The Tang, an imperial dynasty of China, had been founded by the Li family, who had seized power in 618 during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire.

Gaozong, the third emperor of the Tang Dynasty in China, has ruled from 649, although from January 665 much of the governance has been in the hands of his second wife Empress Wu after a series of strokes had left him incapacitated.

During the first part of his reign, Tang territorial gains, which had begun with his father Emperor Taizong, continued, including the conquest of Baekje, Silla, and the Western Göktürks, but throughout the 670s, much of those gains had been lost to Tufan, Silla, Khitan, and Balhae.

Further, territory previously conquered that had belonged to both Eastern and Western Göktürks had been subjected to repeated rebellions.

Due to a culmination of major droughts, floods, locust plagues, and epidemics, a widespread famine breaks out in 682 in the dual Chinese capital cities of Chang'an (primary capital) and Luoyang (secondary capital).

The scarcity of food drives the price of grain to unprecedented heights, ending a once prosperous era under emperors Taizong and Gaozong on a sad note.

Gaozong dies in 683, having brought Japan and Korea into tributary relationship to the Chinese empire.

State power now falls completely into the hands of Empress Wu, who at first reigning in the name of puppet emperors (her son Emperor Zhongzong and then her younger son Emperor Ruizong), will subsequently become the first and only reigning Empress of China.

Wu Zetian, shortly after taking the throne, had elevated the status of Buddhism to be above Taoism, officially sanctioning the religion by building temples named Dayun Temple in each prefecture belonging to the capital regions of the two capitals Luoyang and Chang'an, and also created nine senior monks dukes.

She also enshrines seven generations of Wu ancestors at the imperial ancestral temple, although she also continues to offer sacrifices to the Tang emperors Gaozu, Taizong, and Gaozong.

She faces the issue of succession.

At the time she took the throne, she had created Li Dan, the former Emperor Ruizong, crown prince, and bestowed the name of Wu on him.

However, the official Zhang Jiafu had instigated the commoner Wang Qingzhi into starting a petition drive to make her nephew Wu Chengsi crown prince, arguing that an emperor named Wu should pass the throne to a member of the Wu clan.

Wu Zetian is tempted to do so, and when the chancellors Cen Changqian and Ge Fuyuan oppose strongly, they, along with fellow chancellor Ouyang Tong, are executed.

Nevertheless, she declines Wang's request to make Wu Chengsi crown prince, but for a time allows Wang to freely enter the palace to see her.

On one occasion, however, when Wang angers her by coming to the palace too much, she asks the official Li Zhaode to batter Wang—and Li Zhaode takes the opportunity to batter Wang to death, and his group of petitioners scatters.

Li Zhaode then persuades Wu Zetian to keep Li Dan as crown prince—pointing out that a son is closer in relations than a nephew, and also that if Wu Chengsi became emperor, Emperor Gaozong would never again be worshiped.

Wu Zetian agrees, and for some time will not again consider the matter.

Further, at Li Zhaode's warning that Wu Chengsi is becoming too powerful, Wu Zetian strips Wu Chengsi of his chancellor authority and bestows on him largely honorific titles without actual authority.

The Tang capital, Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), is the most populous city in the world at this time.

The first century of the Tang dynasty has so far been one of the most prosperous and brilliant periods in the history of Chinese civilization.

The empire now extends so far across Central Asia that for a while Bukhara and Samarkand are under Chinese control, the Central Asian kingdoms pay China tribute, and Chinese cultural influence reaches Korea and Japan.

Chang'an has become the greatest city in the world; its streets are filled with foreigners, and foreign religions—including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—flourish.

This confident cosmopolitanism is reflected in all the arts of this period.

Li Longji, born in 685 into an era when power was virtually in the hands of his grandmother, the Empress Wu Zetian, widow of Emperor Zhongzong, had become the only glimmer of hope for the restoration of the imperial Li family.

His aunt, the Princess Taiping, daughter of the Empress, had fiercely protected Longji from harm by the Wu family.

In conspiring with Princess Taiping to put an end to the Empress’s attempted usurpation of power, Longji had killed Empress Wei in 710 a palace coup which had placed his own father, Emperor Ruizong, on the throne.

Longji had been appointed chancellor for a few months before becoming the crown prince.

Tensions between Princess 'aiping and Li Longji had soon mounted, however.

Princess Taiping, who has many supporters at court, hopes to ascend the imperial throne as her mother Empress Wu had done.

Ruizong exiles his sister to the provinces, hoping to defuse tension, but Longji, who fears that Princess Taiping would hold him responsible for her exile and would have him murdered, asks his father to recall the princess, who is allowed to return to the imperial court.

Eventually, in September 712, a disgruntled Ruizong, tired of court feuds, abdicates in favor of his son, who becomes Emperor Tang Xuanzong.

Suddenly it is Princess Taiping who is at risk of falling victim.

Alarmed by Ruizong's decision, the princess manages to have the court name him Taishang Huang (sometimes translated as "retired emperor", or "emperor emeritus"), a position in which Ruizong is to keep effective control of power with the new emperor Xuangzong only formally attending court audiences and ceremonies.

Appointments to high offices, controlled by Ruizong, are filled with the Princess' supporters.

Xuanzong wins a brief power struggle between himself and the princess Taiping in 713; she commits suicide and Xuanzong now assumes full authority as emperor.

Hs father retires into seclusion.

The highly lucrative Inexhaustible Treasury, which is run by a prominent Buddhist monastery in Chang'an, collects vast amounts of money, silk, and treasures through multitudes of rich people's repentances, left on the premises anonymously.

Although the monastery is generous in donations, Emperor Xuanzong issues a decree abolishing their treasury on the grounds that their banking practices are fraudulent, collects their riches, and distributes the wealth to various other Buddhist monasteries, Taoist abbeys, and to repair statues, halls, and bridges in the city.

Xuanzong allots twenty million copper coins and assigns about one thousand craftsmen to construct a hall at a Buddhist monastery with tons of painted portraits of himself, and of deities, ghosts, etc.

For the annual Lantern Festival of this year, recently abdicated Emperor Ruizong of Tang erects an enormous lantern wheel at a city gate, with a recorded height of two hundred feet.

The frame is draped in brocades and silk gauze, adorned with gold and jade jewelry, and when its total of some fifty thousand oil cups is lit, the radiance of it can be seen for miles.

Xuanzong, in 714, forbids all commercial vendors and shops in the Chinese capital city of Chang'an to copy and sell Buddhist sutras, so that the emperor can give the clergy of the Buddhist monasteries the sole right to distribute written sutras to the laity.