Mid-to-Late Tang, the Five Dynasties, and the Song Through Regional Military Commands

Origins

I watched Chang’an (the animated movie set in the Tang dynasty). To my surprise, for someone who claims to be a history buff, I realized I knew basically nothing about what happened after the An Lushan Rebellion. I’d picked up bits and pieces from hearsay about regional warlords and military commands (fanzhen) in the mid-to-late Tang, but I had no real grasp of what a fanzhen actually was, or how they ended up shaping the next few centuries of Chinese history.

From the mid-to-late Tang, through the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, down to the founding of the Song dynasty—and even long-standing Song dilemmas like the clashes between reformists and conservatives, or the loss of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun—it all ties directly back to these regional military commands.

Out of curiosity, I dug through a few books and papers to get a rough picture.

So this post is just me sketching out the overarching timeline. It’s missing primary sources and isn’t the smoothest read. I’ll clean it up when I have more time.

Recommended:

• Chang’an (the animated film)
• Crisis and Reconstruction (《危机与重构》, by Li Biyan)
• Stepping Out of the Five Dynasties (《走出五代》, by Yan Jianfei)

A Key Shift: Central Court vs. Regional Power

• The emergence of fanzhen & the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion
• Fanzhen warlordism and fragmentation
• The curious balance between the central court and regional commands
• The formation of local military cliques
• Converting regional troops into the Imperial Guard
• Dividing the Guard’s power & the disappearance of fanzhen

Why the An Lushan Rebellion Broke Out: A Quick Look

• The early Tang relied on the fubing (territorial militia) system. But when rampant land annexation broke the equal-field (juntian) system, the militia system couldn’t survive either, leaving the empire without a steady source of recruits.
• As non-Han tribal powers rose along the borders, garrison armies became a necessity. But with the militia system in ruins:
  • The court adopted a recruited soldier system (mubing), which sent fiscal spending through the roof.
  • The court stationed regional military commissioners (jiedushi) along the frontiers with the authority to recruit their own troops. Over time, they absorbed local civil administration and became the supreme officials in their regions.
    • Why did the jiedushi end up with so much power? Three steps: 1) You first needed a unified regional military commander on the ground; 2) The central treasury was broke and told them to fund themselves, handing them regional fiscal authority; 3) Fiscal clout gradually spilled over into administrative control.
  • Most fubing militia units had been based around the capital in Guanzhong. Once that system collapsed, Guanzhong was left undefended while massive armies stood stationed out on the frontiers.
• At court, high-level politics rotted from corruption, solidifying into bitter rival camps: Yang Guozhong and Geshu Han on one side, Li Linfu and An Lushan on the other.

Fanzhen Warlordism

• To suppress the rebellion, the court set up even more fanzhen:
  • The rebel path: Hebei -> Henan (Luoyang) -> Guanzhong (Chang’an) -> retreated to Luoyang -> retreated back to Hebei.
    • Henan was the primary battleground for quelling the rebels, so the court planted numerous fanzhen there, giving every jiedushi supreme authority.
  • Meanwhile, the borders grew volatile. The Tibetan Empire raided Guanzhong, forcing the court to ring the capital region with a heavy layer of fanzhen as well.
• After the An Lushan Rebellion ended:
  • To appease rebel forces, the court accepted the surrender of most rebel commanders and allowed them to stay on as jiedushi (a recipe for future turmoil).
  • Mobilized to fight the rebels, many loyalist fanzhen had also amassed formidable military strength and began ignoring orders from the central court.

The Yuanhe Restoration & The Balance Between Center and Region

• Methods: (missing for now)
• The sign that a balance had been reached: starting around year X of the Yuanhe era (…), the fanzhen settled into a stable state, with no major changes to their territorial jurisdictions.

