When mentioning Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, a few words will immediately appear in many people's minds: brutal, cruel and militaristic.
Regardless of the official history or unofficial history of the past dynasties, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty is recorded as a tyrant. According to "Yizhou Shu·Posthumous Law Interpretation", "Yang" is called "Yang who defies nature and abuses the people". Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty The posthumous title "Yang" given to him forever nailed Emperor Sui Yang to the pillar of shame in history.
In fact, if you want to understand Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, you must first understand the two stages of his life. The age of thirty-six was a watershed in his life. Before the age of thirty-six, he was the King of Jin Yang Guang. After the age of thirty-six, he became Emperor Sui Yang, and Emperor Sui Yang's character also reversed at the age of thirty-six.
There are few emperors like this in history. Before the age of thirty-six, he was kind, kind, and filial. He was praised by everyone as the proud son of heaven, and he was a respected young king of the Jin Dynasty. This kind of Praise is not for one day, nor for one year, but for thirty-six years.
1. The lucky young master who became the King of Jin
Yang Guang was born into a noble family. His father, Yang Jian, was given the title of Duke of the country and was a famous military aristocrat in the Northern Zhou Dynasty; The mother, Dugu Jialuo, was the youngest daughter of Dugu Xin, the founder of the Zhuguo Kingdom of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. She was also the daughter of a general and had a prominent net worth.
The Eight Pillar States and Twelve Generals of the Northern Zhou Dynasty formed the so-called Guanlong Aristocratic Group. This group was the highest level of society at that time. Emperors, high-ranking officials, and noble relatives all emerged from this group. . It can be said that Yang Guang was born with an aura.
It is recorded in the "Book of Sui" that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was "beautiful and graceful, but less intelligent and intelligent". Not only is she beautiful, but she is also smart and very popular with her parents.
He has a gentle personality, is well-read in poetry, and can write poems at the age of seven. He is also good at riding and shooting, and his martial arts is no worse than others. He can be said to be both civil and military.
A talented second-generation official, he is never arrogant or arrogant, and he is polite to the corporal; when interacting with others, he never puts on the airs of a prince, and is more caring about others. In addition, Yang Guang is generous. Very popular.
In the year when Yang Jian became Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, 12-year-old Yang Guang became the King of Jin. When he was 18 years old, he went to the battlefield and led his troops to participate in the war to pacify the Turks. When he was 20 years old, he led his troops and Yang Su The pacification of Jiangnan was a fruitful military achievement and he had a high prestige in the army.
In the tenth year of the founding of the Emperor, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty sent Yang Guang as the general manager of Yangzhou in order to quell the rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River. He was only 22 years old at that time and stayed in Yangzhou for ten years.
As soon as Yang Guang arrived in Jiangnan, he did two major things. The first major thing is to win over Confucian intellectuals. Pan Hui, a doctor from the Chen Dynasty, was proficient in the "Three Rites". Yang Guang first recruited Pan Hui into his shogunate and asked him to take the lead in compiling "Jiangdu Gathering Ceremonies". Through Pan Hui and compiling books, Yang Guang attracted a group of Confucian scholars from the south of the Yangtze River to serve him.
Confucianism is the basic foundation of ancient Chinese society. If Confucian students are included, the foundation of the entire society will be stable.
The second major event is to win over eminent Buddhist monks. Buddhism developed in Jiangnan. Buddhism had great influence, so Yang Guang went to find the famous master Zhiyi. He was the number one figure in the Buddhist community in the south of the Yangtze River. How could Yang Guang recruit him? However, Yang Guang took the posture of visiting the thatched cottage three times and finally invited the master. At the grand welcome meeting, he became the master's disciple and officially worshiped Zhiyi as his teacher. Take the Bodhisattva vows.
Zhiyi gave Yang Guang the dharma title "Zongzhi Bodhisattva". "Zongzhi" is the transliteration of Sanskrit, which means promoting good and suppressing evil, while Bodhisattva is the Buddha who stays in the mortal world and saves all living beings. It can be seen from this title that Master Zhiyi has high expectations for Yang Guang.
