Xuanzong falls for Yang Guifei

745 · Event

The ageing emperor takes as his consort the most celebrated beauty in Chinese history — his own son's former wife — and the government slides toward her family, her cousin becoming chief minister. Court favour also flows to a Sogdian-Turkic frontier general the lady adopts, in an elaborate court joke, as her son: An Lushan, who will come to command 150,000 of the empire's best troops.

On these timelines: The An Lushan Rebellion, China, Women in history, Master

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