Emperor Yang, the second emperor of China's Sui dynasty, ruled from 604 to 618 AD. He bankrupted the nation and drove it to collapse with megalomaniacal construction projects and ruinous wars in Korea and Vietnam before finally being overthrown and assassinated. Yang is widely considered one of the worst rulers in Chinese history. Succeeding his father, Sui founder Emperor Wen, at the age of 35, he suppressed a rebellion by his brother Yang Liang and imprisoned him for life.
In 608, Yang conscripted a million men to build the Yongji Canal from the Yellow River to approximately modern Beijing. It was said that there were not enough men and so he drafted some women laborers as well. The Western Tujue khan Aashina Daman submitted to China as a vassal. At the same time, Yang received a letter purporting to be from the Japanese emperor, but now generally believed to be Prince Shoutoku, reading "The Son of Heaven where the sun rises, to the Son of Heaven where the sun sets, may good health be with you." Yang was insulted at the notion that the Japanese emperor suggested himself to be his equal and ordered that future insulting letters from foreign states not be submitted to him.The Tiele tribes attacked Tuyuhun and forced its khan Murong Fuyun to flee. He initially considered submission to China but changed his mind, so he was attacked and most of his people seized. When he fled further, the emperor seized his territory to be populated with exiles. In 607, a messenger from Goguryeo's king Yeongyang was present and Yang ordered Yeongyang to visit him and punish him if he refused, but reward him if he accepted. The Goguryeo ruler did not respond, so Yang ordered a war against him.
The army that was assembled was described in contemporary sources as one of the largest in history, with 1.1 million men and that the column of soldiers stretched for almost 190 miles. There were 3,000 warships, 50,000 cavalry, 5,000 artillery, and more. The size of the army may have been exaggerated by historians. The campaign began in February 612. The Goguryeo army retreated behind the Liao River, which melted much earlier than usual that year so that Yeongyang's forces were at the opposite side of the river. Undaunted, Yang had three bridges built over the river, but they were too short to get across. The Goguryeo held off the first assault, but after the bridges were extended, the Sui army crossed the river.Unfortunately, Yang also ordered his generals to submit all battle plans to him for approval. This created a significant delay which benefited the defenders. By June, five months into the campaign, the Sui army had failed to capture a single Goguryeo fortress or citadel. Yang decided on a change of strategy. Instead, the main army would distract the fortresses in Manchuria while another army and a fleet would outflank them and capture the Goguryeo capital at Pyongyang. An army reportedly numbering over 300,000 men and a naval fleet with 120,000 men were dispatched. The Sui army landed, but became distracted with plundering a castle on the outskirts of the city, so that a much smaller Goguryeo army surprised and routed them. The Sui naval commander Lai Huni retreated with the loss of most of the army.
>>18698476>He bankrupted the nation and drove it to collapse with megalomaniacal construction projects and ruinous wars in Korea and Vietnam before finally being overthrown and assassinatedwas it suicide?
The main Sui army's supply lines were also vulnerable inside Goguryeo territory. Yang proposed that supply trains be discarded and the soldiers carry provisions themselves, but many dropped their food rations rather than lug all that weight around and soon the army was very short on food. The Sui army advanced towards Pyongyang, but Goguryeo troops under general Ulchi Mundok outmaneuvered them with several feints. The Chinese were exhausted by the time they reached Pyongyang and found that its fortifications were too strong to be carried. The Sui general Yu Zhongwen decided to retreat. The Goguryeo counterattacked and cut down the retreating Chinese. The initial Sui army of 305,000 men was reduced to 2,700.The emperor attacked Liaodong again in 613 but had little success and had to retreat. A rebellion started by Yang Xuangan, the son of prime minister Yang Su, had to be taken care of. Yang tried again in 614, but made little progress as the Goguryeo army relentlessly harassed his troops and menaced his supply lines. Since Goguryeo was also exhausted, Yeongyang sent a peace missive. Yang was prepared to accept, seeing his lack of success and increasing discontent in China, but because Yeongyang never offered ritual submission to him, he was infuriated and had to be talked out of a fourth attack on Goguryeo.
To the south, other Sui armies attempted to invade the kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam, which they heard possessed great wealth. A Sui invasion in 605 defeated the Cham army and their ruler Sambhuvarman. The capital at Kandapurpura was captured and looted; a large quantity of treasure was taken as spoils. Much of the Sui army died of disease on the way home as soldiers from the northern provinces could not handle tropical diseases. Champa was a Chinese protectorate for a few years until the Sui Dynasty collapsed, after which it regained its independence.By 614, there was rising discontent from numerous segments of Chinese society. The emperor had become wary of rebellion, so he moved his residence to Jiangdu in the south. His lifestyle was also growing increasingly decadent. His palace had 100 chambers, all extremely luxurious and filled with beautiful concubines. Yang seemed to sense his downfall was coming, but did not worry about it, even joking that all things come to an end eventually. China was suffering significant manpower shortages from the amount of able-bodied men killed in the wars and in construction projects. Some men would purposely injure themselves to get out of conscription. Discontented army commanders rebelled in spring 618. That April 18, they entered Yang's palace and he was strangled with a scarf. Several officials and relatives of the emperor were also executed.
