The Bloody 8th Century Conflict That Wiped Out One-Sixth of the Human Population
The An Lushan rebellion is one of the most brutal wars in history
Few historical events have caused as much death and destruction as the World Wars. The An Lushan rebellion was one of them. The An Lushan revolt, also called the An-Shi rebellion, occurred in China from 755 to 763 AD. It was one of the bloodiest wars in human history. In 754, 52 million people lived in China, but after the war, that number dropped to 16.3 million in 764.
Almost 36 million people died during the conflict years, which was one-sixth of the world’s population. To put it in perspective, the death toll was like that of World War I. You can only imagine how horrific the war was in the 8th century to have losses similar to the Great War.
Though historians debate whether two-thirds of China’s population could vanish within ten years, there is little doubt the An Lushan rebellion was a brutal episode of human tragedy.
The An Lushan rebellion broke up the multi-ethnic society of the Tang empire and made the Chinese suspicious of foreigners. We come across one of the earliest documented evidence of ethnic cleansing during the revolt.
