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PersonAD 541 – AD 604

Emperor Wen of Sui

Also called: Yang Jian

Founder of the Sui (r. 581–604), who took over from the Northern Zhou, reunified China by conquering the southern Chen in 589 and first introduced the civil service examinations

From a Northern Zhou military family, he gained power as an imperial in-law when his daughter became empress of Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou. In 581 he took the throne from the child Emperor Jing and founded the Sui, and in 589 sent forces under his son Yang Guang (later Emperor Yang) to destroy the Chen. The Kaihuang code, the Three Departments and Six Ministries and the examinations laid the framework of the unified empire, and his frugality filled the granaries. His Goguryeo campaign of 598 failed, and he died at the Renshou Palace in 604 — some accounts say at the hands of Emperor Yang.

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1 related event

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    AD 589Sui Reunification of China and the Civil Service Examinationsmonarch

    Emperor Wen of Sui (Yang Jian) founded the Sui in 581 and reunified China after some 300 years by destroying the southern Chen in 589. He was the first to choose officials by examination.

Themes this person appears in

  • Sui, Tang and the East Asian WorldAD 317 – AD 979

    From the divided Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Gupta age through the Sui and Tang empires to the founding of the Song — the age when an East Asian world sharing law codes, Buddhism, Confucianism and Chinese characters took shape, and Korea and Japan built their states on its model