Sack of Guangzhou (758)

Date758 CE

Location

Result Abbasid victory

Sack of Guangzhou

Date	758 CE
Location	Guangzhou
Result	Abbasid victory

Belligerents

Abbasid Caliphate

Tang Empire

Commanders and leaders

Unknown

Wei Lijian (AWOL)

Casualties and losses

Guangzhou sacked and burned by the Abbasid forces

The Sack of Guangzhou was a seaborne attack on the port city of Guangzhou in the Tang Empire by Arab and Persian forces from the Abbasid Caliphate in late September 758 CE, during Emperor Suzong's reign.^[1]^[2]^[3] The attackers plundered and burned the city, including its warehouses and storehouses, and departed by sea after the city's governor, Wei Lijian, abandoned his post and fled into hiding.^[4]^[5]

The reasons behind the raid remain unclear, though several possibilities have been suggested. The theory states that the attackers started as soldiers that were sent by the Caliph to suppress a rebellion in Transoxania, and they reached China's coastline to attack Guangzhou.^[4] Another explanation points to the mistreatment of foreigners and Arab merchants trading in Guangzhou, which caused a major crisis in 758.^[5] The attackers may have been traders who became enraged about official corruption and trade problems. This led them to destroy warehouses according to historical records that show foreign merchants faced high costs in the city.^[6]

↑ Welsh, Frank (1974), Maya Rao (ed.), A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong, Kodansha International, p. 13, ISBN 9781568361345, which after all was a very long way off; when in the eighth century A.D. Canton was sacked by Arab raiders Peking viewed the event with some equanimity
↑ Heng, Geraldine (2019). An Ordinary Ship and Its Stories of Early Globalism: World Travel, Mass Production, and Art in the Global Middle Ages. University of Texas at Austin. p. 27. ISBN 9781009161176. In the middle of the eighth century, at a time of unrest during the An Lu Shan rebellion, Middle Eastern traders and other foreigners based in Guangzhou sacked the port city in 758, and departed for Southeast Asia
↑ Harris, Lillian Craig (1993). China Considers the Middle East. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 34. ISBN 9781850435983. Arabs and Persians — confounded by Chinese bureaucracy and protectionism, twin complaints which remain frequent among foreigners seeking to do business in China ~ sacked the city of Canton in 758. Though trade resumed within a short period, doing business with China remained hazardous.
1 2 Chaffee, John W. (2018). The Muslim Merchants of Premodern China:The History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750-1400. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107012684. One day in late September of 758, Persians and Arabs raided the frontier port city of Guangzhou (Canton). According to two sources, they plundered the city and burned its warehouses and storehouses before departing by sea.1 Another source describes them as troops from the countries of Arabia (Dashi 大食) and Persia (Bosi 波斯) and recounts that they captured the city after the prefect, Wei Lijian 韋利見, abandoned the city and went into hiding. Who were these men who – thousands of miles from their homes in west Asia – were able to seize one of the major cities of the Tang, if only briefly? Speculative answers have included seeing them as a reflection of the newly established Abbasid Caliphate, as disgruntled troops sent by the Caliph to quell a rebellion in central Asia (who somehow made their way to the coast of China), or as followers of the Hainanese warlord Feng Ruofang 馮若芳, who specialized in capturing and enslaving Persian sailors, about whom we will have more to say. They might also have been traders enraged by grievances against local officials or some other trade issue (thus the burning of the warehouses).
1 2 Wang, Zhenping (2013). Tang China in Multi-Polar Asia: A History of Diplomacy and War. University of Hawaii Press. p. 221. ISBN 978-0824836443. Mistreatment of foreigners and Arab merchants trading in Guangzhou caused a major crisis in 758, merely three years into Emperor Suzong's reign. In the ninth month of that year, a seaborne force of Abbāsid Caliphate and Persian soldiers attacked the city. Wei Lijian, the local prefect, abandoned the city and fled. To be fair to Wei, he perhaps should not be held solely accountable for the incident, because governing Guangzhou had always been an extremely challenging and arduous task
↑ Schottenhammer, Angela (2023). China and the Silk Roads (ca. 100 BCE to 1800 CE): Role and Content of Its Historical Access to the Outside World. Brill. p. 119. ISBN 978-9004523722. In 758, Guangzhou is said to have been burned and looted by Arabs and Iranians ("in Qianyuan 1 (758), Bosi and Dashi jointly plundered Guangzhou; they plundered and burned down dwellings, then they sailed away across the sea"), 39 Unfortunately, it is not clear who exactly these Bosi and Dashi were soldiers, perhaps sent to assist suppressing the An Lushan rebellion, or merchants, or both? and what the concrete reasons were for this raid. Dissatisfaction with local conditions, high burden imposed on foreign mer-chants (as attested to by contemporary sources, see below) seem to have con-stituted a possible reason. 40 The effects of this destruction, in any case, were felt for some time

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