An Lushan Rebellion (755-763): The Revolt That Broke the Tang

The An Lushan Rebellion was a revolt against China’s Tang dynasty that began in December 755 and lasted until 763. Led at first by An Lushan, a powerful frontier general, the rebels captured both imperial capitals, forced Emperor Xuanzong to flee, and founded a rival dynasty called Yan. The Tang survived, but the war devastated northern China and permanently weakened the central government, marking the end of the dynasty’s golden age.

Background: the height of the Tang

Under Emperor Xuanzong, who reigned from 712 to 756, the Tang dynasty reached a peak of wealth and culture. Its capital, Chang’an, was one of the largest cities in the world, and poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu were at work.

To defend long frontiers, the court had created permanent military regions under governors called jiedushi. By the 740s these governors commanded large professional armies, often recruited from non-Chinese peoples, while the troops near the capital had become weak. At the same time the frontier was under pressure; in 751 Tang forces suffered defeats at the Battle of Talas in Central Asia and against the kingdom of Nanzhao in the south-west.

Xuanzong, ageing and devoted to his consort Yang Guifei, left government increasingly to his ministers. The long-serving chancellor Li Linfu, who died in 752, was succeeded by Yang Guifei’s cousin, Yang Guozhong.

An Lushan

An Lushan, born around 703, was of mixed Sogdian and Turkic descent from the northern frontier. Beginning as an interpreter and trade broker in the border markets, he rose through the army. He became jiedushi of Pinglu in 742, of Fanyang, around modern Beijing, in 744, and also of Hedong in 751. Together these commands gave him some 150,000–200,000 troops, a large share of the empire’s frontier forces.

He won Xuanzong’s trust through visits to court and showy loyalty, and Yang Guifei adopted him in a well-known ceremony as her “son”. But An Lushan clashed bitterly with Yang Guozhong, who repeatedly warned that he would rebel. Fearing he would be removed once Xuanzong died, An chose to strike first.

Revolt, the fall of the capitals and the flight of Xuanzong

On 16 December 755 An Lushan rose at Fanyang, claiming that he had orders to remove Yang Guozhong. His army moved south across the North China Plain with little opposition, since most provinces had no experienced troops. Luoyang, the eastern capital, fell in January 756.

There An Lushan proclaimed himself emperor of a new Yan dynasty. Some officials in Hebei resisted behind his lines, notably Yan Zhenqing and his cousin Yan Gaoqing; the latter was captured and executed. The rebel advance then stalled at Tong Pass, the fortified gateway to the Wei valley and Chang’an.

The veteran general Geshu Han held Tong Pass, but Yang Guozhong, suspicious of his intentions, persuaded the emperor to order him to attack. In July 756 his army was destroyed in the open field, and the road to Chang’an lay open.

Xuanzong fled the capital before dawn with a small party, heading for Shu, modern Sichuan. At Mawei Station, west of Chang’an, the escort troops mutinied. They killed Yang Guozhong and demanded the death of Yang Guifei, whom they blamed for the disaster. The emperor gave way and she was strangled. Her death became the subject of Bai Juyi’s famous poem “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow”, written in 806.

The rebels entered Chang’an soon afterwards. Xuanzong continued to Chengdu, while the crown prince went north-west to Lingwu, where in August 756 he took the throne as Emperor Suzong. Xuanzong accepted the change and became retired emperor.

The long war, 757–763

The rebel regime soon turned on itself. An Lushan, ill and increasingly violent, was murdered in January 757 by a group including his son An Qingxu, who took over. Meanwhile, Suzong gathered troops from the north-west under generals such as Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, and won help from the Uyghur Khaganate, whose cavalry was decisive. Loyalist forces recaptured Chang’an in November 757 and Luoyang soon after, although the Uyghurs plundered Luoyang as their reward.

In the south, the city of Suiyang held out for most of 757 under Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, blocking the rebels from the rich Huai and Yangzi regions; when it fell, its defenders had been reduced to starvation. Its resistance kept the south’s tax revenues flowing to the Tang.

The war did not end. Shi Siming, An Lushan’s leading general, submitted and then rebelled again, killed An Qingxu in 759, made himself emperor of Yan and retook Luoyang. In 761 he too was murdered by his son, Shi Chaoyi. Weakened by these murders and by defections, the Yan state collapsed; in early 763 Shi Chaoyi, deserted by his commanders, killed himself. Xuanzong and Suzong had both died in 762, and the victory fell to Emperor Daizong.

