Sui Wendi Suí Wéndì 隋文帝 541–604 Ce Emperor, Founder of Sui Dynasty, Unifier of North and South China

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Sui Wendi Suí Wéndì 隋文帝 541–604 ce Emperor, founder of Sui dynasty, unifier of north and south China

Wendi (family name Yang Jian) founded the On 16 August 575 Emperor Wudi (543–578) ordered Sui dynasty. His greatest achievement as em- Yang Jian and another officer to lead a navy of thirty thou- peror was the reunification of north and south sand men east as part of Wudi’s plan to conquer the neigh- China. An able administrator, he built a new boring Northern Qi Dynasty (550–578). This campaign failed, and the admirals were forced to burn their ships. capital city, reduced taxes, and created grana- Wudi renewed his campaign to subjugate the Qi in 576 and ries to guard against famine. A devout Bud- appointed Jian and seven other generals to take command dhist, he expanded the number of monasteries of the Zhou armies and strike eastward. Those forces van- and monks throughout the country. quished the Qi on 8 March 577. The victory united virtu- ally all of China north of the Yangzi (Chang) River, and the emperor bestowed the title Pillar of State on Jian as a reward for his meritorious service during the war. ang Jian (541–604 ce), Wendi, was the founder of Fortune smiled on Yang Jian in 578 when Emperor the Sui dynasty in 581 and the unifier of China in Xuandi (669–580) elevated Yang’s eldest daughter Lihua 589. He was born in a convent at Fengxiang west (560–609) to the dignity of empress on 29 July. After the of modern Xi’an on 21 August 541. A nun told his mother emperor’s death in 580, Jian was installed as regent for his that the child should not dwell among the laity because grandson, the eight-year-old boy who succeeded to the he was quite extraordinary, a sign that he would rise to a throne. Yang soon acquired total control over the govern- high position. The nun then took responsibility for raising ment and its military forces. He ruthlessly dealt with the the boy in a lodge set aside for him. threat to his growing power by the royal house. By the end Jian was the son of a powerful general whom the first of the year he had sixteen Zhou princes—one of whom ac- emperor of the Zhou period of the Northern dynasty tually attempted to assassinate him—as well as forty-one ( 5 5 7 – 5 8 1 ce) ennobled as the Duke of Sui for his merito- of their sons and brothers killed. After annihilating the rious service in founding that dynasty. After his father’s entire royal family, he suppressed a number of rebellions death Jian succeeded to the dukedom and later adopted instigated by Zhou loyalists in the provinces. the title as the name for his dynasty. On 4 March 581 ce, Yang Jian assumed the throne and After attending the imperial college for the sons of received the imperial seals. To commemorate the occa- nobles and high-ranking officials in Chang’an, Yang Jian sion he bestowed a Great Act of Grace granting amnes- received his first official appointment by virtue of heredi- ties to criminals throughout northern China. Two days tary privilege at the age of fourteen. Subsequently he rose later he raised his wife, Madam Dugu (552–602 ce), to through the bureaucracy and held three posts as Grand the dignity of empress, and on 9 July he had the last Zhou General. emperor murdered. 2119 Y © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 2120 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝库山中华全书

