In 637, two decades after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty(618-907), Emperor Taizong remarked to his imperial cabinet: “I worry constantly that affluence may give rise to extravagance and negligence to turmoil. Maintaining awareness that preserving what we have achieved is no easy matter is gravely important to our national security. This must on no account be forgotten.”
Taizong’s fears were confirmed 118 years later. It was during the reign of his great-grandson, Emperor Xuanzong, that the mutinies led by An Lushan and Shi Siming (referred to by historians as the An-Shi Mutiny) plunged the Tang Dynasty from its zenith of prosperity into rampant warfare and abysmal decline. The love of Emperor Xuanzong for his concubine Yang Yuhuan was a determining factor in the tragic fall of what many believe to have been China’s greatest dynasty.
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