NOTE: Encoding is Unicode Chinese Traditional
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天寶戰記
The Tian Bao War Records
Prologue [ 序幕 ]
It was the 13th year of the Tianbao [ 天寶] era in the 43rd year of the
reign of Emperor Xuan Zong [ 玄宗 ] and the empire of the Great Tang [ 大
唐 ] had established an advanced and prosperous civilization never before
achieved in the entire history of the the Central Plains. Under the guidance
of Emperor Xuan Zong, the empire flourished with immense economic, technical,
and military progress. The great armies of the Tang had realized an empire
that stretched far into the western borders of Tubo, north into the vast
desert regions of the Tujue peoples, east towards the kingdom of Xinluo,
and south towards the tropical kingdom of Nanzhao. Goods and exotic imports
poured in from all the Protectorates of the Great Tang: tea from the southeast
became a staple delicacy for the social elite, coal and gunpowder from the
far west strengthened the military greatly, and fine cloths and tapestries
made their way from the northeast to adorn the luxurious palaces of the
government officials.
The Great Tang was able to achieve such luxuries because it had successfully
pacified the lands and created an era of peace. Andong [ 安東 ], the Protectorate
of the Pacified East, Annan [ 安南 ], the Protectorate of the Pacified South,
Anxi [ 安西 ], the Protectorate of the Pacified West, and Anbei [ 安北
], the Protectorate of the Pacified North served as the focal strongholds
of the empire, watching over the four expanses of the Great Tang.
The seemingly never-ending borders of the empire were tightly secured due
in large part to the institution of regional Fanzhen [ 藩鎮 ] fortress-states.
A great portion of the imperial armies lay in the hands of appointed Jiedushi
[ 節度使 ] who served as governor-generals of the border regions. It was
because these fortress-states had the autonomy to train and recruit soldiers
that the borders of the empire had been secured for so long. Because they
required proper funding to support independent armies, the Jiedushi were
given the power to levy taxes on the lands they looked over, in effect turning
them into almost independent rulers of smaller kingdoms within the empire.
And thus, most of the power within the empire itself had been dispersed
throughout the border fortress-states.
In the latter years of the Kaiyuan [ 開元 ] era, under the guidance of Chief
Prime Minister Li Linfu, a devout legalist, the Emperor had sought to return
power back to the Royal Court and weaken the position of the various Fanzhen
fortress-states in an attempt to centralize the power of the Tang once again.
But in the many years following the Tianbao era, the aging Xuan Zong rarely
participated in the affairs of ruling the country and left most of the duties
to his administration. Many factions sought to consolidate power for their
own selfish reasons, as the Imperial Government of the Great Tang empire
slowly deteriorated and spiraled into chaos.