Talk:Tang dynasty/Archive 1

Names

What do "Temple Names", "Personal Names", and "Era Names" mean? Please put some explanation somewhere, or at least link to it, since I don't really know what these are. And, this is a dynasty, who were the rulers during the dynasty - the "Personal Names"? If so, why not link all of them to individual articles? -- jheijmans

Linking them to individual articles was not done because of lacking a uniform format of naming convention. Now even with the standards set on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chinese), articles are still titled at the writer discretion. Once the standards are agreed upon, those individual articles can then be started. User:kt2

Note below

In the table of rulers, "Shao di" and "Ai di" tell you to "see note below the table", yet there is no note? -- Jpta 19:41, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Five centuries

how can there have been five centuries of military decline for a dynasty that only lasted for three centuries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.252.128.13 (talk)

Rock band

Tang Dynasty is also the name of a famous Chinese rock band. --sgfhk321

added talk possible edid question

No mention of the Yulan magnoliaIts flowers were regarded as a symbol of purity in the Tang Dynasty and it was planted in the grounds of the Emperor's palace, shouldnt that be noted somewhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.176.103.66 (talk)

Added. Aranherunar 05:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible changes and additions

First, Li Shih-min did not claim the title of "T'ang T'ai-Tsung"; these "temple names" are conferred after emperors' deaths by the new emperor and court.

Second, Li Shih-min did not "kick out" his father. He passed it to him (although probably feeling pressured enough to amount as a "kick out"). However, there was no indication that Li Shih-min would've actually forced his father out. In fact, he appeared to be a dutiful son.

Third, to speak nothing of how Li Shih-min came to power is something of an outrage. The "coup" where he killed 2 of his brothers was surely one of the most important events in chinese history - allowed him to become emperor afterall, and probably the best there ever was. Although this rightfully and already belongs to another article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fukui (talk • contribs)

Edited per first problem. Third concern needs someone with the right knowledge, not me. As for the second, it seems common sense that if his father doesn't pass it to him, Li Shih-min would have done so - what else did he kill his two brothers for? It's not only because his two brothers are repeatedly trying to kill him, it also served as a warning for his father, e.g. "The next one is you". Aranherunar 05:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect content

"The Emperor had three administrations (省, shěng): Military Affairs, Censorate, and Council of State. Each administration had its own job."

This sentence mixed up the three seniors of Han Dynasty with three shěng in Tang Dynasty.

The three seniors of Han led Military Affairs, Censorate, and Council of State.

The three shěng of Tang drafted policy, reviewed policy and implemented the policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.218.199.46 (talk)

Thanks, I have edited it into: "The Emperor had three administrations (省, shěng), which were obliged to draft policies, review policies and implement the policy. There are also six divisions (部, bù) under the administration which implement the policy, which carries out different tasks." Is that ok? I don't know the English translation of the three sheng, though. Can anyone provide one? Thanks again. Aranherunar 04:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm begging you! PLEASE tell me when the Dynasty started to when it ended. SHEESH!!

tang ren

ok so i know cantonese people always refer to chinese people as ' tang ren'. i was talking to a guy from fujian who always did this too. i wasnt sure if it was just cantonese people that call chinese people tang ren or are there other chinese people who do this too such as fujian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinoiserie (talk • contribs)

Uh, táng rén isn't Cantonese...it's Mandarin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.22.248.78 (talk)

people who speak mandarin never refer to themselves as tang ren. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinoiserie (talk • contribs)

were you born this way, or was it a lifestyle choice? some cantonese people speak mandarin in case you didn't know..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dentisn (talk • contribs) 18:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

There should be a brief explanation at article Han Chinese. Aranherunar 04:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

táng rén = 唐人 is of course related to the Tang dynasty, so I think there should be a reference in this article. Tang Wenlong (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

cantonese

was cantonese the lingua franca of this era? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinoiserie (talk • contribs)

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

The Tang Dynasty was taken over by aliens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.22.143 (talk)

Cantonese is at best a regional patois that happens to be famous becuase it was the language of the modern gatewate to China aka Hong Kong and Guandong. It definitely was not the common tongue of the Tang Dynasty as Guandong was something of a backwater at that time and the Tang Dynasty was based in Shaanxi which is pretty much on the opposite end of China from from Guandong. Also Mandarin or Putonghua is the lingua franca of China and has been since the Qin Dynasty, Putonghua litterally means Common Together Speach, so there you go.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.48.80.214 (talk)

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

Incidentally it spells Guangdong.

I must disagree with you. The spoken language of the Tang people is very significantly different from the Mandarin nowadays. Most linguists would agree that Cantonese is far closer to Tang spoken language than Mandarin - perhaps even Japanese is closer. The reason of that is actually said by yourself - Guangdong was something of a backwater at that time. It was only at the Tang dynasty that the "Tang culture" reached Guangdong, and it has stayed there ever since while in the North the spoken language evolved quite rapidly to be remarkably different from Cantonese. Aranherunar 04:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

Well, although every dynasty has Mandarin, these Mandarins are not the same one. No spoken language can be the same one for thousands years. Current Mandarin is based on current Beijing spoken language, and Beijing is very far from Chang'an(Xi'an). So "Tang Mandarin" is not current Mandarin. This has been confirmed by researchers even hundreds years ago, since China has books recording pronunciations( for poem use).

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

But can we say which dialect is the closest to Tang's Mandarin? Researcher have done somework, but there is no widely accepted conclusion yet, and I think there won't be one,since EVERY modern dialect has enough differences from Tang's Mandarin.

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

Cantonese should be more similar to "Tang Mandarin" than Mandarin, but I have to say that most dialet are more similar to "Tang Mandarin" than today's Mandarin, it is not just Cantonese. And remember that we are talking about pronunciations, the written/formal anguage only has one form ( or 2, classic and current), If you listen to HongKong TVB's news and write everything down, you can't find much differences(if any) from a Mandarin one.

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

By the way, to say Japanese is colser to Tang language than Mandarin is a joke. Chinese(all types of Chinese) and Japanese are even not in the same language family, their structures are completly different. Maybe you mean that "some Japanese (loan) words' pronunciations are more closer to Tang's version". But it is a different story, and at the same time, some Japanese (loan) words don't. Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese have been influenced by Chinese heavily, but mostly on vocabularies, these languages themselves have nothing to do with Chinese.

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

why do you guys discuss this topic here, I think the "Chinese language" topic has explain this clearly enough.

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

you are all wrong. the lingua franca was ALWAYS the dialect of the region around the capital, which during tang was chang'an —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.246.244 (talk) 06:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Middle Chinese was the lingua franca

Tang_dynasty.PNG

The map on this article has gross errors; first of all, there was no Balhae (Bohai) in 660 CE. Secondly, Baekje didn't have any territories in Manchuria, it was Goguryeo that had expanded in Manchuria (so those two names are actually switched). Also, Balhae and Goguryeo did not co-exist at the same time. I don't know about other states in the map (Tibetan Empires, Gokturks, etc.), but there are lots of errors regarding the states I mentioned. I'm not good with photoshop (or MS paint), so If anyone would like to make a new map or make the changes, I think it would be great. I personally like maps made by Yeu Ninje, those maps are superb. Deiaemeth 05:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't some distinction be made between vassal and enemy states? --SohanDsouza 10:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC) ~~Well enemy states may become vassals and vice versa.

The vassals and borders changed considerably from generation to generation during the dynasty, and I talk of its powerful years not about the entire span of its history of course. This map is ambiguous and a bit amateur but aside from labelling and ambiguous simplicity, not outright wrong. Except for the SW border :DHeaven's knight 22:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Korea's Role in Tang China

Korea nor Japan were Chinese tributaries at this time. Goguryeo waged war with the Tang Dynasty, and both Baekje, and Shilla were tributaries to Goguryeo. Shilla later broke its ties with Goguryeo, and launched an attack on Baekje. Later, a Shilla-Tang alliance was formed, and then the Shilla Imgeum (Sovereign) changed his title to Wang (King) to show Tang hegemony. Following the defeat of both Goguryeo and Baekje by the allied force of Shilla and Tang, Tang made an attempt to invade Shilla, but was repelled, breaking Shilla's tribute relations with Tang. Relations opened up again, but not tributary ones. The official title of the Shilla ruler was reverted to Imgeum during the war with Tang, according to Sam-guk-sa-gi.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.189.29 (talk)

Japan was definitely not. As for Korea, I'm not sure, because I have read a textbook that says it was. Aranherunar 05:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The article is too POV with statements of how Tang China stretched all over Asia to the middle east. Also, Korea never paid tribute to China. Why would Korea pay tribute to an enemy? Goguryeo battled the Tang Dynasty heavily and its fall was because of its exhaustion of too many wars, including the ones Goguryeo repelled against the Sui Dynasty. I have edited the article. Good friend100 00:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

LOL Goguryeo paid tribute to chinese han dynasty. and i added a reference to middle east... OWNED

"The article is too POV with statements of how Tang China stretched all over Asia to the middle east." it was that big you liar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.246.244 (talk) 06:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

im warning you guys who keep messing with tang territory size, stop it right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.176.163 (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

im afraid your wrong. korea did pay heavy tribute to china during the ming dynasty.Historian of the arab people (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

the tang dynasty did stretch to the middle east, and did battle with the arabs im gonna expand on that.Historian of the arab people (talk) 02:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was the Arab invaders who were the later aggressors arriving in Transoxiana to spread their Islamic religion. This lead to the Battle of Talas which was fought between a Tang army led by a Korean general and an invading Arab army. The territory where the battle was fought was not and still is not considered as part of the Middle East.--Nostradamus1 (talk) 07:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

the tang dynasty did battle in iraq, just like george bush did, when interfering in some dispute among the sassanids —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.128.88 (talk) 07:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Tang Dynasty should be part of Korean history as well, considering Tang held some territory inside of today's Korea. If China can claim on other ancient states as Chinese then Korea can do the same. --Korsentry 05:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

Gorguyeo is neither Korea or Chinese. The real Koreans today are descended from Chinese settlers/Sillia. T'ang ruled Korea until 755, and Korea remained a tributary until fall of Tang. Tang is not part of Korean history because Tang obviously ruled Korea as a conquerer/settler, and because modern Korean nation did not emerge until Goryeo. Tang, just like Han, Song(early), and Ming was world's strongest/richest/most advanced nation and was not concerned with KoreaTeeninvestor (talk) 00:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

considering your edits, korean sentry, i say someone can take you right up to WP:RFC very quickly for innapropiate behavior... you will then be constantly watched by admins. so buzz off if you know whats good for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.245.73 (talk) 05:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

He's obviously a nationalist troll who's here to duel with Chinese nationalists. Such efforts might be a waste of time, however, since he doesn't come here on a daily basis. Such a distraction from the true purpose of this talk page would warrant notification of the incidents to an admin, but so far he has only come here to be a polemic on an infrequent basis. Just quit paying attention to this particular section, and the troll will lose interest and take this conversation to the blogs where it belongs.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Who do you to judge me being troll when I have not even lay finger on keyboard to edit Tang Dynasty article? The big difference me and fellow Chinese nationalists is they illegally edits Korean history articles while I just suggest new ideas to counter them. Btw, Tang Dynasty is NOT part of Han Chinese history since it was Xanbei people who ruled Tang. If Chinese can claim on ancient Korean history and culture, we Koreans can same right to claim Han, Tang, Yuan and Qing considering they once held territory at today's Korean peninsula using your wonderful logic.--Korsentry 05:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

"The Tang Dynasty was a GREAT Success."

This is my first post on Wikipedia, so please excuse any breaks of normal etiquette until I get used to the format.

Just a note: in the section entitled "20 Emperors of the Tang Dynasty," there's a small line after the table saying "The Tang Dynasty was a GREAT Success." I checked the history and apparently its been here since the original edit, back in 2002.

I originally wanted to delete it out entirely, but hesitated after seeing that it somehow survived over 4 years of edits. My problems with it:

• Its an opinion
• If its a proper argument, there's no supporting evidence
• If its a quote, there's no citation

Thoughts?

Jia 23:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm..I don't actually see it in edit history. Maybe a vandalism somebody missed. It's not here now, at least. Aranherunar 05:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Yo we are jenks students!

This really helps with homework! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.184.226.126 (talk) I'm in 6th grade and our reasources arnt to great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.30.228 (talk)

Uhh..glad it helps. Goodbye. Aranherunar 04:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Expansion and cleanup

The article is seriously, seriously messy. For god's sake, Tang dynasty is the most powerful dynasty in Chinese history (and one of the most documented one), even shorter than a mere school? It needs a very, very large expansion. There's a lot to talk about Tang dynasty - the history section alone should be larger than the whole article now. Then we'll have to talk about policies, emperors, relations with other cultures, etc. etc. To make matters worse, half the data here is wrong (see talk page comments above). The map is obviously exaggerated, the era names are inaccurate, and the external links section doesn't have a link. The header is actually the whole article except from a list. Would anyone want to do the expansion and cleanup? Thanks. Aranherunar 05:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you want to write a book, long long book :) Even Japanese version is way longer than this. When we talk about history, at least the topic should mention Chu Tang, Sheng Tang, Zhong Tang, Wan Tang(sorry don't know how to spell them in English). When we talk about culture, at lease Li Bai & Du Fu should be mentioned. On the other hand, parts of the article is too detailed. I mean the Imperial examination thing. I don't it is not import, but so much Imperial examination and not a single word about poem? the article needs a good structure before too much details are added.

and the name of the empress is still incorrect, she was not named zetian, her Posthumous name is not Wu Hou, it is much longer, any Empress whoes family named is Wu can be called Wu Hou.

Map

As far as my edits to the article itself, I slightly touched on the article to clarify about the beginning of the decline, specifically with regards certain mentions of talas. Tang decline and subsequent withdrawal from the west is due to an shi rebellion, not a single frontier battle. It seems Talas tends to be overstated and fetishized. Still, I wonder where we shall put it then; by the same reasoning it seems rather too much to give it its own special link in related topics or what have you and yet I am reluctant to orphan it. I'm sure many of us can agree that the Tang dynasty deserves much better treatment than this and a greatly expanded article; little tidbits like Talas then would not be out of place there.Heaven's knight 22:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Chill, not everything is some kind of evil nationalist conspiracy. The outer areas are ambiguously labelled, I agree. But no one seriously denies or 'forgets' the Tibetans when in discussion of Tang. I might insinuate that you yourself have 'forgotten' history; the Tibetans in fact captured the capital of Chang'an briefly once, but you do not divulge any mitigating circumstances but instead leave it at that.

What IS inaccurate about that map is the southwestern border; Tang control there was rather more, how shall we put it, receded than is shown. also the korean area is obviously mislabelled, as some have pointed out. We do need a better map Heaven's knight 22:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That map on Tang dynasty is seriously misleading. The caption reads 'Tang Dynasty and its allied and conflicting states' - what the hell is that supposed to mean, when the map is coloured in such a way that it insinuates a Chinese preponderance in all the coloured areas? I wouldn't be saying this if that WAS the case, that Tang China DID exert various forms of control on all the coloured regions, but of course that is not the case. Nearly forgotten annals of the Tibetan empire at the time reveal a power that at one time threatened Chang-an itself, and of course various Korean states of Kogureyo (dunno how to spell that) and Silla were at odds against Tang China many times. I say someone strike down that map, because it was obviously made by an amateur and ignorant hand, or was made by an extreme sinophile such as Gavin Menezies quite willing to warp historical truth for China. -- 1tephania

Removal changes

---deleted this part because it had no details. "In 751, Chinese and Arab forces met in Turkestan. The Chinese force was routed." -intranetusa

I'd performed some reorganisation - and stuck in the bit about the climate change - and a lot of that has been let alone. I'm glad of that. Also, some of the text I reorganised has been subsequently erased. As far as I'm concerned that's someone else's problem. However: I'd love to know why Intranetusa and Clee7903 removed my reference to the 751 battle ("Talas River"), and then rearranged it so that the weather change (~ 700 CE) appeared after the An Shi rebellion (756 CE).

