Introduction:
Yang Guang, the emperor of Sui, nicknamed Jiao, was seen by descendants to have a poor opinion of him, and he destroyed a dynasty that was in the ascending period, and eventually died in the second dynasty. Although some people say that Yang Guang has many achievements, when we carefully identify them, we find that many of them are deliberately exaggerated. This essay will explore Yang Guang's reign and his actions, revealing why he was so harshly judged by posterity.
1. Teasing his father's concubine, killing his father and killing his relatives
In the history of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Guang's reign was a period of intrigue, power intrigue, and moral decay. Originally, Yang Jian planned to make his eldest son Yang Yong crown prince, and Yang Yong was described as a sincere and benevolent person with a tolerant personality. However, in order to compete for the crown prince, Yang Guang adopted a series of tricks, disguising himself to gain the favor of Emperor Yang Jian and Empress Dugu. However, this kind of good behavior was only a disguise adopted by Yang Guang to achieve his political goals, and he actually had ambitions to usurp power.
In Yang Guang's conspiracy, he first tried to pull the crown prince Yang Yong into the water and make him lose his status as crown prince. Under the impetus of Empress Dugu and others, Yang Yong was deposed, and Yang Guang successfully ascended to the position of crown prince. However, this was not the end of his life, and he also planned a more decisive action, namely killing his own father to ensure his dominance.
In order to implement this plan, Yang Guang secretly communicated with Yang Su, but unfortunately, Yang Su's reply was mistakenly delivered to Yang Jian. Yang Jian was very angry and immediately summoned Yang Guang. However, it was at this critical moment that Yang Guang met Mrs. Chen by chance, an orphan of the Chen Dynasty and deeply loved by Yang Jian. Her beauty made Yang Guang think very much. Yang Guang desperately blocked Mrs. Chen's way, causing a crisis.
Mrs. Chen eventually returned to Yang Jian's hospital bed and told Yang Jian about Yang Guang's absurd behavior, which aroused his great anger. Yang Jian decided to replace the crown prince, but when Yang Su learned of this, he took swift action, replacing all the key positions in the court with his own supporters, and sent Zhang Heng to meet Yang Jian. Soon after, the news of Yang Jian's death came, and Yang Guang successfully ascended the throne.
It can be said that Yang Guang almost killed all his relatives. He not only usurped the throne and killed his brother Yang Yong, but also framed and killed his younger brother Yang Xiu, making him a commoner. Even his younger brother Yang Shu was imprisoned by Yang Guang to death. This series of callous and ruthless acts is shocking, and Yang Guang seems to ruthlessly purge relatives who may pose a threat to him.
Under Yang Guang's rule, his behavior towards Madame Chen also showed his absurdity. Yang Guang once gave Mrs. Chen a box, and Mrs. Chen thought it was a signal to kill her, but after opening the box, she found that there was a concentric knot inside. This hypocrisy made Mrs. Chen feel extremely disgusted, and she couldn't help but wonder how such a monarch could show his heart with a concentric knot, especially after he killed her father and brother.
However, although Lady Chen was favored, she was unable to resist Yang Guang's rule. She lacked the support of her mother's family and was forced to comply with Yang Guang's wishes. Yang Guang soon summoned her into his harem, and Lady Chen died a year later depressed, becoming a victim of Yang Guang's lust for power.
Yang Guang's addiction to beauty and abuse of power are particularly evident. He not only drafted widely across the country, but also ordered all over Jianghuai to select women with outstanding looks for him to send to the court. This behavior not only leads to the drain of the national treasury, but also exploits the rights and interests of the people and puts them in trouble.
