During this time, the epidemic in Xi'an is heart-wrenching. Tragedies abound. Today, we don't want to think about these bad things, talk about Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty. Chang'an is a prestigious ancient capital in Chinese history, but in the history of being the capital of the country, Chang'an may be a little sad. The reason for this has to do with his experience. In 895, the second year of Qianning, Wang Chongying died of illness in Hezhong Jiedu, and he died of death. But the terrible thing is that Wang Chongying's identity is the emissary of the river, and this position is not good, and many people want to compete. As for the position of emissary in the river, the contenders included Wang Chongying's son Wang Jue, and his brother Wang Chongrong's son Wang Ke. In order to increase the weight of the battle, the two sides drew together many forces to help, and Li Ke, who had twice retaken Chang'an, supported Wang Ke, and Li Maozhen supported Wang Ke. Later, Emperor Zhaozong of Tang gave Wang Ke the title of Envoy of Jiedu. The following year, the disgruntled Li Maozhen and two other jiedu sent troops to Chang'an with Wang Xingyu and Han Jian. Where the new army that Tang Zhaozong had just recruited could be held, Chang'an soon fell, and Tang Zhaozong also fled Chang'an when the city was broken. After Li Maozhen invaded Chang'an, he plundered the army, stole a large amount of property, and set fire to the imperial palace, many palaces were burned, and the people of Chang'an were once again plunged into the depths of the water. But what is even more strange is that Li Maozhen, who committed such a heinous crime, was not punished, but was instead crowned as the King of Qi, which was satisfied to leave Chang'an and return to Fengxiang. Roughly speaking, this was the sixth fall of Chang'an as the capital of the Tang Dynasty. Since then, Chang'an has never been able to return to the former center of China. In addition, the Tang Emperors Tang Xuanzong, Daizong, Dezong, Emperor Xianzong, Zhaozong and other emperors fled in a hurry, which surprised people and became a very disgraceful side of history. In just 300 years, Chang'an was attacked by the enemy army 6 times, which was unimaginable in ancient times when the city was focused on defense. Why was the bustling Chang'an easily captured? The logic behind this deserves to be explored. There is a saying that it is not unrelated to the defects in the design of the Tang capital Chang'an City. First throw a map of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty.
Careful observation, you will find that the streets and buildings of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty are very neat. There are 25 streets in the whole city, 14 in the east and west, 11 in the north and south, and there are 108 squares distributed on both sides of the street, which is 108 communities according to the current term.
These mills, like today's neighborhoods, were enclosed by earthen walls on the outside. The street outside the wall is not allowed to set up shops along the street, and if you want to buy something, you must go to the East Market and the West Market, these two places. (Actually, that's where we often say that buying things originated.) Of course, there are also some small shops in the community to meet daily needs. Speaking of which, this urban pattern, known as the "fangshi system," has disappeared in many parts of China. However, this urban pattern of the "Fang City System" has been presented in the Suzhou Industrial Park. A few years ago, I came to Suzhou Industrial Park and found that its urban layout was obviously different from other cities. The roads in the city are very clean, but it is difficult to find a shop on both sides of the road. If you want to buy something, you basically have to go to the neighborhood center as the locals call it. A community is simply a place to live. This "market system" of urban patterns has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the city is very clean, and it is certainly easy to create a civilized city, but it is a little less pyrotechnic, and it seems a bit deserted and solemn. This is the first feeling given by visiting suzhou industrial park. I think that Chang'an City during the Tang Dynasty may have been like this. Back to the point, at this time, Chang'an City also implemented a terrible system of curfew system. That is to say, citizens cannot hang out at night on the main street outside the square, there are officers and soldiers patrolling, and those who hack and kill a black light and blind fire to cross the road are only performing official duties. (Of course, the curfew policy is not yet enforced during festivals such as the Lantern Festival.) Wen Tingjun, the founder of the "Flower Sect", was once knocked out two front teeth by the servants for violating the curfew policy. There's a funny story here. It is said that in his later years, Wen Tingjun went out into the streets during curfew, was beaten on the ground by patrol soldiers, and his front teeth were all knocked away. In a fit of anger, he went to ling fox who was in charge of the local military and political affairs to complain, but it was true that he himself was at fault first, although the law forbade beatings of soldiers, but this was not a failure to pass the examination, so Ling Fox said two good words of advice and sent him away. Wen Tingjun suddenly felt disgraced and went directly to Xu Shang, the prime minister. In order to appease this grumpy