The government was also, for the first time, able to keep a census. This gave them an incentive to enact a more fair land distribution and taxation program, "an important part of both their agricultural reform and their economic growth. The Tang implemented a program where they gave life plots to the peasant families. This was supposed to be an equal distribution of the land. The Tang wanted to ensure that the families had enough land to both support themselves and to pay taxes. Taxes were based therefore, not on how much land one had, but on the number of people in the family" (Tang Dynasty, 2009, Dynasties of Classical Imperial China). Compassion paid in taxes and in increased rice production, because peasants were more willing to work hard on the land they owned. Peasants and aristocrats also fought side-by-side in the Tang's expansionist and efficient army. The Tang Empire eventually encompassed almost all of central Asia including Iran, Manchuria and almost the whole Korean peninsula. However, after the dissolution of the Tang dynasty, this equitable tax system ended (Tang Dynasty, 2009, Dynasties of Classical Imperial...

Another sign of cultural health was the willingness of China to accept new cultural influences, most notably Buddhism from India. Buddhism only became the official religion of the Tang briefly, during the reign of Emperor Tse-t'ien, China's only female -- and highly unpopular -- empress. But Buddhist influence upon Chinese philosophy, poetry, and art was to linger on, long after China once again ended its period of economic liberalism and openness to the west after the dissolution of the Tang into the fractious period of the Five Dynasties (Tang Dynasty, 2009, Dynasties of Classical Imperial China).
Works Cited

Tang Dynasty. (2009). Wikipedia. Retrieved February 1, 2009 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_Dynasty#Military_and_foreign_policy

Tang Dynasty. (2009). Dynasties of Classical Imperial China. Retrieved February 1, 2009 at http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/classical_imperial_china/tang.html

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