@Margelatu: Someone asked me how I view the trend among many of today's youth of belittling the Tang Dynasty and praising the Song Dynasty. Thinking about it, this topic is really worth discussing.
First of all, no feudal dynasty cared about the lives of ordinary people. So, as an old fogey like myself, I really don't understand why so many young people of common origin today go to the Ming Dynasty emperors' tombs and cry their eyes out. The same goes for the Tang and Song dynasties; they were both feudal dynasties. Whether they were open or conservative, and what impact they left on future generations is one thing, but their choices were ultimately made from the rulers' standpoint. Praising one and belittling the other is of no value to people today.
Secondly, I also don't quite understand why today's youth seem to have a tendency to think "the whole world owes me." For example, when I previously discussed the business philosophies of some small restaurant owners, some young people argued with me: "No matter how small a restaurant is, isn't cleanliness a given?" Nothing in this world is a given. A place is clean because someone put in the labor, and others paid for it. If you neither labor nor pay, then no place is obligated to be clean and tidy for you.
The same logic applies to feudal empires and today's nations; between countries, no one is naturally obligated to treat you well. This is precisely why diplomacy is an art. No matter how powerful a regime is, when interacting with the outside world, there will inevitably be times when it gains advantages and times when it suffers losses. During the peak of the Mongol Empire, its expeditions against Vietnam and Japan suffered heavy losses; the Song Dynasty, confined to a corner of Jiangnan, made the Jurchens suffer great losses in the tea trade. When the British Empire was a global empire where the sun never sets, it also got bitten from behind by Germany and even its old offspring, the United States; when Russia acted as the gendarme of Europe, it was chased by several dozen Ottoman Turkish cavalrymen, forcing two of its battalions to jump into a river. However, openness and conservatism are not determined by who suffers fewer losses, but by who can obtain long-term strategic value from frequent international interactions. Refusing to communicate certainly avoids losses, but the price is developmental stagnation.
Specifically regarding the Tang Dynasty, many Song Dynasty fans point out that the Tang allowed the Uyghurs to plunder Luoyang and later bought Uyghur horses at high prices, calling these disguised tributes, arguing it would have been better to just give tributes openly like the Song Dynasty. The problem is, without benefits, the Uyghurs certainly had no obligation to exert themselves for the Tang. Moreover, the Uyghurs belonged to Turkic-speaking tribes, while the An-Shi faction had Ashina Chengqing and Ashina Congli, descendants of Turkic royalty (according to later unearthed epitaphs, the two were likely father and son), who held strong appeal among Turkic-speaking peoples at the time. If the Tang had not taken extraordinary measures to win over the Uyghurs, and if the Uyghurs had sided with the An-Shi rebels, the fate of Li Longji and Li Heng (Emperors Xuanzong and Suzong) might not have been much better than that of Emperors Huizong and Qinzong of the Song Dynasty.
A detail also illustrates this: An Qingxu sent Ashina Chengqing and An Shouzhong to seize Shi Siming's military power. Shi Siming killed An Shouzhong but always treated Ashina Chengqing well. Not only that, after Shi Chaoyi killed Shi Siming, Ashina Chengqing remained one of Shi Chaoyi's advisors. This shows that the rebels always wanted to use him to rally the Turkic-speaking tribes.
This kind of diplomatic maneuvering by the Tang Dynasty certainly meant nothing to the common people of the time: the An-Shi rebels were no worse than the Tang army in the occupied territories. But compared to the Song Dynasty, it is an objective fact that the Tang Dynasty had stronger and more flexible diplomatic vision and skills. Also, because of the Tang's diplomacy, the Uyghurs did not side with the rebels, nor did they later side with the Tibetan Empire. This meant that after the Tibetan Empire occupied the Hexi Corridor, the Silk Road trade routes were never completely cut off—because one could detour through Uyghur territory—which was of great significance to China's development in later generations.
As for whether the high-priced Uyghur horses counted as tribute, one cannot just calculate the money. The price the Tang paid for Uyghur horses was indeed higher than the market rate. But if they didn't buy Uyghur horses, they would have had to go to remote areas on the border of Qinghai and Gansu to buy horses, like the Southern Song did, and transport them thousands of miles to Lin'an. The price of the horses went down, but the cost of food for men and fodder for horses along the way, plus the deaths of horses due to the long journey, made the hidden costs astronomical. Even the Dali horses, which were relatively cheap for the Southern Song, were far more expensive than those in the Tang Dynasty, and the small Dali horses were basically useless on the battlefield. Furthermore, after the Tang allied with the Kyrgyz to weaken the Uyghurs, the market price of horses actually dropped again. It's just that the Tang Dynasty was already in its twilight by then, so it didn't mean much anymore.
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