A Study On The Relationship Between Civil And Military In The Tang Dynasty From The Perspective Of Separation Of Civil And Military Affairs

The division of civil and military officials is,in fact a division of social roles basing on different professional functions in the course of social development.Tang Dynasty is at a crucial stage of such division in Chinese history where the relationship between the two kinds of officials is going from ambiguity to explication.This research is based on the division of the two kinds of officials and explores the development of their relationship.In the social systems of Tang Dynasty,the division of civil and military officials is displayed in their ranking system and Qingguan System(noble officials).Civil officials have been taking the lead through out the evolution of their relationship,taking the initiative and advantage of designing social systems and building ones that are civilofficial-oriented.Military officials,on the other hand,loses their status as Qingguan,which is of vital political importance.Anshi Rebel serves as a crucial opportunity to reshape their relationship,breaking the political ranking system where civil officials being noble and military ones humble.As a result,the division between the two kinds of officials becomes increasingly explicit viewing from the system perspective but more chaotic in reality,which is driven by the deprivation of political right of military officials by civil ones.Conflicts as such represent the core driver for further division,which is especially obvious in areas of the opposition between Huaxia and the other ethnic groups and regional confrontations in Tang Dynasty.The mindset of clearly separating Huaxia and the other ethnic groups exacerbates the conflicts between the two kinds of officials.Civil officials of Tang Dynasty saw military officials as Hu(barbarian)and further created a 4-level political status ranking,namely civil officials,military officials,Hu,the other ethnic groups,from top to bottom.When the political common practice of assimilating Hu through military approaches is applied to different regions,there emerges a belief that Hebei being Hulized(barbarianized),namely the popular culture of military officials in the Hebei region during the Tang Dynasty,which is in sharp contrast with civil political culture featuring Confucianism.The division between officials leads to division of regions,which furthers the downfall and even the collapses of the Tang Dynasty.Throughout the division,civil officials had been leading its trend.Civil officials of Tang Dynasty interfered military areas through ways such as commanding,deliberation,and“cooperation” of military affairs.It shows the political ideology of Tang Dynasty and civil officials are above military ones and the two kinds gradually merged.However,in history record,historians judged military officials upon Confucianism and gradually formed stereotypic image creating paradigm of military officials.Such paradigm formed strict standards on military officials as historians of 5 generations and Song Dynasty continued the trend,which eventually resulted the fact that civil officials became the mainstream whereas military officials branches.