Emperor Dezong of Tang - Early Attempts To Destroy Warlord Power (early Jianzhong Era)

Early Attempts To Destroy Warlord Power (early Jianzhong Era)

After Emperor Dezong took the throne, within the span of less than a year, he carried out several actions to set out his policy differences with his father:

• The chancellor Chang Gun, whom Emperor Dezong suspected of being overly powerful, was exiled, replaced with Cui Youfu; subsequently, at Cui's recommendation, Yang Yan was also made chancellor.
• Guo Ziyi, who had much military authority, was effectively forced into retirement (albeit with many honorific titles), with his commands divided between Li Huaiguang, Chang Qianguang (常謙光), and Hun Zhen.
• Emperor Dezong had the animals in the imperial menagerie released, had many ladies in waiting sent out of the palace, and ordered that eunuchs serving as imperial messengers not be allowed to receive gifts.
• Cui Ning the military governor (Jiedushi) of Xichuan Circuit (西川, headquartered in modern Chengdu, Sichuan), who had governed the circuit for more than a decade and only nominally obeyed imperial authority, was detained (although titularly promoted) at Chang'an, and the imperial government took back control of Xichuan.
• At Yang's suggestion, the tax system was reformed — with the intention to decrease the tax burden on the landowners and farmers and bring merchants, who were previously not taxed, into the taxation system — under a new tax law known as the Law of the Two Taxes (兩稅法, Liangshui Fa).

Emperor Dezong further resumed the search for his mother Consort Shen, whom he honored as an empress dowager in absentia. He commissioned officials, as well as Shen clan members, to be in charge of the search, and gave many members of the Shen clan honors. In 781, the searchers mistakenly believed that an adoptive daughter of Gao Lishi, a powerful eunuch during Emperor Xuanzong's reign, was Empress Dowager Shen, and she was taken to Chang'an to be honored as such. However, her brother Gao Chengyue (高承悅) found out and reported to Emperor Dezong. She subsequently admitted to not being the real Empress Dowager Shen. Emperor Dezong did not punish her or anyone else involved, fearing that doing so would hamper the search for his mother. Later in his reign, there were several more incidents were others claimed to be Empress Dowager Shen, but were discovered to be imposters, and the real Empress Dowager Shen was never found.

Meanwhile, Emperor Dezong, under Yang's proposal, also began to consider campaigns to recapture the western prefectures lost to Tufan during and immediately after the Anshi Rebellion. However, his putting Li Huaiguang, known for being a harsh commander, in charge of the project caused a mutiny of the soldiers at Jingyuan Circuit (涇原, headquartered in modern Pingliang, Gansu) in 780. Emperor Dezong had the Jingyuan mutiny suppressed, to show resolve, but was forced to abandon the plans to act against Tufan.

When Emperor Dezong came to the throne, there were four major circuits that were ruled by their military governors in effectively independent manner from the imperial government — Pinglu (平盧, headquartered in modern Tai'an, Shandong), governed by Li Zhengji; Weibo (魏博, headquartered in modern Handan, Hebei), governed by Tian Yue; Chengde (成德, headquartered in modern Shijiazhuang, Hebei), governed by Li Baochen; and Shannan East (山南東道, headquartered in modern Xiangfan, Hubei), governed by Liang Chongyi. The four circuits were allied with each other, and their governors intended to pass the control of the circuits within the family. In 781, when Li Baochen died, Emperor Dezong, wanting to show imperial authority, refused to let his son Li Weiyue inherit the circuit. The four circuits thus prepared for war against the imperial government. (Li Zhengji also died later in the year, and similarly, Emperor Dezong refused to let his son Li Na inherit the circuit.)

Emperor Dezong reacted by commissioning Li Xilie the military governor of Huaixi Circuit (淮西, headquartered in modern Zhumadian, Henan) to command the army against Shannan East; Ma Sui, Li Baozhen, and Li Sheng to attack Weibo; and Zhu Tao the acting military governor of Lulong Circuit (盧龍, headquartered in modern Beijing) to attack Chengde. Ma, Li Baozhen, and Li Sheng quickly defeated Tian's forces, which were attacking Li Baozhen's Zhaoyi Circuit (昭義, headquartered in modern Changzhi, Shanxi) and forced him to flee back to his capital Wei Prefecture (魏州), which Ma, Li Baozhen, Li Sheng, and Li Qiu (李艽) put under siege. Li Xilie quickly defeated Liang, causing Liang to commit suicide. Zhu was able to persuade Li Weiyue's officer Zhang Xiaozhong to turn against him and attack Li Weiyue with Zhu, and under pressure, another officer of Li Weiyue's, Wang Wujun, killed Li Weiyue and surrendered to imperial forces. Li Na, meanwhile, was trapped at Pu Prefecture (濮州, in modern Heze, Shandong). By spring 782, it appeared that Emperor Dezong would be soon successful in his aim to wipe out warlord power and reunify the realm under imperial authority.

Things quickly turned for the worse, however, after Emperor Dezong angered both Zhu and Wang by not giving them what they believed they deserved — in Zhu's case, control of Chengde's Shen Prefecture (深州, in modern Hengshui, Hebei), and in Wang's case, title as military governor. (Emperor Dezong had divided Chengde's seven prefectures into three circuits, with Zhang receive three circuits as military governor, and with Wang and another Chengde officer, Kang Rizhi (康日知), each receiving two prefectures with the lesser title of military prefect (團練使, Tuanlianshi).) He also refused to accept Li Na's surrender when Li Na offered to surrender. As a result, Zhu and Wang entered into an alliance with Tian and headed south to lift the siege on Wei Prefecture — defeating Ma, Li Baozhen, and Li Huaiguang (whom Emperor Dezong had also sent to combat Tian) to force the situation into a stalemate, while Li Na escaped the trap imperial forces had put him in at Pu Prefecture and returned to his headquarters at Yun Prefecture (鄆州), leaving imperial forces unable to do much against him. The four rebel generals (Zhu, Wang, Tian, and Li Na) each claimed princely titles, showing a break from the Tang imperial government, although they continued to use Emperor Dezong's era name of Jianzhong to show some degree of submissiveness. They also persuaded Li Xilie to do the same.

By this point, Cui had died, and Lu Qi became chancellor along with Yang. Lu soon was able to persuade Emperor Dezong that Yang was intending treason, and Emperor Dezong put Yang to death. With Lu largely in power by himself, it was said that at his inducement, Emperor Dezong became unduly harsh, causing the officials and the people to be disappointed in Emperor Dezong. With the necessity of paying for campaigns on multiple fronts, Emperor Dezong added two new taxes — property taxes for houses (Shuijianjia, 稅間架) and transaction tax (Chumoqian, 除陌錢); these taxes created heavy burdens, and Emperor Dezong's tax code for these taxes further encouraged people to report on each other when the taxes were not paid properly. It was said that complaints about them filled the realm. The imperial scholar Lu Zhi, whose opinion Emperor Dezong valued, earnestly advised against these taxes and against the campaigns, pointing out that the realm was on the verge of completely falling into rebellion. Emperor Dezong, however, did not accept Lu's advice.