Introduction

The Introduction places the fall of the Tang and the trajectory of Gao Pian in historical perspective and surveys external and internal factors that challenged the cohesion of the empire. The first half of the Tang had been a phase of vigorous imperial expansion, until the An Lushan rebellion weakened the Tang’s capacity to project power beyond its borders and initiated the rise of regional autonomy that culminated in the empire’s territorial dissolution. The section “Tang and Its Neighbors” reviews the empire’s external relations with Tibet, Nanzhao, and the Korean peninsula. “Internal Fault Lines” pinpoints the conditions testing the late empire’s viability: border wars, socio-economic distress, geographical imbalances, internal insurrection, and government factionalism. “A Broken Compact” highlights the breakdown of vassal allegiance to the Tang sovereign. “The Historical Record” draws attention to the bias of official historiography as regards issues of allegiance and details the range and types of alternative sources used in this book. “The General’s Scribe,” finally, explains how Gao Pian’s Korean secretary Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn, author of a previously neglected key archive on the period, arrived in Tang China.