Sui dynasty: A Visual History

The Sui dynasty (581-618) was founded by Yang Jian, a Northern Zhou general who seized the throne and in 589 conquered the southern Chen dynasty, reuniting China after nearly three centuries of division. Emperor Wen rebuilt Chang'an, restored the examination system and filled the granaries. His son Emperor Yang built the Grand Canal linking the Yangtze to the Yellow River and Beijing, but his megaprojects and three disastrous invasions of Goguryeo exhausted the country. Rebellions broke out everywhere; Yang was strangled by his guards in 618 and Li Yuan founded the Tang.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Sui dynasty. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Registered population

The 609 census is the high point; the early Tang could register only a fraction.

Timeline of the Sui dynasty

1. 581
   Yang Jian founds the Sui
2. 589
   Chen conqueredChina reunified.
3. 604
   Emperor Yang succeeds
4. 605
   Grand Canal begun; Luoyang rebuilt
5. 612
   First Goguryeo campaignDisaster at the Salsu.
6. 614
   Third Goguryeo campaign fails
7. 617
   Li Yuan takes Chang'an
8. 618
   Emperor Yang murderedThe Tang founded.

Reunification

Yang Jian, of mixed Chinese and Xianbei descent, was the father-in-law of the last Northern Zhou emperor and took the throne from his infant grandson in 581. In 588-589 he sent half a million men down the Yangtze and took the Chen capital Nanjing, ending the Northern and Southern Dynasties. He created a new legal code, a unified coinage, an enormous new capital city and the 'ever-normal granaries' to stabilise food supply, and split the Turks by diplomacy.

Emperor Yang

Yang Guang, suspected of murdering his father, undertook projects on a staggering scale: a second capital at Luoyang built by two million labourers, the Grand Canal (perhaps 5.5 million conscripts, many of whom died), and rebuilt sections of the Great Wall. He toured the empire in a fleet of dragon boats and campaigned in Vietnam and Central Asia.

Goguryeo and collapse

In 612 Yang led over a million men against Goguryeo in Korea and was routed at the Salsu river; second and third campaigns in 613 and 614 also failed. Floods, famine and conscription set off revolts across the north. Yang retreated to Jiangdu (Yangzhou), where in 618 his own guards strangled him. His general Li Yuan, having taken Chang'an, proclaimed the Tang, which inherited the Sui's institutions and canal.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Northern Zhou (557 to 581)
• Northern Qi (550 to 577)
• Tang dynasty (618 to 907)
• First Turkic Khaganate (552 to 603)
• Eastern Turkic Khaganate (603 to 630)
• Liang dynasty (502 to 557)

Wars of the same era and region

• Goguryeo-Sui War (598 to 614)

8 surprising things about the Sui dynasty

1. The Grand Canal, about 1,700 km long, is still the world's longest artificial waterway and remains in use.
2. Emperor Yang's dragon boat fleet is said to have stretched for 100 km along the canal.
3. The Sui capital Daxing was the largest city in the world and became the Tang's Chang'an.
4. The Sui campaign against Goguryeo in 612 was possibly the largest army ever assembled before modern times: over 1.1 million combatants by Chinese count.
5. The Sui granaries were so full that the Tang was reportedly still drawing on them 20 years after the fall of the dynasty.
6. The Sui is often compared to the Qin: both short, both reunifiers, both succeeded by China's most celebrated dynasties.
7. Emperor Wen's wife, Empress Dugu, insisted he take no other consorts and had one who caught his eye executed.
8. Yang Guang's posthumous name 'Yang' was chosen by the Tang to mean roughly 'lover of luxury who abandoned ritual'.

Sources

• Sui dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Sui dynasty Wikipedia
• Sui Dynasty World History Encyclopedia
• Arthur F. Wright, The Sui Dynasty (1978) Knopf

Back to all empires and wars