to various taxes, but were either not allowed to own land, or were
allotted less land than ordinary citizens. Thus they could not easily
invest in land, the safest investment at that time. Finally, the
government occasionally resorted to the method which was often used in
the Near East: when in 782 the emperor ran out of money, he requested
the merchants of the capital to "loan" him a large sum--a request which
in fact was a special tax.

Wang and Huang both proved good organizers of the peasant masses, and in
a short time they had captured the whole of eastern China, without the
military governors being able to do anything against them, for the
provincial troops were more inclined to show sympathy to the peasant
armies than to fight them. The terrified government issued an order to
arm the people of the other parts of the country against the rebels;
naturally this helped the rebels more than the government, since the
peasants thus armed went over to the rebels. Finally Wang was offered a
high office. But Huang urged him not to betray his own people, and Wang
declined the offer. In the end the government, with the aid of the
troops of the Turkish Sha-t'o, defeated Wang and beheaded him (878).
Huang Ch'ao now moved into the south-east and the south, where in 879 he
captured and burned down Canton; according to an Arab source, over
120,000 foreign merchants lost their lives in addition to the Chinese.
From Canton Huang Ch'ao returned to the north, laden with loot from that
wealthy commercial city. His advance was held up again by the Sha-t'o
troops; he turned away to the lower Yangtze, and from there marched
north again. At the end of 880 he captured the eastern capital. The
emperor fled from the western capital, Ch'ang-an, into Szechwan, and
Huang Ch'ao now captured with ease the western capital as well, and
removed every member of the ruling family on whom he could lay hands. He
then made himself emperor, in a Ch'i dynasty. It was the first time that