A Dynasty at Its Zenith

In the sixth year of the Daye era (610 CE), the Sui Empire under Emperor Yang Guang appeared invincible. The Grand Canal’s northern segments were complete, linking the Yellow River to the frontier. Luoyang’s palaces shimmered, and tributary envoys kowtowed before the “Son of Heaven.” Yet beneath this glittering façade, fissures were widening.

The year began ominously. On New Year’s Day, dozens of white-robed rebels claiming to be incarnations of Maitreya Buddha stormed the capital’s gates. Though swiftly crushed by Prince Yang Jian, the incident exposed alarming vulnerabilities: how had a cult infiltrated the imperial guard? Why did gatekeepers kneel to rebels? Emperor Yang dismissed it as a trivial disturbance, executing merely a thousand implicated families. His attention lay elsewhere—on a spectacle designed to awe the world.

The Theater of Power

By the Lantern Festival, Luoyang became a stage for Yang’s megalomania. A 5,000-step-long arena hosted 18,000 musicians, their melodies echoing for nights under artificial suns of oil lamps. The cost? “Tens of millions” of coins—a sum Yang deemed worthy of annual repetition. Meanwhile, his final canal project began: dredging the 800-li Jiangnan Canal to accommodate his dragon boats. The engineering marvel connected the Yangtze to Qiantang River, completing a 2,500-kilometer waterway uniting China’s grain-rich south and militarized north.

Historically, these canals rebuilt older routes, but Yang’s expansions—widening channels to 30 meters and installing relay palaces—demanded Herculean labor. Unlike Qin Shi Huang’s Great Wall or Han Wudi’s campaigns, Yang compressed projects into years, not decades. The human cost was catastrophic.

The Goguryeo Obsession

Yang’s fatal miscalculation lay northeast. Goguryeo (not to be confused with later Korea’s Goryeo) was a Manchurian kingdom that had resisted Sui supremacy. In 598, its king “Gao Yuan the Dungball” (as his groveling letter termed him) briefly submitted after a botched Sui invasion. By 610, emboldened by Sui overextension, Goguryeo again defied tributary demands.

For Yang, this was intolerable. He ordered:
– Logistical Overkill: 300 warships built in 60 days at Donglai, where shipwrights stood waist-deep in water until maggots consumed them (30–40% died).
– Mobilization Madness: 1.13 million troops (officially “2 million”) marched in a 960-li column—the largest army in recorded history until then.
– Micromanaged Disaster: Commanders needed imperial approval for tactics, allowing Goguryeo to fake surrenders and rebuild defenses during bureaucratic delays.

The 612 campaign collapsed spectacularly. At the Salsu River, Goguryeo’s feigned retreat lured Sui forces into a trap. Of 305,000 crossing the Yalu, only 2,700 returned. The rest starved, drowned, or became arrow fodder.

The Empire Fractures

As Yang planned a 613 re-invasion, his subjects revolted:
– The Spark: Wang Bo of Shandong’s anthem “Rather Die Fighting Than in Goguryeo!” rallied thousands.
– The Warlords: Dou Jiande (future Hebei king) and Meng Haigong (who murdered scholars quoting classics) carved fiefdoms.
– The Elite Betrayal: Yang Xuangan, son of famed general Yang Su, rebelled at Liyang, declaring: “The emperor abandons his people!” Though crushed in 90 days, the revolt exposed Sui’s fragility.

Legacy of Ruin

By 614, China was unrecognizable. Famine and plague followed conscription and canal-digging. The Grand Canal—later vital to Tang prosperity—became a graveyard in Yang’s reign. His final Goguryeo campaign in 614 ended with a hollow truce, just as peasant armies closed in.

In 618, a coalition of rebels and disaffected officers strangled Yang in his Jiangdu pleasure palace. The Sui Dynasty, which had reunified China after 300 years of division, died with him—a cautionary tale of imperial hubris.

Modern Echoes

Yang’s paradoxes endure:
– Infrastructure vs. Tyranny: Like Mao’s Great Leap Forward, his canals mixed visionary engineering with lethal haste.
– The Cost of Prestige: Goguryeo wars prefigured Vietnam for America or Afghanistan for the USSR—quagmires where pride overruled strategy.
– The People’s Limits: As 7th-century Chinese learned, even the most docile populace breaks when pushed beyond endurance.

For historians, 610 marks not just a year, but the tipping point where ambition became insanity—and an empire built in two generations burned in one.