Wen Ti

Born 541

Died 604

Chinese emperor, founder of Sui dynasty

F ounder of the short-lived Sui dynasty, Wen Ti (or Yang Chien, as he was born) is little known outside of China, but he was a highly important figure in that nation's history. He reunified the empire after three centuries of chaos, establishing a strong central government and a set of reforms that paved the way for the T'ang dynasty of T'ai Tsung (see entry). Wen Ti was also a ruthless figure, a man who did not shrink back from killing his own grandson, and as a leader he was equally severe.

Seizing power over the Chou

In many ways, China can be compared to the Roman Empire. As Rome had flourished under strong rulers during ancient times, China reached a height of unity and order under the Han (HAHN) dynasty, established in 207 b.c.. But whereas Rome began a long, slow decline in the third century a.d.., China entered a period of outright disorder or anarchy following the downfall of the Han in 220.

The man who brought an end to this chaos with the establishment of the Sui dynasty (SWEE) was Yang Chien (YAHNG jee-AHN), who would be remembered by his reign title of Wen Ti (wun-DEE). He grew up in Chou (ZHOH), one of the many states competing to control northern China. The Chou rulers were not Chinese; they came from the many groups of Turkish and Mongolian peoples who had long threatened China's borders.

Wen Ti's family had served the Chou for many years, and at age sixteen he was married into the Dugu clan, rulers of Chou. He later married off his eldest daughter to the Chou ruler in 578, but soon he turned against his former allies. In 580, his son-in-law died, and Wen Ti took advantage of the situation to seize power. Establishing a pattern that would characterize his later career, Wen Ti executed fifty-nine members of the ruling family, including his own grandson, a potential rival for the Chou throne.

Emperor of China

In 581, Wen Ti declared himself emperor of the Sui dynasty, but the beginning of the Sui period in Chinese history is usually dated at 589. In the intervening years, he defeated the most prominent of the various states vying for power, and made himself ruler of all China.

Haughty and ill-disposed toward criticism, Wen Ti was a severe leader who would send spies to bribe allies, then arrange the murder of those who accepted the bribes. In one of the greatest undertakings of his reign, the building of the Grand Canal, he made use of millions of slave laborers, and the project took an incalculable toll in human lives.

But the Grand Canal, an eleven-hundred-mile waterway that linked the Yellow River in the north with the Yangtze (YAHNG-say) in the south, was crucial to the development of China. In a vast empire where transportation was often difficult and where major rivers flow east and west, the Grand Canal provided an important link that stimulated commerce. Later emperors would continue to make improvements on the canal, which, like the Great Wall of China, was a symbol of the nation's immensity and power.

Wen Ti's reforms

Despite his bad temper and ruthless ways, Wen Ti was a shrewd administrator who ended Chinese disunity by bringing the nation under his centralized control. Whereas the Western Roman Empire had dissolved into many states, he took steps to ensure this did not happen in China, bringing local leaders into his government and thus under his sway.

Wen Ti also caused a revival of China's age-old civil service system—that is, its efficient network of government officials. The latter was built on the principles of Confucius (551–479 b.c..), a philosopher who taught principles of social harmony and respect for persons in authority.

In line with Confucian beliefs, Wen Ti restored an old form of land redistribution called the "equal-field" system: he took power from local landlords, increasing his standing among China's many peasants by parcelling out land to them. T'ai Tsung and the other T'ang rulers would later adopt and expand the equal-field system.

Foreign wars

China had always been faced by challenges at its borders, particularly in the north, where the Turks dominated. With regard to the Turks, Wen Ti had a stroke of good fortune: the two most powerful Turkish tribes fell into conflict soon after he took power, and he was able to successfully play each side against the other.

He was not so successful in Korea, a land the Han dynasty had formerly controlled. Wen Ti would be the first of many leaders who tried and failed to bring the neighboring country back under Chinese rule. In all, he and his son, Yang Ti (YAHNG), launched three campaigns against Korea, and each failed.

Yang Ti and the end of the dynasty

The costs of the Korean campaigns, both in terms of money and manpower, eroded Wen Ti's standing with his people. Problems at home did not become unmanageable, however, until the reign of Yang Ti, who assumed the throne after Wen Ti's death in 604. (Some historians believe Yang Ti poisoned his sixty-three-year-old father.)

People Who Took Power from Outside

In 1388, a Korean general named Yi Song-gye (sawng-GYAY) staged an armed revolt and seized control of his country, establishing a dynasty that would last until 1910. He was just one of many figures who, like Wen Ti, came from outside the centers of power and assumed control. Other outsiders were not as successful.

T'ang dynasty China endured two major revolts, the first led by An Lu-shan (ahn loo-SHAHN; 703–757). Despite his "foreign" heritage—he was born of mixed Turkish and Iranian descent—the young general rose through the ranks, and became a favorite of T'ang emperor Hsüan Tsung (shwee-AHND-zoong; ruled 712–56). He also became a favorite, and perhaps a lover, of the emperor's beloved concubine Yang Kuei-fei (see box in Irene of Athens entry). Taking advantage of weakened T'ang power following a defeat by Arab forces in 751, An Lu-shan led a rebellion in 755, and declared himself emperor of the "Great Yen" dynasty. In the end, he was betrayed by his son, who had him murdered. Some 130 years later, a salt smuggler named Huang Ch'ao (hwahng CHOW) formed a rebel band and captured several key cities. He, too, declared a new dynasty, the Ta Ch'i, but in 883 he was captured and executed. His revolt hastened the downfall of the T'ang in 907.

