preface
The Sui Emperor Yang Guang was the second emperor of the Sui Dynasty, reigning from 604 to 618. In 618, Yu Wenhua, who was in charge of the Janissaries, staged a coup d'état and killed Yang Guang, and the Sui Dynasty was declared extinct after only two emperors.
In the history of later generations, Yang Guang was defined as a cruel and vicious, a great hero, a poor and extravagant desire, and an absurd and unscrupulous emperor.
However, in the editor's view, Yang Guang is a monarch with political ambitions and ideals, and cannot simply be regarded as a simple-minded emperor who only knows pleasure.
It's just that his steps are too big, and the existing conditions of the empire can't support its ambitions, so that the national strength is seriously overdrawn, and it ends up with a death and the country is destroyed.
Seeking power and seizing the throne and achieving great prosperity
In 569, Yang Guang was born in Chang'an, the second son of Yang Jian, and after Yang Jian established the Sui Dynasty in 581, Yang Guang was made the King of Jin, and was made the governor of the Pillar State and the Governor of Hezhou, and Yang Guang, who was only twelve years old, became a feudal official.
Regarding the young Yang Guang, the history books record: "Beautiful posture, less intelligent" That is to say, when Yang Guang was young, he not only had a good image and was handsome, but also very smart.
In the past, according to the inheritance system of the eldest son, Yang Guang had no chance to inherit the unification, and Yang Jian's eldest son Yang Yong was favored by Yang Jian and was made crown prince.
And Yang Yong is diligent and studious, good at writing words, and has a generous personality, but he is lustful and has a lot of beauty. This shortcoming was precisely intolerable by the empress at that time, Yang Yong's birth mother, Dugu Jialuo.
Dugu Jia Luo was a fierce character at that time, acting fiercely and with a tough style, and made great contributions when Yang Jian seized power and ascended to the throne, and after the establishment of the Sui Dynasty, the Dugu clan was involved in the government and was called the Second Saint with Yang Jian.
The Dugu clan was very disgusted by the pregnancy of concubines including Yang Jian, his own sons, and the princes and nobles, and the crown prince Yang Yong had many beautiful people, and the Dugu clan hated her eldest son very much, and sent people to monitor him, collect his sins, and try to bring him down.
Yang Guang learned of this, in order to please the Dugu clan, he only lived with Concubine Xiao, and after a long time, the Dugu clan gradually thought that Yang Guang was the best candidate for the crown prince.
After that, Dugushi, Yang Guang, and the important minister Yang Su continued to frame Yang Yong in front of Yang Jian, and eventually Yang Jian deposed Yang Yong in 600 AD and installed Yang Guang as crown prince.
In 604, Yang Jian was already seriously ill and bedridden, and Yang Guang considered that Yang Jian might die and wanted to take precautions in advance, so he personally wrote a letter and sent someone to ask Yang Su, and Yang Su wrote down the situation and replied.
As a result, the palace people mistakenly sent the reply to Yang Jian's palace, and Yang Jian was extremely angry after reading it, believing that all the humility and filial piety that Yang Guang had previously had were disguised, and when he was angry, he wanted to find Yang Yong, whose intention was nothing more than to change the prince.
After Yang Su heard about it, he immediately told Yang Guang, and Yang Guang quickly mobilized the Eastern Palace Guards to serve in the palace, and all the Yang Jian harem personnel were driven to other rooms, and Yang Jian died in a short time.
It can be said that Yang Jian's death is not clear, and after Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, the first thing he did was to force Yang Yong to commit suicide.
Here it should be mentioned that Yang Guang and Yang Yong are compatriots of the same mother, Yang Yong is Yang Guang's brother, and the Dugu clan, as a mother, actually provoked their own flesh and blood to kill each other for the sake of power and jealousy, without any human feelings, and Yang Guang's father killed his brother, which shows that his means are also very cruel.
And Yang Jian died as the emperor of the re-creation of reunification, but Yang Jian's twenty years of hard work left Yang Guang with a rich family foundation.
After Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, the Sui Dynasty reached its peak of national strength, and the first decade of its reign was called the Great Cause of prosperity.
As the Zizhi Tongjian commented:
"The prosperity of the Sui clan is extremely important."
Therefore, Yang Guang took over an incomparably rich and powerful empire, a period of social prosperity and people living and working in peace and contentment, and at the beginning of his succession, there were 8.3 million households in the country, while the Kaiyuan dynasty of the Tang Dynasty was only 8.2 million households.
In addition to the people's livelihood, the great cause was also reflected in the relations between neighboring countries at that time.
In 606, Yang Guang inaugurated the first dynasty of all nations in Chinese history, and according to historical records, the grand situation at that time was recorded:
More than thirty countries came to the western region, including turkistan and Khitan in the north, Japan in the east, Vietnam and Chenla (present-day Cambodia) in the south. For a time, the eastern capital luoyang envoys arrived, Hu merchants gathered, and shops were lined up.
In 609, Yang Jian held a "World Exposition" behind Yanzhi Mountain, with the participation of twenty-seven countries in the western region, at which Tutun set up directly presented thousands of miles of land to Yang Guang.
However, for Yang Guang, there must always be something to do to push the empire to a new height, and the small editor summarizes four main things: one is to move the capital Luoyang, the second is to build the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the third is to conquer Goguryeo, and the fourth is to march Onguryeo.
Perhaps Yang Guang did not expect that these four axes would toss the great empire away.
The new capital Luoyang is flat
When it comes to Yang Guangjian's capital Luoyang, many people will feel strange, Luoyang has long existed, why should it be built?
Yes, Luoyang was the capital of the Zhou Tianzi state during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and Liu Xiu established the Eastern Han Dynasty, which was also the capital luoyang, but after the war in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Luoyang was already in ruins and was not suitable as a capital.
However, Luoyang, as the geographical center of the world, echoed Chang'an in the west and the rich Jianghuai in the east, and in order to control the economy of the Central Plains and the south, Yang Guang decided to choose another address and rebuild Luoyang.
So this Luoyang is not Luoyang, Yang Guang is equivalent to building a new city, in 605, the first year of Daye, Yang Guang launched a large-scale construction project of Luoyang, which lasted ten months and used two million people per month.
Among them, the Imperial Palace Ziwei City was built by 700,000 people and completed in 60 days, which was the fastest in the imperial palaces in history.
More than 100,000 people were enslaved to the temple foundations and wall courtyards in the city, more than 100,000 carpenters, bricklayers, metalworkers, and masons were recruited, plus 800,000 permanent laborers, and the total number of workers reached 1.7 million, which was 1 million more than the number of people in the Qin Dynasty Afang Palace, becoming the largest in world history.
Behind Yang Guang's rapid establishment of Luoyang was a great consumption of people's strength, due to the short construction period, luoyang officials treated labor very harshly, and four-fifths of the servicemen died, resulting in civil complaints.
The money and money spent are innumerable, and the materials of its palace are all transported from the south of the Yangtze River and the north of Wuling to Luoyang, and the temples and buildings in the courtyard are also extremely gorgeous, even in autumn and winter, the trees are withered, and they must be decorated with colorful satin, making the scenery spring in all seasons.
Although the construction of Luoyang is huge, it has not yet hurt the bones, and what really makes the empire hurt is the construction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal - a king became famous and withered
Famous in the world, the historic Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is Yang Guang's most proud political achievement, but it is precisely because of this Grand Canal that it took most of the life of the Sui Dynasty.
For Yang Guang, moving the capital to Luoyang was only to connect the east and the west, and ultimately to open up the lifeline of north-south transportation, consolidate imperial rule, and coordinate the transportation and development of the Jiangnan economic region, the central plains political region, and the military regions such as Yan, Zhao, and Liaodong.
In 605, the same year that Luoyang was built, Yang Jian began to promote the construction of the canal, mainly to connect the old canals of the Wei and Jin dynasties and open up the canals of Luoyang with Beijing and Jiangnan.
