Li Yuan

Li Yuan the founder of the Tang dynasty of China, who reigned from 618 to 626 under the title Emperor Gaozu and reunified the country after the collapse of the Sui. A nobleman and provincial general of the Sui, he seized power amid the great rebellions of the early seventh century and laid the foundations of one of the most glorious ages in Chinese history.

Family and Background

Li Yuan was born in 566 into the powerful Li clan of the northwest, a family of mixed Chinese and Turkic descent that had supplied rulers and generals to the dynasties of the northern frontier. His mother was a sister of the empress of Emperor Wen of Sui, which made the Li family part of the inner circle of the Sui court. He inherited the title of Duke of Tang and served in a series of official and military posts.

He was posted to Taiyuan in the north as a senior commander, responsible for the defence of the frontier against the Turks. This position gave him command of an important garrison and of the revenues and soldiers of a rich province. As the Sui empire fell into chaos under Emperor Yang, Li Yuan became one of the strongest figures in the north.

Tradition holds that his son Li Shimin, together with sympathetic officials, pressed him to rise against the Sui when the dynasty was plainly failing. Whether the initiative came from father or from son, the family resolved to act, and Li Yuan raised the banner of rebellion with careful attention to the forms of legitimacy.

Rebellion and Founding of the Tang

Li Yuan rose in 617 at Taiyuan. Rather than declare himself emperor at once, he posed as a loyal supporter who wished to see a worthier prince placed on the Sui throne, and he gained the support of officials and soldiers who were uneasy about outright treason. He marched south upon the capital, defeated the forces sent against him, and entered Chang'an in late 617.

He installed a puppet emperor of the Sui house and governed in his name, but the fiction could not last. In 618, when news arrived that Emperor Yang had been killed at Jiangdu, Li Yuan took the throne himself and proclaimed the Tang dynasty. He took the reign title Wude, meaning martial virtue, and made Chang'an his capital.

At the moment of its founding the Tang controlled only a part of China. Warlords held the eastern plains, the Yangtze valley and the borderlands. The reunification of the empire was accomplished over the following years, largely by the military campaigns of Li Shimin, and Li Yuan's achievement was to provide the legitimacy, the administration and the diplomatic skill that made victory possible.

Reign and Administration

As emperor, Li Yuan set about restoring the institutions of government that the Sui had created but that the civil war had broken. He reconstituted the departments of central government, restored the tax and land systems, and reorganised the local administration. He pardoned those who had opposed him, and he sought to win over the great families of the north by generosity and by the careful distribution of offices.

He was cautious in foreign affairs, preferring diplomacy and payment to open war with the Turks while the empire was still being unified. He was content to let his son Li Shimin take the field, and he rewarded loyalty richly. The early Tang legal and fiscal framework, much of it inherited from the Sui and later perfected in the Zhenguan era, was consolidated in these years.

Li Yuan continued the Sui practice of patronising Buddhism and Daoism and of maintaining the imperial rites. He was mindful of the need to heal the divisions of the long period of disunion, and he promoted men of talent from both north and south. His court, though less brilliant than that of his son, was orderly and industrious.

Abdication and Later Life

The harmony of the Li family did not last. Li Yuan's eldest son Li Jiancheng was crown prince, but Li Shimin, who had won most of the military glory, came to be regarded by many as more deserving. The rivalry between the brothers, and the manoeuvring of the court, made a collision inevitable, and Li Yuan proved unable to manage it.

In 626 Li Shimin struck first. At the Xuanwu Gate of the palace he killed Li Jiancheng and a younger brother, Li Yuanji, and then demanded, from his father, the position of crown prince and control of the government. Li Yuan, heartsick and powerless, complied, and two months later he abdicated in favour of his son.

He lived on for nine more years as the retired emperor, honoured but without power, and died in 635 at the age of about seventy. He was buried with imperial pomp, and his reign, though overshadowed by that of his son, was remembered as the foundation upon which Tang greatness rested.

Legacy

Li Yuan's place in history is that of the founder of the Tang. He took advantage of the collapse of the Sui to establish a new dynasty, he gave it a capital, a legal order and a claim to legitimacy, and he set in motion the reunification of the empire. Without the stability he established, the achievements of the Zhenguan era would not have been possible.

The dynasty he founded endured for nearly three centuries and became an age of unmatched cultural achievement. The Tang extended Chinese influence deep into Central Asia, presided over the flowering of poetry and the arts, and developed a governmental system that was admired and copied throughout East Asia. Its very name became a term for China among overseas Chinese communities.

Later historians tended to treat Li Yuan as a somewhat colourless figure beside his famous son, and the official records, shaped in Taizong's time, gave much of the credit for the founding to Li Shimin. Modern scholarship has restored a fuller picture of his contribution. He is now recognised as a patient and capable statesman whose caution and legitimacy were as essential as his son's brilliance.

See also

• Tang dynasty
• Li Shimin
• Emperor Yang of Sui
• Chang'an