I'm willing to accept that the Talas river battle didn't hurt the Tang army much; but it did highlight the Tang command's ongoing decline in the run-up to the An Shi rebellion, which (I submit) is important. Also it was an important point of contact between the Tang and the Abbasid world, inspiring the Tang accounts of Islam which are still worthy of study today.

To Cleo: if you want to delete a bunch of stuff or move it around, that's fine with me, but I'd appreciate it if you could explain why you did it.

To intranetusa: The details were enough for Breitbart and the AFP, dude. If it's not enough for you, then go add to it or flag it with a "{ fact }" tag. And while I appreciate that you did give a reason here, you could have organised it better.

-- Zimriel 03:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)'

To Zimriel. The article regarding the Battle of Talas River has been added. Have a link to that article. Intranetusa 01:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for Sources/Citations: Protector of Kashmir=

I am an avid reader of Chinese Imperial history and would be interested to see some more detailed references for the article--specifically on the point about the Tang dynasty being the protector of Kashmir and apparently allied with Assam (based on the map). Could someone please provides some links to expound upon this or some more citations for those who would be interested (all the sites online pertaining to this appear to be linked to the article or directly copying it? I would be interested in reading more about it.Thank you.

It appears the request above has been here for quite some time, but no one has move forward to answer it. Is is safe to say then that the statement that kashmir was a vassal state of china was unsourced and that it is a candidate for deletion? I am avid reader of Tang history and genuinely appreciate their achievements; however, I am also concerned about accuracy, since we all want as many FA's as possible on wikipedia. I wanted to reach out to the main contributors to this article before deleting this statement myself. Are we in agreement that this is unsourced then? Please let me know.

Regards,

Devanampriya

In thoes days, there is not a stated called "Kashmir"? there were some small states. If you say vassal state, I will say no. Tang didn't control Kashmir all the times, and when she did, parts of Kashmir was controlled by 安西都护府,not a state. Some states there were once being Tang's allies, but they could turn to enemies. I think the author is confused with allies and vassal states.

Chinese use the term 西域, which is not the same as Kashmir. If you say 西域 was controlled by Tang, it is OK.

And Assam is also a modern name, you mean north east India? In thoes days, it was very hard to get there from China(there is himalaya), so they were basically isolated.

the map is strange, it seems that "Kashmir" is not on the correct position, and in those days, there were no mongol tribes. And the north east part the map is a mess, Paekche and Balhae didn't exist at the same time and they are not showed on the correct positon. Even Japanese topic of Tang has a better map.

I'm beginning to think the inner yellow area is a distorted Han map. The map overall suffers from enough distortions as it is. While the borders directly ruled by the Empire changed and some leeway can be assumed, the southwestern border is clearly extremely off, resembling a Han map, and on closer inspection the overall impression of the borders is Han. We really need a better mapHeaven's knight 22:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Droughts and famine

In the section about the decline of the Tang, there is a sentence: "At the same time, natural causes such as droughts and famine due to internal corruptions and incompetent emperors contributed to the rise of a series of rebellions." This sentence is manifestly self-contradictory: how can droughts and famine be caused by corruption and incompetent governance? Is this a reflection of how people have lost faith in the divine Mandate of Heaven of the Tang emperors in their inability to curb natural disasters? Or did they bungle the post-disaster handling? Clearly, this section needs to be expounded on.

AcidFlask 06:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Article's quality

This article is way too short and simplistic to be about Tang Dynasty. Even Encarta has about five pages solely devoted to it. I believe Wikipedia is one of the worst references when it comes to Chinese dynasties or Chinese history in general, because the contents are often short and has POV problems. Other prominent enyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica has way more informations to say about it. --67.2.148.214 19:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree Heaven's knight 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Same here. The Wikipedia page of one of the greatest dynasties is way too short, especially for a magnificent encyclopedia like Wikipedia. And I'm not just saying that because I'm Han Chinese. However, since I last read the page, it's improves quite a bit. Geosultan4 01:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Tanjahreeen 19:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC) The above image must be deleted or edited because its horribly incorrect. Paekche was never located above Goguryeo and Balhae didn't even exist at the time. Plus, it is way too POV. Only the yellow part should be colored in because I have never heard of a Chinese empire that controlled the middle east. Is this a joke or something to Korea? Its offending to see how Korean captions are messed up. Good friend100 00:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the map of the Tang Dynasty, I reverted back to the original Tang_dynasty1.PNG picture. Gaogouli sent a tribute to Tang in 619 before the invasion of allied Tang-XinLuo (Silla) forces. United XinLuo after the demise of Goguryo effectively became a Tang vassal in 668. This should be addressed in the picture.

Tang also subdued the Western Turks for a while. The Map of Tang should address the greatest extent of Tang influence.

-The preceding unsigned comment was added by Keizhen 07:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

I have a different opinion from yours.

specification user reveal provoke criticism. your first manners towards a other keep. Tang dynasty is not so big. Goguryeo not Tang vassal, also Tang dominate the Manchuria only 668~670s till government. and Tang was not able to altogether conquer the korea peninsula.

once more consider.

korea history(Talk) 07:24, 2 February 2007(UTC)

First of all, please read the map more clearly. The dark yellow area corresponds to the area of Imperial Tang's vassals. Unified Silla was a Tang vassal. Secondly, Gaogouli (Koguryo) did send tribute to Tang in 619 as I said earlier (source: China, Korea & Japan to 1875) just before the Tang-Xinluo (silla) invasion of Gaogouli. A unified Xinluo became a Tang vassal in 668.

empire, imperialism

whenever you confront an imperialist, or imperialist sympathiser with imperialism, the imperialist will often say that "all countries with power will abuse it. if its not the u.s., it will be rome, or uk". however, i am curious about the chinese tang dynasty. i have heard that tang china didnt try to invade, attack or exploit other countries when it had the ability to. during the tang dynasty and throughout most of chinese history, there is no doubt that china had the ability to invade japan but chose not to. i would like to see a military or imperialist section added into the main article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.159.35.185 (talk) 14:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Song/Liao Contradiction?

First sentence is:

The Tang Dynasty [was] followed by the Song Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period in China.

Doesn't that contradict the box on the right-hand side? That says Tang was followed by Liao and 5D/10K, with Song coming later, if I'm reading it correctly. --193.99.145.162 00:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

New Sub-Section Added

I just added the section on Chinese maritime influence abroad during the Tang era.

--PericlesofAthens 17:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Name of dynasty

If the Li were the royal family, why is it called the "Tang" Dynasty? Why isn't it called the "Li Dynasty"? And is it mentioned anywhere in the article what "Tang" means or why the dynasty was named that? Badagnani 08:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, Chinese dynasties are named by their founder, not normally by the surname of the ruling family. Thus, the Ming Dynasty was founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, Yuan Dynasty by Genghis Khan, Han Dynasty by the Liu clan, etc. DHN 04:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, The Tang founding Emperor was the Duke of Tang the before he overthrew the Sui Dynasty and proclaim an Empire which he named after his Duchy.

I've looked through all the articles in question and in none of them does it explicitly state exactly why any of the dynasties are called what they are called. Badagnani 05:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The article on the Qing Dynasty had an explanation of its name: Some sources suggested that the name "Qing" was chosen in reaction to that of the Ming Dynasty (明) which consists of the Chinese characters for sun (日) and moon (月), which are associated with the fire element. The character Qing (清) is composed of the water (水) radical and the character for blue-green (青), which are both associated with the water element. Other suggested that the name change went a long way to rehabilitate the Manchu state in the eyes of the Han Chinese who had regarded the former Jurchen Jin dynasty as foreign invaders. DHN 05:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Han Dynasty was named so after the Han Kingdom (Han (state), one of many small states) during the Warring States (481-221 BC). The State of Han came into being in 403 BC, when the once powerful state of Jin was paritioned into three smaller states (Wei, Han, and Zhao), a moment that some consider to be the true beginning of the Warring States (although many put its starting date at 481 BC). The State of Han was named after the aristocratic family that was established to rule it, the Han family, led by Han Yuan (韩原), a Zhou era noble. However, other dynasties were given names not because of family clan names, but because of attributes or ideals. For example, the Jurchens, when they established their dynasty in the north by 1115, they named it "Jin", meaning 'golden' in Chinese. --PericlesofAthens 01:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I felt the English term dynasty is a very inaccuracy term to describe Chinese dynasty. If I could change it, I would be better to translate it as empire(i.e. Tang Empire instead of Tang dynasty), but the term "dynasty" is so well established right now there no point in changing it. Most of the dynasty was named after aristocracy titles held by the founder of the dynasty. These titles were usually based upon the geographical area held by the founder. For example, Han dynasty(汉) if I recall correctly was not named after Han kingdom(韩) but was actually named after the founder Liu Bang's title 汉王(King of Han) after he was awarded Principality of Hàn (in modern Sichuan, Chongqing, and southern Shaanxi province). --WikiN00bz?

The Tang Dynasty was named "Tang" because its founder, was the Duke of Tang(唐公爵) in the Sui Dynasty. When he became Emperor, he took the noble title as the new dynastic name. This is what I was taught when I was in school(I am from Hong Kong).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.149.69.217 (talk) 2007-06-03 07:23:02

The Dukedom of Tang was conferred to the Li family during the Northern Zhou Dynasty. Li Yuan or Emperor Gaozu inherited it from his father. According to the Chinese official history, the so-called dynasty name is actually the country name. In effect, there wasn't a country known as "China" previously, but between 618 to 907 AD, here stands a country known as "Tang". However, throughout the years, the idea of nationhood appears. People no longer saying they are fighting for XX government, but for China. During the 1911 revolution, the word Dynasty was thus introduced. The country thus was no longer "Great Qing", but is China under the "Qing Dynasty", which is justifiable for removal. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.155.15 (talk) 15:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

More Info

I just added some more info on why the Tang Dynasty declined, including the natural calamities that struck during the period.--PericlesofAthens 17:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

I just added the infobox.--PericlesofAthens 21:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• It would be better to add the more successor entities and clear lifespan. --24.18.102.154 21:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

  I reverted the timeline for the Tang Dynasty back to older versions. Simply because that is how most sources (encyclopedias, reference works) would label the reign of the Tang Dynasty. By seperate its time table into two sections (using Wu Zetian's Second Zhou), I think it creates an uncomfortable gap. I think using the footnotes at the end will be a nice disclaimer, without disrupt the conventional standards or confuse the readers.--Balthazarduju 06:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, just like Wang Mang with the Han Dynasty (although divided into two eras, still the same dynasty and dynastic period).--PericlesofAthens 15:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

GA Status?

It may need many more citations, but what do you guys think? Is this article becoming worthy of Good Article status? Or is it still too messy? In the meantime, I will request a peer review, so please make your comments there. Thanks.--PericlesofAthens 15:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, hello! I really don't see anything wrong with the article (maybe besides some ususal checks: grammer, sentences flows, citations). I think the article's quality has drastically improved since past versions. Compare to other ancient/medieval entities' entries (even GA articles), there is not much to complain about. Keep up the good work!--Balthazarduju 04:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! And I'm glad there's at least a bit of discussion. I want some feedback from others, though.--PericlesofAthens 02:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of July 21, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Generally the article looks very good, but a few things need to be fixed. For all of the following issues (not just writing style), I myself plan on helping out with the smaller stuff during the hold period if no one objects.

• One aspect that is easily overlooked in writing introductions is stating the obvious. In the introduction this means stating what the Tang Dynasty is, rather than just when it ruled. While it may seem redundant in the light of the extensive articles providing an overview of Chinese dynastic history, it is important to keep in mind that readers may not come into contact with those articles.
• Is the phrase "prosperity periods" an independent term used by historians? If so, it should be disambiguated or put in quotations to differentiate it as such. If not, it should simply read, "periods of prosperity".
• There are several instances of confused or run-on sentences, such as this:

  "The enormous Grand Canal of China (still the longest canal in the world) built during the previous Sui Dynasty facilitated the rise of new urban settlements along its route, as well as increased accessibility in mainland China to its own indigenous commercial market."

  For better clarity, it should read something along the lines of:

  "The enormous Grand Canal of China, built during the previous Sui Dynasty, facilitated the rise of new urban settlements along its route, as well as increased trade between mainland Chinese markets. The canal is still to this day the longest in the world."

• In the "Establishment" section, if there is a main article for the subject, in this case Transition from Sui to Tang, then that article should be linked with a {{mainarticle|article name}} tag.

2. Factually accurate?: Though the article's references are quite good in type and amount, the article as a whole suffers from a lack of inline citations, whether in Harvard referencing or footnote format. Without this, which facts are supported by sources and which are not is often unclear, which makes it difficult to judge the accuracy of the article. Of course, inline citations are only absolutely necessary for potentially controversial statements, but in consideration of other quality articles, the more inline citations the better. The places I consider specifically needing them are statements such as "Although his rise to power was brutal and violent, he was also known for his benevolence and care for governance." or "The Tang period was a golden age of Chinese literature and art." In other words, statements of historical interpretation.

• In the military section, is it really accurate to say "dominant ethnic group"? The sentence refers to a national conflict. The Tang Dynasty was (according to the article) a diverse, cosmopolitan society that held a diverse congregation of ethnic groups, so it is likely that populations of ethnically Turkic people were within the dynasty.

I think the diverse, cosmpolitan society within the Tang Dynasty in this article were mostly referring to merchants and business dwellers (mainly from the Silk Roads), hence how "cosmpolitan" it is. The Tang Dynasty was actually battling against Turkic tribes, Arabs... and many people/ethnic groups around that time according to this article, due to its expanding empire. I think the statement was referring to different things. --Balthazarduju 06:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

3. Broad in coverage?: The article most definitely meets this criteria.

4. Neutral point of view?: The article is generally quite good about adhering to a neutral point of view, but occasionally when reading I get the feeling that the text is expounding on the accomplishments of the dynasty excessively. I am concerned about the phrases in the intro's second paragraph that simply compare the dynasty in regards to how it was better than other dynasties. I would like to see some of this toned down, or cited specifically. Another solution is to attribute such evaluations to a specific historian/s. Also, the statements about the relatively good state of women's rights need citations. From the perspective of an outside reader, playing polo and the appreciation of full-figured women do not seem to be substantial improvements in the area of women's rights even for the period. Historically, many countries and periods have had women rise to the ranks of power in a similar fashion to Empress Wu. But this is the exception that proves the rule, not a conclusive example of improved rights for Tang Dynasty women in general.

5. Article stability? The article seems to be sufficiently stable.

6. Images?: The image content is great, but some placement work is needed. One thing to expressly avoid is "image stacking"; the placement of images one on top the other (in a stack).

7. Misc.: This is just speculation, and it's not really a matter of GA criteria, but shouldn't only the first word of the article's title be capitalized? Dynasty isn't really a pronoun in this instance imo.

