The folk song of that year, "Yang Blossom Falls, Plum Blossom Blooms", seems to be just an innocuous ballad, but it seems to herald the fall of the Sui Dynasty. All this goes back to the last years of the Sui Dynasty, and the actions of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty undoubtedly accelerated the decline of the empire and the approach of Xishan.
In the end, the Sui Dynasty came to an end in this ballad.
In 604 AD, the glorious era of the Sui Dynasty was coming to an end. The founder of the country, Emperor Wen of Sui, has passed away and has been replaced by his son, Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of Sui, who has great ambitions and hopes to bring the Sui dynasty to unprecedented heights under his rule.
Yang Guang was an arrogant and arrogant monarch who aimed to surpass the glory of his ancestors and make the Sui Dynasty the most powerful empire in history. However, his personality is very different from that of his father.
Emperor Wen of Sui was known for his calmness, wisdom, benevolence, and love for the people, while Yang Guang was arrogant and short-tempered, and he hoped to achieve what Emperor Wen of Sui failed to achieve through quick action.
In order to satisfy his vanity, Yang Guang frequently waged wars, regardless of the suffering of the people. Although both the government and the opposition have high expectations for him, his behavior has caused the people to complain.
During the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui, northern China achieved great unification, leaving behind brilliant achievements. And Yang Guang's ambition is to surpass his father and leave a more dazzling mark in history.
As a result, he set ambitious goals to make the Sui Dynasty an empire that was unprecedentedly powerful. However, his impulsiveness and arrogance put him in trouble, and eventually, the Sui Dynasty also came to an end under his rule.
Yang Guang's ambitions far outstripped his actual abilities, leading him to political inaction and indulge in the construction of lavish palaces for women. His greed for merit led to many wars, disregard for the lives of ordinary people, and almost all of them ended in defeat, bringing the Sui Dynasty to the brink of destruction.
During his reign, he was in power for many years, but devoted most of his energy to satisfying personal desires, such as the construction of lavish palaces for women, which increased the burden on the common people.
His tyrannical behavior sparked discontent among the people, but instead of reflecting, he hoped to consolidate his rule through foreign wars.
In 611, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty led more than 100,000 elite troops to launch the first attack on Goguryeo in the northeast. Goguryeo was a formidable rival of the Sui Dynasty, and Yang Guang hoped to annihilate Goguryeo in one fell swoop and incorporate it into his own rule.
In this Eastern Crusade, Yang Guang personally commanded and penetrated deep into the enemy's territory, but suffered a heavy defeat under the city of Pyongyang, the capital of Goguryeo. The Sui army not only failed to win, but suffered heavy losses and wavered morale.
The failure of this expedition dealt a huge blow to the conceited Yang Guang. He always thought that the army of the Sui Dynasty was invincible, but he did not expect to be defeated by a "barbarian state".
Yang Guang found it difficult to accept this failure, and he felt that it was a denial of his own ability. In order to reinvigorate his prestige, Yang Guang launched a second expedition the following year.
In 612, Yang Guang gathered an army of 600,000 and prepared to launch an attack on Goguryeo. He believed that as long as he invested more troops, he would be able to defeat Goguryeo in order to consolidate his position"Son of Heaven"status.
However, on the eve of the expedition, Yang Xuangan launched a rebellion in the imperial court, resulting in Yang Guang being forced to withdraw his troops to quell the rebellion, and the second expedition plan fell through again. Yang Xuangan's rebellion disrupted Yang Guang's plans and caused him to suffer another setback.
Faced with the expansion of the rebellion, Yang Guang was so anxious that he ordered a brutal suppression of the rebels. After Yang Xuangan's defeat, Yang Guangguang opened a killing ring and killed tens of thousands of opponents to vent his personal anger, but this could not calm the dissatisfaction and complaints of the government and the opposition.
In 613, Yang Guang, who had been defeated repeatedly, did not stop in time, but became more and more arrogant. He launched his third large-scale assault on Goguryeo, convinced that he could easily defeat his opponent.
On this expedition, he mobilized a large number of soldiers and horses to go deep into the enemy's territory, but due to the serious loss of national strength caused by many expeditions, the Sui army was defeated again. The three large-scale expeditions not only failed to achieve their goals, but also caused the vitality of the country to be greatly damaged, the army was exhausted, and the people were full of complaints.
Yang Guang's war brought great disasters to the Sui Dynasty and the people, which also became an important factor in the fall of the Sui Dynasty. In the face of the defeat of the foreign war, Yang Guang's heart gradually collapsed, and he began to seek the signs of the people to explain his defeat.