The Empress from the north. To overcome this obstacle, Wendi appointed Yang Su (c. 561–606 ce) to the post of Governor- Madam Dugu, who possessed the independent charac- General for Xinzhou (on the Yangzi in southwestern ter of northern steppe women from whom she was de- Sichuan Province) and gave him many resources to con- scended, controlled the dealings of her household and struct a fleet. Among the naval craft that Yang Su had also exercised influence over affairs of state. When her constructed were large warships with spiked booms that husband conducted official business, she rode to the audi- dropped vertically onto opposing vessels and large num- ence chamber in a litter next to his. After he entered she bers of troop transports. Two other fleets were created, waited outside and sent a eunuch in to report on what was one under the command of Wendi’s son Yang Jun. Other transpiring. When she discovered some fault in Wendi’s preparations for war included expansion of armies (one decisions, she sent in her counsel advising him to set a new under the command of son Yang Guang), procurement of course. The emperor usually yielded to her suggestions. horses as mounts for cavalry, and teams for supply wag- Her clout was so great that palace attendants thought of ons, and construction of a canal linking the Huai River her as a second emperor. to the Yangzi for fast transportation of men and materiel The empress was staunchly monogamous. When she to the front. By the time the war began in late 588 ce, the married Yang Jian at the age of fourteen, she exacted Sui forces numbered 518,000 men compared with 100,000 a promise from him to have no children by any other men under arms for the Chen forces. woman. She was also extremely jealous, so much so that Thanks in part to superior warships, Sui forces palace ladies dared not approach him. Among the chil- achieved naval victories, including the removal of three dren of Wendi and his empress were Yang Yong, the el- chains across the Yangzi that had prevented their prog- dest, who was deposed as crown prince; Yang Guang, an ress down river. Sui army forces crossed the Yangzi on army leader during battles against Chen who succeeded the night of 22 January 589, the lunar New Year, and es- his father as emperor; and Yang Jun, a naval leader dur- tablished a foothold in Chen territory. Sui forces then ing battles against Chen who was removed from office poured across the river and crushed Chen armies in sev- for wastefulness. eral battles. On 2 February they seized the Chen capital Madam Dugu shared her husband’s concern for plac- of Jiankang and overcame the Chen emperor. Wendi had ing public interests over private. Once when an official Jiankang razed to the ground and converted into farm- suggested that she purchase a casket of pearls worth eight land so that it could not serve as a focus for resistance by million yuan, she rejected the proposal. The empress ar- Chen loyalists. gued that the money should be spent on rewarding the The conquest of Chen extended the borders of the Sui armies battling the Turks and Tuyuhun on the northern empires to the South China Sea. Wendi supported mili- and western frontiers. tary victory with administrative moves: he forced Chen nobles to move to Daxing, bringing southern cultural tra- ditions to the north; reduced taxes in the south; and used Conquest of South Dynasty Buddhism as unifying religion. and Unification of China The victory against the Qi leaders of the North dynasty Daxing while Wendi was a general of the Northern Zhou rulers united all China north of the Yangzi River. Sui Wendi’s Among Wendi’s greatest accomplishments was the con- successful campaign against the Southern Chen, who struction of a new capital, Daxing, to replace the seven- ruled the area south of the Yangzi, achieved the reunifica- hundred-year-old Chang’an, which was too cramped, tion of all China after nearly three centuries of division. and its water was brackish. Work commenced in 582 at a The Chen relied on the natural barrier of the Yangzi site about 10 kilometers southeast of Chang’an. An outer and their fleets along the river for defense against attacks wall enclosed an area that was 84 square kilometers. The

Emperor Sui Wendi. Detail from the painting Portraits of the Emperors by Yan Liben. Ink and color on silk. Wendi’s greatest accomplishment as emperor was the reunification of north and south China. He was a legalist at heart, insisting on the rigid, strict, and uniform enforcement of the law, the imposition of harsh punishments on malefactors, and the bestowal of liberal rewards on the meritorious.

city, built in a grid pattern, included a palace compound Emperor Wendi and his government moved into their at the center of the city, a compound for the offices of the new quarters on 15 April 583. The emperor then ordered central government, and two vast, self-contained mar- the flooding of the palaces at Chang’an so that, it was said, kets. The remainder of the city, 89 percent of its area, con- the ghosts of the men that he had murdered would have sisted of 109 walled wards for the dwellings of its citizens. no place to return. After the Tang took Daxing over and Broad streets, up to 152 meters wide, ran the length and renamed it Chang’an, the city became the grandest me- breadth of the city. Daxing was the largest capital ever tropolis in the world and served as a model for capitals built in Chinese history: Beijing of the Ming and Qing built in Japan and elsewhere. Unhappily, a warlord razed dynasties (1368–1912) was 25 percent smaller at 62 square it to the ground in 904, and Chang’an never again served kilometers. as the seat of China’s central government.

