#77 - Sui 1: Internal Affairs

Emperor Wen of Sui is potentially the most important monarch you've never heard of. For him, militarily reuniting China wasn't his legacy - it was his prelude. Both pre- and post-reunification, we explore the internal facets of his truly impressive reign today: his origins, personality, outlook, confidantes, the existential problems he inherited from the Period of Disunion, and the novel, world-changing solutions he'd craft to ensure China's reunification would be factual, rather than just rhetorical. Time Period Covered: 581-600 CE Major Figures Yang Jing (Emperor Wen of Sui)[r. 581-604] Empress Dugu Qieluo Gao Jiang Yang Su Su Wei Li Delin Arthur F. Wright, Chaffee and Twitchett (ed.) The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 3 (1979)