The costs of the Korean campaigns, both in terms of money and manpower, eroded Wen Ti's standing with his people. Problems at home did not become unmanageable, however, until the reign of Yang Ti, who assumed the throne
People Who Took Power from Outside
In 1388, a Korean general named Yi Song-gye (sawng-GYAY) staged an armed revolt and seized control of his country, establishing a dynasty that would last until 1910. He was just one of many figures who, like Wen Ti, came from outside the centers of power and assumed control. Other outsiders were not as successful.
T'ang dynasty China endured two major revolts, the first led by An Lu-shan (ahn loo-SHAHN; 703-757). Despite his "foreign" heritage—he was born of mixed Turkish and Iranian descent—the young general rose through the ranks, and became a favorite of T'ang emperor Hsuan Tsung (shwee-AHND-zoong; ruled 712-56). He also became a favorite, and perhaps a lover, of the emperor's beloved concubine Yang Kuei-fei (see box in Irene of Athens entry). Taking advantage of weakened T'ang power following a defeat by Arab forces in 751, An Lu-shan led a rebellion in 755, and declared himself emperor of the "Great Yen" dynasty. In the end, he was betrayed by his son, who had him murdered. Some 130 years later, a salt
Smuggler named Huang Ch'ao (hwahng CHOW) formed a rebel band and captured several key cities. He, too, declared a new dynasty, the Ta Ch'i, but in 883 he was captured and executed. His revolt hastened the downfall of the T'ang in 907.
The Crusades (1095-1291) produced their own varieties of "outsider" movements, among them the Peasants' Crusade of 1096-97. Its leaders were two Frenchmen, a monk named Peter the Hermit (c. 1050-1105) and a "knight" who called himself Gautier Sans Avoir (GOH-tee-ay SAWNZ a-VWAH, "Walter the Penniless"). They led mobs of poor people on crusades to the Holy Land before the official troops of the First Crusade even left Europe. The peasants were no match for the Turkish troops they faced in Anatolia, and most of them (Gautier included) died in the fighting. Peter, who happened to be away in Constantinople, lived to join in the conquest of Jerusalem, and spent his last years quietly as a monk in Belgium.
Around the same time as the Peasants' Crusade, a more sinister force
After Wen Ti's death in 604. (Some historians believe Yang Ti poisoned his sixty-three-year-old father.)
Yang Ti mirrored his father in his efforts to expand the country's network of canals, and in his successful military campaigns in Vietnam and Central Asia. But by the time he launched a new military operation against the Koreans in 612, unrest at home was growing. Six years later, in 618, Yang
Was forming on the Muslim side. These were the Assassins, founded in 1090 by a radical Iranian religious leader named Hasan-e Sabbah (khah-SAHN-uh shuh-BAH; died 1124). Hasan and his followers seized a mountain fortress and there trained killers to eliminate leaders they hated—both Muslims and Christians. Crusaders later brought the word "assassin" home with them, and eventually it became a term for a politically motivated murderer.
By the mid-1 300s, the Crusades had ended in failure, and Europe was consumed by the Black Death, or Plague, which in four years killed more Europeans—around thirty million—than all medieval wars combined. The Plague had many side effects, including a decrease in the work force, and as a result, peasants and the working class began demanding higher wages. The rich responded by using their political power to force a freeze on pay increases, and by 1381 the poor in England revolted. They chose Wat Tyler, who may have gotten his
Name because he made tiles, as their leader, and he presented a set of demands to King Richard II. Richard was willing to take the peasants and workers seriously, but he was only fourteen years old, and his advisors prevailed. Wat Tyler was murdered on June 15, 1381, by government forces.
In the year the Plague began, 1 347, Cola di Rienzo (RYENT-soh; 13131354) overthrew the government in Rome and announced that he would restore the glory of Rome's former days. He even gave himself the ancient Roman title of tribune, but he ruled as harshly as a bad Roman emperor, and was expelled in 1348. Six years later, he returned to power, but was soon murdered in a riot. His story inspired nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner (REE-kard VAHG-nur) to write an opera about him. Later, dictator Adolf Hitler would say that he conceived his life's mission—ultimately, the founding of the Nazi state and killing of six million Jews—during a performance of Wagner's Rienzi.
Ti was assassinated, and the T'ang dynasty replaced the Sui after just twenty-nine years.
World History
