Something weird has been happening on China’s internet. One small and vocal corner has been claiming the country’s most famous historical dynasty never existed. 中国互联网上出现了一些怪事。一个规模虽小但声音响亮的群体声称，中国历史上最著名的朝代从未存在过。
That’s the Tang, which ruled China from 618 AD to 907 AD, a period that saw huge territorial expansion, booming international trade and the flourishing of a high culture envied far beyond its borders. Every child learns about the Tang at school; historical dramas inspired by its palace intrigues are a staple of state TV. 这个朝代就是唐朝。唐朝从公元618年统治中国至907年，那是一个疆域极度扩张、国际贸易繁荣、高度文明兴盛的时代，其成就令周边国家羡慕不已。每个孩子在学校里都会学习唐朝历史；以唐宫权谋为题材的古装剧也是国家电视台的常客。
Claiming that the 300-year dynasty was actually a myth is akin to saying the American Civil War never happened, or telling a Brit that the Magna Carta is a fiction. But in recent months it’s been spreading among China’s very online population, posing a headache for a ruling Communist Party obsessed with controlling how its citizens talk about their 5,000 years of fractious and contested history. 声称这个延续了300年的朝代纯属虚构，无异于说美国内战从未发生，或是告诉英国人《大宪章》是编造的。然而，近几个月来，这种说法在中国活跃的网民群体中传播开来，令执政的共产党感到头疼。中共一直非常执着于管控公民对其5000年复杂且充满争议的历史的讨论。
It all appears to have started when a history influencer named Qiao Yu deployed some baffling astrological data in a video in May, to “prove” the Tang had never existed. 这一切似乎始于5月，当时一位名叫乔宇的历史博主在一段视频中运用了一些令人费解的天文数据，试图“证明”唐朝从未存在。
The outlandish claim has since spread far and wide. Reports later emerged that people were calling up the tourism bureau in Xi’an, the site of the ancient Tang capital, to demand it close down because the dynasty itself had been shown to be a hoax. 此后，这种荒唐的言论广为流传。据报道，后来有人打电话给唐朝古都西安的旅游局，要求将其关闭，理由是唐朝已被证实是一场骗局。
The hashtag “the Tang dynasty doesn’t exist” now has tens of millions of views on China’s X-like Weibo. 在类似X的中国社交平台微博上，“唐朝不存在”这一话题标签目前已有数千万次浏览。
What motivated the hoax and its spread is hard to pin down. The Tang dynasty has been criticized in the past by Chinese nationalists as its founding emperor was not from the Han ethnic group that makes up most of China’s people. The basis of Qiao Yu’s claim is that the succeeding Song dynasty actually began far earlier than traditionally accepted, therefore canceling out the Tang. The Song dynasty was of ethnic Han origin. 这场骗局及其传播的动机难以确定。过去，唐朝曾受到中国民族主义者的批评，因为其开国皇帝并非构成中国主体民族的汉族。乔宇观点的依据是，继任的宋朝实际上比传统公认的时间开始得更早，从而“抵消”了唐朝的存在。而宋朝是汉族政权。
“This is basically insane,” said William Kirby, a professor of China studies at Harvard University, adding that there are facts in history and “the Tang dynasty is definitely one of them.” “这简直是疯了，”哈佛大学中国研究教授威廉·柯比（William Kirby）表示，并补充说历史事实不容置疑，“唐朝绝对是历史事实之一。”
“It was much more than a Chinese dynasty. It was an inner Asian dynasty as well,” he said. 他说：“它不仅仅是一个中国朝代，也是一个内亚朝代。”
As the fallacy spread on social media, China’s powerful and tightly controlled state media waded into the controversy. 随着这一谬论在社交媒体上蔓延，中国强大且管控严密的官媒介入了这场争议。
Many parents say that, thanks to the hoax, their children now feel confused about historical facts, the Nanjing Daily reported last month. 据《南京日报》上月报道，许多家长表示，由于这场骗局，他们的孩子现在对历史事实感到困惑。
Three days later, The Paper, a media outlet affiliated with the Shanghai government, was more strident. “Only when rational inquiry becomes the foundation of public life will historical nihilism truly lose the conditions that allow it to flourish,” it said in a commentary. 三天后，隶属于上海政府的媒体《澎湃新闻》语气更为严厉。它在评论中写道：“只有当理性探究成为公共生活的基石，历史虚无主义才会真正失去滋生的土壤。”
“Historical nihilism” is a term coined by the ruling communist party that refers to discussion or research that challenges its version of China’s long history. The party itself is a relative newcomer to that story, coming to power in 1949 following a decades-long civil war that tore the country apart. “历史虚无主义”是中共创造的一个术语，指代那些挑战其官方中国历史叙事的讨论或研究。中共本身在漫长的中国历史中是一个相对较新的政权，它在经历了长达几十年的内战导致国家分裂后，于1949年夺取了政权。
