A Tang general’s revolt gutted China’s medieval peak
Between 755 and 763, general An Lushan tried to replace the Tang with his own Yan dynasty. Rebels took Chang’an after the emperor fled to Sichuan, then tore themselves apart. Famine, flight, and wrecked infrastructure permanently weakened the dynasty and cost China its Western Regions.
On 16 December 755 the jiedushi An Lushan marched south from Fanyang near modern Beijing. He headed the rising for two years before his son An Qingxu murdered him; ally Shi Siming later killed An Qingxu and was himself assassinated, so Yan claimants churned while Tang emperors Xuanzong, Suzong, and Daizong weathered the storm. Court favour had already showered An with a gold-and-silver mansion in Chang’an in 751 and, on Yang Guifei’s advice with chancellor Li Linfu’s assent, joint command of Pinglu, Fanyang, and Hedong—about 164,000 northern garrison troops.
Rebels who surrendered local Tang officials often received soft treatment, so more towns defected as the army raced along the Grand Canal and took the eastern capital Luoyang on 18 January 756. The catastrophe sits inside a wider Eurasian shake-up after 742: Turkic collapse on the steppe, Tang humiliation when Gao Xianzhi lost at Talas in 751 after Karluk defection, botched wars on Nanzhao, and a Tibetan succession crisis after emperor Me Agtsom’s assassination in 755.
At Luoyang on 5 February 756 An declared himself emperor of a Great Yan dynasty, yet his drive south stalled when Zhang Xun's defenders held Yongqiu and then Suiyang, which fell only after a siege lasting from January to October 757. The road west was blocked at the Tong Pass until court intrigue got its commanders, Gao Xianzhi and Feng Changqing, executed. Xuanzong then fled toward Sichuan over the Qin Mountains, and at Mawei Inn his hungry, furious guards demanded the death of the hated minister Yang Guozhong.
Rebels entered Chang'an in July 756 and plundered a city whose walls had enclosed an estimated 800,000 to a million people; the census of 742 counted nearly two million across the wider metropolitan area. Xuanzong's third son took the throne as Suzong at Lingzhou and handed recovery to the generals Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, who decided to borrow troops from the Uyghur Khaganate. The Yan state finally fell to Tang forces on 17 February 763.
Source: An Lushan rebellion
