Text/Feng Xuanyi
Speaking of the Sui Emperor, the vast majority of people have the impression of being a "tyrant", and the nickname given to him by later generations is enough to explain everything. In fact, the Sui Emperor was not as unbearable as many imagined. He repeatedly accomplished great feats in the unification wars of the Sui Dynasty and played a great role. The Grand Canal, which was dug after the throne, can also be said to be more effective than excessive.
The Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang was still an uncompromising literary and artistic talent. He loves to write poetry. The history books say that he was "beautiful and less intelligent." But he was small-minded and could not tolerate others writing better than he did. Others were jealous because of women, and the Sui Emperor was jealous because he wrote poetry. In the "Sui tang jia dialect", there are two small stories that he was jealous of "writing poetry".
The Sui Dynasty Emperor's articles and poems were not badly written, but his jealousy was very strong, and he could not see that others could write better than him. One day, he and his ministers composed poems for entertainment, with the word "mud" as the title, and the others pretended not to write well and did not argue with the emperor, it was precisely the minister Xue Daoheng who was not interested and made a "empty beam Yan falling mud".
This poem overwhelmed the poem of the Sui Emperor and embarrassed him.
After the two, Xue Daoheng was killed for his sins, and the Sui Emperor said proudly, "See if you still write 'Empty Liang Yan Falling Mud'!" ”
Coincidentally, another minister of the Emperor Zhao Dynasty had the same experience.
The Sui Dynasty Emperor composed a poem "Yan Song Xing", and the literati at that time all echoed it, praising the emperor for writing well. However, the writings of Lang Wang at that time were very uninteresting, and even said that the Sui Emperor did not write well, or even "did not write as well as I did.". He said to the Sui Emperor: "No one in the court grass is randomly green, I don't know if the emperor can make a joint attack?" ”
The Sui Emperor was unable to match for a while and lost face in front of his ministers.
The Sui Emperor was angry about this, and later, he actually found an excuse to kill Wang Ji. When he was killed, the Sui Emperor said triumphantly: "See if you still write 'No one in the court grass is randomly green'?" ”
Literati are light on each other, and this has been the case since ancient times, but like the Sui Emperor, who kills people at every turn, can't see others being good, can't see others surpassing himself, this kind of open-mindedness is really not suitable for being an emperor.