The new powerful leader who emerged from that struggle starting in 618 was Li Shimin. Some of the more notable accomplishments of Li Shimin involved restoring stable government, developing technological advances, and by utilizing the "free labor and military service of millions of peasants" he helped bring in enormous tax revenues to the point that the government was "more affluent than it had ever been."

Meantime during the time that the Tang dynasty was emerging as the power source, Buddhism helped to stimulate closer contact with other countries and cultures. According to Ping Yao, writing in the peer-reviewed journal Nan Nu, Chinese Buddhism became "instrumental in the development of mothers' identity and in the conceptualization of ideal maternal virtues" (Yao, 2008, p. 57). By examining the epitaphs that are left from the Tang dynasty, Ping Yao has determined that children whose mothers were strong Buddhists mostly complied with their mothers'...
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