The territory of the Tang Dynasty was unprecedentedly vast. At its peak, the territory stretched from the Sea of ??Japan in the east, to Annan in the south, to the Aral Sea in the west, and to Lake Baikal in the north. It was the first country in China since the Qin Dynasty that did not build the Great Wall. A unified dynasty.
After the Tang Dynasty conquered the Eastern Turks and Xue Yantuo, the emperor was revered as the Khan of Heaven by all ethnic groups in the world.
He also used the Jizi system to recruit Turks, Uighurs, Tiele, Khitan, Mohe, Shiwei and other ethnic groups to attack enemy countries, and also allowed vassal countries such as Japan, Nanzhao, Silla, and Bohai to learn their own culture. and system.
Let me focus on the prosperous Tianbao era created by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty:
At that time, the price of rice in Chang'an, the capital of the West, and Luoyang, the capital of the East, was less than 200 yuan per stone. Daily necessities such as cloth and silk are also cheap, and the people live a prosperous life, and every household lives and works in peace and contentment.
In every state and county across the country, warehouses are filled with corn and cloth.
The "Zuozang" treasury in Chang'an, which collects the world's taxes, has as much wealth as dung.
As for the Silk Road from Chang'an to the west of Congling, which leads directly to Persia, Dashi and even the Eastern Roman Empire, there are cavalry from the Tang Dynasty cruising all year round. The barbarian cavalry from all sides dare not invade, and the horse bandits have disappeared. , merchants and travelers traveled thousands of miles without carrying weapons to defend themselves. Along the way, villages faced each other and fields were connected. The formerly barren Hexi and Longyou areas were as rich as the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River.
Recalling the heyday of Kaiyuan in the past, there were still thousands of families in the small town.
The rice is dripping with fat and the corn is white, and both the public and private warehouses are abundant.
There are no wolves on the roads of Kyushu, and there is no good luck for a long journey.
——Du Fu
At the same time, Li Longji changed the military system of the government to a recruitment system, recruiting 120,000 elite soldiers named "Long March Athletes", and at the same time setting up multiple towns in the border areas. Envoys vigorously breed troops and horses, expand military farms, and use them for foreign wars.
Li Longji sent Wang Zhongsi to attack the Later Turkic Khanate and make the Mobei grassland surrender again; he sent Yang Sixu to quell the barbarian rebellions in Guangxi, Xiangxi and other places, and regain Jiaozhi; he sent Ge Shuhan to defeat Tubo in succession and obtain Qinghai. The terrain advantage of the plateau; Gao Xianzhi and Feng Changqing were sent to compete with the Dashi (Japanese Empire) in the Central Asia area west of Congling, attack and destroy the big and small Bolu, and seize the northwest of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
At that time, various towns in the Tang Dynasty had 490,000 elite field soldiers and more than 80,000 high-quality military horses, which were deployed throughout the country to clean up the wilderness.
The Uighur, Bohai, Khitan, Xi, Silla, Japan and other vassal states all surrendered to the Tang Dynasty and did not dare to change their minds. The so-called Nine Heavens closed the palaces, and the clothes of all nations worshiped the crown.
Having lost many of their subjects, they were about to be surrounded and attacked from the east and west, leading to destruction.
The unfavorable situation in border wars since Wu Zetian's period has been completely reversed by Li Longji.
The crimson rooster announces the dawn, and then enters the green cloud fur coat while still wearing clothes.
The Nine Heavens closed the palace, and all the nations wore their hats and bowed their heads.
The sun is just around the corner and the cacti are moving, and the cigarettes are floating next to the dragon.
After the court ends, a five-color edict must be issued, and the sound of the edict should be returned to Fengchitou.
——Wang Wei
Li Longji also established Jixian Hall Academy, which collected nearly 54,000 volumes of books from past dynasties, and more than 28,400 volumes of works by Tang Dynasty scholars. , the so-called "the prosperity of the collection of books cannot be greater than that of the Kaiyuan Dynasty". He completed the compilation of the Tang Dynasty etiquette collection "The Kaiyuan Rites of the Tang Dynasty" and the legal collection "The Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty". He also vigorously developed cultural education, cultivated talents, allowed people to set up private schools, and even made the world There must be a school in every township in every prefecture and county, so even children from the countryside know how to be courteous.
The development of social economy has also led to unprecedented cultural prosperity. Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, He Zhizhang, Wang Changling, Cui Hao, Wang Zhihuan, Gao Shi, Cen Shen... these brilliant names in the history of Chinese literature, There are also calligrapher Zhang Xu, painter "painting sage" Wu Daozi, musician Li Guinian, etc., who all lived in the Kaiyuan period and left many immortal chapters.
Li Bai, the Immortal Poet: The emperor called me to be unable to board the ship, so he claimed that I was a wine-drinking immortal.
At this time, the number of households in the Tang Dynasty reached 9.6 million, with a population of 52 million ("Old Book of Tang"), which far exceeded that of Tang Taizong and Tang Gaozong, and even exceeded that of the Sui Dynasty. At the peak of the dynasty, there were 8.9 million households and a population of 46 million ("Sui Shu. Geography"). The "Kaiyuan Prosperous Age" had reached a peak of prosperity unprecedented in previous dynasties. It would have been able to shine on all nations and be famous for thousands of years.
However, no one could have imagined that such an era of burning oil and flowers would turn from prosperity to decline, and the selfishness and ambitions of a few top elites at the top of the imperial political stage would come to an end. The prosperous age of the Tang Dynasty...
Talking and laughing to clear away the gloom, he has a passion for himself, he is free to be famous, and he strives for a beautiful world full of talents.
Dingguo Anbang has gone through so many swords and swords, in exchange for the splendor of the nine palaces of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. It was originally said that the bright moon will always shine on the Palace of Eternal Life, and the clothes and hats of all nations will be here. Who would have expected that the Yuyang drum rolls Smoke? Having failed to live up to the great achievements of the Tang Dynasty, all that is left is the green grass at the foot of Mawei slope!