member of a Tölös family that had long been living in China. At first
Shih SsÅ­-ming was victorious, and he won back Loyang, but then he was
murdered by his own son, and only by taking advantage of the
disturbances that now arose were the government troops able to quell the
dangerous rising.

In all this, two things seem interesting and important. To begin with,
An Lu-shan had been a military governor. His rising showed that while
this new office, with its great command of power, was of value in
attacking external enemies, it became dangerous, especially if the
central power was weak, the moment there were no external enemies of any
importance. An Lu-shan's rising was the first of many similar ones in
the later T'ang period. The gentry of eastern China had shown themselves
entirely ready to support An Lu-shan against the government, because
they had hoped to gain advantage as in the past from a realm with its
centre once more in the east. In the second place, the important part
played by aliens in events within China calls for notice: not only were
the rebels An Lu-shan and Shih SsÅ­-ming non-Chinese, but so also were
most of the generals opposed to them. But they regarded themselves as
Chinese, not as members of another national group. The Turkish Uighurs
brought in to help against them were fighting actually against Turks,
though they regarded those Turks as Chinese. We must not bring to the
circumstances of those times the present-day notions with regard to
national feeling.


7 _The role of the Uighurs. Confiscation of the capital of the
monasteries_

This rising and its sequels broke the power of the dynasty, and also of