through the overland and maritime Silk Road settled inland in Chang'an but also in the coast cities of Guangzhou and Quanzhou. The Great Mosque of Xi'an was built in 742 CE during the Tang dynasty, other historical Tang-era mosques that remain standing to this day are the Huaisheng Mosque and the Xianxian Mosque both in Guangzhou.

The Tang dynasty also officially recognised various foreign religions. The Assyrian Church of the East, otherwise known as the Nestorian Church or the Church of the East in China, was given recognition by the Tang court. In 781, the Nestorian Stele was created in order to honour the achievements of their community in China. A Christian monastery was established in Shaanxi province where the Daqin Pagoda still stands, and inside the pagoda there is Christian-themed artwork. Although the religion largely died out after the Tang, it was revived in China following the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.

Although the Sogdians had been responsible for transmitting Buddhism to China from India during the 2nd–4th centuries, soon afterwards they largely converted to Zoroastrianism due to their links to Sasanian Persia. Sogdian merchants and their families living in cities such as Chang'an, Luoyang, and Xiangyang usually built a Zoroastrian temple once their local communities grew larger than 100 households. Sogdians were also responsible for spreading Manicheism in China and the Uyghur Khaganate. The Uyghurs built the first Manichean monastery in China in 768; in 843, the Tang government ordered that the property of all Manichean monasteries be confiscated in response to the outbreak of war with the Uyghurs. With the blanket ban on foreign religions two years later, Manicheism was driven underground and never flourished in China again.

Leisure

More than earlier periods, the Tang era was renowned for the time reserved for leisure activities, especially among the upper classes. Many outdoor sports and activities were enjoyed during the Tang, including archery, hunting, horse polo, cuju (soccer), cockfighting, and even tug of war. Government officials were granted vacations during their tenure in office. Officials were granted 30 days off every three years to visit their parents if they lived 1,000 mi (1,600 km) away, or 15 days off if the parents lived more than 167 mi (269 km) away (travel time not included). Officials were granted nine days of vacation time for weddings of a son or daughter, and either five, three, or one days/day off for the nuptials of close relatives (travel time not included). Officials also received a total of three days off for their son's capping initiation rite into manhood, and one day off for the ceremony of initiation rite of a close relative's son. Among the royalty, the tradition of male homosexuality of Imperial China continued to exist, where eunuchs were often the royalty's male favorites, both due to their appearance and talents.

Traditional Chinese holidays such as Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, Cold Food Festival, and others were universal holidays. In Chang'an, there was always lively celebration, especially for the Lantern Festival since the city's nighttime curfew was lifted by the government for three days straight. Between 628 and 758, the imperial throne bestowed a total of sixty-nine grand carnivals nationwide, granted by the emperor in the case of special circumstances such as important military victories, abundant harvests after a long drought or famine, the granting of amnesties, or the instalment of a new crown prince. For special celebration in the Tang era, lavish and gargantuan-sized feasts were sometimes prepared, as the imperial court had staffed agencies to prepare the meals. This included a prepared feast for 1,100 elders of Chang'an in 664, a feast held for 3,500 officers of the Divine Strategy Army in 768, and one in 826 for 1,200 members of the imperial family and women of the palace. Alcohol consumption was a prominent facet of Chinese culture; people during the Tang drank for nearly every social event. An 8th-century court official allegedly had a serpent-shaped structure called the 'ale grotto' built on the ground floor using a total of 50,000 bricks, which featured bowls from which each of his friends could drink.

Status in clothing

In general, garments were made from silk, wool, or linen depending on your social status and what you could afford. Furthermore, there were laws that specified what kinds of clothing could be worn by whom. The color of the clothing also indicated rank. During this period, China's power, culture, economy, and influence were thriving. As a result, women could afford to wear loose-fitting, wide-sleeved garments. Even lower-class women's robes had sleeves four to five feet wide.

Position of women

Concepts of women's social rights and social status during the Tang era were notably liberal-minded for the period. However, this was largely reserved for urban women of elite status, as men and women in the rural countryside laboured hard in their different set of tasks; with wives and daughters responsible for more domestic tasks of weaving textiles and rearing of silk worms, while men tended to farming in the fields. There were many women in the Tang era who gained access to religious authority by taking vows as Taoist priestesses.

In Chang'an, ordinary courtesans inhabited the North Hamlet. They were generally knowledgeable in the rules of drinking games, and received particular training in table manners. While renowned for their politeness, courtesans were reputed to dominate conversations among elite men, and as being unafraid to openly criticise the rudeness of prominent male guests, including for talking too much, too loudly, or for boasting of their accomplishments. Courtesans were sometimes beaten by their procuring madames.

