The Great Shift in the Tang Dynasty

This article uses the perspective of political history to write the outline of the history of the Tang Dynasty, focusing on "the demise of the aristocracy and the transformation of civilian society". It follows the three steps of skeleton, flesh and blood, and soul, using the evolution of the system as the bone, the fate of the characters as the flesh, and the historical scenes as the soul to interrogate the three hundred years of the Tang Dynasty. How did the hierarchical society dominated by the military aristocrats of Guanlong become eroded and disintegrated by the systems it created (imperial examinations, military recruitment, tax laws, vassal towns), and gave birth to the prototype of a new society in which civilian bureaucrats and local elites gradually took center stage. The era of aristocratic republic, the era of institutional revolution, the era of feudal games, the era of scholar republic, and the era of liquidation of common people. These five volumes show the evolution of the power structure of the Tang Dynasty and provide an in-depth analysis of the internal logic of the structural changes of the Tang Dynasty.