Perhaps a manifestation of the temperament of the literati, he was very fascinated by form. Form for him was primarily a manifestation of power, majesty, and distinction (unlike many emperors). In his heart, he felt that only such a huge, magnificent, and majestic man who had never been seen before and was almost perfect could he be worthy of him, the most talented, the most ambitious, and the most far-sighted emperor of all time. Sitting in the strangely shaped, tall and ornate chariots, he looked down on the millions of officials and people on both sides of the road prostrate and tremble in front of the majesty of the emperor, and he felt at ease.

There is no doubt that in the early stage of the Great Cause, he was the happiest and most self-willed person in the entire Great Sui Empire, and even in the entire history of China. He will never wronged himself, does not abide by stereotypes, and never wastes a minute of his life. He lives to maximize his ambition and his happiness. He is a true "son of heaven". However, the young emperor rarely thought that his process of "self-realization", "burning life", and turning himself into a "man with a capital letter" was based on the blood and sweat of the common people. The people of the empire are feeling a little breathless and breathless. They don't care about national affairs, and they don't understand the ambitions and blueprints of the new political leadership. They only knew that after the change of emperor, the burden of labor suddenly increased.

Driven by the emperor's fast-paced work, several major domestic projects are being carried out quickly, "how fast and how good it is". The outline of the new capital with a circumference of nearly 60 miles appeared in less than 10 months, and the first phase of the Grand Canal's Tongji Canal took even shorter, and this section of the river, which is more than 1,000 miles long and 40 steps wide, took only 171 days! (Liu Shanling's "A Detailed Explanation of Emperor Yang of Sui")

The god of fortune was not left behind by his speed, and remained loyal to him until now. From ancient times to the present, no emperor's career has progressed as smoothly as he did. Since the accession to the throne, the Great Sui world has had a bumper harvest year after year, and all major projects have progressed rapidly, and the Sui Empire has "marched triumphantly" under the leadership of Yang Guang, and the emperor's waste of sleep and food, the hard work of hundreds of officials and the great efforts of the common people have seen the effect. In the fifth year of the great cause, he ushered in a fruitful harvest year, and the emperor, who had just reached the age of forty, was full of joys and triumph: a brand-new capital city miraculously stood in the Central Plains, and the circumference of this new city was sixty miles. The planning is atmospheric, and the atmosphere is extraordinary. The palaces in the palace are towering and splendid; Luoyang City is flush with Yu, and there are thousands of boats on the outer wharf, and the whole city is intertwined with yin and canals. Yang Guang officially named it Tokyo.

The gigantic construction of the Grand Canal is nearing completion. The 2,000-mile canal has connected the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, which is a miracle that has never been realized since human beings, and it will surely become the golden waterway with the highest economic value in the country.

The National Library set up by the imperial court has a collection of 370,000 volumes, the largest in all Chinese dynasties, and Yang Guang personally presided over the compilation of 31 books with 17,000 volumes. The imperial examination system was formally established, and the achievements of the Great Sui Dynasty were remarkable.

It was also in this year that the army of the Sui Dynasty defeated the western power Tuyuhun, and set up four counties in its hometown: Shanshan, Jimo, Xihai, and Heyuan, officially incorporating the southeastern region of the Western Regions into the territory of the Sui Dynasty. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, no one has ever made such a brilliant martial arts, and the territory of the Sui Dynasty has expanded to the extreme.

It has been granted amnesty to the world for four consecutive years, and money and food have been exempted many times, but wealth is still rolling in, and the population continues to grow rapidly. According to the statistics of this year, there were 590 counties and 1,255 counties in the territory of the Sui Dynasty, and the number of households controlled by the imperial court reached 8.9 million, and the population of the whole country was 46.03 million. "Zizhi Tongjian" said: "The prosperity of the Sui family is extremely important. ”

To understand what this figure means, we only need to compare it with the "Zhenguan Zhizhi", which is known as the first prosperous era in China: "The amount of land cultivated in the Zhenguan era was only less than one-third of that of the Sui Dynasty, and the household registration in the seventeenth year of Zhenguan was less than three million, less than half of the year of the Great Cause. ”

In the face of the successive praises and praises sent by the ministers, Yang Guang was at ease. Stroking the still young muscles of his arm, he felt full of strength: Qin Shi Huang only left the Great Wall, but he will leave to future generations the Grand Canal, which is far more practical than the Great Wall. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty traveled as far as the Western Regions, but he was never able to turn Qinghai into a part of the empire. The population of the Sui Empire has reached the highest level in all dynasties, and the country's financial strength is far greater than that of the Qin and Han dynasties...... By now, he can be considered one of the greatest emperors in history. In his spare time, when he was looking through the history books, he often wondered what kind of rhetoric would future historians use to describe these achievements. ]

How did Yang Guang know that later generations almost did not mention these achievements when they wrote his history. Some history books even deliberately advance the statistics of the fifth year of the Great Cause to the second year of the Great Cause, which means that these figures were created by Yang Jian and have nothing to do with him.