Yang Guang successively dredged the Yellow River into the Tongji Canal of the Huai River, which then entered the Tongji Canal of the Huai River; from the Huai River into the Hangou of the Yangtze River; from jingkou (Zhenjiang, Jiangsu) to the Jiangnan River of Huiji (Shaoxing, Zhejiang); Qinshui reached the Yellow River to the south and the Yongji Canal in Zhuo County (Beijing) to the north.
Yang Guang connected these canals from north to south, and the Grand Canal reached Yuhang in the south from Zhuo County in the north, winding for more than 5,000 miles from north to south, and the famous Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in history was presented to the eyes of the world.
The Grand Canal is not only a great water conservancy construction project created by the working people in ancient China, but also the earliest and largest canal excavated in the world.
From a realistic point of view, Yang Guang's strategic goals have been achieved.
The opening of the Grand Canal led to the development of the coastal economy, Jiangdu, Yuhang, Beijing and other cities soon prospered, for a time on the canal "merchant ships travel back and forth, boats are endless" on the canal.
Promote economic and cultural exchanges between the north and the south during the Sui and Tang dynasties, accelerate the Chinese civilization into an organic whole, maintain national unity, and strengthen the centralized system.
Before the advent of shipping in the late Qing Dynasty, the Grand Canal was the main artery of north-south transportation in ancient China. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is like the inland version of the Great Wall, except that the canal focuses on the economy and the Great Wall focuses on the military.
However, behind the grandeur of the Grand Canal is the depletion of national strength and civil strength, and it took six years to excavate the Grand Canal from 604 to 610.
More than three million peasants and soldiers from Henan, Huaibei, Huainan, Hebei, and Jiangnan were successively requisitioned, and with the construction of the Great Wall of the North and the construction of Luoyang, no less than 10 million people were requisitioned in the past ten years, and more than half of them died of illness and illness in forced labor, resulting in the tragic phenomenon of the world dying in service."
Moreover, during this period, Yang Guang cruised along the canal in Jiangnan, spending a lot of money and labor along the way, which aggravated the burden of the empire.
Heavy servitude made the people complain, social contradictions continued to accumulate, and although the canal promoted the development of Chinese civilization and the integration of the nation, the empire was crumbling.
Three Marches on Goguryeo – the trigger for the collapse of the Empire
If the construction of the Grand Canal hollowed out the empire's body, then the three marches of Goguryeo directly buried the empire's life.
Straddling both sides of the Yalu River, Goguryeo was located in eastern Liaoning, central Jilin and northern Korea, and the Northern Zhou and Sui dynasties became powerful in the early years and repeatedly invaded the interior.
During the Yang Jian period, he sent 300,000 troops to conquest, but he failed, but later Goguryeo took the initiative to send envoys to apologize, but also saved some face for the Sui Dynasty.
After Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, the great cause of prosperity illuminated China, and the four Yi were obeyed, only Goguryeo and the Sui Dynasty were enemies, and in order to make it once and for all, Yang Guang decided to personally conquer Goguryeo.
In 612, just after the completion of the Grand Canal Project, Yang Guang mobilized 1.3 million troops on an expedition, and the number of minfu responsible for transporting supplies was twice that of the Sui army, and the Total number of Sui troops participating in the war exceeded five million, and the two armies attacked at the same time.
In terms of water warfare, the Great General of the Right Wing Wei Led the Jianghuai Water Army, the battleships stretched for hundreds of miles, took the sea route to attack, came to protect the children to select 40,000 elite troops, reached the outside of Pyongyang, but was ambushed and defeated, and only a few thousand soldiers fled back.
In terms of land warfare, Yang Guang's 300,000 elite soldiers crossed the Liao to attack Goguryeo, but they were also defeated, and only 2,700 people escaped.
In five months, the Sui Dynasty army did not make progress, and had no choice but to strike, but this war brought Yang Guang not only a military fiasco, but also a heavy blow to the last vitality of the empire that could only maintain its operation.