In addition, Yang Guang's construction project is also a model of extravagance and waste. He built a lot of civil engineering, built luxury houses, built canals, built dragon boats, and so on. These complex projects not only consume a lot of resources and manpower, but also disturb social order and make the people miserable. 他南下巡游时，动辄几十万人，要求豪华铺张，加剧了国家的财政困难，令人民苦不堪言。
Yang Guang's reign is recorded as an era of debauchery and moral decay, one of the most appalling details of which is his special rules under the harem. These rules are not only embarrassing, but also profoundly reflect his relentless pursuit of power and selfish desires.
In order to satisfy his selfish desires, Yang Guang ordered that women in the palace should only wear open-crotch pants, a bad custom inherited from Emperor Hanling. This rule not only makes people feel shameful, but also deprives harem women of dignity and freedom. Yang Guang even invented a vehicle to fix the woman to it so that he could satisfy his desires at any time. This act was obviously absurd and put women in an unfortunate situation in the palace.
Yang Guang also built a huge Tianjing Palace for his own pleasure, which was luxurious and gorgeous, and the surrounding area was very brilliant. He was also quite critical of the palace landscape, requiring the palace ladies to tie flowers and leaves to withered trees in winter to maintain the scenery of spring in all seasons. Every night of the full moon, Yang Guang would take thousands of harem women to the Tianjing Palace to play, falling into wine, completely ignoring the suffering of the country and the people.
In addition, when he went down to the south of the river, he also ignored the suffering of the people, collected 1,000 women, asked them to wear white clothes to pull fiber for the ship, and then thought of them and included them in the harem. He even invited the ministers to watch it together, mocking the ancients for saying that the beauty was delicious, and now he saw beautiful women that made him hungry. This exploitation and oppression of the people has made people's lives more difficult.
With Yang Guang's rule, the Sui Dynasty gradually declined. Although he himself enjoyed luxury and desolation, the people suffered and society was in turmoil. Yang Guang's way of ruling not only seriously affected the stability of the country, but also posed a serious threat to the well-being of the people.
Third, the failure of the Three Expeditions to Goguryeo triggered a peasant uprising
Although ruling a vast country, his leadership skills were extremely incompetent, which was especially evident in his three conquests against Goguryeo. This series of military adventures led to a huge waste of personnel and resources, which eventually provoked the anger of the peasants and exacerbated the decline of the country.
In the face of Goguryeo's invasion, Yang Guang showed excessive self-confidence, believing that the Sui Dynasty's large army was enough to easily defeat the small country. However, before him, Yang Jian had sent 300,000 soldiers to attack Goguryeo, but due to the difficult journey and illness, many soldiers died, and eventually Goguryeo asked for peace. However, Yang Guang chose to take the initiative to conquer Goguryeo.
In the first campaign, Yang Guang mobilized a huge army, including 1.13 million army and navy, and 2 million civilians to be responsible for logistics. However, this massive military operation caused serious casualties, especially among the people who built the ships, many of whom died with maggots on their lower bodies.
The city of Goguryeo was strong, and after a long siege, the Sui army was still unable to conquer it. Yang Guang himself did not know much about military strategy, but required that every attack be reported to him, resulting in serious delays in the transmission of military information on the battlefield, and the Sui army fell into a passive situation. In the end, only more than 2,700 people were lucky enough to return to the Central Plains, and this time the conquest ended in failure.
During the second attack, the Sui army reached a stalemate, there was a rebellion within it, and it had to withdraw early. By the time of the Third Conquest, the Sui Dynasty had already fallen into economic collapse, with a large number of soldiers, people, and men killed, and the land deserted. The whole country had exhausted its resources, and peasant uprisings were frequent, forcing the Sui army to withdraw again.
As emperor, Yang Guang's leadership was not only militarily incompetent, but also showed an attitude of not caring about the people and the country in the governance of the country. His way of ruling led to peasant discontent and the country's economic collapse. In the end, the Sui dynasty went into decline, and Yang Guang's rule was doomed to be overthrown. This history teaches us that if a monarch does not care about the well-being of his people and pursues only his own selfish interests and absurdities, it will eventually lead to the collapse of the country and his own demise.
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