little old man, Xu Shang consulted with Tang Yizong and said that since this person had been in the examination room for many years and had rich experience in examination and cheating, why not use his talents according to his ability, give full play to his strengths, and let him be responsible for the imperial examination. The emperor said that it was reasonable, and immediately appointed Wen Tingjun as an assistant teacher of the Guozi Supervisor, from Liupin, who was specifically responsible for the examination of the imperial examination. As a result, Wen Tingjun obtained the only official position in his life at the cost of his front teeth, which was also the peak of Wen Tingjun's career. Although Wen Tingjun was blessed by misfortune, it reflected the solemnity and coldness of Chang'an City at this time. The curfew is small, another flaw in Chang'an City, but it lays the groundwork for its decline. This flaw is mainly from the military defense aspect. Chang'an City was built on the basis of Daxing City in the Sui Dynasty. A closer look at Tang Chang'an City can be said to be divided into three parts: the Imperial City, the Palace City and the Outer Guo City. Let's start with the Imperial City. In the figure, it is obvious that the square in the middle can be seen. This place is the administrative office of the government. It is equivalent to what we are now talking about as the government affairs office. The Miyagi Castle and the Imperial Castle seen below are separated by only one horizontal street, and are 440 meters wide. Let's talk about Miyagi. Miyagi is the emperor's early dynasty, the approval of the recital, the harem is everything here. The Tang Dynasty had three miyagi castles of different periods. The earliest is the area on the imperial city here. The second is that everyone sees that there is a Daming Palace in the upper right corner of Miyagi. Finally, there is the Xingqing Palace, which was the political center of the Tang Xuanzong period. The last part is wai guo cheng. Everyone can see that all the places except the Imperial City Palace are called Waiguo City. It is the residential area of the people and officials. The very neat streets between the horizontal and vertical sides divide the Tang Chang'an City into 108 squares. If the area is considered, it is 83.1 square kilometers. It was 7 times larger than Byzantium, the capital of Eastern Rome in 446, 6.2 times larger than baghdad, the Arab capital in 800 AD, and 9.7 times larger than the current urban area of Xi'an. It can be said to be the largest city in the world at that time. The population of Tang Chang'an City is about one million, including five percent, that is, about 50,000 foreigners. It can be said to be a veritable international metropolis.
Although Chang'an City set a grand historical record of scale, it became a clear failure from the perspective of military defense: the capital of the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an, was nearly 20 miles long from east to west, nearly 18 miles wide from north to south, and the total circumference of the city wall was more than 70 miles (even if the size of the capital in the Ming and Qing dynasties was large, the circumference was only more than 40 miles).
Throughout ancient history, the area and scale of the Tang capital Chang'an undoubtedly ranked first. The problem is that with such a large area and such long walls, it is good in peacetime, in case of war, how many troops should be deployed to defend? During the Tang Dynasty, due to the limitation of the total population size, in the early years of Tang Xuanzong's Tianbao at the heyday, the total strength of the country's ten major festivals was less than 500,000 people. For the vast territory of the Tang Dynasty at that time, these 500,000 troops were not rich at all, and most of them were also assigned to the border defense fronts in the western region, northwest, and north, and it was difficult to allocate a large number of troops for the garrison defense of Chang'an. In order to strengthen the defense system of Chang'an, the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty began to form the Shen Ce Army, but the shen ce army's defense area was not limited to the Beijing division, but also had to guard the military towns within hundreds of miles around Chang'an, such as Fengtian, Wugong, Fufeng, Linyou, Xingping, Shaanzhou and other "thirteen towns", and the number of Chang'an defenders was long in a dilemma of being stretched to the limit. In other words, even if the Tang Emperor spared no expense to equip Chang'an City with enough defenders, once the war broke out, such a huge defense system, under the conditions of transportation and communication at that time, the deployment of troops, the transportation of equipment and grain, and even the transmission of orders would face great difficulties, and it was almost impossible to organize a successful defense war of Chang'an. The enemy only needs to concentrate its superior forces to attack it, and the entire Chang'an defense system will be useless. In addition, the later Divine Strategy Army became the back garden for arranging the children of officials and eunuchs, and had no combat effectiveness. In this way, Chang'an City is a large and undeserved fragile city, which has been frequently breached, and it is not surprising that the Tang Dynasty actually appeared with the shocking "nine escapes of the son of heaven and six falls of the capital". The full text is 2500 words, thanks for reading it.