By mid-August the Tang controversy had attracted the attention of the party’s mouthpiece. In an editorial, the People’s Daily called the claim “absurd,” and issued a warning: “Once young people begin to doubt our national history, our cultural confidence will become like water without a source or a tree without roots, and Chinese-style modernization will lose its profound historical perspective.” 到8月中旬，唐朝争议引起了党媒喉舌的注意。《人民日报》在一篇社论中称该说法“荒谬”，并发出警告：“一旦年轻人开始怀疑我们的民族历史，我们的文化自信就会成为无源之水、无本之木，中国式现代化也将失去深厚的历史底蕴。”
In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tightened the party’s grip on history and sought harsher penalties for those who dare to challenge the official account. 近年来，中国领导人习近平加强了党对历史的掌控，并寻求对那些敢于挑战官方叙事的人进行更严厉的惩罚。
Xi himself has publicly evoked the past glory of the Tang. In 2023 he hosted leaders from several Central Asian countries in Xian, the ancient Tang capital and terminus of the Silk Road along which goods and ideas used to flow between China and Europe. 习近平本人曾公开唤起唐朝的往日辉煌。2023年，他在唐朝古都、丝绸之路的终点西安接待了多位中亚国家领导人，丝绸之路曾是连接中国与欧洲的商品和思想流动通道。
The ceremony featured dancers and performers in Tang-style dress, observers noting the nod to a Tang past when foreign envoys came to pay tribute at the emperor’s court. 仪式上有身着唐装的舞者和表演者，观察人士指出，这是在致敬唐朝时期外国使节来朝廷进贡的历史。
Using the past to criticize the present 借古讽今
For a thousand years, Chinese people have used reflections on history to reimagine the past, as a creative way to criticize or approach the present. 千百年来，中国人一直通过反思历史来重构过去，将其作为一种批评或审视当下的创造性方式。
For example, in the economic boom years of the early 2010s, amid growing criticism of the fixation on consumerism and bourgeois lifestyles, the hardships the Chinese people had undergone during Japan’s brutal occupation during WWII became a favored topic for intellectuals, according to Rana Mitter, a Harvard Kennedy School historian specializing in modern China. 例如，据哈佛大学肯尼迪学院研究现代中国的历史学家拉纳·米特（Rana Mitter）称，在2010年代初经济繁荣时期，随着对消费主义和资产阶级生活方式的批评日益增多，中国人在二战期间遭受日本残酷占领的苦难成为了知识分子青睐的话题。
But that discussion also allowed some to point out that the current discourse didn’t give enough credit to the Kuomintang troops who fought the Japanese – but who were also the opponents of Mao Zedong’s communists, Mitter said. 但米特表示，这种讨论也让一些人指出，当时的叙事没有给予抗击日军的国民党军队足够的认可——而他们同时也是毛泽东领导的共产党的对手。
Even though the Tang era was more than a thousand years ago, any suggestion – however fanciful – that it never existed could be an irritant for the party, said Mitter. 米特说，尽管唐朝已是千年前的事，但任何暗示它从未存在过的说法——无论多么天马行空——都可能让党感到恼火。
“Certainly under Xi, the CCP now honors the longer trajectory of Chinese history. This means that all history needs to point in a direction that suggests unified (rather than split) identity, historical and cultural continuity, and an idea of ‘China’ as a long-standing entity that has been continuous through history,” he said. “在习近平领导下，中共现在确实推崇中国历史的长期轨迹。这意味着所有的历史都需要指向一个方向，即暗示统一（而非分裂）的身份认同、历史和文化的连续性，以及‘中国’作为一个贯穿历史的长久实体的概念，”他说。
Callum, a 24-year-old Beijing resident, told CNN that questioning the Tang’s existence could be a way to rebel against established wisdom and a way for China’s young – faced with a slowing economy and greater competition for jobs and resources – to criticize authorities. 24岁的北京居民卡勒姆（Callum）告诉CNN，质疑唐朝的存在可能是反抗既定智慧的一种方式，也是面对经济放缓、就业和资源竞争加剧的中国年轻人批评当局的一种手段。
“It is a way for people to attack the established authorities. It is almost like saying ‘those so-called experts are nothing special. They have all been misleading people. I am the one who understands the truth, and I have exposed them all.’” “这是人们攻击既定权威的一种方式。这几乎就像在说，‘那些所谓的专家没什么了不起。他们一直在误导大家。我才是那个看透真相的人，我已经揭穿了他们。’”
As of mid-August, Qiao Yu’s accounts have been blocked and all of their videos taken down. Any search of Chinese social media questioning if the Tang dynasty existed now pulls up content condemning such lines of reasoning. 截至8月中旬，乔宇的账号已被封禁，其所有视频均被下架。现在，在中文社交媒体上搜索任何质疑唐朝是否存在的言论，都会出现谴责此类逻辑的内容。
In its editorial on the controversy, the People’s Daily attempted to have the final word. 《人民日报》在关于这场争议的社论中试图给出最终定论。
“Chinese civilization has endured for five thousand years,” it said, “and the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty stands as one of its most dazzling chapters.” 文中写道：“中华文明五千年延绵不断，大唐盛世是其中最璀璨的篇章之一。”
CNN’s Shuai Zhang contributed to the reporting. CNN的Shuai Zhang对本报道亦有贡献。
