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[Let's be honest here: feeding the capital was a permanent headache for every Tang emperor.
Take Emperor Gaozong, Li Zhi. The man packed up his entire royal court and relocated to Luoyang 7 times during his reign. Peasants in Chang'an mocked him for it. Street gossip claimed the Emperor wasn't embarking on a grand royal tour, he was just taking a road trip to beg for food.
And honestly? That wasn't slander. It was just the truth.
Look at Li Zhi's final trip to Luoyang in 682 AD. By then, the Guanzhong region was deep in a catastrophic food crisis. The previous year had already seen strong winds damaging crops, and in 682 the crisis was compounded by drought, famine, heavy rain, and devastating floods. Supply chains were collapsing.
The price of rice skyrocketed to 300 to 400 copper coins per hu. For those unfamiliar with ancient measurements, one hu was roughly 60 liters, or about the size of a large sack of rice. That meant a dou, about 6 liters, cost around 30 to 40 coins. Even if you had the cash, good luck finding enough grain to buy.
Let's put that inflation in perspective. Back during the Zhenguan era under his father Li Shimin, rice prices could fall to absurdly low levels. The Xin Tang Shu records that by Zhenguan 4, a dou of rice cost only 4 or 5 coins, about 40 to 50 coins per hu.
The Tang Dynasty would hit another economic sweet spot later under Emperor Xuanzong. During the Kaiyuan era, the empire was described as so prosperous that rice could cost only 10 to 13 coins per dou, depending on the year and region, roughly 100 to 130 coins per hu.
But in 682? The Guanzhong region was suffering a famine so apocalyptic that historical records confirm cases of cannibalism. The Xin Tang Shu bluntly records: "People in the capital were reduced to eating one another. Families traded children with other families to eat, unable to bear butchering their own flesh and blood." The Jiu Tang Shu likewise records famine, disease, people dying in enormous numbers, and water flooding the capital region.
Under those hellish conditions, Emperor Li Zhi suddenly decided to grace the eastern capital of Luoyang with his divine presence. Are you seriously going to look me in the eye and say he wasn't running for his life just to get a hot meal? No peasant on the street bought that excuse.
This embarrassing trend continued. During Emperor Zhongzong's reign, Guanzhong was hit by yet another devastating famine. His entire cabinet begged him to follow his father's playbook and flee to Luoyang to scavenge for grain. Li Xian actually snapped. He yelled at his officials, furiously demanding: "How can there be an Emperor who has to chase his own meals?!"
Spoiler alert: it only got worse after the An Lushan Rebellion.
During Emperor Dezong's reign, the food shortage in Chang'an reached critical mass. The elite imperial palace guards were literally starving, and rumors of violent mutiny spread rapidly. When Li Kuo finally received a military dispatch stating that a grain transport fleet from the southern Jiangnan region had successfully navigated the treacherous Sanmenxia gorge, the Emperor completely lost his royal composure. He grabbed the Crown Prince, Li Song, hugged him tightly, and cheered with tears in his eyes: "The rice has reached Shaanxi! My son, we are going to live!"
So this brings up a critical historical question. The Qinchuan region, 800 miles of fertile plains, is famously known as some of the most productive agricultural land on the planet.
Could it truly not produce enough food to support a single glorious empire? Was the land really that barren?
The answer, of course, is no. The land was fine. Humans ruined it.
You can track the devastation of Guanzhong farmland directly through official imperial records.
According to the geographical text Yuanhe Maps and Records, a major crisis occurred in 655 AD. An official named Zhangsun Xiang submitted an urgent memorial to the throne.
He reported that the legendary Zheng and Bai irrigation canals, an ancient engineering marvel that once hydrated over 40,000 qing of ultra-fertile farmland, roughly 600,000 acres, had been hijacked. Wealthy Buddhist monks and corrupt merchants had illegally dammed the rivers to power their private commercial watermills. Because of their monopolistic greed, the water flow was choked out. The canals could now barely irrigate 10,000 qing of land.
Emperor Li Zhi ordered a sweeping criminal investigation. He forced the elites to tear down their watermills and clear the canals. But it meant nothing. Less than a single year later, the rich merchants simply bribed local officials and rebuilt their dams. The crisis immediately reverted to status quo.
