Fifty years ago, I doubted whether the evaluation of Emperor Yang Di was correct. 50 years ago, 1962, when I was in the fourth grade of the history department of five-year Peking University, and China's ancient history major subdivided the dynastic history, I chose to specialize in Sui and Tang history and began to study under the guidance of Mr. Wang. 1964, I was admitted to his graduate school and continued to study the history of Sui and Tang Dynasties. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, his studies were interrupted and he was later assigned to Inner Mongolia. When I'm bored after work, I read Sui Shu carefully and copy the historical materials of the Sui Dynasty in eleven notebooks. I had doubts about Yang Guang at that time. Later, I said in the preface of Biography of Yang Di: "We can almost say that most of the things that Qin Shihuang did, he did not burn books to bury Confucianism; We can also say that Emperor Taizong did most of what Emperor Yang Di did, but he didn't open the canal. However, both Qin Shihuang and Emperor Taizong have the reputation of' one emperor through the ages', but Emperor Yang Di has left a bad name that will be reviled by the whole world. "
Today's evaluation of Yang Di's merits and demerits should be more realistic than Wei Zhi's 198 1 year. When Mr. Ning organized the Silk Road to inspect Zhangye, the expedition team had to report to more than 200 people from local authorities and local schools. Teacher Ning arranged for me to talk about it first. The temporary topic was "Talking about Yang Di in Zhangye", and he told himself about the past of the Sui Dynasty. After being emperor for fourteen years, Yang Di lived in Chang 'an for only ten months and has been running around. What's he up to? He listed his own actions, and concluded that he managed the country well, most of them were very good, very talented and had great historical achievements. In the end, Liaodong fought too hard and caused great disasters to the people, so it was a person with great historical sins. Mr. Ning presided over the meeting and stated at that time that his speech only represented his personal views. Although his previous historicism articles had positive comments on Emperor Yang Di's canal opening, he obviously had reservations about my affirmation of Emperor Yang Di in many aspects. In fact, at that time, none of the other 20 scholars in Sui and Tang Dynasties agreed to speak for Yang Di. After the meeting, Deng Wenkuan ridiculed and summarized my evaluation of Emperor Yang Di: a great tyrant. This is definitely not accurate.
Later, the speech was rewritten into a paper entitled "Emperor Yang's Journey to the West", which was published in 1982. At the end of the article, the author writes: "Emperor Yang Di, as the emperor in the period of rebuilding and reunifying China after a long period of division, is also at the starting point of the vigorous development of medieval society, and many of his activities are full of vigorous and uplifting atmosphere of the times. In addition to traveling to the west, there are hunting in the north, repairing Luoyang, repairing Chidao, repairing the Great Wall, opening canals, going down to the south of the Yangtze River and so on. He worked crazily for more than ten years with great courage and intensity, but he didn't go crazy. Some of the things he did were not without the historical content of building and developing a unified country. Many of them succeeded, and some of them did badly, especially in the role of his own cruel autocratic monarch. While he did something beyond reproach, he also brought extraordinarily deep disasters to the people and accumulated unbearable burdens. Finally, Liaodong was levied to provoke a nationwide peasant war. "
Wei Zhi witnessed the whole process, which is very clear. Taking Sui as a mirror is a magic weapon that he often used to advise Emperor Taizong. In order to serve the real politics at that time, when Wei Zhi presided over the compilation of Sui Shu, he couldn't help but emphasize the mistake of Emperor Yang Di as a tyrant, and intentionally or unintentionally obliterated all the historical achievements of the ambitious monarch who "longed for the achievements of many Qin emperors in Hanwu". For more than a thousand years, Wei Zhi's views have been easily accepted by people. Today, our evaluation of Yang Di's merits and demerits should be more realistic than that of Wei Zhi.
To evaluate Emperor Yang Di of Sui Dynasty, it is best to take a walk on the canal first, and then organize a canal inspection in 1984 three or four years later. After coming back, I have more confidence in my point of view. In the episode "Tour the Ancient Canal", I made a comprehensive evaluation of Yang Di with the title "On the Merits of Sui Yangdi through the Ages". At the beginning of the article, it said: "To evaluate Emperor Yang Di, it is best to take a walk on the canal first." 1989 The Biography of Yang Di makes a detailed comparison between Yang Di and two emperors in the past dynasties in the preface.
For example, the contrast between Yang Di and Qin Shihuang: Qin Shihuang destroyed six countries and unified China; Yang Di was the commander-in-chief of the Jin Dynasty, Chen Pingping. After Chen Ping, he was beheaded five times and was taken by the treasury, making him rich. "The world is wide, and he thinks that Germany." The following year, he and Su Yang put down the rebellion in the south and consolidated the unity. The unification of Sui and Tang Dynasties is another great national unification after the brief unification of the Western Jin Dynasty.
Qin Shihuang dug a canal; Emperor Yang Di opened the Canal, a 2000-kilometer-long north-south canal, which was the most valuable and greatest project in ancient China.
There are many similar ones. The differences between them are as follows: Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism, while Emperor Yang Di edited books, made friends with Confucian scholars, and ran large schools according to the concept of "building the country with the people and teaching first"; Qin Shihuang used 700,000 disciples of Mount Li to build a cemetery covering thousands of acres for himself. Emperor Yang Di didn't build a mausoleum for himself before he died. He was buried in Yangzhou, occupying only a few acres of land in Tang Lei.
Yu Wentai, Yuwen Yong, Sui Wendi, Yang Guang, Li Shimin and Wu Zetian all made historic contributions at the historical juncture when China changed from imperial examination aristocratic politics to bureaucratic politics and from aristocratic society to post-aristocratic society. Among them, Yang Di and Wu Zetian went the farthest in political reform. But the latter two were splashed with dirty water the most times in history.
In a word, Emperor Yang Di should not be completely denied. "If we can convincingly give appropriate praise and blame and seek justice for the deceased, we can prove that history is the most ruthless and therefore the most affectionate." ("The truth about Emperor Yang Di? Postscript ",Peking University Publishing House, 20 1 1 year) Historians should never hide evil and bury their contributions.