Yang's tomb was discovered in Hanjiang in 2013, but it had been looted at some point in antiquity and no coffin or human remains were found inside. Several artifacts were discovered, but all that was left of the infamous emperor were two of his teeth.
>>18698484wasn't the Goguryeo kingdom a Mongol steppe horde and not actually Korean?
>>18698476now Westerners think this guy was super-badass but Chinese just consider him a psychopath who almost brought the nation to the brink of collapse
>>18698478problem with Chinese history is all names sound exactly the same
>>18698501In the Northern Stele they proclaimed themselves as Ministers of the Baekjan (inferior title) and Silla and in tbe southern steles they considered them as kin. They had special respects to the Han river the Ye and Mek people.
>>18698501>wasn't the Goguryeo kingdom a Mongol steppe horde and not actually Korean?no. that's Chinese revisionist history to ward off Korean claims on Manchuria. Yeongyang sure sounds like a Korean name to me.
>>18698476Shortly after assuming the throne, Yang began the first of a series of grandiose construction projects in Luoyang, performed with levies of 100,000 or more men to dig a trench around the region for defense purposes. He constructed a new imperial palace at Luoyang and the Tongju Canal to connect Luoyang with the Yellow River, and that river with the Huai, and rebuilding the Han Canal. These canals were finished in record time, but an estimated half the workforce died. The emperor also ordered 40 secondary palaces built around China. The first military campaign of his reign happened in 605 when Khitan tribes invaded Ying Province (modern Liaoning) and were repulsed.
>>18698617>half the workforce died>of 100,000just Chinese things
>>18698597That's a ridiculous thing to claim. Yeongyang is the modern pronunciation in English forced in modern Korean. We have a loose understanding of what proto korean sounds like and it would be more easy to claim that it would have sounded like modern viet or Thai back then. Even 16th century korean words had weird and incomprehensiblr tonal variations despite an attempt at standardisation in the 12th century.
>>18698476His father had launched an earlier campaign against Goguryeo but it was also defeated.
>>18698621ditto starting out with a 305,000 man army and less than 3,000 made it home
>>18698486>China was suffering significant manpower shortages from the amount of able-bodied men killed in the wars and in construction projectsinteresting considering China had a total population of roughly 45 million people in the early 7th century and even at that time it was the most populous country in the world
Goguryeo was eventually destroyed by the Tang emperor Taizong in alliance with Silla. The fact that Goguryeo's resources had been depleted in the wars with the Sui helped the result along.
>>18699725Goguryeo was the only Korean state to expand beyond the Yalu River and the only one to challenge China as a regional power. After the Tang destroyed Goguryeo, they attempted to conquer Silla but were repulsed and the Silla king offered ritual submission to them. Korean rulers later on paid strict homage to China and were never attacked or invaded by them again.
>>18699737winter weather could be a severe problem. many Sui soldiers died of exposure during the campaigns in Korea. it also affected the Tang armies.
>>18699739IDK, the tropics could be just as bad given that the Sui invasion of Champa resulted in the loss of many men from tropical diseases.
>>18699737Goguryeo was quite ambitious and saw themselves as equals of China. This was unacceptable to the Chinese emperors so they had to be cut down a peg or two.
>>18698480The size of the Sui army is surely exaggerated. Even modern China with a billion people has only 2 million men in its armed forces.
>>18699760regardless, the PLA does not use any active conscription while the Sui did conscript soldiers. the Book of Sui lists a total strength of 1.1 million men. even allowing for exaggeration, it states that the army took 40 days to depart, so we must assume it was quite huge.
>>18699772Some Chinese historical records are quite exaggerated. For example, regarding the Battle of Red Cliffs during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, some accounts claim that Cao Wei alone had 1 million troops directly involved in the battle, which is undoubtedly a huge exaggeration. Or perhaps they included logistics personnel in the figure.
The Tang state was an absolute monster at its peak.>directly destroyed at least a dozen states including Goguryeo and several Turkic kingdoms>controlled an astonishing 7 million square miles of territory>was very efficiently-governedIn the 7th century it was a colossus that exceeded all other nations in the world in wealth, population, and resources.
>>18699756while most of China's neighbors only paid homage to them for business purposes/to avoid pissing them off, the Korean kings legitimately believed they were China's little brother and their duty was to honor and serve them.
>>18699825Although not directly conquered and ruled, Silla was essentially a vassal state of the neighboring Chinese dynasty. The succession of monarchs and princes required Chinese approval, otherwise, it was considered illegitimate.They could only call themselves king, not emperor.Silla even sent its crown prince as a hostage to the Chinese capital. During the Ming Dynasty, the Joseon Dynasty was required to send troops to assist the Chinese army in battle.
>>18698486>His palace had 100 chambers, all extremely luxurious and filled with beautiful concubines. Based
>>18698480>Undaunted, Yang had three bridges built over the river, but they were too short to get across.How is a bridge too short to cross the river? Like, nigga, you ain't built no bridge until it reaches the other side, nigga.
