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Tang Dynasty
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The Tang Dynasty is considered to be one of the great dynasties of Chinese history; many historians rank them right behind the Han Dynasty. They extended the boundaries of China through Siberia in the North, Korea in the east, and were in what is now Vietnam in the South. They even extended a corridor of control along the Silk Road well into modern-day Afghanistan.
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The Tang Dynasty is one that is extraordinary within Chinese history. Tang dominance in politics, economics, foreign relations, and military power perhaps made them the greatest civilization of their time. To this day, people in some countries still refer to the Chinese as Tang people.
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The Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a claim to be the most glorious of all periods of Chinese history. Under the Tang emperors, the extent of Chinese territory was extended in all directions, bringing large swathes of Central Asia under control, as well as the Korean peninsula and additional outposts in the lands of Vietnam and Yunnan to the south. The Confucianist scholar-gentry helped to administer the Empire and the glories of Buddhism and its artistic and spiritual representations greatly enriched the already vibrant world of the mind. In this society, how did people entertain themselves? What forms of popular literature existed both, as Aristotle would have it, to educate and to entertain? It is to answer these questions that editor Shen Jiji and translators Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang have brought together this bilingual anthology of short tales.
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The Tang Dynasty attached great importance to education, and Tang women were granted the same rights to, and opportunities for, education as men. This splendid dynasty is probably most celebrated for its wealth of great poets. The Complete Poetry of the Tang contains over 50,000 poems written by more than 2,000 poets, of whom at least 20 were influential figures in the history of Chinese literature. There were ... many famous poetesses, of whom Shangguan Wan'er is representative. Shangguan's poems were in a style of all her own -- the Shangguan style, which provided much inspiration for Li Bai, the most famous of all ancient Chinese poets. In the Tang Dynasty, writing poetry was not merely the privilege pursuit of noblewomen but was also practiced by those of common origins.
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Near the end of the Tang Dynasty, regional military governors took advantage of their increasing power and began to function more like independent regimes on their own right. At the same time, natural causes such as droughts and famine due to internal corruptions and incompetent emperors contributed to the rise of a series of rebellions. The Huang Chao rebellion of the 9th century, which resulted in the sacking of both Chang'an and Luoyang was the most destructive and took over 10 years to suppress. Although the rebellion was defeated by the Tang, it never really recovered from that crucial blow, weakening it for the future military powers to take over. In 907, after almost 300 years in power, the dynasty was ended when one of the military governors, Zhu Wen, deposed the last emperor and took the throne for himself which thereby inaugurated the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.
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During the Tang Dynasty, it was common for the Han to intermarry with other ethnic groups or foreigners, and there was a law protecting Sino-foreign intermarriage. According to historical records: "Many huren (people of non-Han origin) who had lived in Chang'an for a long time married Han women and produced children." "Huren intermarry with the Han people, and now many youngsters in Chang'an are of mixed blood." Female members of the royal family were ... married to other nationalities. Seven of Emperor Gaozu's 19 daughters were married to men of other nationalities, and eight of Emperor Taizong's 21 daughters took foreign husbands. In the 15th year (641) of the Zhenguan era, Princess Wencheng was married to the king of Tubo. She brought many advanced production techniques to Tubo, making a great contribution to the friendship and cultural exchanges between the Han and Tibetan people.
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Tang Dynasty