Emperor Xuanzong

Biography

The emperor whose long reign was both the summit and the ruin of the Tang golden age. In his early decades Xuanzong presided over a brilliant flowering of prosperity, poetry, and power — the age of the poets Li Bai and Du Fu. But in his old age he grew weary of government, fell under the spell of his beautiful young consort Yang Guifei, and let power slip to her worthless relatives and to favourites like the very An Lushan who would destroy him. When the rebellion came and Chang'an fell, the aged emperor fled toward Sichuan — only to have his own guard mutiny at the Mawei post station and force him to consent to the strangling of Yang Guifei, the great love of his life. Broken by grief and disaster, he abdicated in favour of his son Suzong and died in lonely retirement in 762, the tragic symbol of a golden age destroyed by its own complacency.

Key Battles