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far! — VanTucky ^(talk) 00:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

One more quick fix concerning factual accuracy: did not the Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty rule for quite some time in reality, if not officially? Perhaps the intro sentence should be changed to reflect this, ala "the first and only woman to officially rule China as Empress". the phrase "rule in her own right" wasn't clear enough for a layman such as myself.VanTucky ^(talk) 06:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, Cixi was a "de facto ruler" who pulled strings behind the scene, whereas Empress Wu was the undeniable head leader, large and in charge (lol). I guess you can go ahead and change it to the alternate sentence if you think it is more suitable. Oh, and btw, I have addressed many (if not all by now) of your points above by making new improvements to the article. For the "dominant ethnic group", I think you became a bit confused; it is not in reference to the Tang Empire, it is in reference to Turks dominating Central Asia, which I can assure you was an absolute truth (you may verify this with a multitude of sources). As for the naming of "Tang Dynasty" to "Tang dynasty", I would advise against this. Every other article for a Chinese dynasty follows the naming scheme of capitalizing the "D" in "Dynasty", and in every text book or other book I own about China, they always capitalize (since it is in reference to a specific dynasty and era of time, not a vague term to any Chinese dynasty). If there are any loose ends in the article left, please bring these to light, and I will "get crackin" on them to make this article all it can be, in the army. Hah.--PericlesofAthens 06:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

After looking about some, including at the GA Song Dynasty article, I see you're correct Pericles. Not a big deal anyway. But what is a big deal is Balthazar's reversions. The first sentence of an introduction exists to define what the subject is in a very basic way. An article whose first sentence does not fundamentally define what the subject is is lacking. While I would hesitate to discount all the other good work done on the article because of such a small thing...this is something that even stub articles get right the vast majority of the time. I don't understand what is so difficult. Debate and shift the word choice all you like so as to prevent repetition or melodramatic language, but an article which doesn't begin by defining it's subject matter is not a good article. VanTucky ^(talk) 08:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I woke up to go take care of bodily necessities for a moment, and I decided to check up on the article. First off, wow. I am not going to let one stupid sentence (in the intro nonetheless) soil all the work I've put into this article. Balthazarduju, please refrain from reverting the edit this time, I usually value your opinion (and you often have good input), but this time it is hands-off.--PericlesofAthens 10:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

One more quick thing. The article goes in to wonderful detail about the development of classical Chinese poetry during the dynasty, but what (if any) classical Chinese novels or other literature were composed during the dynasty? I see some information in Chinese literature and Chinese classic texts that could be included. VanTucky ^(talk) 20:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow dude, check out my improvements. I went a lot further than just increasing info on poetry and prose stuff. You truly have to love the description of the mechanical wine server shaped as an articial mountain. Brilliant! And drunk as hell, of course. Lol.--PericlesofAthens 04:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nominee for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of July 22, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: After the small work that needed doing, this article is very well-written.

2. Factually accurate?: The factual issues I have brought have been addressed sufficiently.

3. Broad in coverage?: I think this article now is very definition of comprehensive.

4. Neutral point of view?: Certainly NPOV; it mentions the brutalities of the dynasty while keeping in mind its place as being considered one of the eras of highest technical and artistic innovation.

5. Article stability? Yes.

6. Images?: Image issues above have been addressed.

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. — VanTucky ^(talk) 20:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Great! I'm glad all the work has finally paid off. And thanks to everyone else who contributed to this article as well, it looks great.--PericlesofAthens 21:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

FA status, perhaps?

I know, I know, I'm really pushing it, since it just got accepted to the level of GA status. However, the article is exceptionally well-written now, broad in coverage, stable, lacking POV (as far as I know), full of inline citations and proper references, etc.

I'd like to get everyone else's feedback.

Eric--PericlesofAthens 19:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

In a method somewhat following the model of the Song Dynasty article, I have placed all the stuff about political and military events first, while putting society, culture, technology, economic trade stuff next, and kept the historiography stuff at the end. After reading a suggestion by VanTucky on my talk page, I have decided this is the set up that the article should follow, and the section on historical events and politics should be expanded a bit to counter all of the Tang's achievements in society, culture, technology, economic trade, etc.--PericlesofAthens 22:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on historical articles, so I don't know how much valuable feedback I can give on this article. The format and outline of an article is important. I think the current re-organization is kind of strange, even though it is sorted by themes and timeline. Maybe is because I've seen the older format and now that it is re-organized, it feels kind of harder to read than the earlier version. I think maybe you need to work around a bit about the way these sections would go, and then come to a better solution for the format.--Balthazarduju 00:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I like this version alot better, except the "Trade and spread of culture" section should probably go before the society and cultural sections. Giving a comprehensive timeline of the dynasty, and then the discussion of its various aspects makes much better sense to me. It gives a better frame of reference. VanTucky ^(talk) 04:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you have a point. I'll see how that looks.--PericlesofAthens 14:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The article looks great, although it is now rather large, a bit too large. I think the FAC commentators would object to this article's size. Therefore, I am going to see what I can do to edit and downsize it a bit. I want to thank everyone for their contributions in adding material to the article, but now I want to focus on skimming it down a bit (such as sentences that are needlessly long).--PericlesofAthens 08:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It is important to note that Wikipedia:Article size states:

Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose.

With that in mind, I am happy to announce that the total prose of the main body of text for this Tang Dynasty article is only 9931 words! Woo-hoo! Lol. Some people may complain about this article's size and argue that separate articles should be made (which I've already done for Song Dynasty, and I am never, ever doing that again knowing the amount of work that takes). To that I would say, "refer to this statement on wikipedia's article size page," which would back my assertion that the article is in fact just long enough for readers to keep their attention span. Hah.--PericlesofAthens 21:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia article size also says this about splitting articles:

Do not take precipitous action the very instant an article exceeds 32 KB. There is no need for haste. Discuss the overall topic structure with other editors. Determine whether the topic should be treated as several shorter articles and, if so, how best to organize them. Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage; certainly, size is no reason to remove valid and useful information.

And for articles that are more than 60 KB (Tang Dynasty is 85), it says:

Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)

I think the scope of the topic, a 300 year period of China's history that also includes info on society and culture, justifies the large amount of prose text. Don't you?--PericlesofAthens 21:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Due to many general improvements in the past few days, I've gone ahead and nominated the article for FA status.--PericlesofAthens 23:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"Other notes" section

This section only has one sentence, and it says that the world population grew about 50 million during the Tang dynasty. Is this information even necessary to the article? And if so, could it not be incorporated into another section? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel the same way, actually. In the Song Dynasty article, this information is put into a cref-note that appears below the footnotes. I might convert it into that in a moment.--PericlesofAthens 17:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Poets

I'm probably nit-picking here, but the editors that hang around at FACs have become increasingly strict on good writing style. I was looking at this sentence in the intro and was wondering if there's a better way to write it:

Two of China's most famous historical poets, Du Fu and Li Bai, belonged to this age, as well as Meng Haoran and Bai Juyi.

Why are Du Fu and Li Bai mentioned as "famous" historical poets and Meng Haoran and Bai Juyi are not? How come they are notable enough for their own articles if they are not famous? And technically, while the sentence mentions that Du Fu and Li Bai were poets, it doesn't mention who Meng Haoran and Bai Juyi were. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You raise an interesting question. Even without clicking on Du Fu's article and reading it to confirm Du Fu's status, this Tang Dynasty article later explains (in the literature section) the origins of reverence for Du Fu's poetry in Chinese society. As for Li Bai the article later states (once again, in the literature section) that he was famous for his gushi style poems, yet this is not mentioned in the introduction. As for Meng Haoran and Bai Juyi, I will simply change the sentence to: "as well as the poets Meng Haoran and Bai Juyi." That will be sufficient for now until I figure out a way to word the sentence better.--PericlesofAthens 09:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Red crab

The article refers to "red crab"; that particular article is a disambiguation page that leads to dungeness crab (Cancer magister) and Christmas Island red crab (Gecarcoidea natalis), neither of which are native to China. Does anyone know what species of crab the article refers to? Neutrality^talk 20:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Charles Benn did not specify which specific type of red crab, just plain old red crab. If someone can find an article on indigenous crabs of China that match, be my guest. The more accurate the article is, the better. Thanks for bringing this to attention Neutrality.--PericlesofAthens 04:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The conventional long name of the infobox

唐朝正式國號為「唐」，而非「大唐」。元朝是中國史上第一個把「大」字加入正式國號的朝代。參見明朝人朱國禎《涌幢小品》卷二「國號」條：「國號上加大字，始於胡元，我朝因之。……其言大漢、大唐、大宋者，乃臣子及外夷尊稱之詞。」 [1], it explained that Tang Dynasty's native name is "Tang" but not "Great Tang" or "The Tang Dynasty" --Lmmnhn 08:49, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The Tang Map

I have discussed the Tang map with someone on my talk page, and he shares the same sentiment I have had for a long time about the amateur and poorly drawn map used in this article, as he said: "Seems very amateurish to me, like it was done in Windows Paint. Black water?!?"

I will try to find someone who has the spare time to make a decent map for this article; afterall, this article is a featured article, and a featured article requiring a map should have the best map possible.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I doubt the map is really accurate for Shilla's territory especially. Shilla is not the vassal state of Tang Dynasty. Of course, Shilla brought a tribute to Tang Dynasty historically but this does not mean Shilla is the Tang's vassal. you know, Shilla and Tang fought in Korean peninsula for many years and Tang acknowleged the independence of Shilla in effect. So many maps which depict the territory of Tang don't include Shilla in their works. I absolutely agree with PericlesofAthens's opinion, furthermore, I hope anyone who has a thorough knowledge of China and Korea history will make the more accurate map.--2SteamClocks 06:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Although imperfect, I still think the older map made by Briangotts is way much better than this one (Image:Tang (616-710).png). I checked out some sources from the external links such as the Minnesota State University, as well as the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on Tang Dynasty, their map's boundaries roughly matches with the older map (Image:Tang dynasty1.PNG); i.e. areas such as the western regions were indeed part of the Tang Dynasty, but other areas might not be. Plus, this map (Image:Tang (616-710).png) only shows Tang Dynasty from the reign of Taizong. Also, this map's Tang Dynasty is kind of too big, and might have problems with some users.--Balthazarduju 21:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I realize not many people have the time to create maps, but the Tang Dynasty is a featured article (it has come a long way since February 2007), but the map is elementary. If someone has the time, it'd be nice if they could make the style of map used on the Song Dynasty (image:China 11a.jpg). Geosultan4 09:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The map reads "China under the Tang dynasty (yellow) and its allies and at least nominal vassal states (dark yellow), c. 660 CE." (Bold style by me) Do you see any map of country which includes the terrotory of its allies and nominal vassal states featured by same color? It can help readers misunderstand the real territory of the empire and whether a neighboring state is ally or vassal state. The map of Tang with peculiar color should be excluded in the map especially in the introdution section which is shown at first. --2SteamClocks 10:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Unfortunately, after contacting the guy who created the high quality maps for the Song Dynasty article, the Han Dynasty article, and the Ming Dynasty articles says he is too busy to create a new map for the Tang. He also says his knowledge of Tang boundaries is limited and stated that it would be hard to create a concise map since the borders often changed and shifted in the western end of the empire in the Tarim Basin (due to warfare). This is truly too bad, since I do not have the same capability in map-making. Hopefully someone else knowledgable in Chinese history and in map-making will stand forward. I doubt it though.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I would like to bring interested editors' attention to this map. I have drawn the Tang border according to this and this, which are scanned from "History and Commercial Atlas of China." Although it isnt as nice as those high quality maps, im more than happy to upload the Tong part from the animated map as a separate image, and perhaps specifying it to include neighbouring states and tribes, or colouring the water blue. : ) Comments, suggestions, corrections welcome. Ian Kiu (ha...) 07:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC) Ive been bold and uploaded the map. I'll appreciate any comments, suggestions, or corrections. Pojanji 23:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you for uploading the new map. It looks much better.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What a great map! Thanks for your effort.--2SteamClocks 07:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I take it by all the recent vandalism that this article is becoming somewhat popular! Lol. Well, at least amongst immature middle school students who can't think of anything wittier to say than "penis" and "vagina" and "he sucks weener"...if you're going to vandalize a page, at least make it funny for us adults. Otherwise, why even bother? That's like bothering to mark up something with graffiti but not making it look interesting, cool, or beautiful. In any case, I will jockey to put this article under semi-protection if the vandalism keeps up on this level; so far today, the page has been vandalized a total of 15 times. That's quite a bit for a single day, for any article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Expansion

I'm proud to announce that this article has 200 inline citations now! It now rivals the amount in Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. I've also added some new pictures to the article. Enjoy!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Colors

The Tang Dynasty had three main colors: yellow, green, and brown. They also had sidebar colors that were not as commonly used such as blue, black, and white. Their colors were presented on robes they wore during events, special occasions, holidays, plays, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.211.17 (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually no, the most dominant colour they had was red. It was changed to silver by Empress Wu, but was reverted after her son's coup against her which restored the Tang Dynasty —Preceding unsigned comment added by Staygyro (talk • contribs) 09:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The Map

The Map does not show the whole empire, only the parts under direct Imperial control, there is a lot more to the Tang Empire than the map suggests. My map is better but it isn't in English, that is fair enough but can someone find a better map in English? Staygyro (talk) 23:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have the blank East-Hem map available at (http://thomaslessman.com/History/images/blank-East-Hem.jpg). You are more than welcome to copy that map and edit it to make the map you have in mind. I've got maps of Asia that show the Tang Dynasty's borders in 700 and 800 AD, but not in the way you are looking for. (See Image:Asia_700ad.jpg). I'd recommend a program like GIMP, PhotoShop, or Paint Shop Pro to work on the maps. Respectfully, Thomas Lessman (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me, as long as the map is in English for English readers who come here to learn about the Tang; this is, after all, an English encyclopedia.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If/when you have time PericlesOfAthens, your knowledge of Tang China is much better than mine. Would you please look at the existing [Image:East-Hem_700ad.jpg] and [Image:East-Hem_800ad.jpg], and let me know if the borders of Tang are accurate. I'd be happy to crop and customize one of the existing maps, or even create a new one for 750 AD, if so desired. In other words, I'd be happy to zoom-in and highlight Tang areas specifically for the article. I've been experimenting a little with enhancing them, and can probably come up with a unique map as long as I have correct info. Respectfully, Thomas Lessman (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thats very good but in your maps you implied that the Tubo (not Tufan), the Khitans, the Gokturks, the Uighurs, the Jurchens and the Turkic peoples east of the Caspian Sea were all independent countries. That was not the case. In reality they were all part of the Tang Empire. Only they were not all under direct Imperial control but are controlled via regional tribal chieftains and warlords, all of whom were subject to the Emperor. They sometimes revolted, but the conflicts were not between countries, but between the central Imperial Government and regional tribal chieftains. What I suggest you do is colour the directly governed regions one colour and draw approximate fading outlines for each of the regional subject authorities in the same colour as their borders were undefined approximations anyway. Staygyro (talk) 23:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What I suggest you do is colour the directly governed regions one colour and draw fading outlines for each of the regional subject authorities in the same colour as their borders were undefined approximations anyway.

I like this idea, as long as independent tributary states, semi-autonomous states, semi-autonomous nomadic territories, and independent nomadic territories are clearly defined by use of heavy and light shading, as well as a neutral color for everything else outside of direct Tang control as well as Tang influence at all.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

If/when you have time PericlesOfAthens, your knowledge of Tang China is much better than mine.

Sure, I know much about the Tang, but I have to be honest in admitting that I am no cartographer, and even less capable of showing each little territorial change for each year of the Tang. I suggest getting together a team of knowledgeable editors who can provide valuable input.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Preview Window

Or if there's a problem with the Preview Window not showing up either template correctly, then just bugreport it to Bugzilla (file a bugreport/bug report or whatever).68.148.164.166 (talk) 04:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Map and federation

I did not remove the recently added info on the Tang federation, or the map with the legend key, but I do ask that it not be shown until a scholarly source is properly cited so that the readers can know exactly where this information came from.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:08, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the argument that the Tang upheld a "federation" is supported by any evidence, such as an official constitution which adhered to federalism and that legally bound self-governing entities to the Tang central government. Beyond the marriage alliance, didn't Tibet merely pay tribute during Songstan Gampo's reign? It should also be noted that Taizong was not the only Tang emperor to hold the title of khagan over the Turks (i.e. Emperors Xuanzong, Suzong, and Daizong).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Brides of the Kaghans

The article states that

"The Tang, unlike the Sui, did not send royal princesses to their leaders; instead they were married to Turk mercenaries or generals in Chinese service, and such marriages only occurred in two rare occasions between 635 and 636."