Before the war, Yang Guang mobilized two million civilians to build warships and transport supplies, and the migrant workers stood in the water day and night, their skin festering, maggots below their waists, and three or four-tenths of the people died.
The defeat of the Sui Dynasty intensified social contradictions, and peasant uprisings began to break out everywhere, but Yang Guang not only did not stop, but in 613 led a large army to attack Goguryeo for the second time.
The Sui army set up flying towers, crashed cars, and ladders under liaodong city, and dug tunnels, and attacked the city day and night for more than 20 days but did not capture liaodong city, and the Sui army and Goguryeo suffered heavy casualties.
However, at this time, the backyard of the Sui Dynasty was on fire, and Yang Xuangan, who was in charge of supervising the transportation, that is, the son of Yang Su, who helped Yang Guang seize the throne, took advantage of this rebellion, and Yang Guang had no choice but to go back to suppress the rebellion.
At this time, the peasant revolt of the Sui Dynasty intensified, but in this case, Yang Guang still went all the way to the black.
In 614, Yang Guang launched the Third Goguryeo War, but the Sui Dynasty was already in chaos, and most of the recruits failed to arrive on schedule, but Goguryeo was already deeply tired, and finally the Goguryeo king Gao Yuan sent an envoy to surrender, and Yang Guang only then dismissed the army.
On the surface, Yang Guang's face was saved, but the strategic purpose was not achieved at all, Goguryeo superficially submitted, but did not follow Yang Guang's orders to enter the dynasty, but also captured a large number of Sui people and did not let go, later generations of Central Plains people to Goguryeo, "Sui people look at it and cry, all over the countryside."
Three consecutive years of conquest had a very negative impact on the Sui Dynasty, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the death of a large number of civilian husbands.
The population of China plummeted from its peak of 8.3 million households to more than 2 million households, especially during the third conquest, when peasant uprisings in various places brought the Sui Dynasty's rule to the brink of collapse and the empire to exist in name only.
A generation of tyrants died and the country was destroyed
After the three marches on Goguryeo, a large-scale peasant uprising caused Yang Guang to lose control of the empire, and in 617, Li Yuan raised an army at Jinyang, and in November of the same year, he invaded Chang'an, supporting Yang You as emperor and Yang Guang as emperor.
In 618, the disheartened Yang Guang had no intention of returning to the north and wanted to move to Nanjing, but most of the soldiers in the army lived in Guanzhong, and long-term dissatisfaction broke out at this moment.
The leader of the Janissaries led by Yu Wenhua and the leader of the Janissaries staged a mutiny and killed Yang Guang, and the former great hero ended his life in such a tragic way.
Extra Edition
Although Yang Guang's thirteen years in power were controversial, he also made some meaningful achievements, most notably improving the imperial examination system.
In 606, Yang Guang added the Jinshi Section, forming a national sub-discipline selection system for the Xiucai Examination Strategy, the Jinshi Examination Time Policy, and the Ming Jing Examination Technique.
The establishment of rules for selecting talents through examinations has changed the situation in which the shi clan has monopolized official positions and complied with the requirements of the Shu landlords to obtain their due status.
In addition, although Yang Guang lost badly in the Korean battlefield, he was still quite successful in other battlefields, and in the northern direction, he defeated the Khitan in 605, surrendered to the Turks, and consolidated relations with the steppe nomadic forces.
In the northwest direction, in 609, Tuguhun was attacked, the territory was opened for thousands of miles, the Silk Road was completely opened, the connection between China and the West was unblocked, and the countries in the western region were shocked.
To the east, in 610, an expedition to Ryukyu was made and incorporated into the sphere of influence, while radiating influence throughout the Korean Peninsula and Japan, most notably the Sui envoy sent by Japan to Study in China.
brief summary
In summary, Xiaobian believes that Yang Guang is by no means a fool, the starting point of many things he does is good, but the ideal is great but reality, he ignores the national strength and national conditions and other practical factors, blindly pursues his own obsession, and finally the imperial body is broken by it, the prosperous situation that has been exchanged for hard work is consumed, and the death of the empire can't help but make people sigh.