Golden Turtles

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The Golden Turtles (金龜袋) was the Chinese branch of the Order of the Ancients which originated in the Zhou regime of Empress Wu Zetian. After she was overthrown, the secret organization managed to entrench itself within the court of the restored Tang dynasty. So successful was their infiltration that they were able to ensure that their leader was always a chancellor, as was Yang Guozhong in the reign of Emperor Xuanzong.

Among their secret members was the jiedushi An Lushan, but his deep-seated rivalry with Yang Guozhong culminated in a violent schism in 754 and the formation of Lushan's splinter group, the Yeluohe. Choosing to wage his power struggle in open battle, Lushan dragged the entire nation into a catastrophic civil war in 755 which forced the intervention of the Order's archenemies, the Hidden Ones. By the war's end, both the Golden Turtles and Yeluohe had been decimated and their leaders assassinated.

Etymology

The Chinese name of the Golden Turtles, jīnguīdài (金龜袋), literally translates to 'gold turtle bag', referring directly to the pouches holding golden tortoise tokens which were used during the reign of Empress Regnant Wu Zetian as identification for officials of rank three and higher. These tortoise-shaped tokens were also cast in silver and bronze, which were issued to officials of rank four and five respectively. Upon seizing the throne, Empress Wu had changed the carp-shaped tokens previously used for the same purpose to that of a turtle design to symbolize the new era. In the same vein, those same fish tokens had in turn originated in a decree by the Tang founder Emperor Gaozu to replace an older design based on rabbits.

After she was ousted in 705 and the Tang dynasty was restored, Emperor Zhongzong immediately reverted the turtle badges to fish badges, and within the next five years, the entire turtle bag system was abolished. Nonetheless, the golden turtle lingered on as a symbol of high status, inspiring Chinese affiliates of the Order of the Ancients to adopt it as their code name. By 754, it had thoroughly cemented itself as their organization's avatar.

History

Formation under Wu Zetian

In 690, Wu Zetian seized the throne as empress regnant after decades of de facto rule, in the process displacing the Tang with a new regime she named Zhou after the ancient royal dynasty from which she claimed descent. During her fifteen-year reign, the Golden Turtles were formed from an alliance between powerful ministers, eunuchs, and the Empress's relatives. With their possession of key ministerial offices and command over the military, the political infrastructure was theirs to operate for their own ends.

One of Wu Zetian's paramours, Zhang Yizhi, was a central member of this organization. According to the investigations of Japanese Tang scholar Abe no Nakamaro, Yizhi had a servant girl bear a child for him in his desire to leave behind future progeny. This child was Yang Zhao, who would later be granted the name Guozhong (國忠) meaning 'national loyalty' and rise to become head of the Golden Turtles. In 705, the Golden Turtles were purged in the Shenlong Revolution that overthrew Wu Zetian, terminated the Zhou, and restored the Tang dynasty. Every Golden Turtle who could be found and caught, such as Zhang Yizhi, was executed.

Resurgence

In the following decades, the Tang enjoyed a period of prosperity which peaked in the Kaiyuan era (713–741) and came to be recalled nostalgically by contemporaries like Abe no Nakamaro as a golden age. Yet the Golden Turtles had not become extinct, and their survivors reconstituted their strength to gradually take root in the government once more.

Thirty years after Empress Wu's ouster, the Golden Turtles had become ascendant in the Tang government. So embedded they were in the state apparatus that they were not only able to constantly secure their leader's appointment as a chancellor but conversely came to mandate by tradition that only a chancellor could be chosen to lead them. The long reign of Emperor Xuanzong came under increasing control from behind-the-scenes by a series of prime ministers affiliated with this shadowy organization. The first among these was Li Linfu.

Premiership of Li Linfu

As prime minister, Li Linfu utilized coercion and sabotage to eliminate dissidents and political rivals, exerting particular pressure on Crown Prince Li Heng's faction. To weaken the Crown Prince's power, he actively courted the support of the generals stationed at the border, eventually recruiting the Turkic jiedushi An Lushan. His efforts enhanced the latent military strength of the Golden Turtles while his intelligence network was so pervasive that even high-ranking subordinates like An Lushan and Yang Guozhong feared him.

Their fear proved to be his undoing. While Lushan felt intensely threatened by Linfu, Guozhong felt that Linfu was an obstacle to his ambitions. After being in power for twenty years, the elderly Li Linfu passed away. His cause of death was officially disease, but rumours circulated that he was the victim of assassination despite his scrupulous security measures, with Abe no Nakamaro speculating that it was at the hands of Guozhong and Lushan in unison. Regardless, before Linfu had even been buried, Guozhong and Lushan swiftly brought scandalous charges of treason against their former leader which resulted in his posthumous demotion to the status of a commoner. Instead of inheriting his property, his family were exiled to the frontier, allowing Guozhong to smoothly succeed as the new head of the Golden Turtles and later as the new prime minister.