However, I read sources stating that the Tang pursued "a policy of pacification through marriage." Can the following be incorporated into the corresponding section. Here are the relevant quotations:

While waiting for the Turks' weakness to defeat them, Taizong believed China had to pursue what he called "a policy of pacification through marriage." That required sending large diplomatic missions with costly gifts to accompany the Chinese princess brides.Findley, C.V., The Turks in World History, 2005, pp.40, Oxford University Press

.., the Tang emperors saw no choice, if they could not defeat the Turks, but to continue the diplomacy of marriage. For the Tang, too, the policy produced payoffs at a price. In the upheavals touched off by the An Lushan rebellion in 755, the Tang grew desperately dependant on the Uyghurs for aid against the rebels and correspondingly unable to resist Uyghur demands and depradations. Women played critical roles in maintaining the Tang-Uyghur alliance at several moments. In 758, Princess Ningguo(Ning-kuo) was married to El-Etmish Bilge Kaghan... Princess Ningguo was the first of four Tang princesses married to Ughur kaghans.Findley 2005, p.53-54

--Nostradamus1 (talk) 00:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, even in the Rebellion and Catastrophe sub-section of this article it mentions of the Tang princess sent to the Uygur Turk leader. The statement in the article certainly needs to be amended.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I never added the statement about the marriages either; I think since it is contradicted by these two sources, it is circumspect and should actually be removed from the article until I or someone else gets to the bottom of it. It's safer just to eliminate the questionable statement for the meantime.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I kept that part of the statement about marriages of mercenary generals to Tang princesses, though. That part is fine as far as I can tell.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Work needed on Infobox

Great work on getting the article to FA status. However, I feel that the infobox needs work. Specifically:

- The display of the list of emperors and chancellors is misleading, it appears to me that the list is arbitrarily truncated to six entries due to some built-in functionality of the infobox template (as viewed on Chrome and IE, at least). This should either be remedied to show the complete list, or an explanation given for why the list is truncated. Another suggestion would be to use a collapsible box if the infobox would be too long. Good code that could possible be used for this can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Electromagnetism3 , which was set up by DJIndica.

- The section on 'Chancellors' is difficult for me (a non-expert) to understand. Did these men all hold the same post during the same year? (In truth, I suspect that the section is in error and the dates need to be clarified) For reference, this section was added in an edit at 19:55, September 7, 2008 by ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ , and has been largely unchanged since. This problem with the dates is in addition to the problem with the display. (i.e. it exists in the source code)

- Lastly, both of these sections clearly require direct citations to allow for verification of the facts.

- To warn readers of these problems, I've tagged the article as 'infobox in need of cleanup'

Cheers, Supasheep (talk) 02:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

In regards to dates, yes, there were two chancellors at every moment and all times, and some did not last a full year as incumbents. Some were dismissed before an entire year's term was finished. In any case, I don't have the time to fiddle with this, so for the meantime I will just simply delete everything about the emperors and chancellors if it truly a problem.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Li Shimin as "Taizong": a minor mistake

The section called Establishment claims that "Li Shimin ascended the throne as Emperor Taizong" after his father abdicated in his favor. This is wrong, since Taizong was Li Shimin's temple name (miao hao 廟號), a title that was always chosen posthumously. It is conventional in Tang scholarship to refer to emperors by their temple names (because they had too many reign periods [nian hao 年號]), but the wiki should make this distinction more clearly. Maybe we could have: "Shortly thereafter, his father abdicated in his favor and Li Shimin ascended the throne. He is conventionally known by his temple name Taizong." I'm sure we can find a smoother formulation, but you get the point! --Madalibi (talk) 03:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that I didn't notice this before. Good catch, Madalibi. I think your sample suggestion here would be a sufficient replacement for that sentence.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Humble suggestion

As per discussion between Madalibi and me at User talk:Arilang1234/Sandbox/ Hua-Yi zhi bian(temporary name)#Lead section needs to be rephrased, we kind of agreed that the English word Chinese is at best a very vague kind of word. Especially so in this case. Let me explain. More than 1000 years had passed by, Chinese all over the world do remember, and cerebrate the spirit of Tang in different ways, especially the southern Chinese, such as Cantonnese and the Hokkians, in a sense that in private, instead of calling themselves Chinese, they prefer to be called Men of Tang(Chinese:唐人). 唐人 in cantonnese is Tong Yen, and official Chinese Name of China Town is cantonese Tong Yen Gai, definitely not Mandarin Tang Ren Jia, which is yet another issue.(The reason is Mandarin people never refer to themselves as 唐人)

Likewise, the Hockkian people, who are reputed to have preserve the pure bloodline of ancient Han(古漢人), would prefer to be called Den Lang(唐人 in Hockkian).

What I am saying is, this article's using the English word Chinese to represent Men of Tang may have committed a very serious historical and anthropological error. Just a thought. Arilang ^talk 23:25, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

An sort of analogy I could think of, calling Man of Tang Chinese, is like calling Irish or Scottish British. Arilang ^talk 00:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I honestly, truly understand your point, but for the sake of the masses who visit this Wikipedia page and don't understand the difference, saying something is "Chinese" makes it simpler for them to understand. Plus, this is an article about the Tang Dynasty: its political, social, cultural, and technical history, not the definition of 唐人. That's the job of another article; maybe we can add a single sentence in the introduction to quickly explain 唐人, since it is relevant. However, this should only be a single sentence as this article is already too long to contain a lengthy discussion about the subtle differences of cultural and ethnic identity within "China".--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

@ PericlesofAthens, like I mentioned somewhere else, this is nobody's fault. If we are going to lay any blame, we can only blame the alphabetic nature of English language. What I am saying is, Chinese word, or character, or Hanji,漢字 is a pictogram,which means that each word is a picture. Many Chinese words are a string of 2 to 3(sometimes even 4) words put together. Now, as the old saying go, a picture says a thousand words. When we have a string of 4 words, it will take a long time to translate its meaning into English. Arilang ^talk 02:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

See? Both systems truly do have benefits and drawbacks. By the way, have a look at a new article I have recently created from my notes: History of the Han Dynasty. I'm sure you'll enjoy the read. :)--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

What arilang is saying is comlete BS. he is trying to give cantonese a special postition. arabs and other desert creatures merchants have migrated in signifigant amounts to guandong province, and interbred with local cantonese. cantonese are not pure, they are in fact the most racially mixed, at least the mandarins are purely NON chinese, they are not mixed, the real descendants of the chinese of shang, zhou, qin, and han come from fujian, southern zhejiang, jiangxi, hubei and hunan, who speak min-nan , wenzhou, xiang, and gan dialects. the mandarin speakers are descdendants of turkic, mongol, manchu, and chinese stock. the half breed turks-chinese of tang are gone. cantonese are half breed arabs. end of story. see map below.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dentisn (talk • contribs) 17:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

QUOTE: "arabs and other desert creatures" ...I stopped taking you seriously after this sentence. Whether or not you disagree with Arilang, you have just violated the Wikipedia policy of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. You also assume that every Arab who moved to Guandong intermarried with the local populace (wrong), or that every "Cantonese" person during the Tang intermarried with a foreigner (wrong). Your discussion about "half-breeds" and "pure stock" also has nothing to do with the Tang Dynasty article, but perhaps has a place at neo-Nazi Stormfront or better yet, the Chinese version of the latter. And you do realize that there is no pure physical stock of "Han" or "Tang" people? Just as there is no pure physical stock for "Cantonese" people, or "German" people, or "English" people, etc. These are cultural and linguistic appelations we are using.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:14, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Asserting that cantonese reserve the exclusive right to brag about being descendants from the Tang dynasty is wrong. arilang assumes that cantonese get to have a "special position" and mentioning all over the article. This can be seen from his userpage, where he talks about expelling "northern barbarians."

i removed the barbarian section on his userpage, it is extremely offensive and arrogant.

not to mention the fact that he tried to claim middle chinese was identical to cantonese.

Cantonese are well known for bragging that they are the pure chinese, and showing off thier british passports. i am partial descended from the "northern barbarians" arilang is insulting in every comment he posts, and his comments should be deleted

and i didn't violate no personal attack. i commented on his content, which stated that cantonese were the purest chinese and descendants of tang dynasty stock —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dentisn (talk • contribs) 22:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

What is the real issues?

This talk page is about 古代漢唐文化(Ancient Han-Tang culture), also on ancient Han-Tang language, and what is the best way to translate these ancient civilization into everyday English, instead, user Dentism just jump in and start using terms and accusations which would be more suitable in places such as Nazi Germany or Holocaust Denial. I suggest user Dentism next comment should concentrate more on the difference between ancient and modern versions of Han Chinese civilization, which has a 3000 years(may be more than 3000) continuation of written records. Quote:cantonese are half breed arabs.unquoted, this kind of comment is indicative of a both childish and ignorant mind. Arilang ^talk 01:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Vietnam should be included in improvement of article

Tang Dynasty once held territory in today's Vietnam, therefore Vietnam should also claim Tang Dynasty as part of their history considering China is claiming many past non Chinese states because they are now inside of today's China territory. By looking at the map of Tang's territory, Northern part of Vietnam was Tang Dynasty's territory. Please add Vietnam as part of share. --Korsentry 05:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

Exactly what does this trolling, anachronistic, and modern nationalistic dribble of yours have to do with the Tang Dynasty page? Exactly which scholarly sources are you bringing to the table which explicitly says "Vietnam claims Tang Dynasty as part of its history"? Sure they could claim the Tang as part of their history (well, the northern Vietnamese at least), but that's just an opinion of a Wiki editor, so until you show us this supposed scholarly source, your opinionated blogging conversation here is unfit for a Wikipedia talk page. Capiche? You should know better by now that this type of conversation just wastes time, space, and energy.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Why not? China claims Tibet, Mongolia, East Turkestan, Korea even central asia histories as part of Chinese history, so all them can claim Chinese history as part of their histories. Trolling? You haven't seen how many of your people trolls at Korean, Mongolia, Vietnam & Tibet topics. If you've got the problem dealing with criticizing and being scholastic then you have problem. --Korsentry 02:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

we never used chinese historiography here, and, adding "wikiproject [name]" doesnt offend us, as your trying to do here, because wikiprojects are not history projects. theres even and LGBT wiki project, sometimes people who are not gay but involved in studying gays have that on their talk page. you are not accomplishing anything by adding "wiki project". i dont see it saying this is part of [name of country] history. and this can be taken up to an admin very quickly if you troll around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.245.75 (talk) 05:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

it is indeed part of Vietnamese history, it even says on vietnamese people article that vietnamese have an ethnic origin from chinese, and have chinese DNA, from being ruled by china over 1,000 years, vietnam is almost just another province, just like theres a hong kong wikiproject. you fail at trolling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.245.75 (talk) 05:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Vietnam, Korea, and the rest of the vassal states

@ user KoreanSentry and other IP users,

1. 主僕之分, 長幼有序 For thousand of years, Han Chinese were the boss, 主人, Koreans and Vietnams were vassal states, were 僕人, servants, subordinates. Moreover, they borrowed heavily from Han/Tang Chinese culture; without Han/Tang Chinese culture, there shall not be any Japan, Korea, Vietnam in the present-day forms.
2. See Hua-Yi distinction, only by adopting Confucianism, those small East Asia states were able to come out of the Yi=barbarians image. In front of Han/Tang culture and Han/Tang history, Japan/Korea/Vietnam can belong to sub-section, or just a sentence or two.
3. Editors are free to creat any articles they like, but there is a line to be drawn here, these featured Han/Tang Chinese wiki articles took many hours to build, please do not try to mess it up.
4. All over the world, 唐人街(China Town) is a well known landmark. User KoreanSentry, are you going to change that too, may be turn it into Korean Town, to replace China Town?
5. Regardless of how modern day communist government treat the ancient Chinese history, no amount of Korean-image-building are going to change any ancient historical facts, which is, Han/Tang Chinese culture were the mainstream ancient Chinese culture; all other cultures were sub-cultures. It may be painfull for user KoreanSentry to admit, but, sorry, facts are facts. Arilang ^talk 07:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Since when Han and Tang Dynasty was exclusively belonged to Chinese when Han/Tang was empires? Also, why Chinese can claim on Tibet, East Turkestan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea and now even Japan and rest of SE Asia as part of Chinese cultural sphere and why others can not claim China? Ok, let's me clear, since Japan once hold bulk of Chinese territory can they make claim on Chinese history too?--Korsentry 05:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KoreanSentry (talk • contribs)

IP users entry

There's several IP anonymous users, 68.160.244.221 and 162.84.164.79, who were actively trying to add a large chunk of material (a section called "Xenophobic, racist, and nationalist response to Multiculturalism") onto this article. Now, some of the content are sourced, but these paragraphs are very poorly written with full-on grammatical mistakes, and not to mention they are extremely long for an article of this size. The paragraphs inserted by these anonymous users, if deemed appropriate for this featured article, needs to be copyedited, cut down and modified/re-written with appropriate tone of voice (not a commentary) for this article. I think it is unacceptable for a featured article to include large paragraphs that seems extremely rushed (judging from its grammer, written in a hurry) and un-copyedited.--Balthazarduju (talk) 04:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Not only that, but you must check the sources. These anonymous IP editors use words like "nationalist" and "racist" and use Jacques Gernet's book (1994) as a cited source, yet if you go to those page numbers (courtesy Google Books, which these editors are probably using), it becomes evident very quickly that they are putting words into Gernet's mouth. Forget the poor grammar, that could be fixed with some copyediting; the real poison here is the misrepresentation of sources to fit some sort of agenda or opinion of the anonymous editor. As we all know, Wikipedia:No original research is the central rule here. They should also look to Wikipedia:Citing sources for more info.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

the content was almost copied directly from the book. as it was written in french, strange language appears in the translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.167.23 (talk) 05:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I support user Balthazarduju and PericlesofAthens's comments, that these IP users' inserted content (1) do not seem fit for a featured article (2) those contents are pure fabrications that I have never encountered in any respectable Chinese historical publications.(3) Any more attempts from these IP users of contents of dubious nature warrant the attention of admin action. Arilang ^talk 06:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Not on this article, but should we be concerned with anonymous user 162.84.164.79 and 162.84.167.23 (and it seems there are a lot of these IP editors adding the same statements) and their edits to bunch of articles such as Pogrom, Antisemitism, Guangzhou, Huang Chao, History of China? Some of those edits in these articles has been reverted by other editors, and I'm unsure if these are inappropriate/inflammatory edits on behalf of these anonymous editor(s)? Should these edits be removed (if they haven't been already)?--Balthazarduju (talk) 08:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to revert; I don't think you should take this editor very seriously at all, especially since they seem to want to make Wikipedia their personal blog.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Admin action needed if more addition

@user Balthazarduju, these IP users seem to abuse the fact that , Huang Chao (黃巢) who was known to have killed a lot of people(possiblely Jews), and try to pin him as the first ever Chinese to kill and prosecute Jews, and somehow lay blame to all the Chinese. This is not your normal everyday wikipedia editions, but act of malicious racist attack, which should be stopped. To start with, Han Chinese culture had never picked on a single ethnic group and tried to eliminate them, unless they were live-or-die enemies such as Xiongnu or Jurchen. Moreover, Jews had been without a home for thousands of years, they would have a lot of other people to blame, why pick on ancient Chinese? Arilang ^talk 12:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I used http://www.linkwan.com/gb/broadmeter/VisitorInfo/QureyIP.asp?QureyIP=116.28.90.253&I1.x=21&I1.y=14 to check these IP users, they come from Washington DC, possible a bunch of high school students? Arilang ^talk 12:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not only a repeat of some of the information already discussed in the article (such as brief persecutions of certain religions during the mid 9th century), but it is also the most anachronistic interpretation of Tang history that I've ever seen. The anonymous IP editor even tried to explicitly compare the Tang to Nazi Germany, then retracted the statement at the end before Balthazarduju reverted the entire section. It's a gross misrepresentation of sources. Sure, the Tang persecuted foreign religions like Buddhism as part of a hysteria during Emperor Wuzong's reign, but there is truly no comparison to the Final Solution or anything that would remotely tie Tang to Nazi Germany. It's like comparing apples with scissors or donkeys with calculators; there is no comparison.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

reading on silk road during tang dynasty and relations with sogdians

someone want to read this and add content? [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.157.221 (talk) 22:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

It has been proposed the stub Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty be merged into this article. The expected consequence is that the stub article will effectively disappear.

