AnLushan and YangYuhuan's brother, prime minister Yang Guozhong, had never been on good terms. AnLushan despised Yang as an inferior, mean, greedy incompetent, while Yang, aware of this, fomented hatred for An Lushan by spreading rumors that he was a character of evil intention. Xuanzong turned both a blind eye and a deaf ear to these savage jibes, attributing them to the men's fundamental incompatibility. But An Lushan was actually intenton usurping the throne. Worried that his ambitions might be suspected, he decided in755 that the time was right to act. On the pretext of following a secret decree issued by the emperor ordering him to capture and kill Yang Guozhong, An Lushan dispatched 150,000 Of his troops from the northona southern expedition to Chang'an.
As An Lushan expected, the imperial Tang Dynasty army had lost its military competence owing to a laxity of military training and preparation during peacetime. The mutineers easily defeated the Tang troops and advanced on Tongguan in the vicinity of Chang'an. Emperor Xuanzong fled to Sichuan, taking with him Yang Yuhuan, her clan and a few of his sons and grandsons under the protection of a few thousand imperial troops.
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