A History of China (30 page)

Emperor Wen’s achievement in unifying China after almost four centuries of intermittent warfare and other disruptions was remarkable, which makes the brevity of the dynasty he founded seem puzzling. The Sui survived for only two reigns and lasted for about three decades. In this sense, it resembled the Qin dynasty, which also had only two emperors and lasted for about fifty years by one count and for fifteen years by another count. Yet both preceded two of the longest and most illustrious of China’s dynasties, the Han and the Tang. The successor dynasties benefited enormously from the accomplishments of their short-lived predecessors and borrowed and refined practices and institutions developed by the immediately preceding dynasty. Without the completion of projects initiated by the Qin and the Sui, the Han and Tang would have encountered more serious obstacles in establishing stable and financially secure governments. Yet both the Qin and the Sui tried to do too much in too short a time. The projects they undertook were costly and often required the use of large numbers of forced laborers. Such vast expenditures of funds and labor gave rise to opposition that ultimately resulted in the downfall of each dynasty.

The Sui’s troubles emerged in the reign of Yang Guang (569–618), the ­second emperor, who was Yang Jian’s second son and whose mother was of Xiongnu ancestry. Before his accession, his father gave him responsibility over some of the newly incorporated lands of south China; Yang Guang patronized Buddhism, waived taxes in areas heavily damaged during the earlier warfare, and recruited advisers representing Confucians, the military, and Buddhists, among others. In short, he succeeded in bringing peace to the south by ingratiating himself with its leading constituencies. His brilliance as a manipulative politician is attested by his creation of an image as a pious Buddhist and an honorable leader, which led to his designation as heir apparent. In 604, his father’s death propelled him to the throne as Emperor Yang. Because he was the last Sui emperor, the historical accounts portray him in a negative light and depict his policies as destructive. It is thus difficult to avoid the unflattering stereotypes in describing his reign.

Though later Confucian scholars and historians castigate him for his ­personnel policies, Emperor Yang’s first few years in power were apparently stable. He was certainly guilty of executing several capable officials who had served him and had been candid in their advice. Such outspokenness was not tolerated in his court, and Emperor Yang relied instead on more conniving and secretive counselors who accompanied him on his frequent travels; restlessness served as a dominant motif throughout his reign. Yet he promoted Confucianism by starting schools for its study, built libraries, and sought to ensure that examinations and thus presumably merit were the route to high government office. At the same time, he temporarily waived taxes on the families of those who had died trying to help him assume the throne, and he restored Confucian court rituals and constructed granaries as insurance in case of poor harvests and food shortages.

His major construction projects, though bitterly criticized by Confucian historians, proved to be boons for the Tang and later dynasties. The building of new canals and the expansion of others, some of which formed the network known as the Grand Canal, were vital. They provided access to some of the rich agricultural lands of the south for the northern capitals of the dynasty. The canals were also extended directly north, linking the fertile south to that less prosperous region. The economic value of these canals is indisputable, as they permitted the flow of tribute grain to the capital and to the grain-deficient regions of north China. Yet they were also significant for the military because they allowed the rapid deployment of troops from the south to the more ­vulnerable northern and northeastern frontiers – the areas inhabited by non-­Chinese peoples. Confucian historians criticized the Sui construction of a second capital at Luoyang as excessive and profligate. Yet Luoyang had been the capital during the Eastern Zhou and Later Han dynasties, was revered by the Chinese, and was closer to the southeastern regions, which were becoming increasingly important. The symbolism of its reconstruction, as a boost to the dynasty’s legitimacy and to its associations with the glorious past, was probably as ­significant as the emperor’s geographic and economic motivations.