An imminent rupture

In spite of their pragmatic alliance, the simmering enmity between Guozhong and Lushan quickly exposed itself after Linfu was gone. Lushan felt out-manoeuvred by Guozhong for leadership of the Golden Turtles. He craved dearly to still eventually be elevated as its chief, but Yang Guozhong's disdain for his uncouth character and uneducated background guaranteed that he could never be his successor. By the time the Tianbao era neared its climax, the oblivious and elderly Emperor had grown weary of governing and entrusted ever greater duties to Chancellor Yang Guozhong, such as in the promotion of officials, while also showering endless favours upon An Lushan, who never failed to ingratiate himself to him.

Although the two rivals' true allegiances were rigorously guarded secrets, their volatile feuds were the talk of even commoners. Since one served as prime minister and the other was a semi-independent general guarding the northern frontier, they were able to avoid coming to blows for a time. In the first month of Tianbao year 13 (754), however, Yang Guozhong outright warned the Emperor that Lushan was plotting rebellion and insisted that he summon the jiedushi to the imperial palace as a test. Guozhong believed that Lushan would not heed the summons, thereby proving his disloyalty, only for his nemesis to promptly return to Chang'an with his army, entering the capital on the very day of the Flower Banquet.

Lushan's entrance to the Flower and Calyx Pavilion in the evening was met with surprise from Emperor Xuanzong's court, but the Emperor welcomed him with all the mirth reflective of the night's festive mood. While the jiedushi's arrival dispelled suspicions by the court and public alike, he had not come just to plead his innocence, but for a more insidious purpose. Elated at his appearance, the Emperor had immediately gifted Lushan with the new position Left Deputy to the Secretary of State Affairs (尚書左僕射) as a nominal title, along with a thousand households, ten rooms of servants, one manor, and one residence to accompany it. The general cleverly seized upon this to beseech for additional powers that would be a boon to his imminent rebellion.

First, he claimed that foreign bandits were frequently raiding the border but that his forces lacked fine steeds to pursue and eliminate them. He therefore requested the right to freely use war horses from the imperial pastures, and the Emperor instantly obliged him, appointing him the position of Commissary Herdsman of the Imperial Stables (閑廄群牧使), which granted him remote control over the palace stables. Second, he implored him to give official recognition to the meritorious service of his soldiers, particularly the 523 who had been slain in battle, by granting their widowed families the salaries and honours due generals. In the same breath, he issued his last request: for the court to break from protocol and confer upon each of his 2,168 combatants who had confirmed kills the rank of palace guard captain (中郎將). The Emperor did not even skip a beat to shout that his requests were approved and rounded it all off by draping Lushan with his own royal cloak.

With loving words as though from a father to a son, Emperor Xuanzong promised Lushan that henceforth, he would always be by his side no matter where he was and that wherever there was danger, he would entrust it to him. He instructed Yang Guozhong to handle the rest of the affairs of the night, but as soon as he had departed with Yang Guifei and his attendants, the deeply apprehensive chancellor, repressing all of his anger, informed Lushan that the festival was over. According to the histories, Lushan tearfully pleaded that he was the victim of Guozhong's slander upon returning to Chang'an, and thereafter, the Emperor no longer believed in Guozhong's accusations.

Declaring the schism

"Since I cannot become the head of the Golden Turtles, then I'll take it upon myself to form my own Golden Turtles. Next time I enter the capital, Yang Guozhong and I—only one of us can live. When that time comes, which side will you, my elder, choose?"

―An Lushan to Gao Lishi, 754

An Lushan reveals his intentions to Gao Lishi

Later that night, Lushan met privately with Gao Lishi, one of Emperor Xuanzong's most trusted eunuchs and a high-ranking Golden Turtle. Unable to contain his impatience further, the jiedushi audaciously declared that his true desire was for Gao Lishi to promote him as head of the Golden Turtles. His elder was not swayed in the slightest, reminding him that only a prime minister was allowed to become their leader and that given Lushan's favour with the Emperor, he only needed to wait a while longer, yet Lushan saw through this deception. He repeated the words his spies had heard spoken by Guozhong behind his back, "Though Lushan has military prowess, his eyes cannot know books... how can he become a chancellor?"

As Lushan vented on, the magnitude of what he was implying became more and more exposed for Gao Lishi to see. First amused then wary, the eunuch probed Lushan for the validity of his deduction: that the general had asked for his subordinates' promotions and his unrestricted access to imperial horses so as to stage a rebellion. For all the obviousness of the answer, Lushan denied it, instead proclaiming that he was only doing what any loyal Tang official should do: "slay Guozhong, purge the lords".

Iconography

When she changed the design of the carp-shaped badges, Empress Wu Zetian chose the turtle as her motif because she associated her surname Wu (武) with Xuanwu (玄武), the Black Tortoise constellation and one of the four cardinal animals in Chinese mythology.

Members

• Zhang Yizhi
• Li Linfu
• Yang Guozhong
• Gao Lishi
• Yan Zhuang
• Wang Chengye
• Wei Fangjin
• An Lushan (defected)
• Lady of Han
• Lady of Guo
• Lady of Qin
• Yang Xuan
• Yang Xi
• Pei Hui
• Bian Lingcheng

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Dynasty (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: The Imperial Jade Seal – Chang'an Wang