The History of China - #64 - S&N 8: The Rise And Fall Of Southern Qi

Episode Date: May 16, 2015

The successor state to Liu Song will start off strong, but it will soon hit the rocks of instability, rebellion, and overthrow all in just a little more than 2 decades. At the dawn of the 6th century, its end will largely parallel its beginning.Time Frame: 479-502 CEMajor Participants:Xiao Daocheng (Emperor Gao of Southern Qi) r. 479-482Xiao Ze (Emperor Wu of Southern Qi) r. 482-493Xiao Zhaoye (Emperor/Marquis of Donghun) r. 493-494Xiao Luan (Emperor Ming of Southern Qi) r. 494-498Xiao Baojuan (Emperor of Southern Qi) r. 498-502Xiao Baorong (Emperor of Southern Qi) r. 501-502Xiao Yan (Duke/Prince/Emperor Wu of Liang) r. 502-549 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic

characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 64, The Rise and Fall of Southern Qi Last time, we watched the spectacular derailment of the imperial clan of Liu Song, a family that made the Bundys look just about normal, as well as the overthrow of their entire dynasty. That feat had been completed by the supreme commander and thrice-savior of the Song dynasty, General Xiao Daocheng, who, after retiring Song's final emperor to a house in the country in 479,

assumed the mantle of emperor of a new state, Southern Qi, and himself as its founding emperor, Gao, meaning the Elevated One. But all was not well in the south of China. The last few decades had proved nothing so much as that, and the spate of rebellions, plots, bloodletting, as well as a good old continued dose of straight-out crazy, would ensure that the stability of the south would remain a distant dream, and the Qi dynasty rapidly proved itself to be built on a base of crumbling sand. A tale we'll be exploring this episode. Emperor Gao, for his own part, would continue his trend of doing a pretty darn good job of shoring up support over the course of his reign.

He is recorded as swinging his new dynasty firmly back into policies of frugality and avoiding lavish displays of wealth. The results of this policy change aren't terribly well laid out, most likely because of the short period over which they had to take effect. But it certainly couldn't have hurt. In late 479, he proclaimed his eldest son, the eminent general Xiaozi, who was notably only 13 years his father's junior, as his crowned prince and heir.

There were, of course, certain unfortunate but necessary details that had to be taken care of before he could really feel secure in his takeover. We concluded last episode with the deposed Song child emperor's guards hearing hoofbeats and mistakenly carrying out their secret orders to kill the former monarch, instead of risking rebels taking him and using him as some sort of a figurehead. But Gao quickly concluded that the death of the Imperial person only wasn't nearly secure enough, and so felt compelled to extend the massacre to his entire extended family as well, ensuring the violent end of the vast majority of the formerly imperial Liu clan. But then again, not quite all of it. Certain members had been forced into exile, or simply outright surrendered themselves to the emperor of Northern Wei when the Liu's inter-family

conflicts had threatened their own lives. The one that came to worry Emperor Gao, however, was the prince-in-exile of Danyang, a man named Liu Chang. He had fled the empire all the way back in 465, during the Reign of Terror implemented by the former deposed emperor Qianfei, a.k.a. Liu Ziyue. Now, with the backing of Northern Wei's army, he was making noises about marching back to his homeland and re-establishing Liaosong, with him, of course, at its helm. Now, it's worth asking the question at this point, both for this intervention and in the future. Why in the world was Northern Wei interested in helping one faction of the Southern Empire re-establish itself over its successor?

Shouldn't they be planning to annex the territories of the south entirely or something like that? Well, it is terribly difficult to really get inside the heads of the Wei emperors, but it is worth remembering a few things at least. First, that in spite of the on-again off-again hostilities between Wei and Song, the two had actually established about as stable a working relationship as one could hope to expect from the divided Chinese imperial courts. Wei emperors in the past had, you may recall, been trying to strengthen those bonds through marriages between the imperial households for some time, although they never did actually

amount to anything more than talk. Second, it was pretty well established by the late 5th century that while the two states would continue to squabble over the borderlands between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, Northern Wei, mighty as it was, just didn't do too well after it moved far enough south to where the climate didn't freeze over each winter. The logistical hurdles of the Yangtze river's fortifications, their general unfamiliarity with the landscape, and not least of all the tropical diseases that had ravaged each and every northern army that had ever tried, made Northern Wei rightly hesitant to commit to a full scale southern invasion. Thirdly was the fact that, mighty as it was, Northern Wei itself had

ongoing problems to its own north, in the form of the Rouran Khaganate. It needed a sizable portion of its own military simply to drive the horsemen back, who by this point thoroughly out-barbarianed the now thoroughly sinicized Tuoba Xianbei of northern Wei. And so there was simply no way that they could afford to significantly weaken their northern garrisons to roll the dice on a southern gamble. Finally, it's surely worth keeping in mind that, should the Prince of Danyang succeed in his re-establishment of Liu Song through the considerable support of Northern Wei, well, that'd be almost as good as invading themselves, wouldn't it? The re-established