Historians of all dynasties have devoted almost all their pen and ink to describing some "lace news" during his reign:

They said that the emperor was fond of pomp and novelty, and he ordered his guard of honor of 36,000 men to decorate their hats with feathers. In order to satisfy the emperor's demands, the feathers of almost all birds in the country were plucked. There is a huge tree in Wucheng County, which is 100 feet tall and has a crane's nest on the top. In order to get the feathers of the old crane, the people had to cut down the giant tree. The old crane was afraid that the tree would fall and die, so he plucked his feathers and threw them to the ground.

They were keen to render the extravagance and grandeur of the amusement activities held by Yang Guang. What to say Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty summoned the world's acrobats to gather in Tokyo, and read it on the side of Fanghuayuan Jicui Pond. There are relics beasts that come and jump first, and the torrent is full of turtles, turtles and turtles, water people, insects and fish, all over the ground. There is also a whale spray on the sun, and suddenly turns into a yellow dragon, seven or eight feet long. ……”

They repeatedly emphasized the suffering brought by Emperor Yang of Sui to the people of the world: "The officials in Tokyo supervised the service strictly, and the dead were four or five, and the division drove the dead to Chenggao in the east and Heyang in the north, looking at each other in the road." ......" (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 180, Chinese attaches more importance to the longevity of fame than the shortness of life. What kind of attitude to enter history is the most important thing for every big man. From this point of view, the most powerful person in the world may not be the emperor, but the historian. Historians sit in the study, and with a slight pen, they can turn decay into magic, or magic into decay. Therefore, Wei Anshi, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, said: "The world does not know the power of the historian and the prime minister. The prime minister can control the living, and the historian can control life and death. The ancient sages, kings and ministers, so they are feared. (The New Tang Dynasty Book?) Biography 40)

The reason why historians have such tremendous power is that the main purpose of Chinese historiography is not to "seek truth" but to "punish evil and promote good", "learn from history", and "make rebellious officials and thieves afraid". In order to effectively "promote good" and "punish evil" and make people "moved" or "afraid", it is necessary to adopt the method of "typical writing", so that the contrast between good and evil is clear, and the loyalty and treachery are clear at a glance, so that people can know what to love, what to hate, what to learn, and what to criticize. The secret of "typical writing" is very simple, in a word, it is to take advantage of information asymmetry to provide one-sided information to the reader, so that the reader will "listen to it and dark", and mistakenly think that historical figures are either tall and all-encompassing characters with no shortcomings, or heinous people who are bad from the beginning to the end. These techniques are vividly displayed in the writing of the myth of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty.

No nation attaches more importance to history than the Chinese, and since the beginning of writing, China has had historians in all dynasties, and the vast number of Chinese history books is only seen in the world. However, no other people has ever falsified history as brazenly as the Chinese: ancient Chinese history is not so much a process of recording as it is primarily a process of extraction, omission, revision, embellishing and fiction.

If he understood his temperament with the mainstream culture, Yang Guang might not have the urge to conquer Goryeo. If Yang Guang had stopped his footsteps in the great cause for five years, then his image in Chinese history would have been very different. Because if this is the case, the historical materials of the "Xuanfu History Museum" can be selected by himself or his descendants.

It's a pity that history is irreversible, and the future evaluation will certainly not affect Yang Guang's mood at this time. At this time, Yang Guang was undoubtedly intoxicated by his success: this qiē seemed to be a miracle, after all, he had only been on the throne for five years. There is no way to explain such a miracle except for the greatest genius of all time, and the generosity of Heaven for the only begotten Son.

Any other emperor would have stopped at this great moment in history. If you stop here and enjoy the fruits of your rule, it will be enough to make your name eternal. But Yang Guang didn't think so. The excitement of a series of successes made his chest swell to explode, and the energy in his body was ignited more fully. Rivaling the Qin Emperor and Han Wu was not his ultimate goal, and he had to rush forward non-stop in order to leave them far behind. He ran to the top of the pyramid of merit without stopping: the conquest of Goryeo.

From the time he ascended the throne, the conquest of Goryeo was a dream of Yang Guang. This small frontier country has always been a restless troublemaker, often invading the surrounding countries. During the reign of Yang Jian, it invaded western Liaoning. The unification of the Sui Dynasty was clearly not a good thing for it. Therefore, after the Sui Dynasty pacified Chen, it "drove the Yan Ya and fixed the Khitan", actively contacted the Turks, and tried to unite with the Turks and other ethnic groups against the Sui Dynasty. (The Book of Sui?) Biography 46) If Goryeo's local hegemony cannot be stopped, other countries will follow suit, and the security of the empire cannot be guaranteed.

