The Tang-Song Transformation

The Tang-Song Transformation, in three volumes, opens with the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion and closes with the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song, spanning roughly 260 years and telling of a profound structural transformation in Chinese history. The first half focuses on the middle and late Tang: separatist military governors steadily erode central authority, eunuch power and the Niu-Li factional strife drain the court's last vitality, and the Fengtian Crisis under Emperor Dezong and the Yuanhe Restoration under Emperor Xianzong end in failure again and again; the flames of the Huang Chao Rebellion finally consign the aristocratic clans—the core force of the old order—to the embers of history. The second half enters the bloody arena of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: Zhu Wen usurps the Tang, Liang and Jin contend for supremacy, Li Cunxu and the "Emperor of Court Entertainers," Shi Jingtang cedes the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, Liu Zhiyuan stabilizes the Central Plains, Guo Wei's reforms lay the groundwork for the Song, until Zhao Kuangyin dons the yellow robe at the Chenqiao Mutiny, ending military rule with the release of military commanders over a cup of wine and rebuilding order through civil governance. The book traces a dialectic of "virtue" and "the blade"—what legitimacy sustains order, and what violence drives the transfer of power—to explain why the empire collapsed and how it was rebuilt. The author draws mainly on the Zizhi Tongjian, supplemented by the two Tang Histories, the two Five Dynasties Histories, and the Song History, and includes a hundred professional maps, reexamining wars and decisions through the geography of terrain and urban offense and defense.