hey everyone cj here welcome to the episode zero of the tang dynasty series the tang dynasty is the second golden age of china after the han dynasty it is a period when chinese cultural development reached its greatest height and it became the cosmopolitan center of the eastern half of the world but before we go into tang it is really important to understand the context of its rise and the significant role the nomadic tribe to the north had in shaping the political and cultural landscape so without further ado let's dive into the wars and block paths that happen between the collapse of the han dynasty and the rise of tongue throughout most of han dynasty's existence it was under the constant threat of the nomadic empire to the north the xiongnu empire the power balance between these two empires sea sought like kids on sugar rush but finally the hauntedness the emerge victorious to be honest the shonos defeat is more of a nomadic empire problem rather than han dynasty's prowess due to their propensity of getting into succession wars and splitting apart but of course i'm talking about this in relative terms because the chinese was only slightly behind them at the end of the second century the han dynasty was severely destabilized by corruption and unachlet factionalism until eventually famous warlords such as toto liupei and the swan family carved up the han dynasty into three the twilight of the han dynasty and the three kingdoms era was a bloody but exciting period when many heroes rose and became immortalized in folk tales operas and the epic novel romance of the three kingdoms but spoiler spoilers it ended with a major upset when the jin dynasty as if appearing out of nowhere usurped the kingdom of charway and unified china the qing dynasty didn't have it all figured out either and it lasted for only about one and a half century throughout most of its existence it only managed to clung onto the southern part of china the period between qing and suey was very messy and to make all this information more manageable i think it would benefit everyone if i divide the political scene into two blocks northern and southern china all this mess started in 291 when the qing dynasty was caught in a very bloody civil war called the war of the eight princes when members of the royal family fought over the control of a developmentally challenged emperor to secure victory various factions started bringing in nomadic tribes from the empire's borders to bolster their forces and was it a good idea well the name of the event that ensued certainly didn't make it sound like one the uprising of the five barbarians happened when the nomadic people they invited in xionu di jae chang started to develop their own ambition for the imperial throne they established their own kingdoms and turned on the jing dynasty the shenpe were initially on the jing side but they eventually got into the game too thus the northern part of the jing empire was carved up and their royal family were forced to move their capital southwards to chiang kang which is the city of nanjing today here we enter the chaotic 16 kingdoms period which really just took place in the northern part of china various kingdoms ruled by pneumatic tribes rose and fall very quickly like a bloody game of whack-a-mole except that it is the mole that's doing the whacking meanwhile the remnants of the jinn could only bunker down as they watch the carnage unfold up north to get a better idea of what's happening up there let me profile the tribes one by one the xiongnu of this time period were the descendants of the saturn shonu after the defeat of the northern shonru in the first century and their westward migration the southern xiongnu were resettled in northern china by the han dynasty where they became little more than pawns of war mercenaries that were to be called into war at the convenience of various succeeding political powers up to the jing dynasty fed up with the demeaning treatment they were one of the first ones to establish a kingdom citing the ancient marriage alliance the shonu had with a han dynasty 500 years ago the xiongnu leader the oyun claims to be a descendant of the han royal family and established a kingdom called han in 304 it was later called hanzo by historians to distinguish it but i must remind everyone that these groups were not a cultural and linguistic monolith they were more of a confederation of various different people groups because living among them were the ga people who would eventually broke away and conquer hanzo but don't worry the xiongnu were not out of the game yet and they will pop up again later in the timeline just having similar culture didn't mean that they will work together either different clans of the shen bay formed different kingdoms the murong shenbei the former yen and the tobasian bay established the shen bay was a splendor group of the donghu confederacy the split was caused by their defeat at the hands of the famous xiongnu leader modu sanyu 500 years ago these two kingdoms will fall but watch out for the toba because they will rise again and surprise everyone the the people were originally from the area to the south of the kansu region they established a few different kingdoms throughout the 16 kingdoms period their most successful empire was the former qin for a moment they controlled the whole of northern china but after a disastrous defeat against the qing at the battle of fey river the empire crumbled into a collection of desperate states again and this is where the chang made their political appearance and established the kingdom of later qin the term chiang had been mentioned in