#119 - Tang 31: Reap the Whirlwind

The poison seeds that have been planted across China for the last century and longer will all begin to sprout, as the rebel commander Huang Chao takes command of the latest and greatest of internal threats to imperial stability. Yet it won't be the rebels themselves that will prove the decisive factor in the chaos to come... but instead the Empire's own supposedly "loyal" generals and soldiers... already looking ahead to their own places in the post-Tang world. Time Period Covered: 878-882 CE Major Historical Figures: Tang Dynasty: Emperor Xizong of Tang (Li Yan/Xuan) [r. 874-888] General Zhang Zimian Governor-General Li Tiao of Guangdong [d. 879] General Gao Pian, "The General Who Lost the North" Xi Dynasty: Huang Chao, "The Heaven-Storming General" [d. 884] Sources Referenced: Levy, Howard S. (1955). Biography of Huang Ch'ao Somers, Robert M. (2008). "The end of the T'ang" in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589–906 AD, Part One (ed. Denis C. Twitchett) Wei, Chuang(881). "Lament of the Lady of Qin"(tr. Lionel Giles)