A Concise History of China-Pangu to Puyi - Part 7

Laszlo Montgomery (0:00)

Welcome back, everyone. Laszlo Montgomery here with another China History Podcast episode, the seventh in this long overdue makeover of the history of China from Pan Gu to Puyi. I finally feel like we're making a dent. Last time, the episode sort of fizzled out with the death of Suí Wéndì in 604 and the ascension of Yang Guǎng to the emperorship.

Most all of China's historians concur Yang Guǎng schemed his way to the top. He cultivated useful relationships among the palace Confucianists and among his military allies, putting on an Oscar-worthy performance in front of his pious and stingy parents, while surreptitiously laying the groundwork to replace his elder brother Yang Yong. All he had to do was give the crown prince enough rope to hang himself, and that's what happened.

So, 602, his mother, Empress Dúgu Qiéluó, died first, and then in 604, his chance finally came. Suí Wéndì died after a long illness. Or did he? Well, the ones who wrote the book about the history of the Suí, the Suí Shū, they might or might not have overdone it in the vilification of Suí Yángdì.

Churchill, Goering, Nehru, they all popularized the notion that history is always written by the victors. It was true then, as it was in the 7th century, and the triumphant Tang dynasty had every reason after 618 to dump all over the Suí dynasty and frame the historical narrative in such a way that inferred thank God for the Li family and their Tang dynasty.

Few things earned you more contempt than killing your parents or an incestuous relationship. 21st century, 7th century, equally contemptible. So by insinuating in the official histories that Yang Guǎng had his father poisoned or suffocated, well, that sure put him in a negative light. And much was made about how he helped himself to all his father's consorts and paid no heed to the protocol that would view such an act as incestuous. With 2020 hindsight, seeing how Emperor Yang of Suí ended up, well, that dead horse had a kick-me sign that lasted for centuries.

Almost minutes after he had access to the bulging treasury that his parents had passed on, he went on a spending spree that burned through that cash pile in less than a decade. There were, of course, way more state expenditures than Suí Yángdì's extravagances. But when historians did the post-mortem, it was decided that a combination of the Grand Canal, the new and improved capital at Luoyang, military adventurism and an ungodly number of pleasure palaces and monuments to his grandeur, comfort and convenience all contributed to the ultimate bankrupting of the dynasty in its fall in 618

Let's look at the Grand Canal first. Aside from Emperor Yang's inclusion in every worst Chinese emperor of all time list, I will go out on a limb and declare that nothing defined his reign more than the construction of the Grand Canal. So let's pull over to the side of the road here and look at this marvel of civil and hydraulic engineering.

Suí Wéndì primed the pump for everything that followed by focusing his efforts and disbursements on repairing existing canals that had been in operation since the Qin, Han and Northern Wei dynasties. And being the practical emperor that he was, he directed funds to go to the most vital and useful waterways that connected the Yellow River Basin, Guanzhong and the Eastern Plains. He championed boring, unsung projects that maintained and optimized existing waterways. And though this doesn't make any headlines or get nominated for awards, Suí Wéndì's other gift to his no-good son was a very solid and effective bureaucracy that was wise to all aspects of planning, constructing and managing waterways, including the most efficient means of transferring grain, taxes and wealth from the abundant South to the less prosperous North.

So Emperor Wen of Suí, it doesn't get any credit for building the Grand Canal. That was all his son. But he did make it possible through his years of repairing and maintaining what was already there. And without that, as we'll see, there couldn't have been any Grand Canal. In those days, coinage was not as prevalent as in earlier days, and paper money had yet to be invented. Therefore, taxes were paid to the central imperial government in the form of grain, rice, silk and other commodities. And the biggest users of the canal were government vessels moving taxes and tribute.

Now, I'm going to get to this later, but between now and 604, until Emperor Yang pulls the trigger in 612, there was an unprecedented military buildup underway in preparation for a later campaign to take down the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo.

Of the three kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula, this one was the Sparta, by far the most powerful militarily. And with an eye to one day forcing Goguryeo down on its bended knee, Suí Yangdì placed a lot of his reputation, treasure, and the lives of millions of nameless laborers and soldiers on making this happen. And it was with an eye to this that Suí Yangdì was so hot to construct the Grand Canal.