Generations later, according to the Complete Prose of Tang, Emperor Xizong, Li Xuan, found himself hiding out in Chengdu after losing his capital. He openly lamented the situation. He stated that the Zheng and Bai canals were originally a miracle of engineering that benefited the entire nation. Those 40,000 qing of fertile fields were supposed to be the absolute foundation of survival for millions of peasants. But instead, powerful elites and wealthy oligarchs ruthlessly stole the water for themselves.
If you want the hard, depressing numbers, look at the official economic records compiled by later Song Dynasty historians in the book Song Huiyao. In 996 AD, the 2nd year of the Zhidao era, Emperor Taizong of Song dispatched a team of elite auditors. Officials like Huangfu Xuan and He Liang were sent to conduct a strict physical land survey of the ancient Guanzhong region.
The Song auditors came back with a horrifying report. Historically, the Zheng Canal ran for over 300 miles and watered 40,000 qing of land. The Bai Canal ran for 200 miles and watered 4,500 qing. Combined, they supported a colossal agricultural zone of 44,500 qing. By the time the Song auditors measured it in 996 AD, there was less than 2,000 qing of irrigated land left. The water capacity had been reduced to less than one twenty-second of its original glory.
This rapid, brutal destruction of the water supply stood in horrifying contrast to the manic intensity of Tang Dynasty farming.
Writers during the Kaiyuan era penned poetry describing the landscape of Guanzhong. They wrote: "Even the highest mountain peaks and the deepest, steepest ravines are put to the plow." That wasn't a beautiful metaphor. That was an ecological warning sign.
During the Tang era, the Guanzhong region contained over 3 million registered taxpayers. That huge population base forced farmers to cultivate every single inch of available dirt. When they ran out of flat fields, they started farming the steep hillsides. When they ran out of hillsides, they dragged their plows straight up the mountains.
This strategy was completely useless in the long run. Unrestricted, manic over-farming instantly triggered devastating soil erosion. The fertile topsoil washed away. The ground became highly salinized and choked with salt. The soil lost all its natural nutrients and became barren dirt.
By the time the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras rolled around, the Guanzhong fields were failing so badly that the government had to physically ship at least 2 million units of grain from Luoyang every single year just to stop the capital city from rioting.
But here's the final nail in the coffin. The Yellow River, the primary logistical highway used for shipping all that emergency food, was collapsing under the strain of deforestation. Looking at 300 years of records bridging the middle Tang to the Song Dynasty, the data is undeniable. The water volume in the Yellow River dropped steadily every single year. The navigational window for heavy transport ships grew shorter and shorter.
By the end of the Tang Dynasty, the silt buildup was so catastrophic that the Yellow River in Shandong province became a literal hanging river, an elevated waterway where the riverbed was choked with so much mud that the water flowed high above the surrounding ground level. Historical texts note the river was higher than the roofs of the peasants' houses by more than 10 feet.
Therefore, from a purely ecological perspective, the complete destruction of the Tang Dynasty was a mathematical certainty. The ruined environment simply could not physically support the administrative burden of Guanzhong anymore.
The more the peasants starved, the more aggressively they farmed the mountains. The more they farmed the mountains, the faster the soil died, which caused them to starve even more. It was a perfect, inescapable doom loop. By relentlessly expanding their fields, the Tang Dynasty literally dug up and severed the ecological lifeline that kept their own capital alive. That is the brutal, objective reality behind 300 years of Tang agricultural policy.
And honestly? That environmental suicide is a major contributing factor to the most embarrassing statistic in their history: the fact that the grand capital of Chang'an fell to enemy forces 6 separate times, and the reigning Emperor of Tang was forced to flee for his life 9 separate times.]
Inside Ganlu Hall, the air itself felt heavy enough to choke on. Every breath came slow and shallow, like the room had turned into a sealed jar. None of the officials dared to shift their weight. None of them could even hear the sound of their own heartbeat over the pressure pressing down on their shoulders.
Ma Zhou and Liu Rengui stood frozen like two statues carved from ice. The future descendant had said it twice, just to make sure it stuck. The capital fell six times. The Emperor fled nine times.
Ma Zhou's brain was doing backflips. What the hell is this? Chang'an breached? The Son of Heaven running away like a stray dog? Multiple times?
Just last year, they were watching General Li Jing parade the captured Khagan Xieli through the Heaven Ascending Gates. The streets of Chang'an had been vibrating with national pride. Ma Zhou had felt invincible. Like nothing in this world could touch the Great Tang.
Now that feeling cracked right down the middle.
