If We Could Go Back In Time - Tang China Under Emperor Taizong. Thursday's Edition

Changing the arc of history. Series 23 #4

In 626 CE, Li Shimin seized the Tang throne, placed his father into comfortable retirement, and began one of the most deliberately self-correcting reigns in history. He took the name Taizong and spent the next twenty-three years building the most cosmopolitan capital city the world had yet seen.

Chang’an, today the city of Xi’an, held roughly one million…