Song Emperor would then be so thoroughly in the debt of the North that his loyalty would be considerable indeed. If nothing else, he'd probably be more open to the idea of intermarrying the two households than his granduncle had been. Regardless, it wouldn't end up mattering very much at all. With the Prince of Danyang at the helm, Northern Wei's armies indeed lined up to attack the south in the winter of 479, and failed handily. Southern Qi's armies were able to drive them back after a brief, unproductive siege of Shoyang City, and by the spring of 481, with little more than minor skirmishes for either side, hostilities were ceased and the writing was on the wall.

There would be no rebirth for Liu Song. The only real lasting effect the attack would have on the south would be Emperor Gao's realization that, somehow, Nanjing had made it all this time and through all these wars and battles without a city wall. Which, I know, sounds ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I've referred to the walls of Nanjing several times already, both because they are today some of the last city walls still standing in all of China, and I just naturally assumed that a capital city in such a precarious position wouldn't have possibly made it this long without such a basic but incredibly formidable defensive

fortification. Granted, I had scratched my head a few times when an enemy army just up and besieged the imperial palace without any mention of taking the city gates. But now it all fits together much better. Up until the end of the 5th century, Nanjing, or as it was called then, Jiankang, was effectively a city wide open to invasion. With the rebellion crushed, there would not be much more to tell of the founding emperor of southern Qi either. His dynasty secured, at least for the time being. He would die without fanfare at the age of 55 in spring

482, slightly less than two years into his reign. The throne would, in due course, pass to the 42-year-old crown prince Xiaozai, who would come to be known as Emperor Wu, which, I know, makes him about the four-dozenth emperor to be named that. Don't blame me, I didn't decide to affix every single emperor ever with the same designation. Regardless, Wu came into the throne with about as much effective experience in government as anyone could possibly hope for. As I'd mentioned a minute ago, he was only some 13 years younger than his father, and as such had proved instrumental in the rise of southern Qi as a state and in its

inner workings. Even before his father's death, Wu had used his position as heir and his shrewd sense of governance to utilize tools of state and command that, by convention and by law, were only to have actually been wielded by the monarch himself. Presumptuous, perhaps, but effective. Now the monarch legally, as well as functionally, Wu took the affairs of state largely upon himself, trusting only an innermost core of advisors. And by and large, such a policy proved fruitful for southern Qi. It was evidenced by the fact that between his coronation in 490, the annals are remarkably brief. Historian Sima Guang, author of the Zizhi Tongjian, writes of Emperor Wu,

During his reign, he was attentive to the essential matters of state, was strict and intelligent, and resolute and decisive. He gave his prefectural governors and county magistrates long office terms. If they or their subordinates violated the law, he would send the imperial swords to the governors or magistrates End quote. And while he expressed displeasure at luxuries and wastefulness, he could not avoid them himself. End quote. Over the course of his early reign, in fact, there are only a few incidents of any note. The first was a governor acting rather independently in northern Vietnam, then called Chau Province. But when threatened with military force, he came groveling back to the capital in submission.

Two minor rebellions, one of which was aided by Northern Wei, but both of which were quickly squelched. Possibly most notably, in 489, he commissioned an overhaul of the imperial legal system, and appointed a number of scholars to comb through the various accumulated statutes, decrees, and precedents of the previous dynasties, and essentially resolved the discrepancies and inconsistencies that had cropped up over the decades and centuries, dating all the way back to the Southern Empire's earliest incarnation under the Eastern Gene of the late 3rd century. If you're familiar with Eastern Roman history, aka Byzantine history, this overhaul might be considered comparable, in its way, to the legal reforms put into place by Constantinople's Emperor Justinian I in 529, known as the Justinian Code.

Emperor Wu's revision of the law was completed in 491, eliminating many of the more confusing, outdated and unfair or arbitrary laws. The following year would prove to be another truly remarkable one. Responding to overtures from the young Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, Wu, or at least his delegates, successfully concluded peace with the Tuoba State. Now, of course, this detente would, as usual, not last long, and by 493, Wei would once again be launching raids as an attempt to smokescreen them moving their capital city yet again, an event we'll cover at length once we swing back up to Northern Wei next episode.

