Sui Dynasty
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The Sui Dynasty (Chinese: 隋朝; pinyin: suí cháo; 581-618) followed the Southern and Northern Dynasties and preceded the Tang Dynasty in China. It ended nearly four centuries of division between rival regimes.
The Sui Dynasty, founded by Emperor Wen, or Yang Jian, held its capital at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). It was marked by the reunification of Southern and Northern China and the construction of the Grand Canal, though it was a relatively short Chinese dynasty. It saw various reforms by Emperors Wen and Yang: the land equalization system, initiated to reduce the rich-poor social gap, resulted in enhanced agricultural productivity; governmental power was centralized, and coinage was standardized and unified; defense was improved, and the Great Wall was expanded. Buddhism was also spread and encouraged throughout the empire, uniting the varied people and cultures of China.
This dynasty has often been compared to the earlier Qin Dynasty in tenure and the ruthlessness of its accomplishments. The Sui dynasty's early demise was attributed to the government's tyrannical demands on the people, who bore the crushing burden of taxes and compulsory labor. These resources were overstrained in the completion of the Grand Canal--a monumental engineering feat-- and in the undertaking of other construction projects, including the reconstruction of the Great Wall. Weakened by costly and disastrous military campaigns against Goguryeo which ended with defeat of Sui in the early seventh century, the dynasty disintegrated through a combination of popular revolts, disloyalty, and assassination.
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[edit] Buddhism and the Sui Dynasty
Buddhism was popular during the Six Dynasties period that preceded the Sui dynasty, spreading from India through Kushan Afghanistan into China during the Late Han period. Buddhism gained prominence during the period, when central political control was limited. Buddhism created a unifying cultural force that uplifted the people out of war and into the Sui Dynasty. In many ways, Buddhism was responsible for the rebirth of culture in China under the Sui.
[edit] Wendi and the Start of the Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty began when Wendi's daughter became the Emperess Dowager of Zhou, with his grandson as the new emperor. After crushing an army mutiny in the eastern provinces as the prime minister of Zhou, Wendi took the throne by force and claimed himself to be emperor. He abolished the anti-Han policies of Zhou and reclaimed his Han surname of Yang. Having won the support the Confucian scholars that had powered previous Han dynasties, Wendi initiated a series of reforms aimed at strengthening his empire for the war that will reunify China. In 589 CE, Sui troops entered Jiankang and last emperor of the southern Chen dynasty surrendered, thus ended the Age of Fragmentation. An improvement he made during his rule was establishing granaries as sources of food and as a means to regulate market prices from the taxation of crops.
[edit] Yangdi
Yangdi gained the throne after his father's death (possibly by murder). He further extended the empire, but, unlike his father, he did not seek to gain support from the nomads. Instead, he restored Confucian education and the Confucian examination system for bureaucrats. By supporting educational reforms, he lost the support of nomads. He also started many expensive construction projects such as the Grand Canal of China. This combined with his failed invasions into Korea (with Chinese casualties exceeding well over 2 million in all the wars combined), invasions into China from Turkic nomads, and his growing life of decadent luxury at the expense of the peasantry, he lost public support and was assassinated by his own ministers.
[edit] Goguryeo-Sui wars
Main article: Goguryeo-Sui Wars
Arguably, the biggest factor that led to the downfall of Sui Dynasty were the massive expeditions into the Korean Peninsula to invade Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. The war that conscripted the most soldiers was caused by Sui Yangdi. The army was so enormous it was actually recorded in historical texts that it took 30 days for all the armies to exit their last rallying point near Shanhaiguan before invading Korea; in one instance, the soldiers--both conscripted and paid-- listed over 3000 warships, 1.15 million infantry, 50,000 cavalry, 5000 artillery, and much else. There was just as many support laborers, and an exorbitant military budget that including mounds of equipment and rations (most of which never reached the Chinese avant-guard, as they were captured by Goguryeo armies already). The army stretched to "1000 lis (a Chinese unit of length, in modern translation one half-kilometer, though its precision in antiquity may be questioned), or about 410 kilometers, across rivers and valleys, over mountains and hills."
In all 4 main campaigns the military conquest ended in failure. Nearly all the Chinese soldiers were defeated by the prominent army leader Eulji Mundeok of Goguryeo. For example of the 305,000 Chinese troops, only 2,700 returned to China, according to the Book of Tang records Soldiers in summer conquests would return several years later, barely living through the cold and famishing winter. Many died of frostbite and hunger.
Eventually the sentiment for the emperor increased and the wars, coupled with revolts and assasinations led to the fall of the Sui Dynasty.
[edit] Rulers of Sui Dynasty
| Posthumous Name (Shi Hao 諡號) Convention: "Sui" + name | Birth Name | Period of Reign | Era Names (Nian Hao 年號) and their according range of years |
| Wendi (文帝 wen2 di4) | Yang Jian (楊堅 yang2 jian1) | 581-604 | Kaihuang (開皇 kai1 huang2) 581-600 Renshou (仁壽 ren2 shou4) 601-604 |
| Yangdi (煬帝 yang2 di4) | Yang Guang (楊廣 yang2 guang3) | 605-617 | Daye (大業 da4 ye4) 605-617 |
| Gongdi (恭帝 gong1 di4) | Yang You (楊侑 yang2 you4) | 617-618 | Yining (義寧 yi4 ning2) 617-618 |
Some colorful stories of the Sui Dynasty can be found under Legends of the Sui Dynasty
| Preceded by: Southern and Northern Dynasties | Sui Dynasty 581 – 618 | Succeeded by: Tang Dynasty |
[edit] Further reading
Bingham, Woodbridge (1941). The Founding of the T'ang Dynasty: The Fall of the Sui and Rise of the T'ang. Baltimore: Waverly Press. Wright, Arthur F. 1978. The Sui Dynasty: The Unification of China. A.D. 581-617. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-394-49187-4 ; 0-394-32332-7 (pbk).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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