Key people

• An Lushan (c. 703–757): frontier commander who launched the revolt and founded the Yan dynasty.
• Emperor Xuanzong (685–762): Tang ruler whose long reign ended in flight and abdication.
• Yang Guifei (719–756): imperial consort whose death at Mawei became legendary.
• Shi Siming (703–761): An’s general and successor as Yan emperor.
• Guo Ziyi (697–781): leading loyalist general, later celebrated as a model of loyalty.

Consequences

The Tang won by making concessions. Many rebel generals were allowed to surrender and keep their armies as jiedushi in Hebei, where they ruled their provinces almost independently, passing them to sons and refusing to send taxes. Military governors appeared throughout the empire, and the balance of power shifted away from the court for the rest of the dynasty.

The frontiers collapsed. Troops withdrawn to fight the rebels left the north-west open to the Tibetan Empire, which occupied the Hexi Corridor and even captured Chang’an briefly in 763. Tang control of Central Asia was lost. The Uyghurs, as allies, gained great leverage over the court.

To pay for the war and its aftermath, the government created a salt monopoly in 758 and, in 780, replaced the old land-allotment system with the Two-Tax system based on property. These fiscal changes kept the Tang going for another 140 years, until uprisings such as the Huang Chao Rebellion brought its end in 907.

The war also changed attitudes. Because An Lushan and many of his commanders were of Sogdian or Turkic origin, suspicion of foreigners grew, and Sogdian communities in the north suffered reprisals. In 760 troops sent to put down a mutiny in Yangzhou killed several thousand foreign merchants, including Arabs and Persians. The open, cosmopolitan confidence of Xuanzong’s early reign gave way to a more inward-looking mood that some historians link with the later revival of Confucian thought.

The disaster left a deep mark on literature. Du Fu, trapped in occupied Chang’an in 757, wrote “Spring View”, which contrasts the ruined state with the unchanging mountains and rivers, and many of his best-known poems describe conscription, refugees and broken families. The painter-poet Wang Wei was captured by the rebels and forced to serve them, and only escaped punishment afterwards through the intercession of his brother. Later writers and dramatists returned again and again to the love of Xuanzong and Yang Guifei and to the horror of Mawei.

Economically, the north never fully recovered its earlier dominance. Population and tax revenue increasingly came from the Yangzi valley and the south-east, linked to the north by the Grand Canal, and the court came to depend on grain shipped north along it. This southward shift of China’s economic centre continued over the following centuries.

Myths and facts

The rebellion is often said to have killed 36 million people, sometimes described as a sixth of humanity at the time. The figure comes from comparing Tang census registers: about 52.9 million people in 754 and about 16.9 million in 764. Most historians argue that the fall mainly reflects the breakdown of registration, as households fled, became dependents of landlords or lived in regions that no longer reported to the court. The real death toll is unknown, though famine, disease and war certainly killed very large numbers.

Yang Guifei is also often blamed in later literature for causing the rebellion. Historians see deeper causes: the power of the frontier armies, factional struggles at court and the decline of the old militia system.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 755, 16 December: An Lushan rebels at Fanyang.
• 756, January–February: Luoyang falls; at the lunar new year An Lushan declares the Yan dynasty.
• 756, July: Tong Pass falls; Xuanzong flees; Yang Guifei dies at Mawei.
• 756, August: Suzong takes the throne at Lingwu.
• 757, January: An Lushan is murdered by his son’s faction.
• 757, November: Tang and Uyghur forces retake Chang’an.
• 759: Shi Siming kills An Qingxu and retakes Luoyang.
• 761: Shi Siming is killed by his son Shi Chaoyi.
• 763, early: Shi Chaoyi’s death ends the rebellion.

Why it matters

The An Lushan Rebellion was the great turning point of the Tang dynasty and one of the most destructive conflicts of the medieval world. It ended the Tang’s dominance of Central Asia, shifted China’s economic weight towards the south, and created the regional military power that would eventually fragment the empire. Poems written in its shadow, by Du Fu above all, remain among the most celebrated in Chinese literature.