The Formation of Local Soldier Cliques

• The localization of the military: fanzhen soldiers were drawn entirely from the local population. Naturally, an intricate web of personal relationships formed among the lower-ranking officers. They shared the same political and economic interests.
  • They controlled local military muscle and even meddled in who became their jieshuai (regional commander). Whenever they wanted economic handouts, they staged mutinies.
• After the Yuanhe era, most jieshuai were appointed by the central court. Many were civil officials who had no clue how to handle a troop mutiny. Since their appointments were short anyway, their default move was to just give in to the soldiers’ demands and move on.
  • If the troops were unhappy with a jieshuai, they wouldn’t hesitate to murder him and install one of their own.
• By the late Tang, regional commanders with roots in Henan took center stage.

Converting Regional Troops into the Imperial Guard

• The process:
  • After founding Later Liang, Zhu Wen turned the core troops from his direct fanzhen into the Imperial Guard. That was the moment the Imperial Guard became a force to be reckoned with.
  • During Later Tang, the Li clan folded even more direct fanzhen troops into the Guard. From then on, the central Imperial Guard held overwhelming dominance over regional fanzhen.
• The fallout: the Imperial Guard began picking emperors.
  • The Guard was the only real military powerhouse left.
  • The Guard started as localized regional armies, but their loyalty had been transferred directly to the emperor. If the emperor was stingy with rewards, mutiny was on the table.
  • Backing your Guard commander to take the throne meant cashing in on king-making rewards (like Li Congke, Guo Wei, and Zhao Kuangyin).
• The longer-term legacy: in all the endless debates between reformers and conservatives in the Song dynasty, one core sticking point was “troop bloat” (rongbing). They spent lifetimes bankrolling an army, only to still lose on the battlefield.

Dividing the Guard’s Power & The Disappearance of Fanzhen

• The Imperial Guard’s fatal flaw:
  • The generals dominated the state.
  • The soldiers dominated the generals.
• In the Song, command of the Imperial Guard was split among Three Bureaus—Palace Command, Cavalry Command, and Infantry Command—abolishing any single supreme commander. Bureau chiefs were mostly chosen from trusted confidants or relatively junior officers with little clout.
  • The problem of generals dominating the state was mostly solved; after the Song, there were no more mutinies where generals were draped in yellow imperial robes.
  • But fiscal revenue was heavily drained just feeding and maintaining the army.
• The fading of fanzhen:
  • Weakening their power:
    • Partition: large commands were carved into smaller ones.
    • Absorption into the Guard: regional military strength had already been severely gutted.
    • Direct-reporting prefectures multiplied.
  • Most fanzhen governed only 1–2 prefectures. In the early Song, whenever a jieshuai vacated his post, no regional military chief was appointed; instead, a centrally appointed prefect (zhizhou) took direct charge. Gradually, fanzhen vanished altogether.
  • Eventually, jiedushi became empty honorary sinecures.
• Establishing a three-tier system: Circuit (lu) – Prefecture (zhou) – County (xian). At the circuit level, authority was divided among 3–4 officials. Meanwhile, prefects had a direct line of communication back to the central court.

A Few Stray Thoughts

Which eras in Chinese history were marked by intense regionalism? Let’s trace it through, starting from the Qin:

• Late Qin: Unification was still recent, so the concept of a single empire hadn’t really sunk in yet. When Xiang Yu carved the empire into eighteen feudal kingdoms and declared himself Hegemon-King, he was essentially rolling things back to the Spring and Autumn era.
• Late Eastern Han: Regional inspectors (cishi) were upgraded to provincial governors (zhoumu).
• Mid-to-Late Tang: The fanzhen. Like that line from Chang’an: “You folks from Longyou want to meddle in Pinglu’s affairs?”
• Late Qing and the Republic of China: A massive transformation.

Maybe the question isn’t framed sharply enough. Reframing it as “Which unified dynasties fell because of regional powers?” might be clearer. From the Song onward, through the Ming and Qing, the imperial structure in imperial China moved toward absolute stability. People could hardly even imagine what a fractured country felt like anymore.

P.S. Which is why I’m also really curious about the “regionalism” / federalist autonomy movements during the Republic of China.