Extended content

The wrongly-created Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty is indefensible. In any case, the following vandalism warnings were reasonable and entirely ineffective: 162.84.138.30 162.83.161.11 ‎ 162.84.136.193 141.155.153.147 Defensive semi-protection from anonymous IP onslaught was sought and denied. See -- Talk:Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty#Semi-protection is needed The burdensome effort of dealing with persistent disruptive vandalism by what appears to be one person is pointless. Serial edits from Anonymous IP and other IP addresses have proven to be intractable quandry. These serial provocations are overwhelming in character; and they cannot be mitigated with reasoned engagement nor with time-wasting resort to futile dispute resolution procedures. See Talk:Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty#Merge proposal. Merging that problematic article into this one removes a continuing target for obsessive mischief. It is impossible for this article or any article to thrive outside a venue in which WP:V has meaning and substance; and no other option but abandonment seems feasible at this point. The material in this article is adequately covered in other articles, and with no discernible prospect for growth, there is no function served by keeping this article except as an oddly configured battleground.--Tenmei (talk) 23:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment

Toxic 141.155.157.34 -- I consider the wording of this section heading to be both uncivil and offensive; and I request that you modify the wording immediately. --16:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

this request is not the first hoked up request by tenmei. User:Tenmei supposedly had "concensus" to delete Mongolia under Tang rule. an admin spotted it, and realized the so called "concensus" was not covered by G6. tenmei proceeded to blame me for the fact that an admin spotted his fraud request for deletion and realized it wasnt covered by policy. And the fact that most of the discussion on this page is made up of pro mongol editors, shows that tenmei is not willing to pull in a neutral 3rd party. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.157.34 (talk) 17:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Toxic 141.155.157.34 -- I consider the paragraph above and the addendum below to contain wording which is both uncivil and offensive; and I request that you modify it immediately. --16:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

and the fact that USer:Tenmei is putting warnings on my talk page despite the fact that he knows i DO NOT have a Static IP shows his fraudulence

Extended content

Toxic 141.155.157.34 -- Aha? NO -- I am offended by innuendo -- and in this instance, I'm even more offended that it works so effectively for you. The allegation that "pro mongol editors" have anything whatsoever to do with this thread is not supportable, not provable, hollow. It offends me that this gambit was effective at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mongolia during Tang rule before I joined that the AfD thread. It offends me again that you hazard that tried-and-proven technique here. It vexes me greatly that this facile poison is so readily given plausible credence. NO. NO -- This is the first time you've used the phrase "neutral 3rd party," but your sentence implies that there is some back-story in which efforts to work together were somehow thwarted by my unwillingness to examine issues with an unbiased perspective. NO. NO -- I am a neutral 3rd party, and you've ignored all efforts to work constructively. In in the context your edit history creates, your sly gambit is offensive. I am truly vexed. NO. NO -- Zeborah is a neutral 3rd party at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mongolia during Tang rule, and you ignored all efforts to work constructively -- even ignoring pointed questions directed towards you specifically. In the context your edit history creates, he/she found you merely annoying. NO. This response might have been more strongly worded, but the intent cannot be construed as anything but informed, measured, implacable. --Tenmei (talk) 16:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you guys off your pills or something?

Everyone settle down. What is all this noise all of the sudden? This article is perfectly fine as it is. This article, Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty, is merely a stub article and everything that is stated in it is covered in breadth in this Tang Dynasty article already. What is the point of a merge? Why merge in sparse and redundant material? I hope this can be resolved quickly, because it is a major distraction.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Aha. Does that mean that you support a merge? Good. --Tenmei (talk) 03:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No, not at all. Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty is a stub article; it would be a joke to merge an article with a whopping six sentences into a credible, behemoth article like this. Besides, the info covered in that stub article is already described in full here. If that's as plain as day to see, why are you pushing for a merge? Why don't you expand Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty, and give us all a reason to merge it into this article. Until then...--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

Japanese calligraphy by Satow. The kanji read (from right to left) "敬和" (Kei-Wa), literally "Respect and harmony". Your good-natured response reflects well on you; and I very much enjoyed one well-crafted clause: "... it would be a joke to merge an article with a whopping six sentences into a credible, behemoth article like this." However, this is no joke, nor is my growing sense of offense exaggerated. This disruptive, toxic, long-term warrior has earned appalled contempt mixed with astonishment at the success of tactics and strategies which do not elicit immediate condemnation from my thoughtful, careful peers. Please consider revisiting your first-blush impressions. As you may know, military theorist Carl von Clausewitz stressed the significance of grasping the fundamentals of any situation in the "blink of an eye" (coup d'œil). Clauzewitz' conceptual "blink" represents a tentative ontology which organizes a set of concepts within a domain. Your preliminary assumptions can't withstand closer scrutiny; and this is relevant to the extent that your descriptive paradigms are affected by the way issues are defined and addressed -- not unlike framing. In other settings, vague misgivings had not coalesced until I read the statement of one of the candidates in the last ArbCom election. Coren identified a specific concern: "More awareness of a growing issue that is poisoning the very essence of collaborative editing that makes Wikipedia possible: real-world factions that vie for control over articles, turning them into polemical battlegrounds where surface civility is used to cover bias, tendentiousness and even harassment ..." [emphasis added] In this instance, I adopt Coren's language when I state bluntly: The disruptive edit history of what is at worst a PRC shill or at best a miscreant youth is exacerbated when he/she uses our rules of civility as weapons. I make Coren's words my own when I state bluntly: This anonymous, long-term warriors is toxic, not vested; and the costs to the community in ignoring his/her trail of harm requires us to investigate beyond surface behavior issues. I merely quote someone else's words I state bluntly: Academic integrity should become a priority; unlike "simple" incivility, the damage caused by editors misquoting, plagiarizing and editorializing destroys the credibility of our encyclopedia -- see here [emphasis added] Other things interest do me more than this; but if I just let this go, I can anticipate that I will continue to confront similar toxic warriors ad nauseam. In this setting, at least I remain resistant to the "pro-Mongolian" epithet .... --Tenmei (talk) 15:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

@user Tenmei, I think you worry too much, if you care to read Hua-Yi distinction, you would know that concerning all the articles related to ancient China/East China history, only Huaxia is mainstream, all other culture, or ethnic groups, be it Mongols, Jurchens, or Khitans, or Turkic, they all were sub-culture, sub-groups, they can never become big players, or mainstream. And if some small groups would like to play big in wikipedia, they simply cannot, because they do not have the historical facts to back them up, simple as that. Arilang ^talk 15:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

Thank you for your comment. Responding to your words allows me to make plain that my "worry" arises from 21st century disputes in which I take neither side. Please construe my stance as being somewhere on the side of those who reject any scam which would pervert a Wikipedia article as a tactic for affecting contemporary disputes about borders or oil and mineral rights. Count me among those who would hope to mitigate a kind of subtle vandalism which is insidious and pernicious. I am sincerely vexed; and I reject the notion that there is nothing anyone can do. At a very minimum, I can say "no" -- and yes, I don't doubt that it does look like I might be worrying too much. I invested hours in trying to resolve this problem precisely because I thought WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR provided adequate tools; and in the process of struggling to work within this hortatory policy framework, I encountered what was, for me, unexpected. Issues having to do with Hua-Yi distinction do interest me in the sense that the Foreign relations of Imperial China affect historical Korea, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, pre-Meiji Japan and Formosa. Tangentially, I am interested in differences the Qianlong Emperor seems to have perceived between The Macartney Embassy and The Titsingh Embassy; and I am vexed that I can't re-write history so that the Old Summer Palace is not demolished by Lord Elgin. --Tenmei (talk) 17:22, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

@User Tenmei, I think it is ridiculous to merge six measly sentences into this article, and have stated this very clearly. Yet you on the other hand are busy invoking Clauzewitz? How unrelated and irrelevant. So far you have given me the impression that you are a troll, plain and simple, and that your edits here are deliberately disruptive. What normal editor would leave a diatribe like that on a talk page after trying to merge a six-sentence stub into a featured article? I'm done responding to you here, because I think you're only here for attention.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you misconstrue my intent. We learn from our experiences, and I will bear in mind that you've misconstrued my words. I'm not trying to turn Tang Dynasty into a battlefield; rather, I'm trying to help eliminate a battlefield by merging it into this "non-battlefield" article.

Please hold in mind the merest possibility that I might not be a troll. I take some comfort in knowing that you haven't rebuked me for being somehow "pro-Mongolian" ... which is mildly reassuring, even in this dismissive context. --Tenmei (talk) 18:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

ROFL the only reason he didnt accuse you of being pro mongolian is that mongolia is nearly no where mentioned in the article now, and you did not brin git up —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.135.20 (talk) 04:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Toxic 162.83.135.20 -- You're like a loose cannon; and if you don't understand this phrase, click on the link and learn about a commonly-used English Idiom.

Whatever point you think you're making, it doesn't belong here -- see NO. --Tenmei (talk) 14:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Straight talk please

User Tenmei seem to be not talking in English, and using funny kind of words. Come on, please do not play game, we do not have time for that. Arilang ^talk 18:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for inviting me to explain again in different words.

You and the others who look after this article confronted an awkward problem at Talk:Tang Dynasty#IP Users entry above. Working together, you were able to rebuff the disruptive vandalism. Your group defined that vandalism as badly written propoganda-like material which was (a) unaccompanied by a source citation, or (b) when there was a citation, the published text was misquoted or twisted. You must have found this kind of attack frustrating. The citation-checking had to have been time-consuming ... and the edit history for Tang Dynasty shows that the vandalism was repeated

A similar dilemma developed at Mongolia during Tang rule, which has now been re-named as Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty; however, nothing seemed to be able to stop or mitigate Toxic 162.84.138.30; Toxic 162.83.161.11; ‎Toxic 162.84.136.193; Toxic 141.155.153.147; etc.

When serial efforts to address these problems were unsuccessful, another editor proposed deleting the article. Merging the stub into this one eliminates the battlefield that Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty has become. Then everyone could devote attention to their other watch-listed articles.

As one whose efforts can't be devalued by a complaint that I'm "pro-Mongolian," I took it on myself to try to explain what was going on.

You didn't like what I wrote; and I will collapse the text which you didn't like. However, I'm not going to remove it until I figure out how I could have explained the same thing in a more effective way.

For today, this is the best I can do. Perhaps it's still not good enough for you; but there you have it. --Tenmei (talk) 20:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I shall put Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty under my watchlist and see what happen next. Arilang ^talk 20:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

perhaps you still have not explained you hoax fraud request for deletion, and procceeding to blame it one me when it was the admin who review your request. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.135.20 (talk) 04:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Toxic 162.83.135.20 -- Everyone recognizes that this gambit is nothing more than "beating a dead horse;" and if you don't understand this phrase, click on the link and learn about a commonly-used English idiom.

Whatever point you think you're making, it doesn't belong here; and in the context of consensus-building at Talk:Inner Asia during the Tang Dynasty#It has been moved into Inner Asia, now please delete Mongolia one, it's like apples and oranges. Again, if you don't understand what this means, click on the link and learn about a commonly-used English idiom. --Tenmei (talk) 14:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

do not remove islamophboia, iranophobia, white slavery, antisemitism sections

its a fact that tang dynasty persecuted muslims, iranians, iranian religions, buddhism, jews, whites, indians, etc.

its also a fact that tang dynasty chines practiced sexual slavery on white sogdian girls, please do not remove out of nationalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.161.5 (talk) 18:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't trust a single edit of yours after you cited Gernet and I read Gernet's book online (courtesy Google Books); the pages which you cited mentioned nothing of what you included in earlier edits (in other words, you like to misrepresent sources), nor did they even use your terminology or "racist" etc. Second of all, you're only here to prove a point and serve an agenda (see Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point). Third, this is a featured article and is already getting too large according to prose size (see WP:SIZE). Your massive, unvetted additions are not only unwelcome, but threaten the featured status of this article which I worked very hard to achieve. Get lost. You make Wikipedia a less-respectable place to find information. Why don't you start your own blog where this type of information is more suitable.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This anonymous user has also been adding the same rambling, incoherent and incredibly long information about "white slavery" and "islamophboia, iranophobia, antisemitism" to bunch of other articles.--Balthazarduju (talk) 19:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition, even the title of your dubious section is anachronistic to the extreme; in the 7th to 9th centuries, there was no such thing or even the concepts of "Islamophobia", "Anti-Semitism", or "Iranophobia". Did the Tang Chinese buy "white" slaves and turn some fair-skinned prisoners of war into slaves? Sure. But this was a tiny, insignificant amount of the population, dwarfed by the amount of Han Chinese people who were made slaves, and even Han Chinese slaves made up a tiny, 1% of the population. Not only is there already information in the article about the wave of religious persecution for a brief period in the early-to-mid 9th century, but if you wanted to start a legitimate section on Tang-era slavery, why call it "White slavery"? Does that mean a separate section has to be made for "Han Chinese slaves"? That division makes absolutely no sense, and gives away the true reason why this editor created this section: to prove (in a very unconvincing way) that the Tang Chinese were the Nazis of the 9th century. Absolutely ridiculous.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually there are several realible source around that black slaves were very popular as doormen during tang dynasty, bought from arab merchants from east africa. see Ku Klux Klan for similarily behaved people.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.165.20 (talk) 21:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, there are some rare cases where black African slaves were imported, but I would ask what you think "popular" is (given that the slave population in premodern China was incredibly tiny and insigificant to the whole) or how you could possibly link Tang-era Chinese slaveholders and practices of slavery to the 19th-century American development of the Ku Klux Klan. Tell me, Mr. Scholar, which credible scholar even makes such a comparison? None, I would guess (not counting the ones who have a crayon-written Ph.D diploma from Peewee Herman's Playhouse University). Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Admin action needed to bar 162.83.161.5

Enough is enough, PoA and Balthazarduju, time to request admin action to stop this kind of non-sense once and for all. Arilang ^talk 19:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Arilang is a fanatic cantonese nationalist, who is trying to elevate cantonese people to god like status among chinese, and pushing cantonese pov everywhere, claiming cantonese are the only "real" descendants of tang dynasty chinese. etc..... arilang claimed cantonese is most closely related language to middle chinese.... lol. other chinese are more closely related to tang dynasty than cantonese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.131.138 (talk • contribs)

i find it kind of hyprocritcal that Arilang created Slavery in seventeenth-century China on manchu practicing slavery but is whining about the sections being added here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.129.45 (talk) 23:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

People that want to talk about the makeup of Chinese people should perhaps be repairing that article. Is pretty pointless to make these claims in a tang dynasty article. Benjwong (talk) 03:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with creating a Slavery in seventeenth-century China article, since no one is stopping you from creating a slavery in China article focused on any non-Han-Chinese ruled dynasty or any century in time. I wouldn't mind a small discussion of slavery in this Tang article, even though the slave population in all eras of premodern China was relatively low compared to the West (in both Greco-Roman and post-Renaissance Europe) due to the high taxes imposed by the state for owning slaves and the practicality of landlords using loans and tenant-based labor. However, if I see any inserted material about slavery that is steeped in hyper-nationalistic dribble about Han Chinese deliberately targeting ethnic or religious minorities for enslavement, you can expect your material to be removed immediately by yours truly.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Any evidence on the date

Is "June 18, 618" really 武德元年五月甲子?--Tricia Takanawa (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Poem

While I admire the depth and detail in this article, does the Literature section really need an entire poem by Du Fu? It seems excessive to me. A. Parrot (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. I'm a fan of Du Fu, but this is the main Tang Dynasty article, not a "Literature during the Tang Dynasty" article. What do others think?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It's been more than six months, and no one else has said anything, but I've only become more convinced that it should be trimmed. I know nothing about the stature of Du Fu or this particular poem in Chinese literary history, but an analogy makes the point clearer. The "To be, or not to be" soliloquy is one of the best-known passages in the English language, by one of the greatest authors in Western history, but you wouldn't include the entire thing in the article on the Elizabethan era. A. Parrot (talk) 22:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Although not a playwright, it would be fair to say that Du Fu, in terms of renown and lyrical excellence, is China's Shakespeare. I have no objections to trimming his poem down, even though I would consider it one of his best (but that's just me!). Others may disagree despite not voicing their concern here. We'll see if objections are raised by the action, not simply the suggestion. If that's the case, we can continue to have a discussion here. Regards.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I did that. The deletion would have stacked the two images in the section rather uncomfortably, so I also put the Small Wild Goose Pagoda on the left and moved the emperor's calligraphy to the top of the section (to avoid sandwiching the text). A. Parrot (talk) 21:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I liked the poem. I hadn't realised A. Parrot's idea was to remove all of it. --Dominic Hardstaff (talk) 21:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Tang Map

This article is missing a comprehensive map of one of China's most important dynasties. The only map present (in the lead) only shows the boundaries. It doesn't even show the location of the capital Chang'An.

