Through the history of the world, humans have been struggling to survive, both as individuals and as small groups or societies. Only the fittest survive, while the weaker collapse. The question to ask is, what factors make some societies survive and what leads to the downfall of the others?
The collapse of a society can be due to many factors that even the strongest societies can succumb to. An example of this is the Roman Empire, how did an Empire so strong eventually dissolve? But the society that shall be studied in depth in this report is that of the Great Tang Dynasty of China.
RISE OF THE TANG DYNASTY
The Tang Dynasty was one of the greatest dynasties throughout the history of China. In its time, economics, politics, and military strength reached a greatness to be paralleled only with the distinguished Han Dynasty. The Arts and Literature positively thrived and as it grew in in strength, it inevitably grew in size, expanding through to conquer a large area of land. It was an extremely powerful Empire with a grand total of 24 emperors in its time and its capital city, Xi’an, was the most populous city in the World during that time.
This map shows the Tang Dynasty at its Greatest dominance, as you can see, it covers a large area of China today and even ventures into Vietnam.
COLLAPSE OF THE SOCIETY
So how did this apparently stable and in control society come to collapse? Though, it started out as quite well managed, a place for flourishing economy and commerce, a place of stable social order, with the initial aim of uniting the Kingdoms of China, especially after the great rebellions and chaos of the previous Sui Dynasty, this aim gradually fell apart as the control of the Empire was transferred from generation to generation. Many problems then came about thereafter. One of the good things about the study of this society, is that unlike many other, its collapse is well documented as China was in a time of sophistication and so we have no doubt and no need for archeological theories as to the major contributors of the collapse.
A large part of the downfall of the Tang Dynasty can be attributed to the many rebellions. Though there were a lot of them (China being extremely prone in that many Dynasties collapsed due to uprisings/rebellions), the major one would have to be the Huang Chao Uprising. The peasants were subjected to heavy taxes so that the dynasty was able to cope with the cost of the army, these taxes were high and did not decrease even though natural disasters ravaged the land and food production was at a low. The peasants, obviously not happy with the situation, hardly having enough food to put into their own mouths and yet still having to pay large amounts of taxes, rebelled. It was one of the largest peasant uprisings ever, the participators managing to temporarily capture the capital city Xi’an and greatly shaking the Dynasty’s foundations. In fact, some think that this was the start of the downfall of the Dynasty.
This rebellion was one of many which occurred during the Dynasty, though especially during the time of the emperor Xizong. He was the third last emperor and an important part of the collapse of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Xuanzong was indifferent to the goings-on of the nation and devoted his time, instead, on his hobbies, leaving his people to starve from the weakening economy which he hadn’t looked after and the natural disasters that weren’t dealt with. Many small scale uprisings happened, leading to the larger one and though the rebellion was eventually controlled, it depleted the Dynasty’s strength fighting it, especially as the uprising lasted seven years!
Another factor of collapse was the power of the eunuchs. In the Tang Dynasty more than any other, the eunuchs had overwhelming power as during this time the convention of not having eunuchs as high officials stopped. Therefore, they rose through the ranks and one of them, even reached a position superior to that of certain Princes and Ministers! Soon the power of the eunuchs grew to a commandingly large position and they started rivaling the chancellors. Power battles between the two groups weakened the ruling of the central regime, as could be expected when two major parties could not agree on things.
It was mainly power battles that weakened the Dynasty, and then the official end came when a man the emperor had announced to be “completely loyal to the court” and who had ‘saved’ the Emperor from capture using his large military, used that same large military to puppeteer the emperor to his own liking, eventually killing him and putting another on the throne. He then used his power to not only demote but kill many court officials to ensure no political enemies. After that, he forced the person he had previously put on the throne to abdicate and ascended to the throne himself, changing the name and dynasty to ‘Liang’ and moving the capital city to Kaifeng. And so that was the end of the Tang Dynasty. Such a great dynasty, ended in so dirtily.
