The Sui Dynasty is a relatively short-lived unified dynasty in Chinese history, as for the complex reasons for the short life of the Sui Dynasty, it has always been controversial, today we put aside the traditional micro-analysis method, from the macroscopic historical point of view, that is, the upper political form of that era, to explore the reasons for the demise of the Sui Dynasty.
The birth of the Sui Dynasty
Everyone knows that the Sui Dynasty was a great unified dynasty that inherited the chaotic dynasties of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and we all know that Yang Jian was founded by accepting the Zen concessions of the Northern Zhou Jing Emperor, but few people know what Yang Jian relied on to succeed in ascending to the throne.
This has to be traced back to Yang Jian's father, Yang Zhong's generation. His father Yang Zhong was one of the twelve generals of the Western Wei Dynasty, and later after the Western Wei Dynasty of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yang Zhong was still a well-known general of the Pillar State, and the military of the thirteen states such as Du Tong and Shuo could be described as a powerful faction with male soldiers, and Yang Jian directly inherited his military power position after Yang Zhong's death because of his good birth.
In 577, the heroic Northern Zhou Wu Emperor Yuwen Yong attacked Northern Qi to unify the north, but unfortunately Emperor Zhou Wu died young, and Yuwen Yan, who was less than six years old, succeeded him, that is, Emperor Jing of Zhou. Emperor Jingdi of Zhou's empress was the eldest daughter of Yang Jian, so Yang Jian became a relative of the emperor and a general with military power.
In addition to holding great power and being a relative of the emperor, Yang Jian was able to successfully complete the change of dynasty, and it was inseparable from the firm support of the Guan Long Clique. The Guanlong clique was a political and military group divided by regions, mainly composed of the "Generals of the Eight Pillars" and "Great Generals of the Twelve Kingdoms" of the Western Wei Dynasty, and their own interests and values were determined by the region. In the context of the doubts of the lord and the country at that time, the Guanlong clique internally elected Yang Jian to take on a major responsibility, in essence, it was also to lay the foundation for the long-term prosperity of guanlong forces in the future, and from the fact that Yang Jian was founded in the country, it can also be seen that he has great dependence on the guanlong clique family.
The rise of Gangnam
With the support of the Guanlong clique, the Sui Dynasty officially entered the stage of Chinese history and had the conditions to unify the world. Emperor Wen of Sui then sent his second son Yang Guang to command an army of 500,000 troops, stretching from Sichuan and Shu in the west to the sea in the east, up to a thousand-mile front, and conquered the Yangtze River defense line of the Chen state in one fell swoop from north to south, and the Chen state collapsed.
After the fall of the Chen Kingdom, Yang Guangguang's army was stationed in Nanjing, and in this Jiangnan region, Yang Guang deeply felt the charm of the south for the first time. Under the management of the Song Qi Liang Chen Si Dynasty, Jiangnan became a prosperous and rich land of fish and rice, and the good atmosphere of the southern literati Chongwen infected him, and for Yang Guang, who had great ambitions, he hoped to get the support of the Southern Shiren Clique, so as to support the Guanlong clique that supported the crown prince, and increase the chips for the future struggle for the throne.
After the Sui Emperor seized the throne by means, the political structure within the dynasty was not harmonious, and the old predecessors of the Guanlong clique were always the leaders of the upper-level politics, which led to a serious political imbalance in the Sui Dynasty, the emperor was constrained by the Guanlong clique, and many policies were more difficult to implement.
The rise of the Gangnam Group is no accident. The first is that Jiangnan is a talented person who governs the country and is an extremely important development force in peacetime. The second is that the Jiangnan clique does not have as many stubborn old forces as the Guanlong clique, on the contrary, they are loyal and reliable to the new emperor as a blank piece of paper, which can be used to balance the power of the Guanlong clique and reduce the threat of the Guanlong nobility to the new imperial power.
The old aristocracy rebelled
Behind the imperial balancing power technique that made the Sui Dynasty Emperor proud, the Guan Long forces were not willing to fight back. From the defeat of the Guanlong clique in the battle for the crown prince's throne to the impact of the Jiangnan clique, they gradually lost the favor of the emperor and their power was slowly stripped away, and these old nobles could no longer sit still.
The first to rebel was Yang Xuangan, the son of the founding hero Yang Su, the Yang Xuangan family was the representative of the Guanlong clique, although Yang Xuangan's rebellion was quickly quelled, but the first split representing the ruling class of the Sui Dynasty officially began, the contradiction between the Guanlong clique and the emperor was made public, or carried out in the form of armed violence.
The second was the rebellion of Li Yuan, the Duke of Tang, who knew more strategy than Yang Xuangan and directly attacked Chang'an, the base of the Guanzhong Plain of the Sui Dynasty, directly from Shanxi, and the loss of the Guanzhong Plain base camp meant that the Sui Dynasty regime was crumbling and had no power to return to heaven.
Shortly after the fall of the capital Chang'an, the Sui Emperor in Jiangnan was killed by his confidant Yu Wenhua and launched a mutiny, it is worth mentioning that Yu Wenhua and also a member of the Guanlong clique, but also the most favored confidant of the Sui Emperor, which shows the extent to which the Guanlong clique rebelled against the Sui Emperor.
The division of the upper echelons of the Sui Dynasty was the main reason for the demise of the Sui Dynasty. At first, the Sui Emperor's starting point was only to support the Jiangnan clique and enable it to compete with the Guanlong clique, so as to better achieve a dynamic political balance and benefit its own centralized rule, but he ignored the complex and delicate interest relationship between the Guanlong clique and the Sui Dynasty, and the aristocratic rebellions that occurred one after another surprised him, and finally the Sui Dynasty collapsed in the rebellion of the Guanlong clique.