The In Our Time newsletter: The An Lushan Rebellion
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14:46, Friday, 17 February 2012
Editor's note: In Thursday's programme Melvyn Bragg and his guests discussed the An Lushan Rebellion, a major uprising against the imperial rule of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. As always the programme is available to listen to online or to download and keep - PM.
Hello
So Chang'an was the biggest city in the world in the 8th century and, by the sound of it, the most extraordinary. Frances Wood's description of the varieties of spectacle and people and entertainments on offer was in itself spectacular.
I think we should have defined the role of the concubine a little more closely and explained why everyone who was important in that story seems to have been excessively fat. Presumably by necessity. There was a sumo feeling about it for me.
But how wonderfully they rolled it through, the three of them. For a while I was out there in the ocean that was China, with the borders breaking up and Tibetans coming in, and incursions of mercenaries from near Samarkand, and warring warlords and separate courts...
Back into the London air and a walk to my office in Soho. London is back to its summer with a mild, chill climate. Worked there, a meeting, down to the Lords, off to another meeting; and then in Whitehall a wonderful spectacle which might begin to make London, if not the biggest city in the world (as Chang'an was) but, as some people think, the greatest, the most magnetic city in the world.
Down Whitehall came a long line of Congolese protestors. They were heading for the railings opposite Downing Street and they were escorted by policemen walking at that slow pace that we thought they used to walk at only in the past. They still can walk at that slow pace.
And on the way down they were singing these songs; women with pushchairs, men in dark glasses, children, ageing adults chanting for freedom and democracy in the Congo. It was wonderful music and just an inspiring sight, frankly. The police walked calmly and on the outside of the procession, ie. the road side, there was a white tape which, fragile though it was, kept the protestors in a very manageable line.
But, for me, the best thing of all was that when you came to the end of the line, there was a man following the procession, carefully winding up the white tape so that everything would be neat and tidy when the congress eventually reached the railings opposite 10 Downing Street. There was a line of yellow-tunicked policemen in front of 10 Downing Street and behind them the great gates.
I can't be the only one who has a little pang of pride that once upon a time Downing Street was just another street, and you could walk in and look at the door used by the Prime Minister of not only a country, but countries and even an empire.
It seemed to be such a proud and magnificent contrast - the "humble street" from which so many red patches on the globe were run.
There was even, within living memory, tales of a Prime Minister who hadn't particularly liked the house and used to go home to Hampstead on the bus. On the bus! Nowadays, he would go home to Hampstead surrounded by armoured tanks.
I wonder what would happen if we dropped all security for a few days and had a go without it? Might freshen things up.
Best wishes
Melvyn Bragg
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Comment number 1.
At 17:57 17th Feb 2012, David Owen wrote:I was alarmed in the first few minutes when Frances Wood had the Japanese coming to Changan to 'borrow the Chinese language', but it was a slip, she doubtless meant the writing system.
I am moderately familiar with at least the outlines of the story, but I didn't think the programme was as clear as Melvyn evidently did; I imagine it was hard to follow for anyone coming cold to the subject. It might have helped if someone had made it clear exactly WHERE Changan was - hard to do on radio, but stressing the importance of the position of the Tang capital, and suggesting listeners looked at a map, found Luoyang on the Yellow River, then west into the Wei valley to modern Xian, could have been useful. At least it would have underlined how well placed it was for contact with central Asia, and just how far away Peking was, and that must have been about the southern limit of An Lushan's domaine, he would often have been further north still. But Melvyn really does like tackling huge, sprawling, inconclusive topics, or else tiny ones, for which his guests then need to provide a complex background. Must be something in the Cumbrian psyche.
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Comment number 2.
At 18:56 18th Feb 2012, COLINDB wrote:Greatly appreciating this programme, as a dive into Tang China,
refeshing some earlier aquaintance with those tribal groupings.
As China is so vast, much of the early era is concerned with
tribal groupings, while their cultural crafts seem to continue none
the less. Paper, glass-making a production of silk for a huge
country, and north Africa, near East and Europe too...
On a tangent, as Melvyn is to be congratulated on a prospective
South Bank Show. So also may come across Giles Brandreth, an
aspect of micro history shows that a 'brandreth' is to be found
in the hearth, " an iron grate raised on legs." referring here to one of the excellent series by Lawrence Wright (Routledge Kegan Paul) in micro history titles. And I dare say the wall hearth had an early begining in China too, with plenty of coolth in the northern areas.
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