The Crusades (1095–1291) produced their own varieties of "outsider" movements, among them the Peasants' Crusade of 1096–97. Its leaders were two Frenchmen, a monk named Peter the Hermit (c. 1050–1105) and a "knight" who called himself Gautier Sans Avoir (GOH-teeay SAWNZ a-VWAH, "Walter the Penniless"). They led mobs of poor people on crusades to the Holy Land before the official troops of the First Crusade even left Europe. The peasants were no match for the Turkish troops they faced in Anatolia, and most of them (Gautier included) died in the fighting. Peter, who happened to be away in Constantinople, lived to join in the conquest of Jerusalem, and spent his last years quietly as a monk in Belgium.

Around the same time as the Peasants' Crusade, a more sinister force was forming on the Muslim side. These were the Assassins, founded in 1090 by a radical Iranian religious leader named Hasan-e Sabbah (khah-SAHN-uh shuh-BAH; died 1124). Hasan and his followers seized a mountain fortress and there trained killers to eliminate leaders they hated—both Muslims and Christians. Crusaders later brought the word "assassin" home with them, and eventually it became a term for a politically motivated murderer.

By the mid-1300s, the Crusades had ended in failure, and Europe was consumed by the Black Death, or Plague, which in four years killed more Europeans—around thirty million—than all medieval wars combined. The Plague had many side effects, including a decrease in the work force, and as a result, peasants and the working class began demanding higher wages. The rich responded by using their political power to force a freeze on pay increases, and by 1381 the poor in England revolted. They chose Wat Tyler, who may have gotten his name because he made tiles, as their leader, and he presented a set of demands to King Richard II. Richard was willing to take the peasants and workers seriously, but he was only fourteen years old, and his advisors prevailed. Wat Tyler was murdered on June 15, 1381, by government forces.

In the year the Plague began, 1347, Cola di Rienzo (RYENT-soh; 1313–1354) overthrew the government in Rome and announced that he would restore the glory of Rome's former days. He even gave himself the ancient Roman title of tribune, but he ruled as harshly as a bad Roman emperor, and was expelled in 1348. Six years later, he returned to power, but was soon murdered in a riot. His story inspired nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner (REE-kard VAHG-nur) to write an opera about him. Later, dictator Adolf Hitler would say that he conceived his life's mission—ultimately, the founding of the Nazi state and killing of six million Jews—during a performance of Wagner's Rienzi.

Yang Ti mirrored his father in his efforts to expand the country's network of canals, and in his successful military campaigns in Vietnam and Central Asia. But by the time he launched a new military operation against the Koreans in 612, unrest at home was growing. Six years later, in 618, Yang Ti was assassinated, and the T'ang dynasty replaced the Sui after just twenty-nine years.

Ch'in and Sui

Wen Ti has often been compared to Ch'in Shih Huang Ti (shee-HWAHNG-tee; 259–210 b.c..). The latter was China's first emperor and the builder of the Great Wall. His impact on the nation can be judged by the fact that the name "China" is taken from that of his dynasty, the Ch'in (221–207 b.c..).

Both Wen Ti and Shih Huang Ti were ruthless men who overcame many competitors to place the nation under their sole rule. Both instigated vast public works projects, and both gave the nation much-needed unity—though at the cost of enormous suffering. Due to the cruelty of their leaders, both the Sui and Ch'in dynasties would end quickly, in both cases with the overthrow of the founder's son. But both also made possible the achievements of later dynasties, the Han and T'ang, respectively.

For More Information

Books

Bradford, Karleen. There Will Be Wolves (fiction about Peter the Hermit). New York: Lodestar Books, 1996.

Branford, Henrietta. Fire, Bed, and Bone (fiction about Wat Tyler). Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1998.

Corn, Kahane and Jacki Moline. Madcap Men and Wacky Women from History. New York: J. Messner, 1987.

Landau, Elaine. Korea. New York: Children's Press, 1999.

Percival, Yonit and Alastair Percival. The Ancient Far East. Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Enterprises/Marshall Cavendish, 1988.

Web Sites

"Ancient China: The Sui." [Online] Available http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHEMPIRE/SUI.HTM (last accessed July 26, 2000).

"The History of the 1381 Peasants' Rebellion." [Online] Available http://otal.umd.edu/~mhill/wathistory.htm (last accessed July 26,2000).

"Ill-Fated Crusade of the Poor People." Military History. [Online] Available http://www.thehistorynet.com/MilitaryHistory/articles/1998/0298_text.htm (last accessed July 26, 2000).

"Lady Godiva." [Online] Available http://www.abacom.com/~jkrause/godiva.html (last accessed July 26, 2000).

"Lady Godiva." [Online] Available http://www.eliki.com/realms/charna/godiva.html (last accessed July 26, 2000).

"Medieval Sourcebook: Anonimalle Chronicle: English Peasants' Revolt 1381." Medieval Sourcebook. [Online] Available http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/anon1381.html (last accessed July 26,2000).

"Overview of Korea." [Online] Available http://loki.stockton.edu/~gilmorew/consorti/1deasia.htm (last accessed July 26, 2000).

"Sui Dynasty." [Online] Available http://library.thinkquest.org/12255/library/dynasty/sui.html (last accessed July 26, 2000).