Perhaps someone can find a map showing the major cities?Bless sins (talk) 17:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a systemic problem with all dynasty articles here. There is an insufficient amount of quality maps at Wikimedia Commons which we can utilize here at Wikipedia. Perhaps you could try contacting someone at Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps for aid in creating a new map from scratch (but based on scholarly sources with the cited page #s used). A lot of maps at Commons simply have boundary errors or are gross propaganda pieces attempting to show in a very ideal sense the furthest extent of the empire. There is also the issue of presenting a map with a definite, pinpointed year the map is supposed to represent, as borders fluctuated over time and thus any good map should reflect these changes as accurately as possible.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

A missing reference?

One passage in the section on the Turkic and Western regions says that "Around 650 AD, Tang forces captured Lhasa, capital of Tibet." The footnote cites "Bell (2000), 28," but that source is not in the bibliography. (The closest one would be "Benn 2002," but this seems like a different book.) Moreover, the (alleged) capture of Lhasa by Tang troops is not mentioned in Charles Beckwith's book (cited in the bibliography) on the Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, which covers precisely that period. Could there have been a mistake? Madalibi (talk) 03:11, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what source that is. I never added that citation. Someone else did. I can't seem to find Bell's book via Google Books either.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should find a suitable replacement for that Bell source, one that we can include in the reference section.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for looking this up. As far as I remember from Beckwith, Tibet and Tang had fairly peaceful relations after 641 when Taizong granted Princess Wencheng as bride to the sovereign of Tibet. Taizong died in 649, and so did the emperor of Tibet a few months later (in 649 or 650). The Tibetan monarch was succeeded by his young grand-son, but real power fell to chief minister Mgar Ston rtsan, who had negotiated the marriage with Princess Wencheng and now controlled the army. Mgar made lots of reforms at the Tibetan court and set out to attack the Tuyuhun, who soon submitted to the Chinese (see Beckwith 1993, 24-27). Relations then became tense between Tang and Tibet, but as far as I know there were no major battles and the Tang never sent armies to Tibet. Anyway, since we have no reference and since the capture of Lhasa is mentioned neither in Beckwith nor in the Sui-Tang volume of the Cambridge History of China, I will erase the problematic sentence until we can find confirmation for this fact. Madalibi (talk) 06:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 January 2019 and 24 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nanaho6767, Allison jung, Cora Cm.

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Introduction of Indian Numerals

As per the page on the Gautama Siddha, it is stated that he introduced Indian numerals with zero (〇) in 718 in China as a replacement of counting rods. Did this mark a decisive change in Chinese mathematics ? And if it did, shouldnt it be mentioned in this article ? I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 01:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Han Dynasty which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

9th century

is this dyansty found during the 9th century? plz tell me i need to know its very important — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:C:9480:6CF:D8D1:733D:AB83:308 (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Lead clutter

WP:MOS-ZH advocates not including the Chinese and other languages in the lead a third time when we've already got everything available in two separate infoboxes immediately to the right. I'm all for that, although we might want to force {{Chinese}} to display the romanizations by default. In any case, pinyin is phonetic and there is never any reason to display Chinese IPA: it's completely unhelpful both to people who don't know enough Chinese to read pinyin and to those who already do. Leave it in the infobox or at Wiktionary and link the characters. — LlywelynII 15:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

With this sentence

The dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty (October 8, 690 – March 3, 705) and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant.

I'm all for keeping the information on the page, but I think it's distracting rather than helpful to have such overly precise dating for the overview section. — LlywelynII 15:16, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually the information was wrong. Fixed, with cites. — LlywelynII 16:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

Similarly, this edit established the usage of the page as American English. Kindly eschew Britishisms. — LlywelynII 15:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Vietnam

The current treatment is pretty risible. Vietnam wasn't an "influenced" "neighboring" "polity" and "state". Vietnam itself was a fully annexed part of the country from the establishment of the dynasty. It derived its name "Annam" from the Tang administrative reforms. (There were also another 5 or 7 'protectorates' formed for the Tang borders that we should mention, along with providing a list of the provinces, &c.)

The territory of present-day Vietnam had some independent states, but they weren't Viet but Cham, Khmer, &c. — LlywelynII 16:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Quotations

One editor objected to a three sentence quote from a leading scholar on the Tang Dynasty. It follows the guidelines, wp:QUOTE ="Quotations are a good way to comply with the no original research policy". Paraphrasing this 60-word succinct summary of the latest scholarship would be a challenge--let the critic try his hand and I bet he cannot paraphrase it well. Rjensen (talk) 10:24, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

It can be paraphrased, and that is part of encyclopedic writing. As WP:QUOTE says further down, "Quotes shouldn't replace plain, concise text". In particular, we shouldn't have a quotation dominating the introduction. Kanguole 10:32, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Sogdians

Looking back on writing this article, I am wondering why I left out the Sogdians so much, considering their prominent role in Tang affairs. I've since tried to remedy this, by adding information like the changing of Li Baoyu's surname from An to Li in the nobility section. Some more could be said about them under the foreign relations section.Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:43, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I also just added info about them in regards to their spreading of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism.Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:39, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Native name of the Tang Empire

How come Middle Chinese is not used as the native name of the Tang Empire, interested in understanding Alexis Ivanov (talk) 12:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Alexis Ivanov! I'm not even sure where to find the Middle Chinese pronunciation for "Tang Dynasty", even though there are books on the subject of Middle Chinese (modelled on the dialect of the Tang capital Chang'an, centuries before early Mandarin Chinese developed from the spoken dialect of the Yuan-dynasty capital Dadu, or Khanbaliq, modern-day Beijing). I think the older research by Bernhard Karlgren has been largely superseded by Edwin G. Pulleyblank, but you could probably refer to the works of either of them. Perhaps one of them mentions the Middle-Chinese pronunciation for the "Tang Dynasty", at least in passing. Good luck finding it! Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I never really noticed it before, but if you look at the language info box right in the introduction, and click the "show" button, it shows you the pronunciation of "Tang Dynasty" in not only modern standard Mandarin but also Cantonese, Min, and Middle Chinese! The Middle Chinese pronunciation of "Tang Dynasty" was dang djew. Compare that to Standard Mandarin: Táng cháo, Wu Chinese: Dáõn záu, Yue Cantonese: Tong4 ciu4, and Southern Min: Tông tiâu. Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Unexplained massive addition of content in new "religion" section, even though there's already a "Religion and philosophy" section below

Recently, an editor added a massive amount of new information on religion, or should I say information that is more or less a repeat of information already found lower down in the article? This introduces multiple hectic and unnecessary problems for a Featured Article, which is supposed to have very high standards and to remain fairly static, without huge sweeping changes. You are certainly not allowed to add a massive amount of material without discussion on the talk page first, if not building consensus and approval for your additions by the Wikipedia community. Please do not add this information back into the article. I will see about accommodating some of it in the already existing "Religion and philosophy" section, which you seemed to have entirely ignored. I added a link to "Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution" for now, but to be honest, the current section already covers most of what you tried to introduce into the article, with a needless second section on religion. By the way, the first sub-section "Religion and politics" only exists to explain a very limited subject, that is how religion interacted with the political sphere. A more thorough discussion of religion is given below, in the appropriate sub-section where all that material belongs. Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:38, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

@Yprpyqp: this article is also quite large as it is per the constraints and rules of thumb in WP:SIZE (I recommend that you read this entire page before editing articles in the future). Perhaps you could make a new sub-article about religion during the Tang dynasty, and link it here in the main article? That way your information won't be lost, but at the same time it would not be bloating and ballooning an article that is arguably a bit too large as it is. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:47, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Organization of this article

Hi, I just discovered this article a few days ago and it seems to be a well referenced article (although I have no access to the books that it uses as references). There seems to me to be a major problem with the article readability though. It's currently rather confusingly organized with just about everything being placed under the section heading "history" and then the actual history of the Tang Dynasty (it's establishment, rise, decline and fall) all being scattered throughout the page. In addition some of the sentence structure is extremely difficult to follow and even things in the history section doesn't necessarily follow chronological ordering. Does anyone have any suggestions on how this can be fixed? I think an easy way to fix it would be to follow a similar format to a country page and remove things like "Military and Foreign Policy," and "trade" from the history section and let the history section simply provide a general overview of the dynasty's period of rule.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 09:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:ERA

This edit established the usage of the page as BC/AD. Kindly maintain it consistently pending a new consensus to the contrary. — LlywelynII 15:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Seaports and maritime trade

It says under «Seaports and maritime trade»:

Chinese envoys have been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India since perhaps the 2nd century BC,[179][180] yet it was during the Tang dynasty that a strong Chinese maritime presence could be found in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, into Persia, Mesopotamia (sailing up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq), Arabia, Egypt in the Middle East and Aksum (Ethiopia), and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.[181]

I think someone's confusing the Tang dynasty with Zheng He's expeditions in the 15th century. I've never read anywhere else that the Tang travelled that far – quite the contrary. The source is pages 104-105 in Bowman: 'Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture', but there it only says in the upper left corner of page 105: 'Chinese trading vessels sail regularly between Canton and the Persian Gulf.' But these trading vessels were only 'Chinese' insofar that they travelled to China – it was the Arabs and the Persians that owned the ships and organized the travels to buy goods in China.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasberg (talk • contribs) 14:49, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Sufala

Beginning in 785, the Chinese began to call regularly at Sufala on the East African coast in order to cut out Arab middlemen,

Currently Sufala points to a village in Bahrain. Is there another article or name for the East African Sufala? --Error (talk) 22:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Tang ruling class was Xianbei people?

The ruling class of Tang Dynasty was Xianbei people, a nomadic race originated from modern day eastern Mongolia. And here are my reasons. 1. Both Sui and Tang emperors only married Xianbei women, which didn't happen in other Han Chinese dynasties like Han, Song and Ming. Royal bloodline is very important to the ruler of ancient state, marrying a foreign women is abnormal for a Han Chinese ruler it does not help to unite the Han Chinese majority nation under his rule unless the ruler is Xianbei and trust Xianbei more than Han Chinese. 2. Important government positions were on the hands of 胡人 Hu people, namely Xianbei, which a Han Chinese ruler would never do. Unless the Tang ruler was himself a nomad and trust nomad more than Han Chinese 3. Tang emperor had Xianbei name, Tang Tai zong Li shi-min was called 大野世民, 大野 is not Han Chinese Surname but Xianbei. although Chinese scholars interpreted it as the Tang tai zong family was once under Xianbei rule, but still Chinese in origin. But there is no evidence to prove the claim. 4. The Tang costume was more of Hu-fu than Hanfu, reason being Tang people wore pants, boots, round-collar and narrow-sleeves, which was significantly different from traditional Hanfu. 5. based on various ancient Chinese records, Tang emperor claimed to be Han Chinese, but from political perspective, even if he was Xianbei, he had no choice but to claimed to be Han Chinese as the majority people under his rule were Han Chinese. --Traineek (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@Traineek: The ruling class of Tang and Sui were Han Chinese.

1. The surname 普六茹 was given to Emperor Wen of Sui's father by Xianbei's Western Wei's emperor when he was following the Western Wei court. So did the surname 大野 was given to Emperor Taizong of Tang's grandfather when he helped Western Wei conquering Northern Wei. Both surnames were awarded by the then ruling Xianbei king to the two Han generals. And both Emperor Yang of Sui who funded Sui dynasty, and Emperor Gaozu of Tang who funded Tang dynasty were Han Chinese.
2. Emperor Wen of Sui married Xianbei women Dugu Qieluo because of the emperor's father relationship in the Western Wei court. Emperor Gaozu of Tang‘s father married another Dugu family daughter also because of the relationship at the Western Wei court. Besides these two women, there were no other records showing the ruling class of Sui and Tang married Xianbei women.
3. Where did you get the information about "important government positions were on the hands of 胡人"?? See the lists and count how many more Han Chinese officials than Xianbei officials.
4. Sui and Tang's costume were Hanfu influenced by Hufu. The people mainly wore long robes with pants underneath, which the long robe had always been the main feature of Hanfu, while Xianbei's clothing were knee-lengthed tunic; round collar robes appeared in Shang dynasty's cultural relics (way before Xianbei came into Zhongyuan), and Han Chinese continued to wear it as under garment while no such feature were found in Xianbei's hufu, during Northern and Southern dynasties it flourished as outer garment; narrowed sleeves had always been worn by Han Chinese, so many unearthed sculptures can show it 12; Han Chinese started to wore normal pants since warring states period when 胡服骑射 was introduced; Hanfu was influenced by hufu in some perspective, like boots, hats, vests, and minor designs, but Sui and Tang's hanfu was not hufu.
5. Various ancient Chinese records said Tang emperors were Han Chinese, and you just refused to believe it? If Sui and Tang emperors were Xianbei people, they could just claim to be Xianbei emperors like Northern and Southern Wei's ruling class do. Seriously just stop making up these nonsenseOuatssss--23 (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@Ouatssss--23: Tang's royal Li clan is not 陇西李氏 Longxi Li clan, but 拓跋 Tuoba Li clan, According to ancient Chinese text 『唐护法沙门法琳别传』“琳闻拓跋达阇，唐言李氏，陛下之李，斯即其苗，非柱下陇西之流也” meaning the surname of Tang emperor is not originated from Longxi li clan, but Tuoba clan. Tang emperor self proclaimed to be the descendant of 李暠， Li Gao from Longxi, and Li Gao claimed ancestry to Han general Li Guang, and Li Ling was direct descendant of Li Guang. But as you know Li ling's entire family in Longxi was exterminated completely by Han emperor because he surrendered to Xiongnu. and not a single record says there are survivors of Li Ling's family. So it is impossible for Li Shi min to be descendant of Li Ling. From political perspective, even if Tang emperor was Xianbei, he had no choice but to claimed to be Han Chinese as the majority people under his rule were Han Chinese. Yes Northern Wei admitted they were Xianbei people, and that's why the regime didn't survive long, the reason Tang was relatively longer lived regime is because the ruling class of Tang self proclaimed to be the Han Chinese which in political perspective, was a right thing to do as the foreign ruler ruling a Han Chinese majority state. The similar examples can be seen throughout history of China, for example Yuan regime founded by Mongolian and Qing founded by Manchurian. Mongolian rulers refused to sinicize and the rulers could not even communicate with Han Chinese people without translator's help, and the Yuan regime survived less than 1 century, whereas another nomadic regime founded by Manchurian, the Manchus adopted the Tang's sinicize policy and the regime survived more than 300 years until defeated by western powers. --Traineek (talk) 04:12, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@Traineek: Emperor Gaozu of Tang's court historian Fu Yi submitted a written statement asking for abolishment of Buddhism; the action created a battle between Buddhism and Taoism. Though the emperor did not execute the abolishment, the emperor was in favour of Taoism and even claimed himself the descendent of Laozi, the founder of Taoism. And that pissed off the Buddhist priest 法琳, who then fabricated things about Laozi's parents and the emperor's ancestry, which he had no proof. And the emperor was furious the Buddhist priest slandering the Li ancestor, he sentenced the Buddhist priest to jail. The so-called proof you brought up was just a fabricated lie./// If Sui and Tang's ruling class were Xianbei, they could just do what Qing dynasty ruling class did, admitting they were sinicized Xianbei and ruled the country.Ouatssss--23 (talk) 06:32, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Almost every single comment said thus far is inadmissible to due to an absence of high-quality secondary reliable sources. The content in this article has been vetted by the community and written with many scholarly sources by an extremely experienced editor of Chinese history. Not enough? Fine, here: Ethnic Identity in Tang China by Marc S. Abramson, Page 194: "Tang: Han Chinese" – now please, Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Aza24 (talk) 06:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@Aza24: Maybe not that clear-cut I'm afraid. See:

