The Suppression of Revolts and the Sole…

Only the emperor has the authority to sentence criminals to execution at this time in China.

Under Xuanzong, capital punishment has been relatively infrequent, with only twenty-four executions in the year 730 and fifty-eight executions in the year 736.

The death penalty is abolished in China in the year 747, enacted by Xuangzong, who orders his officials to refer to the nearest regulation by analogy when sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the prescribed punishment had been execution.

Thus, depending on the severity of the crime, a punishment of severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan region might take the place of capital punishment. (Only twelve years later, in 759, the death penalty will be restored in response to the An Lushan Rebellion.)

Marwan and his lieutenant Yazid ibn Hubayra pursue Shayban and Sulayman to Mosul in 747 and besiege them there for six months until the reinforced caliphal army drives out the Kharijite remnants and consolidates Umayyad control of Iraq.

The surviving prominent rebels flee east: Shayban flees to Bahrain, where he is killed; Sulayman sails to India along with Mansur ibn Jumhur, where he will later die.

Carloman renounces his position as majordomo on August 15, 747, and withdraws to a monastic life, being tonsured in Rome by Pope Zachary.

All sources from the period indicate that Carloman's renunciation of the world was volitional, although some have speculated that he went to Rome for other, unspecified reasons and was "encouraged" to remain in Rome by the pope, acting on a request from Pepin to keep Carloman in Italy.

Carloman soon founds a monastery on Monte Soratte, then goes to Monte Cassino.

Carloman believes his calling is the Church, as indicated by all sources from the period.

After withdrawing to Monte Cassino, he will spend most of the remainder of his life here, presumably in meditation and prayer.

His son, Drogo, demands from Pepin the Short his father's share of the family patrimony, but is swiftly neutralized.

The Taruma and Sunda kingdoms of western Java had appeared in the fourth and seventh centuries respectively.

However, the first major principality is the Indianized Medang Kingdom, founded in central Java in the mid-eighth century.

Medang's religion centers on the Hindu god Shiva, and the kingdom produces some of Java's earliest Hindu temples on the Dieng Plateau.

Some of Japan's literary monuments are written during the Nara period including the Kojiki and Nihongi, the first national histories compiled in 712 and 720 respectively; the Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), an anthology of poems; and the Kaifuso (Fond Recollections of Poetry), an anthology written in Chinese by Japanese emperors and princes.

Another major cultural development of the era is the permanent establishment of Buddhism in Japan.

Buddhism had been introduced in the sixth century, but had a mixed reception until the Nara period, when it was heartily embraced by the Emperor Shomu.

Shomu and his Fujiwara consort are fervent Buddhists and actively promote the spread of Buddhism, making it the "guardian of the state" and strengthening Japanese institutions through still further Chinese acculturation.

During Shomu's reign, the Todaiji (Great East Temple) is built and within it is placed the Buddha Dainichi (Great Sun Buddha), a sixteen-meter-high, gilt-bronze statue.

This Buddha is identified with the Sun Goddess, and from this point on a gradual syncretism of Buddism and Shinto ensues.

Shomu declares himself the "Servant of the Three Treasures" of Buddhism: the Buddha, the law or teachings of Buddhism, and the Buddhist community.

Silla in particular, however, develops a flourishing indigenous civilization that is among the most advanced in the world.

Its capital at Gyeongju is renowned as the "city of gold," where the aristocracy pursued a high culture and extravagant pleasures.

Tang historians write that elite officials possesses thousands of slaves, with like numbers of horses, cattle, and pigs.

The wives of such senior officials wear gold tiaras and earrings of delicate and intricate filigree.

Silla scholars study the Confucian and Buddhist classics, advance state administration, and develop sophisticated methods for astronomy and calendrical science.

The Dharani Sutra, recovered in Gyeongju, dates as far back as 751 and is the oldest example of woodblock printing yet found in the world.

"Pure Land" Buddhism unites the mass of common people, who can become adherents through the repetition of simple chants.

The crowning glories of this "city of gold" are the Pulguksa Temple in Kyongju and the nearby Sokkuram Grotto, both built around 750 and home to some of the finest Buddhist sculpture in the world.

The grotto, atop a coastal bluff near Gyeongju, boasts a great stone Sakyamuni Buddha in the cave's inner sanctum, poised such that the rising sun over the sea strikes him in the middle of the forehead.

Economic and administrative activity increases during the Nara period.

Roads link Nara to provincial capitals and taxes are collected more efficiently and routinely.

Coins are minted, if not widely used.

Outside the Nara area, however, there is little commercial activity, and in the provinces the old Shotoku land reform systems decline.

By the mid-eighth century, shoen (landed estates), one of the most important economic institutions in medieval Japan, begin to rise as a result of the search for a more manageable form of landholding.

Local administration gradually becomes more self-sufficient while the breakdown of the old land distribution system and the rise of taxes lead to the loss or abandonment of land by many people who become the ''wave people," or ronin.

Some of these formerly "public people" are privately employed by large landholders, and "public lands" increasingly revert to the shoen.

The An Lushan Rebellion, a devastating rebellion against the Tang Dynasty of China, overtly begins on December 16, 755, when general An Lushan declares himself emperor in Northern China, thus establishing a rival Yan Dynasty.

The Abbasid Revolution and the Fragmentation of the Islamic World (749 CE)

In 749 CE, a rebellion topples the Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphate, leading to the rise of the Abbasid dynasty.

However, the Abbasids quickly lose control over the Caliphate’s westernmost provinces, as Spain (Al-Andalus) and Morocco remain loyal to the Umayyads. This results in the establishment of the Caliphate of Córdoba, an independent Umayyad stronghold in the West.

Departing from the Umayyads’ western-oriented policies, the Abbasids shift their focus eastward, consolidating power in Iran and Central Asia and ultimately relocating the capital to Baghdad, marking a new phase in Islamic civilization.