These projects, together with less grandiose but still costly ventures such as repair of the walls along China’s northern borderlands and building and maintaining roads throughout the empire, were invaluable, if not essential, for China’s prosperity and defenses. Yet the money and manpower requirements posed an intolerable burden on the populace. The court drafted hundreds of thousands of laborers to extend and enlarge the canals and extracted considerable tax revenue, principally from those least able to afford such payments. No doubt a few officials, landlords, and merchants profited, either legally or illegally, from these projects, and some aristocrats and landlords, with ties to the bureaucracy, evaded court requisitions. The burdens of tax and corvée labor thus fell ­disproportionately on the least prosperous and least politically powerful constituencies, leading to social unrest in the second half of Emperor Yang’s reign.

Foreign adventurism brought the dynasty down. The court might have been able to survive the disruptions precipitated by its domestic policies, but ill-considered foreign military campaigns exacerbated its financial problems and contributed to the disaffection of large segments of the population. Not all of the Sui’s foreign relations during Emperor Yang’s reign were unproductive. In 606, the court received its first embassy ever from Japan, which initiated a relationship that profoundly influenced Japanese history. Emperor Yang also continued his father’s policies of marital alliances, trade and tribute, and divide and rule in dealing with the western and eastern Turks, which led to peace along the northern and northwestern frontiers.

Punitive campaigns against the state of Koguryo, one of the contenders for power in Korea, proved to be the undoing of the Sui. Koguryo controlled the region of modern Manchuria east of the Liao River and North Korea, while the state of Silla dominated southeast Korea and the state of Paekche ruled the southwest. Koguryo had resisted the Sui, refusing to send tribute and sending troops across the Liao River, which Emperor Yang regarded as an encroachment on his lands. The Sui emperor was also concerned that Koguryo might ally itself with the Turks to the west or other groups in Manchuria in opposition to the Sui. Such fears, together with a desire to expand the territory under his control for his own and China’s greater glory, prompted him to mount several expeditions against Koguryo. He set forth on his first campaign in 612 with alacrity, expecting to capture Koguryo’s capital, around the ­modern city of P’yongyang.

His plans went awry, as the cities en route resisted and stalled his forces until late summer, when heavy rains compelled the Sui troops to withdraw. The Koreans’ knowledge of the land, as well as the unfavorable climate, to which the Chinese troops had not adjusted, gave the Koreans a decided ­advantage over the Sui forces, who also had to contend with a one-thousand-mile supply line from their capital. In addition, Koguryo’s strong defenses surprised the Chinese.

Undeterred, Emperor Yang raised a sizable force for another attack the very next year. This second expedition again faced opposition, but its failure was due to the outbreak of rebellions in China and the need to dispatch soldiers to quell such disturbances. Yang retreated to China, but, still obsessed with his goal of overwhelming Koguryo, he organized a third campaign that actually compelled the Korean king to submit. Yet he had to abandon the expedition to deal with rebellions that now wracked the entire empire. Returning to China, however, he refused to listen to advisers who sought to explain the gravity of the pressures facing his dynasty. Increasingly out of touch with events in his domains, he soon found many of his own relatives turning against him. In 618, he was murdered by one of his own underlings. The heavy obligations he and his dynasty had imposed on the population finally led to the Sui’s destruction.

In a dramatic departure from the previous four centuries of Chinese history, the fall of the Sui dynasty did not lead to fragmentation. After the overthrow of the Han in 220, every collapse of a governing group that had sought to unify the country had resulted in disintegration. If nothing else, the Sui finally ended that pattern. Sui rule had fostered unity and recognition of the need for stability and order. Like the relationship between the Qin and Han dynasties, the Sui set the stage for the great Tang dynasty. Unlike the Qin, however, the Sui did not seek to impose a hideously despotic system. In any event, reversion to pre-Sui ­disunity and sporadic warfare seemed out of the question. A unified country offered economic advantages (state-supported transport and irrigation projects, for example) to the powerful elites, and an orderly, more organized ­political structure could lessen fears of social disruption that would challenge those elites’ authority and power. A strong dynasty could facilitate and accelerate the integration of south China, which had gradually become more populous and wealthier in the post-Han period. It could also protect China’s interests against political rivals along the northern and western frontiers and might even slowly and steadily expand into and incorporate some of these alien territories. In other words, the Sui had, from the standpoint of the elite, moved in the right direction, but its second ruler and his government and ministers had undertaken too many projects at enormous cost of labor and other resources and had squandered vast sums on luxuries and on hasty and far-flung military campaigns. Like the somewhat comparable Qin dynasty eight centuries earlier, it had alienated and lost the support of much of the Chinese populace. A successor dynasty could very well adopt many of the Sui’s policies, avoid its excesses, and still gain the allegiance of the elite and of ordinary Chinese.

