Looking at the life and legacy of Emperor Yang (569–618) of the brief Sui dynasty in a new light, this book presents a compelling case for his importance to Chinese history. Author Victor Cunrui Xiong utilizes traditional scholarship and secondary literature from China, Japan, and the West to go beyond the common perception of Emperor Yang as merely a profligate tyrant. Xiong accepts neither the traditional verdict against Emperor Yang nor the apologist effort to revise it, and instead offers a reassessment of Emperor Yang by exploring the larger political, economic, military, religious, and diplomatic contexts of Sui society. This reconstruction of the life of Emperor Yang reveals an astute visionary with literary, administrative, and reformist accomplishments. While a series of strategic blunders resulting from the darker side of his personality led to the collapse of the socioeconomic order and to his own death, the Sui legacy that Emperor Yang left behind lived on to provide the foundation for the rise of the Tang dynasty, the pinnacle of medieval Chinese civilization.
Inhoudsopgave
Weights and Measures
Dynastic Powers of the Han-Tang Period
Acknowledgments
Part I. From Prince to Sovereign
Introduction
1. The Making of a Crown Prince
2. Yangdi and His Reign
3. The Collapse of the Sui
Part II. Yangdi and His Empire
4. Luoyang and the Grand Canal
5. The Palace Network
6. The Bureaucracy
7. The Educational, Ritual and Legal Institutions
8. Religions
9. Economic Order
10. Foreign Policy
11. Epilogue
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Chronology of Sui Yangdi (569–618)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Over de auteur
Victor Cunrui Xiong is Professor of History at Western Michigan University and the author of
Sui-Tang Chang’an: A Study in the Urban History of Late Medieval China.
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