HUANG CH'AO

died 884, China Pinyin Huang Chao Chinese rebel leader whose uprising so weakened the T'ang dynasty (618907) that it collapsed a few years after the rebellion ended. Although well-educated, Huang Ch'ao failed to pass his civil-service examinations and turned to salt smuggling, defying the government-granted salt-manufacturing monopoly. In 875 he collected a group of several thousand followers and joined the numerous rebellions then sweeping the country. His forces pushed into the south and in 879 occupied the rich trade city of Canton. Huang then swept back north, capturing the capital at Ch'ang-an in 881. He proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Ta Ch'i dynasty, but he was unable to organize the food supply to the capital. In 883 the government, aided by an alliance with a group of nomadic Turkish tribes, the Sha-t'o, drove him from the capital. The following year Huang was captured and executed, but T'ang control over the country had been destroyed by the 10-year revolt, and the dynasty rapidly crumbled. Chu Wen, the man who finally usurped the T'ang throne, was one of Huang's former generals.