Although the Sui army suffered many defeats in its conquest of Goguryeo, at the same time, a ** rumor also spread rapidly among the people. The content of this ** ballad is simple, only "Yang flowers fall, plum flowers bloom, how can there be spring in the world".
As soon as this ** rumor appeared, it immediately attracted the attention of Emperor Yang of Sui. He was convinced that this was a sign of providence, indicating that the Yang family of the Sui Dynasty would be taken away by someone surnamed Li.
Although this is just a ballad with no basis, in the heart of Emperor Yang of Sui, it is like a thunderbolt from the sky, which makes him feel extremely frightened. In fact, when the national strength of the Sui Dynasty was weakened and the people changed frequently, similar proverbs were already circulating among the people.
During the reign of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, due to his mediocrity and extravagance, the people were generally dissatisfied, and some rebellious people began to fabricate and spread some rumors predicting the fall of the Sui Dynasty to shake people's hearts.
This ballad of "poplar flowers drift away, plum flowers bloom" may be spread by some unknown subversives. They used simple language to convey the fall of the Sui Dynasty and the rise of the Li family, trying to shake people's hearts, but in fact they were just some baseless claims.
However, Yang Guang believed it to be true, believing that this rumor foreshadowed his end. He saw the ballad as a sign of the imminent overthrow of his rule"Yang Hua floated away"Symbolizes the decline of the Sui Dynasty, while"Plum blossoms"It means that the character surnamed Li is about to establish a new dynasty.
Yang Guang fell into extreme fear because of this, he was afraid that the Sui Dynasty would be taken away by others.
Under the madness of the Sui Dynasty, Li Hun's family suffered the deepest damage. Li Hun was a meritorious minister, but he still could not escape Yang Guang's killing. Yang Guang sent his henchmen to falsely accuse Li Hun of rebellion and ordered him to be destroyed.
As a result of this tragedy, all 32 members of Li Hun's family were killed, and no one survived. Li Hun was once highly used by Emperor Wen of Sui, and his official rank was the general of the right Xiaowei and the doctor of Guanglu, and he was named the Duke of Yuguo.
He was loyal, assisted Emperor Wen of Sui in unifying the north, and established immortal feats for the Sui Dynasty. However, after Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, Li Hun became more and more distant from the new emperor. Yang Guang was jealous of Li Hun's talent, and Li Hun couldn't get used to Yang Guang's mediocrity, and this contradiction gradually escalated and became a hidden danger.
Yang Guang believed that Li Hun was smart and capable, and that he might usurp the throne after his death, so he had already planned to eliminate dissidents. As soon as that ballad came out, Yang Guang regarded Li Hun as a thorn in his side, so he designed to frame Li Hun and execute Li Hun's family on the charge of rebellion to prevent future troubles.
The tragic annihilation of Li Hun's family caused shock in the government and the opposition. The civil and military officials were outraged by Yang Guang's atrocities, believing that he was ruthless and murderous. The ministers who had been loyal were no longer willing to serve him.
The Li Hun incident became a turning point in the fall of the Sui Dynasty, and from then on, the ministers of the court and the central government rebelled, and the country of the Sui Dynasty began to crumble.
In order to stick to his rule, Yang Guang ordered all the people who sang folk songs, but the wheels of history ruthlessly ran over the Sui Dynasty, and the ** ballad finally became a fulfilled prophecy.
The Sui Dynasty collapsed under internal and external difficulties, and Yang Guang was also killed in the rebellion. At that time, Yang Guang had already lost the hearts of the people, the army was scattered, no one responded, and under the embattlement, the fall of the Sui Dynasty was inevitable.
In the end, the Guanzhong group headed by Li Yuan successfully replaced the dynasty surnamed Yang, and history witnessed this historical change with the folk song of "Yang Blossom Falls, Li Blossom Blooms".
When Yang Guang was alive, he was deeply afraid of this ** rumor, so he wantonly killed the minister surnamed Li, but the process of history still verified the accuracy of the ballad. Of course, the fall of the Sui Dynasty was not just because of this ballad, but the real reason was Yang Guang's mediocre and brutal rule, as well as the failure of his three conquests of Goguryeo.
Although this ballad became the last straw in the heart of Emperor Yang of Sui, its appearance and spread undoubtedly reflected the reality of the loss of people's hearts in society at that time.
The history of the fall of the Sui Dynasty warns us that if the monarch does not listen to the people's hearts and blindly does not reflect on himself, the country will collapse in internal and external troubles. A small ballad may be enough to bring a seemingly powerful regime to an end.
The lessons of history are worth pondering for every leader, and let us realize that the strength of the people's will cannot be shaken by force. When a dynasty comes to the end of its life, no matter how powerful the monarch is, it can't stop its demise, and all this is because of the circulation of a ballad.