more
and more difficult for the central government. In 780, the "equal land"
system was finally officially given up and with it a tax system which
was based upon the idea that every citizen had the same amount of land
and, therefore, paid the same amount of taxes. The new system tried to
equalize the tax burden and the corvee obligation, but not the land.
This change may indicate a step towards greater freedom for private
enterprise. Yet it did not benefit the government, as most of the tax
income was retained by the governors and was used for their armies and
their own court.

In the capital, eunuchs ruled in the interests of various cliques.
Several emperors fell victim to them or to the drinking of "elixirs of
long life".

Abroad, the Chinese lost their dominion over Turkestan, for which
Uighurs and Tibetans competed. There is nothing to gain from any full
description of events at court. The struggle between cliques soon became
a struggle between eunuchs and literati, in much the same way as at the
end of the second Han dynasty. Trade steadily diminished, and the state
became impoverished because no taxes were coming in and great armies had
to be maintained, though they did not even obey the government.

Events that exerted on the internal situation an influence not to be
belittled were the break-up of the Uighurs (from 832 onward) the
appearance of the Turkish Sha-t'o, and almost at the same time, the
dissolution of the Tibetan empire (from 842). Many other foreigners had
placed themselves under the Uighurs living in China, in order to be able
to do business under the political protection of the Uighur embassy, but
the Uighurs no longer counted, and the T'ang government decided to seize
the capital sums which these foreigners had accumulated. It was hoped in
this way especially to remedy the financial troubles of the moment,
which were partly due to a shortage of metal for minting. As the trading
capital was still placed with the temples as banks, the government
attacked the religion of the Uighurs, Manichaeism, and also the
religions of the other foreigners, Mazdaism, Nestorianism, and
apparently also Islam. In 843 alien religions were prohibited; aliens
were also ordered to dress like Chinese. This gave them the status of
Chinese citizens and no longer of foreigners, so that Chinese justice
had a hold over them. That this law abolishing foreign religions was
aimed solely at the foreigners' capital is shown by