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How did Taizong deal with powerful aristocratic clans from Shandong?
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Taizong
The Taizong emperor, detail of a portrait; in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
The powerful aristocratic clans of Shandong posed a challenge to the Tang dynasty because they viewed themselves as superior to the royal house. To address this, the Taizong emperor took the decisive step of producing a national compendium of genealogies, which officially ranked the imperial family above these clans.1