How does an empire with that kind of military flex end up with rulers constantly packing their bags to run for the hills?
Liu Rengui was dealing with an even worse headache. He knew more about the future than Ma Zhou. The Screen had already spoiled the glorious naval annihilation of the Japanese fleet at Baekgang and the total demolition of Goguryeo. The Great Tang's martial spirit was supposed to be untouchable. And yet, the capital falls six times? The cognitive dissonance was giving him a throbbing ulcer.
Behind his heavy wooden desk, Li Shimin sat in absolute terrifying wordlessness. He didn't defend the future. He didn't make excuses. He just sat there, memorizing every humiliating detail until it burned into his memory.
His focus locked onto the core issue. Rice.
If the ruler of the empire, the man who theoretically owned everything under heaven, was reduced to crying tears of joy over a single grain shipment, what in Heaven's name was happening to the peasants in the mud?
A heavy exhausted sigh escaped Li Shimin's lips.
"A hundred years of the Great Tang," he murmured, mostly to himself. "But it wasn't the Great Tang every single year. Nor was it the Great Tang in every single province."
The intoxicating praise of being the Emperor of the Ages evaporated instantly. In its place, a chaotic mental slideshow played out. He saw generals launching lightning strikes across the desert, right next to incompetent descendants whose stupidity got entire armies slaughtered.
He saw the sky black with smoke at Baekgang, but also the desperate bloody vengeance of the Baekje rebels. Woven into this military glory were the poisonous threads of palace politics. His oldest friend Zhangsun Wuji, quietly hanging himself in a dark room. And that charming Wu Mei, slowly manipulating his weak son until she completely devoured the Li clan throne.
It was a magnificent painting of a golden age, built entirely on the broken backs and starved corpses of millions.
Li Shimin slowly pulled his gaze from the Screen and looked at the map of the Tang Empire on the wall. His eyes traced the rivers and mountains. Deep within his strategic mind, a radical empire-altering thought took root and grew.
If Guanzhong is destined to become an ecological graveyard, is a permanent Dual Capital system the only way to survive?
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Meanwhile, centuries away in a highly heated opulent room in the Song Dynasty capital of Bianjing, the atmosphere was incredibly awkward.
Zhao Pu sat perfectly upright, staring straight ahead at the floating screen. He didn't dare look left or right, but his ears were practically twitching like a hunting dog's, picking up every tiny shift in the room's energy.
To his mild disappointment, the two most powerful men in the empire, the royal Zhao brothers, were not saying a single word. The only sounds were the soft crackle of premium charcoal in the brass stove and the winter wind howling outside the windows.
Zhao Kuangyin sat rigidly, lips pressed into a tight line, lost in intense silent mathematical calculations. He was actively trying to predict the exact date of his own death.
The futuristic broadcast had casually mentioned the year 996 AD, calling it the 2nd year of the Zhidao era under Emperor Taizong of Song.
Zhao Kuangyin knew perfectly well that he was the founding Emperor, Taizu. Therefore, this Taizong fellow had to be the second Emperor. By the rules of imperial succession, for a new Emperor to be sitting on the throne in 996 AD, the old Emperor had to be in a wooden box underground.
He didn't believe for a second that his own sons were capable of pulling off a bloody Xuanwu Gate style coup. His boys simply lacked the ruthless ambition, the military backing, and the cold-blooded drive required. They wouldn't dare assassinate him. Therefore, he was going to die of natural causes.
Being an educated man, Zhao Kuangyin had deduced that future generations used a continuous calendar system. He was currently matching the Tang Dynasty dates the host mentioned with his own era, methodically counting the years forward to figure out exactly when 996 was supposed to happen. Once he pinned down the year, he would know exactly when his time was up.
Sitting directly across the table, his younger brother Zhao Guangyi was doing the exact same mental arithmetic.
Zhao Guangyi had a feeling he couldn't shake. A nagging pull in his gut that whispered he was meant to become this mysterious Emperor Taizong. He finished his calculations a few seconds earlier, then slowly raised his head. His eyes darted across the table, stealing a quick glance at his older brother's deeply furrowed brow.
A small bitter spark of anxiety flared in Zhao Guangyi's chest.
He really really hoped that this Zhidao era was not the very first era name he chose after taking the throne. Because if 996 AD was just the beginning of his reign, that meant his big brother was going to sit on that golden chair for a very very long time.
And for a man desperately waiting for a promotion, waiting for decades was an absolute nightmare.