First of all, Empress Wu, also known as Wu Zetian (624–705) was the only female emperor in China's history. She ruled the Tang Dynasty as empress (655–690), and then as Emperor for 15 years, in the seldom-mentioned Zhou Dynasty. During her long reign totaling 50 years, the empire became relatively stable, peaceful, powerful, and prosperous.
Secondly, There were four reasons leading to Tang's decline, among which the dominance of the eunuchs, the separatist regions of Fanzhen and clique conflicts were internal factors while peasants' uprising was the external factor. Moreover, as the dominance of eunuchs became serious, the military power of central regime was weakened.
Finally, printing, paper money, porcelain, tea, restaurants, gunpowder, the compass, and all of the things that Chinese of the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) gave to the world is AMAZING!
They came to trade fur, they also were looking for new land and a good route to the Pacific, and sought to convert American Indians. :)
The idea of manifest destiny greatly helped shape the U.S. governments's policies of land acquisition, since this held that the US was "destined" to expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific--meaning that the US embarked on a series of wars with Mexico and confrontations with Natives that helped the settlers move west.
Neither side of the fight could advance due to the military prowess of the other
