February 17, AD 763

An Lushan Rebellion

Shi Chaoyi hangs himself while fleeing his former commanders

The date usually given as Shi Chaoyi's death is actually the day his severed head reached the capital.

17 February 763 records an arrival

The chronicle records the arrival of Shi Chaoyi's severed head at Chang'an on the jiachen day, the thirtieth of the first lunar month, conventionally converted to 17 February 763. It does not record his suicide on that date.

The textual-critical note in the Zizhi Tongjian compares contradictory accounts — suicide by hanging, capture and beheading, death in an earlier month, different locations. Its editor concludes only that Shi died during the first lunar month of 763.

The New Book of Tang assigns the suicide to the jia-shen tenth day, but the Zizhi Tongjian editor says the basis for that exact date is unknown.

Refused at every gate

After repeated defeats, Shi escaped the siege of Mo Prefecture and rode toward Fanyang seeking troops to continue the Yan resistance. Tian Chengsi, who had urged him to go for reinforcements, then surrendered the city and Shi's family.

Li Huaixian, Shi's own military governor at Fanyang, had already offered to submit to the Tang and barred him from entering. His subordinate Li Baozhong told Shi openly that Yan had lost Heaven's support and that the city now served the Tang.

Shi tried Guangyang, was refused there too and turned toward the Xi or Khitan frontier. Li Huaixian's men caught up with him at Wenquan Stockade, where he hanged himself in a forest rather than be captured.

How the war was closed out

Li Huaixian had Shi beheaded and sent the head to the Tang court. The pursuers were his own forces, not Tang troops.

With the last Yan emperor dead and the remaining northern commanders submitting, Shi's suicide conventionally marks the end of the An–Shi Rebellion, traditionally spanning 755 to 763.

Emperor Daizong accepted their submission and retained several of them as regional military governors, so the rebellion ended without an immediate restoration of direct Tang administration throughout Hebei.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 3 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0763-02.

What the sources leave uncertain

17 February 763 is securely associated with the arrival of Shi Chaoyi's severed head at Chang'an, not securely with his death.
The textual-critical note in Zizhi Tongjian compares contradictory accounts: suicide by hanging, capture and beheading, death in an earlier month, and different locations. Its editor concludes only that Shi died during the first lunar month of 763 and records the head's arrival on that month's thirtieth day.
The New Book of Tang assigns the suicide to the jia-shen tenth day, but the Zizhi Tongjian editor explicitly says the basis for that exact death date is unknown.