July 756 · Mawei Post Station, near Chang'an Theater
July 756
As the rebels closed in, the aged Emperor Xuanzong fled the capital toward Sichuan with his court and his beloved consort Yang Guifei. At the Mawei post station his own escort mutinied, blaming the war on the Yang family: they killed the chief minister Yang Guozhong and then forced the grief-stricken emperor to have Yang Guifei — the most famous beauty in Chinese history — strangled before them.
Commanders