A point to be brought to attention is the concept thought of by the historian Arnold J. Toynbee, which states the weakening of a society happens as the initial ‘creative minority’ (the leaders) change and come to possess “abandon and self-control together replace creativity, and truancy and martyrdom together replace discipleship.” This was quite surely done in the Tang society, not by the same group of leaders that founded it, but by the successive leaders. An example of this would be the seventh Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong. Though he had governed well during the early stages of his reign, in his old age he became (quoting the words of an article) “complacent and indifferent to state affairs.” This had quite a bad consequence on a large scale as he also employed men into the leader’s circle who, without his control, corrupted the political order. As well as this, enemies were able to gather and form a large military force which also aided the weakening of the empire.
COMPARISON OF FRAMEWORKS
The collapse of the Tang dynasty was a collapse in some ways and simply a change of name in others. This shall be explained as they are put into the frameworks. The contributing factors are restated in the different frameworks.
Jared Diamond’s Five Point Framework
Environmental Damage: This did not contribute to the destruction of the Tang Dynasty. That is to say, though they had environmental problems, they did not contribute to the collapse of the society.
Climate Change: This played an inadvertent role in the collapse as it was through the natural disasters that food production slowed to a low. This had an impact on the society as, it was a contributing factor to the peasants rebellion and therefore the collapse of the Dynasty.
Hostile Neighbours: The factor of hostile neighbours was a small contributor to this society’s collapse. The indifference of some Emperors meant that enemy troops were able to gather and prepare attacks on the Dynasty. These did not work out so well for the enemies as Tang’s large and strong army were able to defeat, but the effect it had was that the army was the reason the peasant’s had to pay taxes and which caused them to rebel.
Another set of ‘neighbours’ which were a major contributor to the collapse of the society was the hostility between the neighboring parties. By this, I am referring to the political parties of the Dynasty. The political parties were in a continuous power struggle and this was a major factor of collapse.
Friendly Trade Partners: This had an almost non-contributory part: The Tang Dynasty, with its large area and power, set up many relations with its neighbouring countries and traded with them, and we do know that their trade started steadily declining. Whether or not this really was a contributing factor or if the trade simply slowed as the dynasty grew larger and became self sufficient, we do not know.
Response to Crisis: Response to crisis was the major factor of disaster in the society. As mentioned internal disputes were a big problem. Instead of focusing on the welfare of the society, they were instead too caught up in their own power struggles.
Then there is, once again, the factor of the indifferent Emperors, as previously mentioned, were extremely degrading for the society.
A tendency of the Chinese people in their general response to crisis is rebellion. Rebellion is the way many Dynasties of China collapsed and is the way the lower class seems to use over and over again to solve their crises. Though it occurs so often, the Huang Chao rebellion was still effective, if the aim of it was the collapse of their society.
All in all, the response to crisis from the Tang Dynasty was rather inadequate and of the five point framework, would have to be the largest contributing factor to their collapse.
Conclusion: Jared Diamond’s five point framework is quite an effective framework for the collapse of the Tang Dynasty as it fits all the contributing factors into it.
Arnold J. Toynbee’s Theory
Though I have already talked about this, I would just like to refocus attention to this theory as I think that it is extremely appropriate as a contributing factor to the collapse of the Tang Dynasty, though it is not a framework that encapsulates all of the factors, it covers the most important one.
Joseph Tainter
I didn’t find this framework near as effective as Jared Diamond’s in reference to the collapse of the Tang Dynasty.
Other
There is a simple collapse framework which uses the three headings of Economic, Social and Political features to explain the contributing to the collapse of a society but I do not think that by itself it would be a good framework to use. For it to work reasonably, at least one other heading must be added: Environmental. If we were to use this hastily put-together framework and apply it to the Tang dynasty‘s collapse, this would be the result:
Economic: The Economy did not have too much to do with the collapse of the Tang society.
Social: The uprising of the peasants may fit into this category.
Political: This would be the area into which we could fit the explanation of the crux of the collapse.
Environmental: Would have to include things such as climate change as well and therefore explain the natural disasters and food shortages.
Conclusion: If we were to opt for this framework, which does actually fit quite well as we are then able to explain most of the contributing factors, we might as well use Jared Diamond’s Framework which is also extremely effective.
Conclusion - Chosen Framework
In conclusion, I have chosen Jared Diamond’s Framework, which, judging from its regular mention and use on many websites, is becoming quite popular as it really does use headings which are relevant to basically all societies and so could become the standard for analysis on Collapses of Complex societies.