Instead, this peace treaty is important because it marked the first high-level diplomatic exchange between the North and South since Liu Song's overthrow, and was Northern Wei's first official recognition, if we can call it that, of Qi's legitimacy. Sadly for Emperor Wu, though, 490 also saw the death of his fourth son, the Prince of Badong, what would prove to be the first of many. Prince Badong, as it turned out, had been conducting illegal arms smuggling to groups of barbarian tribesmen on the Slai. Wu dispatched his general, Hu Xiezhi, to bring the arms-dealing prince back to the capital alive to face up to his crimes. But General Hu must have stopped listening about halfway through

those instructions because he completely missed that whole bring him back alive part. Instead, he and his strike force refused the prince's attempts to surrender peacefully and forced him to engage in battle. This proved to be an especially poor decision on General Hu's part because he lost, badly, and was killed by Ba Dong in combat. Realizing that this was definitely not going to go over well with Dad, the prince resolved to immediately make for the capital and present himself before his father, essentially throwing himself upon the mercy of the imperial court. But his eldest brother, the crown prince Zhang Mao, had other ideas.

He had suspicions about his little brother, perhaps that he was considering taking his own place as the heir of the throne, and so he resolved to see the prince of Badong dead. He secretly dispatched his own commander at the head of a force to intercept Badong en route to Nanjing, and after he had submitted to the Crown Prince's general, the commander was instructed to strangle him to death, which was carried out to completion.

The Crown Prince, however, would follow his murdered brother to the grave shortly thereafter, although in this case there is no indication of foul play. He was an avid eater, drinker, and carouser, and is noted, quite possibly as a result, for frequently becoming ill. In the spring of 493, one of those bouts of illness turned for the worse, and he died at age 34 or 35. This turn of events was certainly both tragic for Emperor Wu personally,

and quite vexing in terms of his administration. Wu was, after all, no spring chicken, and a crown prince as firmly established and groomed as Zhang Mao had been, preceding his father into death, had spelled the downfall of many a grander and older dynastic line. As quickly as possible, then, Wu's government replaced the departed crown prince with another of his sons, Prince Zhao Ye. The whole chaotic series of events would prove to be a decisive moment in determining Southern Qi's ultimate fate. Had Zhang Mao not died, it's tempting to wonder whether the Xiao clan might have continued to maintain order and stability over the Southern Empire. But of course, that is a path we can only guess at, and instead, with his just-turned-21 Prince

Zhao Ye declared the imperial heir, Emperor Wu would himself exit the historical stage later that year at age 53. As Prince, Xiao Zhao Ye had been infamous for being an unabashed party boy, liar, and wastrel. And now as emperor, he would prove little different. When in his father's presence, he had always been careful to keep up the pretense of being studious and serious. But whenever dad left the room, the act was dropped. He hung out with peers who molded him into a frivolous spendthrift. To supplement his appetite for spending while remaining under the radar of his father's stern gaze and tight purse strings, he borrowed heavily and repeatedly from the notable families of the capital, using his status as imperial prince to cow them into

giving him more and more and more cash, even though he never quite managed to pay back any of it. When first his elder brother and then his father had taken ill, he had carefully put forward a public face of extreme worry for his dear, beloved family members. But in the privacy of his own home, with the mask removed, his true colors showed through. He was said to have written to his wife as his father lay on his deathbed, writing a large character for happiness, qi, which was itself composed of smaller characters of the same. There are even reports of him hiring a witch to curse his brother and father, and then lavishly rewarded her when her incantations apparently worked. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of

Europe. Within three short centuries, these damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland, in North America, and in the Caribbean, the first steps of the East India Company, and the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia.

Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. Once comfortably situated on the throne, Zhao Ye entrusted the majority of the governmental day-to-day doldrums to his uncle and prime minister, Xiao Luan. He had, after all, far more fun things to do. Things like playing music almost as soon as his father's body had been placed in its coffin, which was, during the three-year period of official mourning, highly frowned upon, to say the least. He is even remarked to have been overheard gazing at a gold coin and speaking to it,

cooing, quote, Before, it was almost impossible for me to obtain even one of you. But now, there's no one to stop me from using you as much as I want. End quote. And use it, he did. Under both his grandfather Gao and then his father Wu, the treasuries of southern Qi had been overflowing with reserves thanks to their frugality and tax policies.

