Li Te-yű and the campaign against Chao-i (Tse-Lu) 843-844
Creators: name: Mark, Kenneth Young
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: Owing to his achievements of defeating the rebellion in the province of Chao-i, eliciting the cooperation of the semi-independent military governors of Ho-pei, defeating the Uighurs, and overseeing the dissolution of the Buddhist Church during the Hui-oh'ang reign period (844-6) when he served as chief minister, Li Te-yű (787-849) became one of the most powerful political figures in T'ang China. This study will focus on how the imperial government in 843-4 put down the rebellion in Chao-i which arose when the court refused to allow Liu Chen to succeed to his uncle's position of military governor. The An Lu-shan rebellion (755-62) resulted in the loss of the rich north-eastern provinces of contemporary Ho-pei. Further defeats there in 782-4 forced the court to allow hereditary succession among its military governors. During the Yuan-ho restoration (805-20) this region briefly returned to court control but again rebelled. Their new leaders were, however, a lesser breed of men. Chao-i was not a part of Ho-pei but an integral province of the empire which, except for the twenty-three years of Liu family rule, had remained loyal to the court. Furthermore, it occupied the strategic position as the buffer zone between Ho-pei and the vital canal system—the economic lifeline of the empire. At court, in the confusion after the An Lu-shan rebellion, the emperor began to rely Increasingly on the eunuchs to carry out military and administrative duties. By usurping other powers, they were able to interfere in the succession of every subsequent T'ang emperor, thereby becoming the powers at court. Whichever eunuch clique prevailed and established the reigning emperor, also controlled the vicissitudes of the factions among the officials. The eunuch connection with Chao-i was close for they especially hated Liu Ts'ung-chien who had openly opposed Ch'iu shih-liang, the leading court eunuch, for taking revenge on the plotters and others after the Sweet Dew incident of 835. On the borders, a weakened Uighur nation was defeated by the T'ang while other non-Chinese tribes, owing to internal dissension, posed few problems. With peace on the frontier, Te-yű took advantage of the animosity of Ho-pei and eunuch hatred for Chao-i to gain military cooperation and to establish a unified court so that the court could concentrate its efforts on defeating Chao-i. He accomplished this by surrounding it and then forcing its generals to betray Liu Chen and surrender themselves. The presentation is in two parts. Part one is the thesis as outlined above. Part two is an annotated translation of Li Te-yű's biography taken from chapter 174 of the old T'ang History which provides the historical context of his whole career as background to the campaign. The success of the campaign did help to re-assert Imperial authority after it had been badly weakened, but it did not provide any long term solutions to the court's problems and could not prevent the subsequent fall of the dynasty. This study provides, however, an opportunity to examine how Te-yű was able to take advantage of the shifts in the political situation in the years 840-6 to re-assert court authority, however temporarily, by defeating Liu Chen in Chao-i.