In fact, in the Yang Jian era, the conquest of Goryeo had become an established national policy, and a consensus of the government and the opposition had been achieved. "At the end of the emperor's reign, the country was prosperous, and the government and the opposition all took Liaodong as their intention." (The Book of Sui?) Biography 40)

Yang Jian's campaign against Goryeo failed due to inadequate preparation. Fulfilling his father's last wish was something Yang Guang was happy to do, although for the Sui Empire, it was not so imminent. In the blueprint of the writer and poet Yang Guang, we can see the characteristics of artists who pursue perfection and love form. The relocation of the capital and the opening of the river were the basic projects in his political planning, the implementation of the imperial examination system, the development of the economy, the pacification of the Turks, and the defeat of Tuyuhun, which were several gorgeous palaces that he built on this solid foundation. The conquest of Goryeo will become the top of his "Great Cause Pyramid". In the eyes of all the people of the Sui Dynasty, Goryeo was a "state of etiquette and education" built by Jizi, and it was only at the end of the Jin Dynasty that it gradually split from China and was an inseparable part of China. Yang Jian's conquest of the Chen Dynasty did not mean that China was truly unified, and only when Goryeo restored its Chinese territory could the "great unification" be truly realized. The conquest of Goryeo was one of the few gaps left by Yang Jian to establish his landmark achievements. Because for an emperor, "complete unification" is, of course, the most dazzling piece of all medals. Only by obtaining this medal will his status as "Emperor of the Ages" become unshakable. twenty-one

However, at the end of the fifth year of the Great Cause, the plan to conquer Goryeo was firmly opposed by the ministers as soon as it was proposed at the Imperial Council. Since Yang Guang ascended the throne, the ministers had never opposed the emperor with such unison. Over the years, it became more and more evident that the emperor was humble on the outside and condescending on the inside, and that the emperor believed that the intelligence and talents of his ministers were not on the same level as his own, and did not take most of them into account.

But this time, they couldn't help but urge the emperor to be cautious. They were in favor of attacking Goryeo, but opposed to starting preparations at this time. They already had a premonition of the commotion in the world. Because of the construction of large projects year after year, the constant parade, and the amount of labor is staggering, the common people have been exhausted. Due to the "severe urgency of the servitude and the death of many people", some people have begun to flee their hometowns and go to the poor countryside to cultivate land in order to escape the labor. Some people even mutilate their hands and feet to avoid levy, which is called "blessed hands" and "blessed feet". The common people have been pushed into a corner by a heavy burden. (Yuan Gang, "The Biography of Emperor Yang of Sui")

At the same time, the preparations required for the attack on Goryeo were too onerous. The buffer zone between Goryeo and the Sui Dynasty was full of uninhabited forests and swamps, and it was extremely difficult to march. Transporting and stockpiling military rations will inevitably cost enormous manpower and material resources. In addition, in order to ensure that all achievements are achieved, it is necessary to build a navy and advance on land and water, which requires the construction of a large number of warships. The exhausted common people were undoubtedly unable to withstand such heavy labor. A wise emperor would have given the people three to five years to recuperate, and then try to do so.

However, Yang Guang couldn't listen to the advice of the ministers at all. He was so excited to work that he was already suffering from "power euphoria" or "power mania". This is one of the "power syndrome" that energetic dictators are prone to. On the throne, it is difficult for a ruler to form a proper and realistic judgment of his own power. The shrouded and unchecked Chinese-style power is as easy to overspeed as a sports car with extremely high speed and no brakes. After smoothly achieving several major political goals one by one, Yang Guang has completely abandoned the cautiousness that he still kept at the beginning of his ascension, and he no longer knows what "difficulty" and "impossible" are. Until now, his life has been a symphony of grandeur, brightness, and melodic upliftment. The piece was played flawlessly. The perfect combination of talent and luck made him feel that he had unlimited power to do whatever he wanted: he stretched out his hand and pointed on the flat ground, and a new city appeared on the edge of the Luo River. With a wave of his hand, a country as powerful as Tuyuhun was wiped off the map. He felt like he had become an omnipotent god.

It was not that he did not know that the people of the empire had been tired for years and were in dire need of rest. However, the dream of conquering Goryeo was too tempting. "Anger can be drummed up but not discharged" and "striking while the iron is hot" is his consistent proposition. The completion of the first few major projects led him to overestimate the capacity of the imperial people and the mobilization capacity of the officials. He promised his ministers that this would be his last goal. After the conquest of Goryeo, his early political dreams were all completed, and then he could put his swords and guns into the warehouse, and let the people rest in Nanshan. At that point, he will organize the largest triumphal ceremony ever in the country, celebrating the arrival of the greatest and safest era in Chinese history. At this time, he hoped that the officials and people of the whole country would carry the last strength and work with him to complete this great cause for the ages.

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