Gējìs, or professional singing courtesans, were culturally prominent, and joined talent agencies called jiaofang. The emperor selected particularly talented women from the outer jiaofang to form the spring court, who were supplemented by courtesans from other troupes. During the Tang, singing courtesans were also talented in the poetry. In addition to singing, some courtesans composed their own songs, and even popularised a new form of lyrical verse that incorporated quotations of famous historical figures.

It was fashionable for women to have full figures; men enjoyed the presence of assertive, active women. The foreign horse-riding sport of polo from Persia became a wildly popular trend among the Chinese elite, and women often played the sport (as glazed earthenware figurines from the time period portray). The preferred hairstyle for women was to bunch their hair up like "an elaborate edifice above the forehead", while affluent ladies wore extravagant head ornaments, combs, pearl necklaces, face powders, and perfumes. A 671 law attempted to force women to wear hats with veils again in order to promote decency, but these laws were ignored as some women started wearing caps and even no hats at all, as well as men's riding clothes and boots, and tight-sleeved bodices.

There were some prominent court women after the era of Empress Wu, such as Yang Guifei (719–756), who had Emperor Xuanzong appoint many of her relatives and cronies to important ministerial and martial positions.

Cuisine

During the earlier Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589), and perhaps even earlier, the drinking of tea (Camellia sinensis) became popular in southern China. Tea was viewed then as a beverage of tasteful pleasure and with pharmacological purpose as well. During the Tang dynasty, tea became synonymous with everything sophisticated in society. The poet Lu Tong (790–835) devoted most of his poetry to his love of tea. The 8th-century author Lu Yu, known as the Sage of Tea, wrote a treatise on the art of drinking tea called The Classic of Tea. Although wrapping paper had been used in China since the 2nd century BC, during the Tang it was used as folded and sewn square bags to hold and preserve the flavor of tea leaves. This followed many other uses for paper such as the first recorded use of toilet paper in 589 by the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591), confirmed in 851 by an Arab traveller who remarked that the Tang lacked cleanliness because they relied on toilet paper instead of washing themselves with water.

In ancient times, the Chinese had outlined the five most basic foodstuffs known as the five grains: sesamum, legumes, wheat, panicled millet, and glutinous millet. The Ming dynasty encyclopedist Song Yingxing noted that rice was not counted among the five grains from the time of the legendary and deified Chinese sage Shennong (the existence of whom Yingxing wrote was "an uncertain matter") into the 2nd millennium BC, because the properly wet and humid climate in southern China for growing rice was not yet fully settled or cultivated by the Chinese. Song Yingxing also noted that in the Ming dynasty, seven tenths of civilians' food was rice. During the Tang dynasty rice was not only the most important staple in southern China, but had also become popular in the north where central authority resided.

During the Tang dynasty, wheat replaced the position of millet and became the main staple crop. As a consequence, wheat cake shared a considerable amount in the staple of Tang. There were four main kinds of cake: steamed cake, boiled cake, pancake, and Hu cake. Steamed cake was consumed commonly by both civilians and aristocrats. Like rougamo in modern Chinese cuisine, steamed cake was usually stuffed with meat and vegetables. Boiled cake was the staple of the Northern Dynasties, and it kept its popularity in the Tang dynasty. It included a wide variety of dishes similar to modern wonton, noodles, and many other kinds of food that soak wheat in water. While aristocrats favoured wonton, civilians usually consumed noodles and noodle slice soup that were easier to produce. Pancakes was rare in China before the Tang, when it gained popularity. Hu cake was extremely popular during the Tang. Hu cake was toasted in the oven, covered with sesame seeds, and served at taverns, inns and shops. Japanese Buddhist monk Ennin observed that Hu cake was popular among all of China's civilians.

During the Tang, the many common foodstuffs and cooking ingredients in addition to those already listed were barley, garlic, salt, turnips, soybeans, pears, apricots, peaches, apples, pomegranates, jujubes, rhubarb, hazelnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts, walnuts, yams, taro, etc. The various meats that were consumed included pork, chicken, lamb (especially preferred in the north), sea otter, bear (which was hard to catch, but there were recipes for steamed, boiled, and marinated bear), and even Bactrian camels. In the south along the coast meat from seafood was by default the most common, as the Chinese enjoyed eating cooked jellyfish with cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, cardamom, and ginger, as well as oysters with wine, fried squid with ginger and vinegar, horseshoe crabs and red swimming crabs, shrimp and pufferfish, which the Chinese called "river piglet".

From the trade overseas and over land, the Chinese acquired peaches from Samarkand, date palms, pistachios, and figs from Persia, pine nuts and ginseng roots from Korea and mangoes from Southeast Asia. In China, there was a great demand for sugar; during the reign of Harsha over northern India (r. 606–647), Indian envoys to the Tang brought two makers of sugar who successfully taught the Chinese how to cultivate sugarcane. Cotton also came from India as a finished product from Bengal, although it was during the Tang that the Chinese began to grow and process cotton, and by the Yuan dynasty it became the prime textile fabric in China.

