#85 - Tang 4: The Wild West

The History of China

Chris Stewart

History

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2015

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1,000,000 show downloads!Emperor Taizong turns outward seeking to re-conquer the lost territories of the late, great Han at its height. But it’s easier said than done: to the west he’ll find that there’s a whole new cast of regional powers ready to stake their own territorial claims… meanwhile to the northeast, his rising ambitions about taking the Goguryeo Kingdom at any cost may lead him to follow in the ruinous footsteps of the Sui instead.And since it’s that time of the year, we’ll finish out with a look at China’s very first encounter with a strange monotheistic religion from the Roman Empire, calling itself Nestorian Christianity.Time Period Covered:634-649 CEMajor Historical Figures:Tang China:Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong of Tang) [r. 626-649]Retired Emperor Gaozu [d. 635]Empress Zhangsun [d. 636]Bod Chen Po (Tibetan Empire):Songtsen Gampo (King of Tibet)Tuyuhun Kingdom:Murong Fuyun KhaganMurong Shun KhanGoguryeo Kingdom:King Yeongyang [d. 618]King Yeongnyu [r. 618-642]King BojangDae Mangniji Yeon Gaesomun (Military Dictator)Others:Yazdegerd III (Shah-an-Shah of Sassanid Persia)Constans II (Emperor of Eastern Roman Empire)Monk Aluoban/Alopan/Abraham (Nestorian Christian Evangelist)Major Works Cited:East Asian History Sourcebook: Ch'ing-Tsing: Nestorian Tablet: Eulogizing the Propagation of the Illustrious Religion in China, with a Preface, composed by a priest of the Syriac Church, 781 A.D.Jenkins, Peter. The Lost History of Christianity: the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia - and How It DiedSørensen, Per and Harrassowitz Verlog, Otto (trans.). The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies: Tibetan Buddhist Historiography : an Annotated Translation of the XIVth Century Tibetan Chronicle : RGyal-rabs Gsal- Baʼi Me-long.Weschler, Howard. The Cambridge History of China. “Taizong: The Consolidator”.Zhang, Guangda. Collected Drafts on the Historical Geography of the Western Regions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.
0:05.0	Before jumping in today, I have a pretty special announcement.
0:08.0	The history of China has reached a milestone that two years ago seemed like an absolute impossibility.
0:14.6	We have officially breached the 1 million download mark, and I could not ask for a cooler holiday
0:20.0	gift.
0:21.0	So, cheers, and thank you to all of you who have helped make this happen. And for 2016
0:26.4	I'm looking forward to making our best episodes to date and to breaching the 2 million mark and beyond.
0:32.9	Please come and share your thoughts with us as well as get the latest updates from the show through
0:36.9	our Facebook page on Twitter via the handle at THOC podcast or at our home on the web the history of China dot wordpress.com where you can
0:46.8	comment on episodes see companion posts and updated maps and tis the season contribute to keeping the show going via our support page.
0:55.7	So thank you all once again.
0:57.3	Happy holidays and here's looking forward to an even better 2016. of China.
1:18.0	Episode 85, The Wild West.
1:27.6	Last time we left our beloved Emperor Taizong of Tang on a major high note, having managed to completely flip the script on the eastern Turkic Kagan, which had long threatened his dynastic stability, and instead crushed the Turks utterly.
1:36.0	Their chieftains had been brought to Chung-on, some literally in chains,
1:40.4	and forced to kowtow to their new heavenly Kagan, while their peoples were scattered across northern China and their base of power ground to dust.
1:50.0	Well, today we're going to be following along with the Tong armies as they exploit the heck out of the aftermath of the collapse of the eastern Turks.
1:58.0	Which means we're going to be spending a majority of our time in the wild and crazy unknown regions of the far west.
2:04.6	Which also means we're going to be dealing with, and conquering, a huge number of groups of people,
2:10.8	some of which will be familiar, and some of whom we and the Chinese, will be
2:15.9	encountering for pretty much the first time.
2:18.9	So make no mistake, we have entered into a period of Chinese history that is just chock full of territorial expansion and all the splendor and glory and violence that accompany that.
	...

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