An Lushan’s military career took place on Tang China’s northeastern frontier in what is now Liaoning province. The first occurrence of his name in the Tang annals is under the year 736, when, as a reconnaissance officer, he lost his force through rash conduct and was condemned to death. He was pardoned and, thereafter, rose rapidly in rank, receiving his first independent command in 742. As a military governor he became a political figure, made frequent visits to the capital, and became a personal favourite of the emperor and his consort, the celebrated beauty Yang Guifei . An Lushan, an enormously fat man, was adept at playing the buffoon in order to ingratiate himself. Such was his favour at court that once, three days after his birthday, he was taken into the women’s quarters of the palace (wrapped in an enormous baby diaper) and put through a mock ceremony of adoption by Yang Guifei. Indecorous conduct of this kind led to rumours of improper relations between him and Yang Guifei, which have added spice to the later legend , but his position at court depended at least as much on the emperor himself as on his consort.

The Eastern Turks, whose ascendancy in Mongolia dated from the 6th century, had been conquered by the Chinese emperor Taizong at the beginning of the Tang dynasty but had made themselves independent and were enjoying renewed prosperity at the time of An Lushan’s birth. The death of their ruler, Qapaghan Qaghan, in 716, however, led to disorder and strife, and the Ans sought refuge in China . Just at that period the frontier policies of the emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–756) were providing opportunities for men such as An Lushan, his cousin An Sishun, and other soldiers of non-Chinese origin to serve in the Chinese armies. Their rise to positions of command was further aided after 736 by the dictatorial rule of China’s chief minister, Li Linfu , who was unwilling to appoint native Chinese as generals for fear that they would gain prestige that would enable them to rival his own position at court.

The family name An was derived from the Chinese name for Bukhara in Sogdiana (present-day Uzbekistan). The given name Lushan is a sinicized form of the Iranian rowshān (“light”). An Lushan’s ancestors belonged to a group of Sogdians who had been incorporated into the Eastern Turks, and his mother was from a noble Turkish clan.

An Lushan’s rebellion

By the time of Minister Li Linfu’s death in 752, An Lushan had accumulated three frontier provinces under his command and was the most powerful general in the empire. After the dictator’s demise an intense struggle developed between An Lushan and Yang Guozhong, the cousin of Yang Guifei, who attempted to take over Li Linfu’s position. Though Yang Guozhong could attack and destroy An Lushan’s supporters at court, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to establish a countervailing military base in the provinces or to undermine An Lushan’s position in the northeast, and he only succeeded in exacerbating An Lushan’s suspicions and frustrations. Finally, toward the end of 755, alleging that he had received a secret command from the emperor to get rid of Yang Guozhong, An Lushan turned his large, war-hardened army inward and marched on Luoyang, the eastern capital of Tang China. Within a month the rebels had taken Luoyang, and at the beginning of the lunar year corresponding to 756 An Lushan proclaimed himself emperor of the Great Yen dynasty.

Meanwhile, loyal Tang forces had been mobilized and had taken up defensive positions in the narrow pass up the Huang He (Yellow River) leading into Shaanxi province. For six months the rebels were unable to advance. There was great suspicion and rivalry between Yang Guozhong and Ge Shuhan, the general in charge of the defense of the eastern approaches to Chang’an (present-day Xi’an), the main Tang capital. Fearing a coup against himself, Yang Guozhong goaded Ge Shuhan into abandoning his defensive posture and moving eastward against the rebels. The Tang army was routed, and the way to Chang’an was left open. The emperor hastily abandoned the city and fled westward. At Mawei, a small village west of the capital, his guard mutinied, assassinated Yang Guozhong, and demanded the death of the emperor’s favourite, Yang Guifei. The emperor reluctantly consented, and her assassination became the theme of the great poet Bai Juyi’s “Everlasting Remorse” and of countless other works of art.

Although An Lushan’s forces occupied Chang’an, he himself remained behind in Luoyang. By this time he was seriously ailing, perhaps with diabetes. He was nearly blind and suffered from extreme irascibility, which made his attendants go in constant fear of their lives. At the beginning of 757 he was murdered by a eunuch slave with the connivance of his own eldest son, An Qingxu, and others. The rebellion dragged on for several years, first under An Qingxu, then under a former subordinate, Shi Siming, then under Shi Siming’s son, Shi Chaoyi. Finally in 763 it officially came to an end with the defeat and death of Shi Chaoyi. A major role in the defeat of the rebels was played by contingents sent by the Uighurs, who had replaced the Eastern Turks as masters of the eastern steppes and who were traditional allies of Tang. By this time the Tang government was too exhausted to undertake a thorough pacification of the rebel territory, and the surviving rebel generals were allowed to surrender and remain in command of the regions they occupied in return for a nominal submission to Tang. Other parts of the country fell under the control of Tang generals who were almost as insubordinate as the former rebels. The second half of the Tang dynasty and the following Five Dynasties period were troubled by a chronic warlordism that only came to an end with the rise of the Song dynasty in 960.

After his death, An Lushan became the object of a cult on the northeastern frontier among the non-Chinese soldiers who constituted the bulk of the army and whose aspirations he symbolized. Conversely, the non-Chinese, “barbarian” character of the rebellion was influential in stirring up the xenophobic sentiments of the Chinese that increasingly characterized the second half of the Tang dynasty, in marked contrast to the receptive, cosmopolitan attitudes of the first half.