Politics

1. Centralized System

Three Provinces and Six Ministries System

After Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty assumed the throne, he abolished the official system established by the Northern Zhou by attaching the Six Officials of the Rites of the Zhou, and replaced it with a new system of official positions: "Setting up the three divisions, the three dukes, and the provinces of Shangshu, Munshita, Nei Shi, Secretary, and Nei Zhong (内侍); Imperial Palace of Records (御史台), Taishang (太常), Guanglu (光禄), Weiwei (卫尉), and Zongzheng, Imperial Household, Taishang, Guanglu, Weiwei, Zongzheng, Taishang, Dali, Honglu, Sinong, Taifu, Guozi, Shouzuo and other supervisors, and the left and right guards, left and right military guards and other governments." to strengthen centralized power and restore the tradition of the Han dynasty's official system.

The three-province system of shangshu, menxia, and nei shi was the core of the centralized official system of the Sui dynasty. The three divisions and the three dukes, although they had a high status and were ranked first class, were in fact only honors. Sui dynasty Shangshu province's status is very high, "Sui book - Hundred Officials," said "Shangshu province, there is nothing total," reflecting its status and power as the highest state administrative organs.

Sui-Yang emperor around the feudal title and official system to implement political reforms, the potential to break the Northern Zhou Yuwen Tai since the implementation of the "Guanzhong policy", by limiting and weakening the power and influence of the Guanlong group, in order to rectify the official government, strengthened centralization, expanding the social base of rule.

But the immaturity of the political reform program and its hasty advancement failed to combine with the establishment of a smooth livelihood, unity and stability of the political situation, and eventually led to the outbreak of a serious crisis of rule.

2. The imperial examination system

The imperial examination?

Kaihuang seven years (587 years), the Sui emperor formally set up a branch examination system, replacing the nine products in the system, since then the selection of officials regardless of rank. The early stage of the imperial examination system set up by the state annual tribute, the provisions of the state to the central selection of three people each year, to participate in the Xiu Cai and the examination of Mingjing Section, Daye two years (606 years),

Emperor Yang set up additional jinshi section, the formal formation of the imperial examination system. At that time, Xiu Cai test square strategy, the jinshi test current affairs policy, Mingjing test sutra, forming a complete set of national branch selection system.

At that time, the Mingjing was the most advanced, and the Jinshi test was the second. At that time, the selection system was only known as the Xiu Cai Section, and there is still a distance between the Tang Dynasty and the imperial examinations. The Xiu Cai Section can be called the beginning of the imperial examination, but also for the imperfect examination system, the actual role of the scholar is not great, but has changed the situation of the monopoly of the official positions of the family.

The imperial examination system responded to the demand of the landowners of the common people in the successive dynasties to get their due status in politics, eased the contradiction between them and the court, and made them loyal to the central government, which was conducive to the selection of talents and the enhancement of political efficiency, and played a positive role in the consolidation of centralized power.

3. Legal system

The laws of the Northern Zhou were sometimes loose and sometimes strict, which were not easy to master and led to the confusion of penalties. After the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui, in the first year of Kaihuang (581), he ordered Gao Baze and others to make laws by referring to the old laws of Northern Qi and Northern Zhou.

Economy

1. Agriculture

Leader's Order of Equalization of Land

The Sui Dynasty introduced the equalization of land and reorganized the household register. The introduction of the "Dasuo Appearance Inspection Law", which required officials to inspect the population on a regular basis and to check the household registers on the basis of appearance, led to a great increase in the number of households. In addition, the government also implemented the "Definition of the Number of Households" to determine the number of households on the basis of the first one, and compiled the "Definition of the Book", which was used as a basis for collecting taxes.

Currency reform

The Sui dynasty unified the coinage system, abolishing other confusing ancient coins as well as privately minted coins, and minting five-baht coins instead, which became known as the "Sui five-baht".

Setting up granaries

The Sui Dynasty built many granaries all over the country, the most famous of which were the Xingluo Granary, the Huiluo Granary, the Changping Granary, the Liyang Granary, and the Guangtong Granary. All of them had more than one million stones of grain in storage.

2, handicrafts

Sui Dynasty is an important stage in the development of Chinese porcelain production technology. Its outstanding performance is, in Henan Anyang, Xi'an, Shaanxi, unearthed a number of white glazed porcelain in the tomb.