Some foods were off-limits, as the Tang court encouraged people not to eat beef. This was due to the role of the bull as a valuable working animal. From 831 to 833, Emperor Wenzong even banned the slaughter of cattle on the grounds of his religious convictions to Buddhism.

Methods of food preservation were important, and practised throughout China. The common people used simple methods of preservation, such as digging deep ditches and trenches, brining, and salting their foods. The emperor had large ice pits located in the parks in and around Chang'an for preserving food, while the wealthy and elite had their own smaller ice pits. Each year the emperor had labourers carve 1000 blocks of ice from frozen creeks in mountain valleys, each block with dimensions 0.9 m × 0.9 m × 1.1 m (2 ft 11 in × 2 ft 11 in × 3 ft 7 in) . Frozen delicacies such as chilled melon were enjoyed during the summer.

Science and technology

Engineering

Technology during the Tang period was built also upon the precedents of the past. Previous advancements in clockworks and timekeeping included the mechanical gear systems of Zhang Heng (78–139) and Ma Jun (fl. 3rd century), which gave the Tang mathematician, mechanical engineer, astronomer, and monk Yi Xing (683–727) inspiration when he invented the world's first clockwork escapement mechanism in 725. This was used alongside a water clock and waterwheel to power a rotating armillary sphere in representation of astronomical observation. Yi Xing's device also had a mechanically timed bell that was struck automatically every hour, and a drum that was struck automatically every quarter-hour; essentially, a striking clock. Yi Xing's astronomical clock and water-powered armillary sphere became well known throughout the country, since students attempting to pass the imperial examinations by 730 had to write an essay on the device as an exam requirement. However, the most common type of public and palace timekeeping device was the inflow clepsydra. Its design was improved c. 610 by the Sui dynasty engineers Geng Xun and Yuwen Kai. They provided a steelyard balance that allowed seasonal adjustment in the pressure head of the compensating tank and could then control the rate of flow for different lengths of day and night.

There were many other mechanical inventions during the Tang era. These included a 0.9 m (2 ft 11 in) tall mechanical wine server created during the early 8th century in the shape of an artificial mountain, carved out of iron and rested on a lacquered-wooden tortoise frame. This intricate device used a hydraulic pump that siphoned wine out of metal dragon-headed faucets, as well as tilting bowls that were timed to dip wine down, by force of gravity when filled, into an artificial lake that had intricate iron leaves popping up as trays for placing party treats. Furthermore, as the historian Charles Benn describes it:

Midway up the southern side of the mountain was a dragon ... the beast opened its mouth and spit brew into a goblet seated on a large [iron] lotus leaf beneath. When the cup was 80% full, the dragon ceased spewing ale, and a guest immediately seized the goblet. If he was slow in draining the cup and returning it to the leaf, the door of a pavilion at the top of the mountain opened and a mechanical wine server, dressed in a cap and gown, emerged with a wooden bat in his hand. As soon as the guest returned the goblet, the dragon refilled it, the wine server withdrew, and the doors of the pavilion closed ... A pump siphoned the ale that flowed into the ale pool through a hidden hole and returned the brew to the reservoir [holding more than 16 quarts/15 litres of wine] inside the mountain.

Yet the use of a teasing mechanical puppet in this wine-serving device was not exactly a novel invention of the Tang, since the use of mechanical puppets in China date to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). In the 3rd century Ma Jun had an entire mechanical puppet theatre operated by the rotation of a waterwheel. There are many stories of automatons used in the Tang, including general Yang Wulian's wooden statue of a monk who stretched his hands out to collect contributions; when the number of coins reached a certain weight, the mechanical figure moved his arms to deposit them in a satchel. This weight-and-lever mechanism was exactly like Heron's penny slot machine. Other devices included one by Wang Ju, whose "wooden otter" could allegedly catch fish; Needham suspects a spring trap of some kind was employed here.

In the realm of structural engineering and technical Chinese architecture, there were also government standard building codes, outlined in the early Tang building code Yingshan Ling. Fragments of this book have survived in the Tang Lü (Tang Code), while the Song dynasty architectural manual of the Yingzao Fashi by Li Jie (1065–1101) in 1103 is the oldest existing technical treatise on Chinese architecture that has survived in full. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (712–756), there were 34,850 registered craftsmen serving the state, managed by an agency for palace buildings.