Statecraft stressing absolute submission of inferior to superior. It is not surprising, then, that in the summer of 601 Wendi Wendi was a legalist at heart. He insisted on the rigid, abolished all schools—the bastions of Confucianism— strict, and uniform enforcement of the law, the imposition in the empire save a single college in the capital that had of harsh punishments on malefactors, and the bestowal seats for only seventy students. He reasoned that there of liberal rewards on the meritorious. In his view justice were too many students (nearly one thousand in Daxing had to replace mercy, and all subjects were equal before at the time), that they were slothful, and that they had the law, even his kin. When his third son built a flamboy- neither virtues nor talents that were useful to the state. ant palace embellished with jade and jewels, the emperor Wendi took the traditional paternalism of the monar- stripped the prince of all his offices and confined him to a chy very seriously: He was the father and his subjects were mansion in the capital. Despite appeals for clemency from his children. Fourteen days after ascending the throne he several of his mandarins, he did not relent. But Wendi distributed five thousand government cattle to the poor. sometimes bent the law when a valued friend committed In 585 Wendi ordered the civilians and soldiers in all pre- a crime. He once commuted the death sentence imposed fectures to dig underground pits for the storage of grain. on a provincial official who had sold cereals to reduce the Annually farmers deposited a small portion of their har- price of grain during a famine. vests in them for relief in times of famine. After the com- The emperor could be harsh and cruel. He would not pletion of Daxing in 583, Wendi reduced the corvée—the tolerate corruption among officials and had venal offend- annual labor obligation of adult males—from thirty to ers beaten for as many as four days in his audience hall. twenty days and reduced the tax paid in cloth by half. In Wendi once had a man flogged to death with a horse whip 586 the emperor sent commissioners out to the provinces for complaining that his favor for a certain minister was with orders to dispense relief to all families of warriors excessive. He had an official beheaded for not beating an slain in battle. (In 593 he granted a year’s remission of offender with enough force. The emperor himself often taxes for the same.) After the conquest of Chen in 589, the beat people on the palace grounds. Wendi also went to emperor granted the south a tax remission for ten years extremes in his legislation. In early 596 he imposed the and excused the other areas of his realm from paying their death penalty on thieves who stole cereals from a gra- levy in grain for one year. nary and enslaved their families. On another occasion the emperor prescribed capital punishment for thieves in the capital who stole property that was worth as little Buddhism as one yuan. He later had to rescind the decree because of widespread protests against it. Wendi, his empress, and their sons were devout Bud- Wendi was essentially pragmatic and had little or no dhists, attending services held in the palace every eve- regard for the frivolous, the extravagant, or the exotic. ning. In 580, while he was regent, Yang Jian had a decree In the summer of 581, he dismissed all the government’s issued in the name of the emperor that rescinded the pro- entertainers—acrobats, jugglers, wrestlers, dwarf, magi- scription of Buddhism. That act, promulgated in 574, had cians, and the like—and sent them back to the people. In defrocked the clergy, destroyed monasteries along with the same year the emperor forbade tribute of choice dogs, their images, and confiscated monastic lands. As emperor, horses, vessel, toys, and delectable foodstuffs that were Wendi ordered the restoration of all cloisters destroyed customary gifts sent by the prefectures to the throne. during the proscription, donated silk for repair of dam- Like his wife, he was parsimonious. Rather than have aged monasteries, and called for the reinstallation of im- new carriages built for him, he had the old ones repaired. ages in the temples, making their destruction a capital He also insisted that only one dish of meat be served at offense. His promise of free charters to anyone who con- his banquets. structed a monastery in the new city of Daxing resulted The emperor had little esteem for Confucianism. The in a total of 120 Buddhist cloisters in the capital (in con- only one of its texts that he favored was the Classic of Fil- trast to the ten Daoist abbeys). Outside in the provinces ial Devotion because it bolstered his authoritarianism by the growth of Buddhism was equally spectacular. In 585