3. Commerce

Changan and Luoyang, were not only the political and economic centers of the country, but also international metropolises.

Culture

1. Academic thought

Pre-Sui-Wen Di advocated the reconciliation of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and advocated plain literature against the gaudy literary ideas of the Southern Dynasties. He advocated Confucianism, elevating it to the status of indispensable to the governance of the country and encouraging the practice of rituals.

In 601, Emperor Wen of Sui believed that there were too many schools, so he ordered the abolition of all the schools, and only kept the State Zi School in the capital, which was limited to seventy students. Sui Wendi's move in his later years to support Buddhism and oppose Confucianism led many Confucian students to discredit the Sui ruler.

2. Literature

Because the Sui dynasty was relatively short, it had little impact on Chinese literature. Although there was a demand for reform of the floating literary style, it was interrupted, and it took until the middle of the Tang Dynasty for the Gu Wen movement to develop successfully.

And the total number of famous scribes in the north and south of the Sui Dynasty actually amounted to no more than a dozen.

3. History

History

History, before the Sui Dynasty, was written either by the officials or by the people themselves. Their ideas were relatively free and their quality was good, but since it was not easy to adopt the books collected by the historians, usually there was only a chronicle without a book of records, which could not be said to be a complete state history. 593, Sui Wendi declared that it was forbidden for private citizens to write the state history and comment on the characters. Since then, all the state histories of all dynasties have been changed to official ones.

4, phonetics

Because of the North and South cultural harmony, phonetics and cataloging achievements are particularly outstanding. In the early years of the reign of Emperor Kaihuang, Yan Zhiwei, Xiao Gai, Changsun Nayan and eight other people discussed phonetics with Lu Fayan, and agreed that the tones of the four directions were very different, and that the rhymes used in the north and the south were different.

5, catalog

Catalogs

Catalogs, the Sui dynasty is famous for the Buddhist "directory of all the sutras of the Sui dynasty," the Taoist "catalog of Taoist scriptures," Fei Changfang compiled the "Three Treasures of the Past Generations," and Shiyan Zeng compiled the "Sui Renshou years of the internal canon record". The Sui court collected books from the southern and northern dynasties and compiled the Sui Daye Zheng Yu Shu Catalog.

Wei Zheng of the Tang dynasty wrote the "Sui Shu - Classic Records" on this basis, which became the general catalog of pre-Sui-writings and had the same status in cataloging as Ban Gu's "Han Shu - Art and Culture".

6. Religion

Since the North and South Dynasties, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism have dominated the field of thought. Emperor Wen of Sui advocated the reconciliation of religion and Confucianism, and adopted the strategy of emphasizing the three religions and allowing Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism to complement each other in the governance of the country. Zoroastrianism, a religion popular in Western Asia, also spread in China as a result of the opening up of the country.

The dominant Buddhist sects at that time were the Tiantai Sect, the Sanlun Sect and the Three Steps Sect. During the Sui Dynasty***, more than 5,000 temples and pagodas were built, tens of thousands of statues of Buddha were molded, and tens of thousands of Buddhist scriptures were translated, making the Buddhist scriptures hundreds of times more popular than the Confucian scriptures.

Expanded Information

From 581 A.D., when Emperor Yang Jian established the Sui Dynasty, to 618, when Emperor Yang Guang was hanged, the Sui Dynasty*** existed for thirty-seven years, which was a typical short-lived dynasty. However, the historical position of the Sui Dynasty cannot be ignored, because many of the systems of the Tang Dynasty were established during the Sui Dynasty. Tang Gaozu and Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of Sui, and relatives, so, to some extent, can be said that Tang is an extension of Sui, because of this, history books often Sui, Tang and known as "Sui and Tang".

Sui-Wen Di's greatest contribution: first, the official system, abolished the six officials of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and established a system of three provinces and six ministries. The Tang dynasty later largely inherited it, and this was the main thing that Japan's Dahua Reform learned from the Sui and Tang dynasties. The Sui Wendi also enacted new laws that contributed to the maturation of feudal law during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Penalties were no longer as cruel as they had been during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

In addition, the creation of the imperial examination system was another major achievement, innovating the way of selecting officials, which was more just and reasonable than the original recommended style.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Sui Dynasty

Baidu Encyclopedia - History of the Sui Dynasty