Wuzong was the Tang emperor under whom the Uyghur khaganate fell. In his reign the Kirghiz first sent envoys to Chang’an.[1] He came to the throne in 840 and died in 846.[2] His chief minister was Li Deyu. Li Deyu wrote his decrees on the Uyghurs and on the Kirghiz.[3]

Accession

Wuzong came to the throne while the Uyghur state was in disorder after the coup of 839.[1] The Xin Tang Shu says that the court sent Rong, the heir of the Prince of Ze, to announce the accession to the Uyghurs. The envoy found their state in disorder.[1] The court had issued no appointment to the khan then on the throne, Hesa.[1] The date of the accession, 20 February 840, is the one the Zizhi tongjian gives.[2]

The Uyghur remnant

The Tang Huiyao records that the Uyghurs who had fled south chose Ögä as khan. The court first sent officials to feed them and proclaim its will. When Ögä raided the frontier, the court sent troops against him.[4] The princess Taihe, a sister of the emperor Muzong, returned home in 843. Shi Xiong brought her.[5] The Tang histories give the battle to Wuzong’s generals and do not name Wuzong in their account of it.[6] On 20 November 844 he replied to the officials who asked him to take a new title. In the reply he praised the peace that had come with the defeat of the Uyghurs and of the rebel Liu Zhen.[7]

The Kirghiz

The Xin Tang Shu says that Wuzong was delighted when the Kirghiz envoy Zhu-wu Alp Sol reached the court. He ranked the envoy above the envoy of Bohai, because so distant a people kept up its tribute.[1] He sent the minister of the Imperial Stud, Zhao Fan, with a tally to console the Kirghiz country. He ordered that the envoys be questioned about their land and painted.[1] He also ordered the Kirghiz khan Are entered in the register of the imperial clan.[1]

The Kirghiz offered a joint campaign into the Tarim basin. The emperor was at first enthusiastic, as the prospect of winning back the western regions pleased him. Li Deyu then showed him the cost.[8] The emperor also feared that an appointment would make the Kirghiz ruler as haughty and difficult as the Uyghur khans had been. Li Deyu won him round.[9] In 845 the court chose Li Shi to carry the title Zongying Xiongwu Chengming Khan to the Kirghiz. Wuzong died before Li Shi set out.[1] The emperor counted the defeat of the Uyghurs, the persecution of Manichaeism and the new ties with the Kirghiz among the most important events of his reign.[7] The embassies are told in Kirghiz Embassies to the Tang.

Manichaeism and Buddhism

The persecution of foreign religions began in these years. The proclamation after Shahu Mountain ordered the temples, shops, dwellings and goods of the Uyghurs and the Manichaeans inventoried. It also ordered the names of the Manichaean monks recorded.[10] The Xin Tang Shu records that officials collected Manichaean books and images and burned them in the road. They took the property into the treasury.[1] The emperor’s reply of 844 called Manichaeism an evil and depraved doctrine. The persecution reached its height in his attack on the Buddhist church.[11]

Death

Wuzong died at the age of 31 on 22 April 846. The Tang embassy of investiture had not yet been sent out.[12] Months of illness had come before. They were apparently brought on by the elixirs that Daoist adepts at his court prescribed to prolong his life.[12] On 11 April 846 he decreed that his given name Chan, written with the water radical, be changed to Yan, written with two fire radicals. He believed that the dynasty’s element, earth, was overcoming his own element, water, and that the change would halt his decline.[13] A valedictory edict is dated to the day of his death. It mentions the defeat of the Uyghurs, the coming of the Kirghiz, the destruction of Liu Zhen and the removal of Manichaeism and of the baleful influence of Buddhism. It named his uncle, Prince Guang, as his successor.[14] The prince took the throne as Xuanzong.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  2. ^ a b Mackerras 1972, p. 125
  3. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 3,125
  4. ^ Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  5. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  6. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  7. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 152
  8. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 132
  9. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 136
  10. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 115
  11. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 115,152
  12. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 151
  13. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 151–152
  14. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 153

Sources

Literature

  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)
  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)

Related

What links here9

Persons
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (846–859) · Hesa Khan · Li Deyu · Li Shi (Tang envoy) · Princess Taihe · Shi Xiong · Zhao Fan · Zhu-wu Alp Sol
Battles & Events
Tang investiture of the Kirghiz (847)

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Emperor Wuzong of Tang.” Turkic Atlas, revised 22 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/emperor-wuzong-of-tang/

Last revised: 22 October 2026