The Tang Dynasty, established in 618, had already passed its golden age and entered its long decline beginning with the An Lushan Rebellion by Sogdian general An Lushan.

The power of provincial military governors (Jiedushi) had increased greatly after imperial troops crushed the Anshi rebels.

The morals of these generals had also decayed as their power increased, the resentment of common people against the inability of the government had grown, and their grievances had exploded into several rebellions during the mid-ninth century.

Many impoverished farmers, tax-burdened landowners and merchants, as well as many large salt smuggling operations, had formed the base of the anti-government rebellions of this period.

Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao are two of the important rebel leaders during this era.

The rebellion of Huang Chao begins in 874, weakening the strength of the already declining Tang Dynasty.

Late in the Xiantong era (860-873) of Emperor Yizong, there had been severe alternating droughts and floods that have caused terrible famines.

Despite this, the Tang imperial government had not tended to the victims of these natural disasters, and the taxes not only were not decreased, but had been increased to fund Emperor Yizong's luxurious lifestyle and campaigns.

As a result, the survivors have grouped themselves into bands and rise to resist Tang rule.

Wang Xianzhi (who, like Huang Chao, is a salt privateer) and Shang Junzhang rise at Changyuan (in modern Xinxiang, Henan) in 874.

Methodius now returns to Moravia and places himself under the protection of Svatopluk.

Relations between the ruler and the archbishop, however, are not harmonious.

After Svatopluk's conciliation with the Franks at Forchheim in 874, clerics of the Latin rite appear again in Moravia, interfering with the archbishop's work.

The Vistulans (also known as the Vislanes), have from the first century and possibly earlier been part of the Carpian Tribe, which got its name from the area that they lived in, which was beside the Carpathian Mountain Range.

Vistulans in the ninth century have created a tribal state, with major centers in Kraków, Wiślica, Sandomierz, and Stradów.

They are subjugated by Svatopluk, probably around 874, and the Vistulan duke is forced to accept baptism.

The Cretan raids reach a new intensity in the early 870s: the Emirate’s fleets, often commanded by imperial renegades, range the Aegean and further afield, reaching the Dalmatian coasts.

On one occasion a Cretan fleet even penetrates into the Marmara Sea and unsuccessfully attacks Proconnesos; the first time since the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 717–718 that a Muslim fleet had come so close to the imperial capital.

They also suffer two successive heavy defeats, however, in 873 and again in 874, at the hands of the new imperial admiral, Niketas Ooryphas.

After the latter battle in particular, Ooryphas takes many prisoners, whom he tortures extensively in revenge for their raids.

At about the same time, …

…the Muslim fleet of Tarsus is destroyed off Chalcis.

These imperial victories apparently lead to a temporary truce, and it appears that the Cretan emir Saipes (Shuayb I ibn Umar) was for about a decade obliged to pay tribute to Constantinople.

The Great Summer Army had arrived in 871 from Scandinavia, led by Bagsecg, to reinforce the Great Heathen Army, enabling it to conquer Mercia.

Evidence of their stay in Derbyshire are a mass grave for two hundred and fifty people at Repton and several dozen barrows recording cremations at nearby Ingleby.

A considerable number of them in 874 settle in the conquered territories.

Wang Xianzhi, as of 875 (by which time Emperor Yizong has died and his young son Emperor Xizong is emperor), is repeatedly defeating Xue Chong, the military governor of Tianping Circuit (headquartered in modern Tai'an, Shandong).

Huang rises as well, with several thousand men, and joins Wang.

Two Arab fleets had arrived in Taranto, in 871 and later in 875, carrying troops that sack Campania and Apulia.

The situation in southern Italy worries Emperor Basil I, who decides to fight the Arabs and take from them the harbor of Taranto, which the Saracens have held for nearly forty years.

It is from here that ships loaded with prisoners sail to the Arab ports, where their prisoners are sold in the slave markets.

The rebel Umayyad officer Ibn Marwan, leading a host of Muladis and Mozarabs, had returned to Mérida and rebelled against Emir Muhammad I of Córdoba in 868 After a heroic resistance of several years, he had received honorable terms of surrender from the Emir.

Muhammad orders the walls of Mérida destroyed, but awards to Ibn Marwan …

…the territory surrounding Badajoz, which he either founds or re-founds, and begins to fortify.