• Wechsler, Howard J. (1979). Sui and T'ang China, 589-906. Part 1. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 151. ISBN 9781139055949. This genealogy claimed by the T'ang royal house established its claim to be descended from a notable Han clan and to be members of a prominent north-western lineage. However, there is some reason to believe that this line of descent, presented as solid fact by the T'ang histories, was in fact a deliberate fabrication. (...) Two of the men who, it has been suggested, were among the ancestors of Li Hu [grandfather of Li Yuan] were the generals Li Ch'u-ku-pa and Li Mai-te, whose names show that they had either adopted or been granted the Chinese surname Li, but retained alien, perhaps Hsien-pei, personal names.
• Chen, Sanping (17 April 2012). Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 4–6. ISBN 978-0-8122-0628-9. More intriguingly, faced with the opposition of imperial court judges who wanted to uphold the mandatory capital punishment, Emperor Taizong explained that Falin's defamation of the royal ancestry "was not without foundation." Emperor Taizong apparently recognized that the imperial clan's genealogical connections to the Tuoba nobles and other "Barbarian" families were open contemporary knowledge ... The newest proof is the recent archaeological discovery that shows that another prominent Li clan of the period, namely that of Li Xian, a general in chief of the Northern Zhou, with the same claim to the Longxi ancestry, was in fact of unmistakable Tuoba Xianbei descent.

पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, I don't think any one here is an expert on the topic, and should refrain from trying to debate based on limited sources. Weschler (1979) being cast as an expert opinion on the topic is also just strange. Weschler is a great historian, but he spends one paragraph talking about the subject, and he's actually just quoting Chen Yinke (Weschler calls him Chen Yin-k'o based on earlier Romanization), who IS an expert on the subject (having written several articles on specifically the Tang lineage) but is being misrepresented.

It was Chen Yinke who argued that the Tang emperors fabricated their descent from the Longxi Li; and observed certain parallels between the purported biographies of Tang ancestors and the biographies of Li Ch'u-ku-pa and Li Mai-te, hence the quote. But Chen Yinke concluded, at the end of his series of articles, that the Tang emperors were of Han lineage - not via the line of Longxi, but the line of Zhaojun. Weschler even mentions this but somehow the above quote cuts off that section: "It has been suggested that the Li clan was not connected with the royal house of Western Liang, or with the prestigious Li clan of Lung-hsi, but was a minor offshoot of an eastern lineage, the Li clan of Chao-chun in Ho-pei, who had settled in the north-west under the Toba Northern Wei, and had intermarried widely with the non-Chinese tribal aristocracy." The Zhaojun (or Chao-chun) Li were a well-known Han Chinese clan, second in fame only to the Longxi Li.

Regardless, the debate is not with Weschler, because it's not his research or area. His entire quote is a reference, and his reference isn't even on the same side of Chen Sanping, because Chen Sanping actually opposes Chen Yinke's conclusion. This is just one example of why, without due diligence from real experts, I am not convinced this is an useful "debate." Simply put, there IS a debate, but it's something for subject matter experts, not Wikipedia editors. Lathdrinor (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

References

simultaneous kingship: one king or two?

The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asia's first "simultaneous kingship".

Google books returns a fragment of the cited paragraph (the preceeding page was left black on my visit) and I still didn't understand what, precisely, was simultaneous.

Somehow I suspect diarchy is the wrong answer, so we dig deeper.

• Tang Heavenly Qaghans and Türk Sons of Heaven: The Origins of Simultaneous Kingship in Eastern Eurasia — 2012

Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty conventionally is credited with the invention of simultaneous kingship in Eastern Eurasia. Chinese emperors normally took the orthodox titles of "Son of Heaven" and "August Emperor," but in 630 Taizong adopted the additional epithet of "Heavenly Qaghan" (tian kehan). The latter title served to justify his rule over Turko-Mongol pastoral nomads, thus staking claim to simultaneous rule over China and Inner Asia. Although Taizong had coined an original title, the attention lauded on him as the originator of simultaneous kingship in Eastern Eurasia is partly due to his well-known penchant for self-promotion. This paper argues that the title Heavenly Qaghan is only one example of a long-running ideological competition between China-based Sui and Tang emperors and Mongolia-based Turkic qaghans (kings) in the period from approximately 580 to 750.

Why is being one king of two things (peoples, territories) distinguished as "simultaneous"? Alexander became ruler of just about every place he touched or visited, and I've never heard him described as Mr Simultaneous.

Furthermore, Google brings up little of use on the query "simultaneous king Europe", so I don't think the foreign analogy is exactly solid, either. — MaxEnt 18:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The usual European term would be personal union, as with the Stuart monarchs who were both King of England and King of Scotland, but kept the two kingdoms distinct. Alexander just rolled up all his conquests into a single empire, as did other conquerors. Whether it is worth including this point in the article I'm not sure. Johnbod (talk) 18:36, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Heavenly Qaghan means the the leader of the turk alliances Ericweng (talk) 12:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Area in infobox

The recently introduced area figure of 12,370,000 sq km is sourced to a self-published article, presumably calculated based on Tan Qixiang's maps. While Tan's Atlas is certainly an academic source, other reliable sources have specifically disagreed with his expansive drawing of the outer frontier. For both of these reasons, we should not use the figure in the infobox, which should represent the scholarly consensus. Kanguole 09:28, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I'll note that the above figure has also been added at List of largest empires, with no source to support it. TompaDompa (talk) 09:39, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

the maximum size of the Tang empire should be somehow included in the size page. since the size of the empire was the direct reflection of its military force, human resources and natural resources. in the historic atlas of China from historian Qixiang, it clearly showed that the land area of the empire reached its maximum size in 669AD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I have already responded to this above. Kanguole 12:24, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

the data of 12370000 was derived from a chinese website. it seemed to be the project of a university student. But, the point here is the Tang empire reached its maximum size at the year of 669, which could be backed up by the primary source, the old book of Tang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:40, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

it is also visually self-evident that the tang was around the similar size with the Qing dynasty at its maximum size from the atlas of tan qixiang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:44, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

To repeat: the figure is from a self-published source, and so is unsuitable for Wikipedia. Primary sources like the Book of Tang are also unsuitable references. As for the map that the student project appears to be based on, Tan's Atlas is certainly an academic source, but other reliable sources have specifically disagreed with his expansive drawing of outer frontiers. It therefore does not represent scholarly consensus, which is what is needed here. Kanguole 12:47, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

if the primary source is not reliable, what could be counted as reliable sources? are you sure the secondary sources would be more reliable than the primary one? if the primary sources are not reliable, then none of the sources would be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

See WP:PRIMARY. TompaDompa (talk) 12:54, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

also, many topics are under acdemic debate, but can you not create a page for those topics? if so, many wikipedia pages could be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:55, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

moreover, the page of largest empire clearly get the data wrong, since the year 715 was cetarinly not the largest extent for the Tang Empire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 12:59, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Academic debates can be presented in a balanced fashion in the body of an appropriate article. But we can't just pick one side and present that as the definitive data in the infobox. (Leaving aside that this figure doesn't come from one side of the scholarly debate, but from a student paper.) Kanguole 13:04, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

im pretty sure many land area of acient empires are debatable, can you explain how did wikipedia presented those datas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

also i did not add my own interpretation on the old book of Tang, i just simply extracted the hard facts and datas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 13:11, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

the old book of Tang was the historic census for the state that that time, how come it is unsuitable for the sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 13:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

As with any issue, we seek the consensus of reliable secondary sources.

The problem with using ancient histories is that they provide an insider's view; we need modern historical scholarship to interpret them. Kanguole 15:39, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

but for things like the facts, the primary sources could provide a more accurate data basis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 15:44, 16 November 2017 (UTC) obviously, some historians like Qixiang had already extracted useful information from the primary sources. i don't see why you still doubt the year of 669 was the largest extent of Tang territory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

The dispute is about the area, not the year. Kanguole 21:22, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

but my point is the year should be mentioned. it's also visually self-evident that the area was around that number by comparing to the map of Qing dynasty. of course, if we can find a better data for that year we should use it.Gl72099 (talk) 09:54, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:also in the page of largest empire, it clearly got the wrong informationGl72099 (talk) 09:58, 17 November 2017 (UTC) the year 715 was clearly not the largest extent of the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, it will misguided the readers and reduce the credibility of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 10:17, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: you have mentioned that there are other academic sources and scholars who disagree with the figures for the Tang Empire's surface area as presented in the The Historical Atlas of China (1982-1988) by Tan Qixiang. Can you list these other sources please? With page numbers? Links and quotes would be nice if you could muster them as well. All of this would be helpful in order to demonstrate that there is indeed consensus among reliable sources that Tan's work is either outdated or simply incorrect. The last thing we need is an edit war over something so trivial as the infobox in an otherwise Featured Article. Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:23, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I've seen Tan Qixiang's atlas criticized by other scholars as well (such as James Millward in his writings about Xinjiang and Central Asia), but the criticism is less about accuracy than the practice of painting borderlands in solid colours and giving a misleading impression of solid control when in reality the empire's hold on remote borderlands was fleeting or tenuous. This is a problem that plagues most maps of ancient empires (especially at their "greatest extent"), not just Tan's. Tan's atlas is still widely cited and has not been superseded by a more authoritative or updated work, although his student Zhou Zhenhe has published the 13-volume General History of Chinese Administrative Divisions, which revised many details of Tan's work, mainly based on new archaeological findings made in recent decades. -Zanhe (talk) 18:26, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

The surface area figure being pushed does not come from Tan's altas, but from some student paper on the web. It is, however, claimed to be calculated based on Tan's maps. Tan's altas is considered authoritative for many things, but one aspect it has been criticised for is the portral of extensive outer boundaries of earlier empires, including the Tang, often based on contentious claims, e.g. references 5, 6 and 7 in the Atlas article. Kanguole 23:50, 17 November 2017 (UTC)the

@User:Kanguole: according to your logic, none of the area of ancient empires should be approved and put on wikipedia, including the Roman Empire and Macedonian Empire, sincev they were all debatable. I think I have already made my point very clear here that we should include the largest territory extent of Tang dynasty in this page, no matter with 12,370,000 or not (if you can provide a better one, that will be great).Gl72099 (talk) 02:06, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

There already was a figure in the infobox, but for some reason it did not show up on the page. I fixed that. TompaDompa (talk) 09:15, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:the problem is that figure of 715 was not the largest extent of Tang dynasty, i think people here would all agree with that.Gl72099 (talk) 12:00, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:that is why i say it will misguide the readers and other wikipedia pages, if we don't put the largest extent of the dynasty on the page.@User:Kanguole:Gl72099 (talk) 12:12, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually I'm not sure that 669 was the high water mark: if follows the successful Korean campaign in 668 and precededs the Korean revolt in 670, but is also postdates the revolt of the Dulu and Nushibi in 665. Tang control over the periphery was unstable over much of this time. We need to rely on reliable sources, and there is a reliable source for the 715 figure. Kanguole 13:28, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole:it is under schoolar concensus on that year. it could be backed up by the evidence from the primary source. here is one description from the old book of tang:自隋季丧乱，群盗初附，权置州郡，倍于开皇、大业之间，贞观元年，悉令并省。始于山河形便，分为十道：一曰关内道，二曰河南道，三曰河东道，四曰河北道，五曰山南道，六曰陇右道，七曰淮南道，八曰江南道，九曰剑南道，十曰岭南道。至十三年定簿，凡州府三百五十八，县一千五百五十一。至十四年平高昌，又增二州六县。自北殄突厥颉利，西平高昌，北逾阴山，西抵大漠。其地东极海，西至焉耆，南尽林州南境，北接薛延陀界。凡东西九千五百一十里，南北万六千九百一十八里。高宗时，平高丽、百济，辽海已东，皆为州，俄而复叛，不入提封。 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 13:42, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole:高昌 汉车师前王之庭。汉元帝置戊己校尉于此。以其地形高敞，故名高昌。其故垒有八城。张骏置高昌郡，后魏因之。魏末为蠕蠕所据，后麹嘉称高昌王于此数代。贞观十四年，讨平之，以其地为西州。其高昌国境，东西八百里，南北五百里。寻置都督府，又改为金山都督府。

　　柳中 贞观十四年置

　　交河 县界有交河，水源出县北天山，一名祁连山，县取水名。地本汉车师前王庭

　　蒲昌 贞观十四年，于始昌故城置，县东南有蒲类海，胡人呼为婆悉海

　　天山 贞观十四年置，取祁连山为名。

　　北庭都护府 贞观十四年，侯君集讨高昌，西突厥屯兵于浮图城，与高昌相响应。及高昌平。二十年四月，西突厥泥伏沙钵罗叶护阿史那贺鲁率众内附，乃置庭州，处叶护部落。长安二年，改为北庭都护府。自永徽至天宝，北庭节度使管镇兵二万人，马五千匹；所统摄突骑施、坚昆、斩啜；又管瀚海、天山、伊吾三军镇兵万余人，马五千匹。至上元元年，陷吐蕃。旧领县一，户二千三百。天宝领县三，户二千二百二十六，口九千九百六十四。在京师西北五千七百二十里，东至伊州界六百八十里，南至西州界四百五十里，西至突骑施庭一千六百里，北至坚昆七千里，东至回鹘界一千七百里。

