Campaigners › Frontier Generals
Feng Changqing
Tang governor of the Anxi garrisons who lost Luoyang to An Lushan's army and was beheaded at Tong Pass with Gao Xianzhi on a eunuch supervisor's charges
On a desert ridge, a rammed-earth watchtower and a long wall run across sand and rock toward the distance; a sentry stands on the tower with his back turned, smoke rises from a far beacon tower, and a small camel caravan crosses the sand at the right.
Also known as Bochuan Junwang
Feng Changqing came from Yishi in Puzhou and grew up in the Anxi garrisons, where his maternal grandfather had been exiled for a crime. Poor and plain-looking, he attached himself to Gao Xianzhi as an attendant and won promotion after drafting a victory dispatch that impressed his patron. In 752 he succeeded Gao as deputy protector-general of Anxi and commander of the Four Garrisons, and in 754 he was given the Beiting command as well. When An Lushan rebelled late in 755 he volunteered to raise troops at Luoyang, but his recruits were townsmen with no training; after the city fell he withdrew to Shanzhou and then, with Gao, to Tong Pass. The eunuch army supervisor Bian Lingcheng reported that he had exaggerated the rebels' strength and shaken the army, and in January 756 he was beheaded at Tong Pass on Xuanzong's order, leaving a final memorial of thanks for Bian to submit.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–756 CE