Yang Guang is also very studious. He not only learned the poetry and writing style of Jiangnan, but also learned a Wu Nong soft language, which made it easier to communicate with southerners. The people liked him more and more.
When Yang Guang was in Yangzhou, it was too far away from Daxing (Chang'an), the capital, and it was difficult to travel due to the high mountains and long rivers. Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty and Queen Dugu Jialuo often sent people to visit their son Yang Guang, no matter who came. Regardless of the person's rank, Yang Guang and his wife will receive them personally every time. If they are men, they will live with Yang Guang. If they are women, they will live with Yang Guang's wife, Xiao. They must both be together when they leave. When it was delivered to the gate, everyone who came was very moved.
Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty and his wife liked it very much. He is also the child who is most like his parents among the siblings. He is low-key, frugal, harmonious as a couple, good at doing things, and deeply loved by his parents.
At this time, people spoke very highly of Yang Guang: filial, mature, kind; capable, courageous, and courageous.
Yang Guang is very decent in every step of his life. He builds a perfect image for the camp step by step. This image makes people full of expectations for his future.
2. Killing his father and brother, his perfect image plummeted
At the beginning of the fourth year of Renshou (604), Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty suddenly fell seriously ill. Legend has it that Yang Guang killed his seriously ill father in order to ascend to the throne as soon as possible. .
Yang Guang successfully succeeded to the throne and became the second generation king of the Sui Dynasty.
On the afternoon of the death of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Prince Yang Guang actually took advantage of his busy schedule to send an envoy to deliver a small gold box to his father's beloved concubine, Mrs. Xuanhua, Mrs. Chen. There was also a seal on the box. Mrs. Xuanhua I thought it contained poison. I was so frightened that I didn't dare to open it.
Later, under the repeated urging of the messenger, the box was opened as a last resort. Mrs. Xuanhua took one look and turned red. There is no poison inside, but several concentric knots.
This is Yang Guang’s expression that he will forever be united with Mrs. Xuanhua. You know, Mrs. Xuanhua was the favorite concubine of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty. It was strange that the Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty had only received a love token from his son just a few hours after his death.
This is the so-called concentric knot incident!
The Tongxinknot incident directly exposed Yang Guang’s arrogance and darkness. He didn’t care about violating morals, not caring about other people’s opinions, or breaking through the bottom line of people’s cognition. Everyone understood in their hearts that Yang Guang’s original good things It's acting.
While everyone was stunned, he did another frightening thing and killed his half-brother Yang Yong, younger brother Yang Liang and younger sister Princess Lanling.
Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty died. Yang Guang did not want to depose the prince Yang Yong to live, so he ordered Yang Yong to commit suicide by taking poison. He refused to take the poison, and the envoy sent by Yang Guang simply strangled him alive. Subsequently, Yang Yong's ten sons were also executed one after another by his second uncle Yang Guang, and none of them died well.
After killing the brother and sister. Princess Lanling herself was not politically active, but her husband Liu Shu once supported Prince Yang Yong. Of course Yang Guang cannot forgive such a person. Liu Shu was demoted to Lingnan, and Princess Lanling was placed under house arrest. Not long after, the 32-year-old Princess Lanling died.
King Yang Liang of Han Dynasty was the youngest son of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty. Yang Liang was poor in ability and courageous. After the death of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, he began to rebel. As a result, he was defeated and killed by Yang Guang within a month.
At this moment, the kind and kind-hearted Yang Guang in people's minds disappeared. How can a person be kind to others if he is ruthless and cruel to his own brothers and sisters? Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty appeared.
For the Sui Dynasty, having such a stubborn and arrogant person as emperor was a blessing or a curse.
3. Achieve great things and realize your great ideals
At the age of thirty-six, it was a prime time for a politician to display his skills. At this time, Yang Guang became the third leader of the Sui Dynasty. The two emperors inherited a vast and powerful empire.
He named his reign Daye. The so-called great cause refers to the great cause of thousands of generations. Using such a year name is enough to show Yang Guang's ambition as a ruler.
When the year name was determined at that time, some people raised objections, saying that the word "karma" (traditional Chinese for "karma") in Daye can be split into the word "ku" and the word "mo". Character.