　　金满 流沙州北，前汉乌孙部旧地，方五千里。后汉车师后王庭。胡故庭有五城，俗号"五城之地"。贞观十四年平高昌后，置庭州以前，故及突厥常居之。

　　轮台 取汉轮台为名。

　　蒲类 海名

　　已上三县，贞观十四年与庭州同置。

　　瀚海军 开元中盖嘉运置，在北庭都护府城内，管镇兵万二千人，马四千二百匹。

　　天山军 开元中，置西州城内，管镇兵五千人，马五百匹。在都护府南五百里。

　　伊吾军 开元中置，在伊州西北五百里甘露川，管镇兵三千人，马三百匹，在北庭府东南七百里。

　　盐治州都督府 盐禄州都督府 阴山州都督府

　　大漠州都督府 轮台州都督府 金满州都督府

　　玄池州 哥系州 咽面州

　　金附州 孤舒州 西盐州

　　东盐州 叱勒州 迦瑟州

　　冯洛州 已上十六番州，杂戎胡部落，寄于北庭府界内，无州县户口，随地治畜牧。

　　安西大都护府 贞观十四年，侯君集平高昌，置西州都护府，治在西州。显庆二年十一月，苏定方平贺鲁，分其地置濛池、昆陵二都护府。分其种落，列置州县。于是，西尽波斯国，皆隶安西都护府。仍移安西都护府理所于高昌故地。三年五月，移安西府于龟兹国。旧安西府复为西州。龙朔元年，西域吐火罗款塞，乃于于阗以西、波斯以东十六国，皆置都督，督州八十，县一百一十，军府一百二十六，仍立碑于吐火罗以志之。咸亨元年四月，吐蕃陷安西都护府。至长寿二年，收复安西四镇，依前于龟兹国置安西都护府。至德后，河西、陇右戍兵皆征集，收复两京。上元元年，河西军镇多为吐蕃所陷。有旧将李元忠守北庭，郭昕守安西府，二镇与沙陀、回鹘相依，吐蕃久攻之不下。建中元年，元忠、昕遣使间道奏事，德宗嘉之，以元忠为北庭都护，昕为安西都护。其后，吐蕃急攻沙陀、回鹘部落，北庭、安西无援，贞元三年，竟陷吐蕃。

　　北庭都护府 本龟兹国。显庆中，自西州移府治于此。东至焉耆镇守八百里，西至疏勒镇守二千里，南至于阗二千里，东北至北庭府二千里，南至吐蕃界八百里，北至突骑施界雁沙川一千里。安西都护府，镇兵二万四千人，马二千七百匹。都护兼镇西节度使。

　　安西都护所统四镇

　　龟兹都护府 本龟兹国。其王姓白，理白山之南。去瓜州三千里，胜兵数千。贞观二十二年，阿史那社尒破之，虏龟兹王而还，乃于其地置都督府，领蕃州之九。至显庆三年，破贺鲁，仍自西州移安西府置于龟兹国城

　　毗沙都督府 本于阗国。在葱岭北二百里，胜兵数千。俗多机巧。其王伏阇信，贞观二十二年入朝。上元二年正月，置毗沙都督府，初管蕃州五。上元元年，分为十。在安西都护府西南二千里

　　疏勒都督府 本疏勒国。在白山之南，胜兵二千。去瓜州四千六百里。贞观九年，遣使朝贡，自是不绝。上元中，置疏勒都督府，在安西都护府西南二千里

　　焉耆都督府 本焉耆国。其王姓龙，名突骑支，常役于西突厥。俗有鱼鳖之利。贞观十八年，郭孝恪平之，由是臣属。上元中，置都督府处其部落，无蕃州。在安西都护府东八百里。

　　西域十六都督州府

　　龙朔元年，西域诸国，遣使来内属，乃分置十六都督府，州八十，县一百一十，军府一百二十六，皆隶安西都护府，仍于吐火罗国立碑以纪之。

　　月氏都督府 于吐火罗国所治遏换城置，以其王叶护领之。于其部内分置二十四州，都督统之

　　太汗都督府 于嚈哒部落所治活路城置，以其王太汗领之。仍分其部置十五州，太汗领之

　　条枝都督府 于诃达罗支国所治伏宝瑟颠城置，以其王领之。仍于其部分置八州

　　大马都督府 于解苏国所治数瞒城置，以其王领之。仍分其部置三州

　　高附都督府 于骨咄施国所治妖沙城置，以其王领之。仍分其部置三州

　　修鲜都督府 于罽宾国所治遏纥城置，以其王领之。仍分其部置十一州

　　写凤都督府 于失苑延国所治伏戾城置，以其王领之。仍分其部置四州

　　悦般都督府 于石汗那国所治艳城置，以其王领之。仍分其部置双縻州

　　奇沙州 于护特健国所治遏密城置，仍分其部置沛薄、大秦二州

　　和默州 于怛没国所治怛城置，仍分置栗弋州

　　挔扌敖州 于乌拉喝国所治摩竭城置

　　昆墟州 于护密多国所治抵宝那城置

　　至秬州 于俱密国所治措瑟城置

　　鸟飞州 于护密多国所治摸廷城置

　　王庭州 于久越得犍国所治步师城置

　　波斯都督府 于波斯国所治陵城置。

　　右西域诸国，分置羁縻州军府，皆属安西都护统摄。自天宝十四载已前，朝贡不绝。今于安西府事末纪之，以表太平之盛业也。le]]:it was certainly unstable, but does not mean it was not the largest extent.Gl72099 (talk) 13:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole:if you can understand classic Chinese, you will understand the largest extent of the dynasty in 669 is not only under schoolar's concensus, but also a common sense for many people.Gl72099 (talk) 14:02, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I have explained why we cannot use ancient sources, but in any case that quotation does not substantiate the figure you want to add. Kanguole 14:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: please read all my comments and reply. show some respect ok? I have already stated but for things like the facts, the primary sources could provide a more accurate data basis. and those descriptions were all simply the descriptions of facts, i did not add a single of my own interpretation.Gl72099 (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2017 (UTC) @User:Kanguole: do you actually understand the policy of wikipedia or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 14:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: even for the map of Qixiang Tan, I don't think it showed the full size of the Tang empire, since the primary source mentioned the Tang Dynasty set up a Persia protectorate in modern day Iran　波斯都督府 于波斯国所治陵城置。

@User:TompaDompa: thanks for replying. I think we should consider to change the page of the largest empire first, since I think we had made consensus here that the year of 669 was the largest extent of the Tang Dynasty instead of 715. the dispute is only about the precise number.Gl72099 (talk) 21:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. We need to have a single source for both the year and the area. TompaDompa (talk) 21:52, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: what do you mean by that?Gl72099 (talk) 21:54, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

The year and the area need to come from the same source. We can't use the year from one source and the area from another, because that violates WP:SYNTH. TompaDompa (talk) 21:56, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:but the problem is that page produce wrong information now, since it supposed to provide the largest extent of empires, and the year of 715 was not the largest extent for the Tang Dynasty. we had made consensus about that. it is a huge error if we simply ignore it.Gl72099 (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I see no such consensus. I see two different academic sources that place the peak in 715 with the area 5.4 million square km. In case you can't access Taagepera's article, here's what it says on the relevant page:

T'ang-Chin-Sung

610	3.1	He,W	Sui unification of China since 589
650	3.6	W	T'ang dynasty since 618; He: 3.0 Mm2
660	4.9	He,W	+/-.5 W. Turkestan conquered
670	3.9	W,He	+/-.8 Turkestan lost, Balkash region added
692	4.9	W,He	+/-.5 Turkestan retaken from Tufan
715	5.4	W,He	+/-.3
751	4.6	W,He	+/-.5 Balkash region lost; conflict with Arabs
766	3.6	W,He	+/-.5

(The table then continues on the following page.) At most, what you can do is remove it wholesale, per our WP:Editing policy: on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content. TompaDompa (talk) 22:17, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: it is not even the problem of debatable or not. it is the problem of wrong information. it is more serious and problematic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 22:13, 18 November 2017 (UTC) @User:TompaDompa: so in your opinion, how should we fix it?Gl72099 (talk) 22:17, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Either locate a WP:RELIABLE source that verifies your assertion and cite it, or remove the area for the Tang dynasty altogether. TompaDompa (talk) 22:20, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: removing area for the Tang Dynasty does solve the problem, since it still provide wrong information. the source you provided does not show many conquer and lost territory of the Tang Dynasty, the korean part for example. none did it claim that 715 was the largest extent of the Tang Dynasty. but the map from historian Qixiang had shown that 669 was the largest extent of the Tang Dynasty. so in your opinion, which source should we use? I even cited the primary source, the old book of Tang to back Qixiang's map up.Gl72099 (talk) 22:31, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:I think the problem here is only about the precise number not about the year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 22:33, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: removing the Tang Dynasty only makes the list more incorrect, since it indicate that the Tang Dynasty was not on the list.Gl72099 (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't follow. Taagepera clearly gives 715 as the year of the greatest extent (as do Turchin, Adams, and Hall), and the area as 5.4 million square km. I don't understand what you mean by I think the problem here is only about the precise number not about the year. I'd also argue that the list being more incomplete does not make it more incorrect. TompaDompa (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa:I think we should probably use the data of 12,370,000 sq km first, since it was s project based Qixiang's map, and it is the closest data to the actual facts so far.Gl72099 (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: and if we can find a better data later on, we could change it.Gl72099 (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: cause it did not mention all the protectorates of the Tang Dynasty documented in the primary source, making it less reliable source.Gl72099 (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

No, that's not an option. We can't replace two scholarly sources with a student project. TompaDompa (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: that actually makes sense to me if the list is still incomplete, but we should mention it.Gl72099 (talk) 22:50, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:TompaDompa: I think we could actually remove the Tang Dynasty from the list for now, and mention the list is still incomplete.

@User:TompaDompa: as for the source you provide, I think it would understandable for that scholar to make some mistakes, since he did the statistic for so many empires; however, Qixiang was an expert in Chinese history, who knew classic Chinese very well, making him more expertise on the issue of Tang Dynasty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 18 November 2017 (UTC) because he could get the access to the primary sources easily.

@User:TompaDompa:you actually have your point here that we should not replace the works from scholars by student project, but I don't think it will make the list necessarily more reliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 23:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

You say the figure is incorrect, but it is directly supported by reliable sources. If you wish to propose an alternative figure, you will need to provide one that is reliably sourced.

You keep suggesting that we use primary sources, although it has been repeatedly pointed out that this is against policy (WP:PRIMARY). Your remark about a Persia protectorate is an excellent example of the reason for this policy. Kanguole 09:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: please go read and understand the policy first ok? “Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[4] Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” how many time should I repeat myself that i only used the facts part of the primary source? historian Qixiang's map was also based on the Old Book of Tang. don't make me feel that Im talking to an alien.Gl72099 (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Statements in an ancient source are not "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts". They are the views of someone writing from a particular viewpoint for particular purposes. They need to be assessed by modern historians, weighing multiple sources and considering the context of their authors. Your reading that the area of modern Iran was part of the Tang empire is a case in point: it would surely be contradicted by Arab sources, many of them written in the area in question. Kanguole 13:32, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: I don't see why a simply statement of the facts in the primary source would have a particular purpose. as i mentioned before, you are being extremely sceptical and cynical. If you say it is contradicted by Arab sources, please cite the primary Arab source.Gl72099 (talk) 13:46, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: do you know history? did you even study history in the university? the basic requirement for history students in university is using facts from primary sources instead of secondary one. you can only use facts from the secondary sources if you can not find the primary sources.Gl72099 (talk) 13:53, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Control of an area is not a straightforward matter, and claims of control have an obvious political dimension. I won't be engaging in comparing primary sources, because my point (and Wikipedia policy) is that we should leave that to the specialists, but you might like to read up on the Muslim conquest of Persia. Analysing primary sources (which are seldom simple facts) is indeed part of historical research, but such research is explicitly rejected as a means of writing Wikipedia articles, which are supposed to be based on the published research of subject experts. That is the essence of the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Kanguole 15:14, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Kanguole is correct here about Wiki policy regarding the use of primary sources. Primary sources can be used, but they should almost always be buttressed by input from modern scholarship on the matter. Come on, Gl72099, is it that hard for you to find a secondary source that corroborates the figure you've cited for the maximum area of the Tang Empire in the 7th century? If you have access to a university library, as you seem to be hinting here, then by all means find a reliable source on the matter. Otherwise, this conversation is rather pointless. A better conversation would be a discussion about academic consensus and whether the secondary sources disagree with one another on this issue specifically. I am now well aware about the general criticisms aimed at Tan Qixiang's historical atlas, but it would be great if someone could find a secondary source directly refuting the accuracy of his maps for the Tang Empire. In the meantime, I have looked around for articles on JSTOR, but haven't found anything relevant to this topic. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:45, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

As for Google Books, the only thing I've been able to find is this quote from John J. Butt's Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002, p. 11): "Far from the Carolingian Empire, the great Tang dynasty of China provides an interesting comparison. After the famous Han dynasty that was comparable to the Roman Empire, China fell into an extended period of division and civil war. China was reunified under the Sui, but the Sui overextended themselves. The Tang dynasty that followed lasted for three hundred years, 618-907, and was contemporaneous with the Frankish empire. The Tang ruled an area more than 1,000 miles wide by more than 1,500 miles long, an area well over twice the size of the empire of Charlemagne." Obviously these nice round figures "1,000 miles" and "1,500 miles" are approximations and not precise figures. Perhaps it is better to couch things in vague terms, though, considering the apparent haziness of the Tang empire's borders. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (2012), p. 246 says:

"In his 1987 afterword to volume 8, Tan points out that many non-Chinese local rulers, particularly in the South, were simply not included.

He also states that the editorial policy of drawing the boundaries of China to include all jimi Zhou 羁府州 in the Tang and Song and tusi 土司 in the Yuan and Ming, and jimi wei 羁府衛 and suo 所 in the Ming was a weakness."

The jimi are the primary source of the difference between the boundaries in Tan's Tang maps and those of other authors. Kanguole 19:30, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: from the quote you provided, it seems to suggest that the Tang territory was even bigger not smaller than Qixiang's map, since it suggested many areas were not included.2A00:23C5:3405:1700:DDDB:B0C3:D9B2:D411 (talk) 20:13, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

No, it suggests the opposite: he drew the boundaries in his maps to include these areas, but later regretted it. Kanguole 20:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:PericlesofAthens: the logic here is that the Old Book of Tang is the primary source. Qixiang's map is the secondary source. Qixiang's map was based the old book of Tang, so it is the interpretation of the primary source. that is why I put the facts from the primary source.Gl72099 (talk) 20:21, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:PericlesofAthens: we can see from the primary source that the Tang territory extended from east to west 9510 li(4755km), and from north to south 16918 li(8459 km).(凡东西九千五百一十里，南北万六千九百一十八里) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: can you quote the full citation here?

If you mean the book I was quoting: Wilkinson, Endymion (2012). Chinese History: A New Manual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute; Harvard University Asia Center. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-674-06715-8. If you mean the text of Tan's afterword, I don't have access to it. Kanguole 21:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: also what is the political dimension for that? please explain it. it is as absurd as we should not use UN data for American land area.Gl72099 (talk) 21:06, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: no I mean the quote directly argues against Tan's map.Gl72099 (talk) 21:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I gave the above quote in response to Pericles' question. I hope he finds it helpful. Kanguole 21:17, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: because the quote you provided was from Tan himself. from my understanding of the quotation, he suggested that many areas were not included. it means the map is smaller than the true size of the dynasty. Moreover, it only admitted the weakness. it cannot suggest that the map does not have its credibility.Gl72099 (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you are unable to understand the quotation. I hope others will find it more useful. Kanguole 21:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@User:Kanguole: having weakness does not mean it is unreliable.

@User:Kanguole: Im asking you to provide a secondary source that directly argue against Tan's map.

@User:Kanguole: what secondary source does not have its weakness anyway?

@User:Kanguole: and I also asking you to provide the full context of his words and cite it, just like what I did for my sources. otherwise, your argument would not be convincing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gl72099 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

References

Silk road

Excerpts from this article have been copied to Silk Road following the rule Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Rjensen (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)