Tang Dezong

Tang Dezong

Tang Dezong (* 742 , † 805 ) was emperor of the Chinese Tang dynasty from 779 to 805 .

Prince Li Shi was the son of Emperor Daizong . After his father's death in 779, at the age of 37, he became Emperor of China under the temple name Tang Dezong.

In order to win money for campaigns against the regional military rulers, especially in the northeast of the empire, who had developed into quasi independent rulers during the An-Shi rebellion in the 750s and 760s, Dezong's Chancellor Yang Yan carried out a financial reform. This (known as the double tax system) abolished all special taxes and levies and instead introduced a property tax for property owners. The amount had to be agreed with the local rulers, which meant that a large part of the provinces of the empire did not pay taxes. Seventy percent of the state's revenue went to eight provinces on the Middle and Lower Yangtze .

During this time of the weakened central power, the emperor was forced to appoint the sons of the regional military rulers to their offices after the death of their fathers, which gave the late Tang period a political character that has also been described as almost feudal. When Dezong refused to accept his father's post after the governor of Chengde 's death, the war between the emperor and provincial governors broke out in mid-781. At the beginning of the war there were successes of the imperial troops, but then the bad situation of the state finances led to mutinies among the troops and to the flight of state officials.

In 782, the governor of Huaixi joined the rebels and cut off the Imperial Canal in the Xuzhou area . As a result, food in the capital Chang'an became scarce. The poorly supplied troops made their leader Zhu Ci emperor. Dezong fled to the northwest, where the farm was rebuilt in a border town. The emperor now accepted the Hanlin academic Lu Zhi into his immediate environment, who had previously distinguished himself through good performance. At Lu Zhi's suggestion, the emperor concluded a compromise peace with the northeastern warlords in 786, which left them in their autonomous position. Now the imperial troops could take action against the usurper Zhu Ci.

Research also sees the reasons for the failure of Dezong's campaigns that the population of the individual provinces largely supported the military rulers.

The war against the military rulers in the northeast gave the Tibetans the opportunity to advance further into the territory of the empire. The first major Tibetan conquests in China took place at the time of the An-Shi rebellion. By the late 780s, the Tibetans ruled large parts of the Gansu Corridor. At the time, Chancellor Li Mi proposed an alliance with the Uighurs and even with the Abbasids in Baghdad. The great distance between China and the Middle East made negotiations impossible.

The late 780s marked a turning point in the Dezong government and the late Tang period constitution. The government passed mainly to the emperor's close confidante (the so-called Inner Court). These were mainly eunuchs and members of the Hanlin Academy . Dezong continued to influence the government. The only problem was that now the emperor's favorites came into conflict with the regular administration, the ministries.

In the final phase of his government, the disreputable Pei Yanling was involved in the emperor's financial policy. Lu Zhi and other officers were sent into exile. Confucian historiography has strongly condemned Dezong especially for these measures. In historiography he became one of the bad rulers of China, who would also have damaged the country by the establishment of eunuch power.

literature

• Rainer Hoffmann, Qiuhua Hu: China. Its history from the beginning to the end of the imperial era. Freiburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-7930-9499-9

predecessor	Office	successor
Daizong	Emperor of China 779–805	Shùnzōng