The founder and the first rulers of the Tang dynasty succeeded partly because they pursued this strategy. Naturally, they also had specific and ­distinct advantages. Descended from a family that appears to have had Xianbei and Turkic forebears, they were related to the ruling families and had served as officials in the Northern Zhou and Sui dynasties. They were most assuredly part of the aristocracy and did not represent the beleaguered and alienated peasantry of the Sui era. They were not advocates of dramatic social upheavals, and indeed Li Yuan (566–625), the Tang founder, had had a distinguished career as a Sui official and military commander. Because he himself had led campaigns to crush opposition to the reigning dynasty, he seemed an unlikely usurper. Yet, like other aristocrats of the time, he witnessed growing antagonism toward the weakening Sui and saw an opportunity to seek the throne for himself. However, he and his supporters were not revolutionaries and hardly desired a change in the social system.

In 617, he seized his chance to upend the Sui. Having secured a base in the form of his military command in Taiyuan in north China, he planned an attack on the capital. However, he first shored up his northern and western flanks by making peace with the eastern Turks, who sent him soldiers and weapons in return for pledges of booty from his campaign. Thus, late in 617 he occupied the Sui capital around Xian, and the following year he captured the eastern capital of Luoyang. Shortly thereafter, he proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty named after his fief, the Tang. Through a judicious blend of rewards and ruthless suppression, he and Li Shimin (599–649), his ablest son, gradually overwhelmed all rebel opposition by 624.

Li Yuan (known to history as Tang Gaozu) set about restoring unity and establishing a government. However, in conventional sources, his son Li Shimin received most of the credit for laying the foundations for Tang rule. Because Li Yuan reigned for only two years beyond the pacification of the rebel groups, he scarcely had time to leave an indelible imprint on the dynasty. Yet he pressed forward with the Sui efforts at centralization, initiating new domestic and foreign policies and some new institutions. His accomplishments in his brief reign permitted his successors to create a stable, long-lasting government. He bribed the eastern Turks with presents to prevent them from capitalizing on China’s evident disorderliness and attacking along its northern frontiers. While this tactic did not lead to an enduring peace and, in fact, raids by the eastern Turks plagued the last year of his reign, it allowed him a short respite during which to take hold of the government and to install himself as the ruler. He formed military organizations in many local areas in order to gain control over them; he restored the Sui equal-field system and the associated taxes on grain and cloth to meet the dynasty’s financial needs; he continued the previous dynasty’s laudable irrigation and transport policies; he ordered the formulation of legal and administrative codes, which actually came into force in 624; and he gathered together a capable group of advisers, mostly from his own background.

His main failing was his inability to control the imperial succession, which set an unfortunate model for his descendants. Much of the first century or so of Tang rule would be afflicted by irregular successions, considerably weakening the dynasty. The Gaozu Emperor could not prevent his own sons from plotting against each other and thwarting the enthronement of his designated successor. As the commander at some of the most important victories against rebel forces and with one of the largest armies in the country, Li Shimin was angered that his father had passed him over as the legitimate successor. Thus, after making damning but false accusations about his brother, the designated successor to his father, he ambushed and personally killed his unfortunate sibling. Within two months, he had so consolidated his power that he could demand that his father abdicate. In 626, he assumed the throne as the second Tang ruler, eventually coming to be known as Emperor Taizong.