Draft: Outline and Paragraph

Introduction – The Founding of the T’ang Dynasty (Paragraph 1)

• What happened before?
  • What caused rebellion?
• How was it successful?
  • During rebellion 
    • Strategies
    • Pacification Effort
      • Enemies become allies
  • After rebellion
    • Established political, economic and military institutions
    • Government formed

Life during T’ang Dynasty China – Laws (Paragraph 2)

• T’ang Codes
  • A penal code that was established and used during the Tang Dynasty in China
    • Associated with the T’ai-tsung emperor’s brother-in-law, Ch’ang-sun Wu-chi, one of the most powerful statesmen of the time
  • Sentencing
  • Harmony of Law and Nature
• Later established a large-scale defense system
  • A new institutional framework was developed for the maintenance of an expanded empire

Life during T’ang Dynasty China – Problems Needed to be Solved (Paragraph 3)

• What were the problems?
  • Restoration of fiscal solvency
    • “equal fields” system
  • Increased revenues
    • Taxes
      • Re-register runaways – they are now a part of the Chinese empire
  • Land reclamation

Life during T’ang Dynasty China – Culture/Religion (Paragraph 3)

• Buddhism
  • Many pilgrims journeyed to Central Asia and even to India to visit holy places, study, and bring back Buddhist scriptures.
  • During the T’ang dynasty Buddhism attracted many of the best Chinese minds, and students even came from other countries to study in the great Buddhist monasteries
  • People used it to evade taxes
    • Emperor Illustrious August took measures against the Buddhist church
      • Many were not happy

Conclusion – The End of the T’ang (Paragraph 5)

• The power of provincial military governors increased greatly
  • Rebellion
    • Couldn’t recover despite being defeated
• What changed?

Sample Paragraph:

In the first years of the dynasty, a series of criminal codes and administrative statutes were established in order to govern the empire effectively. The great criminal code, entitled The T’ang Code, is said to have been masterminded by the T’ai-tsung emperor’s (627-649) brother-in-law, Zhangsun Wuji, who was one of the most powerful statesmen of the time. It described the “Ten Abominations” or the ten most serious offenses a person could commit, expounding on the general principles of criminal law and setting the punishment for each such offense. It was believed that the “standards of morality were no longer sufficient to maintain order, and so laws became necessary. Thus morality and law are the two principal supports of society—morality first, but if it fails then punishment is the answer” … (Wallace 9)

Bibliography

Johnson, Wallace. The T’ang Code, Volume I: General Principles. Princeton University Press, 2019. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/64926.