Therefore, "great cause (career)" means "great suffering at the end". It is bitter and at the end, which is very unlucky. Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty asked him to change it.
However, Emperor Sui Yang did not believe in evil and was determined not to change. It can be seen from this incident that achieving a great cause held a lot of weight in Emperor Sui Yang's heart.
The first major event after succeeding to the throne was that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty decided to build the eastern capital of Luoyang, because the people who pushed Han King Yang Liang to rebel were mainly southerners. Daxing City is too far away from the Jiangnan area, and if something happens in the south, it is beyond its reach.
This was the first major project of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty after he came to power. It was this project that kicked off the great construction projects of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty.
After the construction of Luoyang City, the total settled population in Luoyang reached one million. This was probably only comparable to Daxing City in the world at that time.
From this time on, the people of the Sui Dynasty began to live a life of continuous struggle in labor.
Four days after Emperor Sui Yang ordered the construction of the eastern capital of Luoyang, he issued a new order to recruit millions of men to open a waterway from Luoyang to Yangzhou and transport food and other food from the south. The supplies were transported back to Luoyang, which became the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty.
Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty wanted to control China's partial and fragmented rivers. Weaving a waterway network that covers the whole country and benefits the future, he dared to think and do it, and he did it.
So it took six years to finally complete the canals, each one more than 4,000 miles long, connecting the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Huaihe River, Haihe River, Qiantang River and five major river systems.
During the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, the Grand Canal became the lifeline of the Tang Dynasty. It was by relying on the Grand Canal to continuously transport wealth from the southeast region that the Tang Dynasty struggled to support itself for more than a hundred years.
The economy of the Song Dynasty was developed, and the capital Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan) was very prosperous. "Along the River During Qingming Festival" created by Zhang Zeduan, a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, recorded the prosperous scenes and natural scenery of Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan), the capital of the Huizong era in the late Northern Song Dynasty (today's Kaifeng, Henan Province) and both sides of the Bianhe River. The painting fully captured the prosperity of the ten miles up and down the Bianhe River, and even The entire Northern Song Dynasty enjoyed nearly two hundred years of civilization and prosperity.
However, this project that has benefited thousands of years brought disaster and death to the people of the Sui Dynasty. At that time, there were not enough men participating in the construction, so women were actually allowed to serve. This was very rare in the entire history of China.
In addition to building the Grand Canal, Emperor Sui Yang was also the only emperor in history who traveled the most and farthest. He visited everywhere, but most of the places he visited were desolate and rarely visited. Even today's traffic Even though we are so developed, we may not be able to go to those places. Look where Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty went.
In April of the third year of Daye (607), Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty issued an edict and personally led an army of 500,000 people, 100,000 war horses, monks, nuns, Taoist priests, female crowns and other religious figures, as well as Baixi Opera The team set out from Daxing City in the capital and patrolled the grasslands of Saibei. The Eastern Turks completely surrendered.
Especially in the fifth year of Daye (609), when he was patrolling Qinghai and Gansu and crossing the Qilian Mountains with an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, due to the harsh natural conditions and sleeping in the open air, many of the accompanying soldiers died of cold and starvation. Sui Yang The emperor himself also suffered a lot, reaching as far as Yumen Pass,
his ideal, but his ideal became a sharp sword hanging over the heads of the people across the country, causing them to die of exhaustion on the construction site and on the battlefield. Or freeze and starve to death in the barren fields.
The number of people in the Sui Dynasty increased from 45 million at the peak to only 12 million at the end of the Sui Dynasty. During the 14 years of Emperor Sui Yang's reign, more than 33 million people died.
How could he not be abandoned by the people if he exchanged the lives of the people for his prosperity?
Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty acted too hastily and ignored the interests of the Guanlong aristocratic group, which was still very powerful at the time. Therefore, he was eventually abandoned by the Guanlong aristocratic group. Fourteen years after the great cause, Yang Guang, the man who dominated the world, swallowed up the world. The romantic emperor. He died in the hands of his confidant for many years.
The Sui Empire fell apart and finally entered an era of heroes fighting for the world.