the emperor founded forty-five government monasteries Wendi was ruthless, brutal, harsh, capricious, and au- in the prefectures of north China. Between 601 and 604 tocratic. While those were not admirable traits in a man, he had 111 stupas (mounded tombs) built throughout the they may have been exactly the qualities that the estab- empire to enshrine Buddha’s relics—hair, nail clippings, lishment of a new dynasty and the unification of China teeth, bones, and the like. Wendi also created Assemblies required. By and large the emperor was a diligent and ef- of Twenty-Five whose monks scattered throughout the fective ruler who was responsible for most of the Sui dy- empire to spread the Buddhist doctrine (dharma). By the nasty’s achievements. end of the Sui dynasty, China had 3,792 Buddhist monas- Charles D. BENN teries with a clergy of 230,000. The emperor took the vows of a Buddhist layman in 585 and came to be known among the faithful as the bo- Further Reading dhisattva Son of Heaven. In 586, in a very rare surrender of Balazs, E. (1955). Le traité économique du “Souei-chou.” imperial prerogatives and dignity to a clergyman, Wendi Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill. invited a prelate to lecture on the dharma in order to dis- Balazs, E. (1954). Le traité juridique du”Souei-chou.” pel a drought. The monk ascended the throne and faced Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill. south while Wendi and his court sat on the ground facing Ch’en, Kenneth. (1964). Buddhism in China, a historical him. Wendi cast himself in the role of the universal Bud- survey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. dhist monarch, claiming that he owed his rise to dharma, Chih-p’an Shih. (1966). A chronicle of Buddhism in China, 581–900 a.d. (Jan Yü-hua, Trans.). Santiniketan, In- predestined fate. He employed Buddhism among his sub- dia: Visva-Bharati. (Original work published in the jects as an ideology to unify China by spreading a single thirteenth century) faith yoked to the state. His patronage laid the foundation Graff, D. (2002).Medieval Chinese warfare, 300– 900. New for Buddhism’s golden age in the Tang dynasty. York: Routledge. Heng Chye Kiang. (1999). Cities of aristocrats and bureau- crats: The development of medieval Chinese cityscapes. Last Years Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Steinhardt, N. (1990). Chinese imperial city planning. Ho- In the summer of 604 Wendi contracted an illness, re- nolulu: University of Hawaii Press. putedly brought on by his debauchery with two consorts Wright, A. (1957). The formation of Sui ideology, 581–604. who occupied his affections after the death of his wife. In J. K. Fairbank (Ed.), Chinese thought and institutions On 13 August, he died under suspicious circumstances at (pp. 71–104). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. the age of sixty-four. There are strong indications that his Wright, A. (1978). The Sui Dynasty. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. son Yangdi committed patricide. When called to attend Wright, A. (1979). The Sui dynasty. In D. Twitchett (Ed.), his father during his last days, he made sexual advances The Cambridge History of China: Vol. 3. Sui and T’ang to one of the old man’s consorts. The woman informed China, 589– 906 (Part 1, pp. 48–149). London: Cam- Wendi, who decided to remove him as heir-apparent bridge University Press. and to install his eldest son in his place. Fearing that he Xiong, Victor. (1988). The planning of Daxingcheng. Pa- would lose his chances for the throne, Yangdi arranged pers on Far Eastern History, 37, 43–80. the murder of Wendi before he could change the order Xiong, Victor. (2000). Sui- Tang Chang’an. Ann Arbor: of succession. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

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Sui Wendi Suí Wéndì ​隋文帝 541–604 Ce Emperor, Founder of Sui Dynasty, Unifier of North and South China

Sui Wendi Suí Wéndì 隋文帝 541–604 Ce Emperor, Founder of Sui Dynasty, Unifier of North and South China