chinese history since the sung dynasty 2 500 years from that period but these chiang people were probably not the same as those ancient people the chiang of this period were likely to be the ancestors of the tibetan and the modern chang people the tobacclan of the shenpei also rebuilt their kingdom under a different name and their kingdom the northern way ended up conquering all the northern kingdoms in 439 and by doing so they ended the 16 kingdoms period now we are in the northern and southern dynasties period where the political division is easier to understand if you look at the map you will notice that the qing dynasty to the south had turned into the osun dynasty the difference between the north and south is that the southerners were more civilized they don't do breakaways like those northern barbarians do they just stab each other in the back and usurp the throne in one piece this north-south division happened several times throughout chinese history each time it happened it further deepened the cultural division of northern and southern china in dynastic china there was a stereotype that the northerners were better horsemen and the southerners were better boatsmen this kind of stereotype prevails until today with northern chinese often stereotyped as bold brash and honest while the southerners are soft cultured and shrewd with the massive amount of refugees migrating to the south the southern dynasties became the cultural center of the era and many poems were produced there meanwhile northern way was notable to be the setting for the ballad of mulan their victory over the rohran cagnet probably inspired the ballad itself but the ones who eventually finished off the roll runs were the gok turks who would overthrow them from within and absorb them into their own empire in the 6th century meanwhile something interesting happened in northern way in 493 their ruler emperor shawwan moved his capital to luoyang and decided to sanitize his empire and mass to make it easier to govern and probably to legitimize his conquest of southern china he ordered his subjects to change their surname to han surnames and even change his own surname from toba to yuen and married of many of the way noble women to the male members of the southern royal families that had defected to their side his grandmother empress dowager fung who was of han chinese descent probably influenced him too this move was met with some resistance of course even his own crown prince tried to depose him but he survived the plot eventually northern way split up again into eastern and western way due to a power struggle they will then backstab into the northern zhou and northern chi so were the southern dynasties in the tan with the previous liang dynasty pushed into a small corner in central china and here we are close to the rise of the sway dynasty and the end of this rollercoaster ride of uprising and hidden daggers yang jien the man who would be the first emperor of the sway dynasty was an accomplished military leader under the northern zhou dynasty he participated in the conquest of northern chi and was also the father-in-law of the emperor in short he was very influential in court and that made him a prime target of suspicion after the death of the emperor he was appointed at the region of the new emperor by his friends some people didn't like that of course after they tried to assassinate him a few times their fears actually turned into reality as yang jin ended up deposing the new emperor and established the sway dynasty to assert control they would then proceed to conquer the southern dynasties and unite china under one rule once again various ancient chinese historians and important figures considers him to be one of the best emperors in history zhu yuansang the emperor who established the ming dynasty almost a thousand years later praised yang jin as a hard-working administrator who properly rewarded meritus officers under him taxes were reduced and food was in abundance personally he lived a frugal life and he is one of those rare emperors in history who lived a near monogamous life he only had physical relationship with his emperor's dooku who was of genpe descent while she was alive his only flaws was that he was a micro manager and he often listened to negative gossips about his officials things may be looking pretty rosy in the soy dynasty but if we were to zoom out and look at the bigger picture there were actually a few grave external threat that they had to contend with the first one is the rising power of gokurio korea and the other one is the colossal gokter cagnet the eastern cagnet to be precise because they had split into two they are especially hostile towards the sweet dynasty for their overthrow of the northern zhou dynasty because the wife of their kagan was a princess of northern zhou with yang jin on the helm the sue dynasty was able to astutely neutralize the gokturk threat by bribing their officials and destabilizing them but his first war against the gokuryo ended in defeat this will be a sore point for the suey and their repeated loss to goguryo will be one of the catalysts for the rise of the tang dynasty in a way you could say that korea played an important part in the creation of china's golden age and you will know the details in the next episode when i will cover the rise of the tang dynasty so subscribe to the channel if you don't want to miss it if you would like to participate in the discussion and vote on future topics be a pro and join us on patreon you can also help the channel by liking sharing and commenting because it boosts the algorithm until next time stay cool my bros