Woodblock printing

Woodblock printing made the written word available to vastly greater audiences. One of the world's oldest surviving printed documents is a miniature Buddhist dharani sutra unearthed at Xi'an in 1974, and dated roughly from 650 to 670. The Diamond Sutra is the first full-length book printed at regular size, complete with illustrations embedded with the text and precisely dated to 868. Among the earliest documents to be printed were Buddhist texts as well as calendars, the latter essential for calculating and marking which days were auspicious and which days were not. With so many books coming into circulation for the general public, literacy rates could improve, along with the lower classes being able to obtain cheaper sources of study. Therefore, there were more lower-class people seen entering the Imperial Examinations and passing them by the later Song dynasty. Although the later Bi Sheng's movable type printing in the 11th century was innovative for his period, woodblock printing that became widespread in the Tang remained the dominant method of printing in China until the more advanced printing press from Europe became widely accepted and used in East Asia. The first use of the playing card during the Tang dynasty was an auxiliary invention of the new age of printing.

Cartography

In cartography, the Tang made further advances beyond the standards of the Han. When the Tang chancellor Pei Ju (547–627) was working for the Sui dynasty as a Commercial Commissioner in 605, he created a well-known gridded map with a graduated scale in the tradition of Pei Xiu (224–271). The Tang chancellor Xu Jingzong (592–672) was also known for his map of China drawn in 658. In 785, the Emperor Dezong had the geographer and cartographer Jia Dan (730–805) complete a map of China and her former colonies in Central Asia. Upon its completion in 801, the map was 9.1 m (30 ft) in length and 10 m (33 ft) in height, mapped out on a grid scale of one inch equalling one hundred li. A Chinese map of 1137 is similar in complexity to the one made by Jia Dan, carved on a stone stele with a grid scale of 100 li. The only Tang-era maps that have survived are star charts, despite the earliest extant terrain maps of China from the earlier state of Qin.

Medicine

The Chinese of the Tang era were interested in the benefits of officially classifying the medicines used in pharmacology. In 657, Emperor Gaozong of Tang (r. 649–683) commissioned an official materia medica, complete with text and illustrated drawings for 833 different medicinal substances. In addition to compiling pharmacopeias, the Tang fostered learning in medicine by upholding imperial medical colleges, state examinations for doctors, and publishing forensic manuals for physicians. Authors of medicine in the Tang include Zhen Chuan (d. 643) and Sun Simiao (581–682); the former was the first to identify in writing that patients with diabetes had an excess of sugar in their urine, and the latter was the first to recognise that diabetic patients should avoid consuming alcohol and starchy foods. As written by Zhen Chuan and others in the Tang, the thyroid glands of sheep and pigs were successfully used to treat goitres; thyroid extracts were not used to treat patients with goitre in the West until 1890. The use of the dental amalgam, manufactured from tin and silver, was first introduced in the medical text Xinxiu bencao written by Su Gong in 659.

Alchemy, gas cylinders, and air conditioning

Chinese scientists of the Tang period employed complex chemical formulas for an array of different purposes, often found through experiments of alchemy. These included a waterproof and dust-repelling cream or varnish for clothes and weapons, fireproof cement for glass and porcelain wares, a waterproof cream applied to silk clothes of underwater divers, a cream designated for polishing bronze mirrors, and many other useful formulas. Porcelain was invented in China during the Tang, although many types of glazed ceramics preceded it.

Since the time of the Han, the Chinese had drilled deep boreholes to transport natural gas from bamboo pipelines to stoves where cast iron evaporation pans boiled brine to extract salt. During the Tang dynasty, a gazetteer of Sichuan province stated that at one of these 182 m (597 ft) 'fire wells', men collected natural gas into portable bamboo tubes which could be carried around for dozens of kilometres and still produce a flame. These were essentially the first gas cylinders; Robert Temple assumes some sort of tap was used for this device.

The inventor Ding Huan (fl. 180) of the Han dynasty invented a rotary fan for air conditioning. In 747, Emperor Xuanzong had a "Cool Hall" built in the imperial palace, which Tang Yulin described as having water-powered fan wheels for air conditioning as well as rising jet streams of water from fountains. During the subsequent Song dynasty, written sources mentioned the rotary fan as even more widely used.

Historiography

The first classic work about the Tang is the Old Book of Tang by Liu Xu et al. of the Later Jin. This was edited into another history (labeled the New Book of Tang) by the Song historians Ouyang Xiu, Song Qi, et al. Both were based on earlier annals, now lost. Both of them also rank among the Twenty-Four Histories of China. One of the surviving sources of the Old Book of Tang, primarily covering up to 756, is the Tongdian, which Du You presented to the emperor in 801. The Tang period was placed into the enormous 294-volume universal history text of the Zizhi Tongjian, edited, compiled, and completed in 1084 by a team of scholars under the Song dynasty Chancellor Sima Guang. This historical text covered the history of China from the beginning of the Warring States in 403 BC until the beginning of the Song dynasty in 960.