But instead of purely using Jared Diamond’s framework, I have also decided to opt for the additional extra of Arnold J. Toynbee’s theory of the deterioration of the “Dominant Minority” as it simply explains really well the way the Dominant Minority of the Tang Dynasty deteriorated, from the first, powerful, Emperor, who had high hopes for the future of his society, with an aim to unite the whole of China, to the last Emperor, a mere figurehead of a man who would eventually take his place.
The last framework, was reasonable, except for the fact that it was missing what I consider the most important part of the Five Point Framework: Response to Collapse. If I was to add this in, then there would really be no purpose to it as it is then quite similar to Jared Diamond’s framework.
COMPARISON OF SOCIETAL COLLAPSES
Han Dynasty
I have decided to compare the Collapse of the Tang Dynasty to that of the Han Dynasty as they should be reasonably similar, both being one of the greatest periods in Chinese history, to see if there is a link between them.
It is very nearly unbelievable as, to cut a long story short, the main reason for the collapse of the Han Dynasty was that internal political struggles taxed the peasants and a peasant uprising occurred. Groups were then formed to fight them and in the end all the fighting divided the nation into the Five Kingdoms.
It is rather unnecessary for me to place the contributors of the collapse of the Han Dynasty into a framework for the collapses to be able to be compared as it is quite obvious that the main contributor to collapse, internal political unrest and peasant uprisings, are exactly the same in both cases! So these two great societies, so similar in their greatness, were also similar in the way they collapsed.
This proves the necessity to know the way past societies collapsed so we can learn from it and not have history repeat itself.
China
The contemporary society that I have decided to compare the Tang Dynasty to is Modern day China, as there is the same culture and the same people. Will this lead to a collapse from the same factors?
The major problems of China today are Environmental Problems such as pollution and deforestation which the Tang Dynasty did not have. China’s environmental problems are much more severe then they were in the time of either the Han of Tang Dynasties. This could mean a stronger likelihood of collapse.
On the other hand, one of the major past problems, uprisings and rebellions, are extremely unlikely to cause China to weaken today. They will undoubtedly happen but China has a stronger military strength, even more so than previous and the political parties are able to control a lot more, so it would take an enormous uprising/rebellion to weaken the society. Even if a rebellion was to take place, with the rise of Globalization in today’s society, China’s military would be helped by countries such as America and Australia who are afraid to lose China, an important part of the economy. With such aid, the Government would almost inevitably come out on top.
As well as this, the other major factor to the collapse of the Tang Dynasty was the internal political struggles for power. This still happens today, corruption is universal, but it is unlikely that society would collapse the same way it has previously as there has been an advancement in human rights, so you definitely can’t do what the person who undid the Tang Dynasty did and kill all your opponents and throwing their corpses into the river! On a more serious note though, politics has a lot more rules now than it did previously as once again, Globalization, would prevent this from happening.
All said, it is not as likely that the problems of the past will recur, and yet, this has not minimized the likelihood of the collapse of the society, as instead, there are new problems which could still lead to the collapse of China.
Contemporary China has not so much learnt from the past but is instead exempt from those problems as the make up of society has changed and globalization has occurred.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we can all learn from the mistakes made by past societies and use them to our own benefit, that is, not having to unnecessarily repeat the same mistake the way the Tang did when they could have learnt from the mistakes of the Han Dynasty.
REFERENCES
Internet Sources
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC030285/emperors.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20010027175151data_trunc_sys.shtml
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/tang/reason-decline.htm
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/tang/
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/tang/end.htm
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/classical_imperial_china/tang.html
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Tang/tang.html
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/7050/tang.html
http://www.chaos.umd.edu/history/imperial2.html
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/early_imperial_china/han.html
Book Sources
1) Toynbee, Arnold J. (1934-1961). A Study of History, Volumes I-XII. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2) Tainter, Joseph A. (1990). The Collapse of Complex Societies (1st paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3) Diamond, Jared (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed England: Allen Lane
Picture Reference
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Dynasty/dynasty-Tang.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Dynasty/dynasty-Tang.html&h=92&w=130&sz=29&tbnid=6J9hOUDNhyQJ:&tbnh=92&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtang%2Bdynasty&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=2
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