Barbarians at the Gates? The Tang Frontier Military and the An Lushan Rebellion

 

Jonathan Karam Skaff

    Edwin Pulleyblank has argued that during the mid-Tang there was a sharp division between civilians and a "barbarized" frontier military. He believes that when the Tang emperor Xuanzong placed non-Chinese in charge of the frontier commands in 747, this "more than anything else...set the stage for the [An Lushan] rebellion."
 This paper uses alternative sources, such as reports of tomb excavations and funerary epitaphs, to present a more nuanced view of the frontier military in the first half of the eighth century. It shows that the army was composed of Chinese and non-Chinese of heterogeneous origins with the non-Chinese assimilated to varying degrees into Chinese culture. When the rebellion broke out, loyalist and rebel forces included a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese troops.
    Lacking evidence of a sharp division between Chinese and non-Chinese, we need to look at institutional failures for the cause of the rebellion. By the middle of the eighth century, it was becoming common to assign multiple commands to Military Commissioners. At the time of the rebellion An Lushan controlled three contiguous regions in the northeast, which gave him the potential to challenge the court. Another problem was that rules of avoidance were ignored. During the Tang higher ranking officers were restricted to four years of duty in one place, but An Lushan had control over two of his commands for more than a decade, allowing him to create a personal satrapy. Finally, the censorial system was allowed to deteriorate, denying the court the ability to monitor the frontier army.