Sui dynasty (581–618)

Sui 隋
581–618
Capital	Daxing
Dominant mode of production	Feudalism
Government	Monarchy
History
• Established	581
• Dissolution	618

The Sui dynasty was a short-lived dynasty that reunified China before falling to the Tang dynasty. While the Sui dynasty itself did not last very long and only had two emperors (Yang Jian and then Yang Guang), it did succeed in establishing a new political order which the Tang inherited afterward and which proved to be long lasting.

History

Founding

In the 580s, circumstances arose that brought this long period of division to an end. A general named Yang Jian, who came from a Sino-Turkic family in the northwest of China, seized power for himself in the state he served in, called the Northern Zhou dynasty. He founded his own dynasty after a coup, which he called the Sui dynasty—named after his home district.

Such violent overthrows were not particularly uncommon in this period of division, but what made the Sui dynasty historically important was that by 589, Yang had re-established a single unified empire encompassing both North and South China.

Part of his success was due to him being a general, leading troops in campaigns and conquering the rest of North China. At the same time, he did not employ this method in South China and one of his first acts was to send his son, Yang Guang, to be viceroy of the city of Yangzhou, a very important economic and political center in East China. The city was technically in North China (and under Sui control), but sat right on the border with South China, close to Nanjing. From there, Yang Guang was able to get into correspondance and negotiations to peacefully reconcile and integrate South China.

They also used Buddhism as a common cultural trait between the North and the South to reach out to their neighbours. They eventually negotiated a marriage between Yang Guang and a princess in the South to reintegrate that state, with other Southern states soon following suit.

Reign of Yang Guang

Yang Jian was succeeded by his son Yang Guang, the second and last emperor of the Sui. His rule was marked by military expeditions, seeking to re-establish Chinese control on territories lost on the periphery during the division of the North and South. In particular, he launched some military campaigns against Korea. These campaigns were not successful and created dissatisfaction in the empire.

He also launched military campaigns to the northwest, into Central Asia, to try and push some of the Turkic populations away. These campaigns were also a financial drain on the economy and disrupted communities as soldiers were taken away from their villages to fight on the frontier.

At the same time, the Northwest of China had been slowly going through a slow, millennia-long process of climate change which progressively made the region warmer and dried, reducing agricultural production. By the Sui period, the Northwest was not able to support the lavish lifestyle of the imperial court (located since earlier times at Chan'an and Luoyang nearby). As such, grain was required to be imported from the South, for which Yang Guang undertook the construction of a canal (which he never finished but would later become the Grand Canal, which remains the main economic artery from North to South China). This project required a large mobilisation of both labour and resources and while necessary when looked at with historical insight, the construction of the canal was not popular with the masses.

Collapse

The masses were not happy with the failed military campaigns and the construction of the Grand Canal that took their toll on their families and local economy. This discontent however, by itself, would not have been enough to dissolve the Sui dynasty. In addition to that, a story (or rumour) was going around the capital that the throne "was going to be occupied" by a person named Li (the ruler of Sui being named Yang). This story was first spread by travelling soothsayers and then made into a folk song. Yang began to mistrust government officials named Li and, to safeguard his rule, had them executed as well.

In the city of Tanyuan, Li Shimin, the son of a garrison commander, saw the writing on the wall for himself and his father: if they were going to wait around, then eventually the emperor would have them executed for being named Li. Yuan, Shimin's father, had to take the opportunity and seize power for himself. In 617, Li Yuan, his son and their troops marched south to the capital. Rebellions broke out, and the court collapsed fairly quickly: Yang Guang died, and authority disintegrated at the capital.

Economy

The Sui dynasty also used the well-field system (井田制度, jǐngtián zhìdù), which was first attested to in Chinese early history (and even pre-history, going back to the mythological foundation of China). It was a way of distributing land based on a grid system: the outer fields in a given area were private fields owned and farmed by peasants, with the central field farmed for the lord or empire: the revenues from that field would be used to pay taxes and tribute. Dr Hammond notes that the character for well (井, jǐng) was likely drawn after this system.

The Sui did not bring back this exact system, but used it to promote a stable agricultural order. While all land in the empire theoretically belonged to the emperor, this system made sure that arable land was redistributed to different families every 3 years, ensuring that all families had about the same access to agricultural resources. This redistribution prevented the accumulation of large amounts of land in some families, avoiding the formation of both landlords and landless peasants.

The land was not all distributed equally; there were still aristocratic, land-owning families which were inherited into the Sui dynasty from the period of division. The well-field system did not expropriate this owned land; it was entirely exempted. Still, this system allowed farmers to fulfill their own needs.

The Sui dynasty established a system of public granaries. Every year at harvest time, surplus grain was bought at subsidized prices and stored in granaries. During the course of the year as grain prices rose due to lower supply until the next harvest, the government would release grain into the markets from these granaries to maintain stable supplies and prices.

Government

A legal code was formulated which gave a body of law to the empire as a whole, used to regulate the affairs of the government and citizens. The adoption of a legal code was not a new undertaking at this time in Chinese history, but their code brought together laws from North and South China and their several different administrations and states, creating a cohesive body of law for the many different cultures living in the now reunified China.

The Northwest frontier remained a zone of instability, and in order to defend it, the emperor established agricultural colonies: soldiers would be sent to the frontier and support themselves by farming the land there rather than being financed and fed by the heartland of China.