But all that accumulated wealth would, within a year of Zhao Ye seating himself on the throne, wind up totally depleted. His cronies took to selling imperial offices to the highest bidder, with the new emperor himself not only not stopping such flagrant open corruption, but outright endorsing the practice, so long as he got his own sizable cut of the action. Through all this, Zhao Ye's granduncle, the prime minister Xiao Luan, had watched with

mounting disgust. This was no way for an emperor to act, and when his counsel to that effect produced no change, Xiaoluan began to pursue a change of a more drastic sort. And he was by no means the only official increasingly horrified by this new emperor bankrupting the state and generally driving this shiny new dynasty right off a cliff. Several of the emperor's most trusted generals would secretly begin spying on Zhao Ye's actions and reporting them to Xiaoluan. While that was ongoing, the prime minister himself systematically isolated his grandnephew

from his contacts by charging his close associates with crimes and ordering them executed before the squanderer-in-chief could intervene. The relationship between the monarch and the prime minister in southern Qi was, to put it mildly, not going very well. That would be made only too clear in the autumn of 494, when Emperor Zhao Ye ordered the assassination of his troublesome family member. When he found out that no one would dare lay a hand on Xiao Luan, however, he was forced to settle for just not giving him important tasks anymore, which of course is the natural fallback when murder is out of the question.

Xiaoluang soon learned of the assassination-turned-passive-aggressive-demotion maneuver and determined that the time was nigh. He declared his rebellion against the emperor, who in turn begged his trusted generals to come and assist him fend off his uncle's attack on the imperial palace. You know, those same two generals who were very much on the payroll of Xiao Luan's rebellion. Arrived they did, in force, and ended the emperor of southern Qi's life, at not quite 21 years old. Xiao Luan then briefly sat Zhao Ye's younger brother on the throne. Why? Well, as with any usurpation, there was just a way of doing things. Xiaoluan needed a puppet to make him a duke, and then a prince, before he could get rid of the placeholder entirely.

So he did. Then, as both regent and the new prince of Xuancheng, he went down pretty much the whole line of his brother's sons and grandsons, and ordered the whole lot of them put to death. Because, if Xiaoluan knew anything, it was that you can't trust family members. I mean, look at him. All in all, at least 13 princes were killed in this initial bloodbath. All of this in less than three months, after which Xiaoluan issued an imperial proclamation, declaring the emperor unfit for duty and basically firing him.

In his stead, who else? Xiaoluan seated himself on the throne as Emperor Ming the Brilliant. As for the poor three-month placeholder, he was sent to a nice farm upstate where he could play in the sun. Kidding, of course. Imperial agents were shortly sent to his residence under the guise of doctors treating an illness, and instead poisoned him.

Emperor Ming was around 42 when he assumed the throne. As his posthumous name and actions up until now suggest, he was remembered as a coldly calculating, highly intelligent, and thoroughly Machiavellian ruler. He was adept at governance and took to the task with relish, often punishing severely those who were not as up to the job as he. Over the course of his reign, he'd conduct several additional purges against the descendants of Gao and Wu, whom he continued to view as potential threats to his own line. Through all this, though, he did appear to feel some level of regret at having to do so, as he is recorded as offering incense to the deceased emperors and weeping

before ordering the mass slaughter of their progeny. On the other hand, he was also very shrewd in covering up the crass political natures of the killings. After the executions, he would routinely order his palace officials to find, or presumably just manufacture, evidence of crimes, present it to him, and then recommend death for the accused, and again, already dead, princes. After first rejecting his advisor's recommendations, he would then reluctantly allow himself to be convinced of their necessity and authorize the executions of the princes. This has frequently been interpreted as Ming doing his level best to appear as though he were simply doing what was necessary for the realm

by unenthusiastically administering justice to proven criminal elements. Nothing so crass, certainly, as just offing family members so that they wouldn't threaten him. He'd also order the executions of many of those who had actually helped him in his own coup and usurpation. After all, if they had been willing to betray one emperor and rebel, how could he ever trust them not to do so again? Meanwhile, news of Ming's usurpation rippled northward into Wei, prompting its emperor, Xiao Wen, to launch yet another campaign against the southern state.

The campaign of late 494 would prove again indecisive, and it was called off the following spring. But that attack would be picked up again two years later, in the fall of 497, and this time it would be somewhat more effective. The northern Wei offensive would result in the capture of Wan City and the nearby Xinyue City, both of which are now part of the modern city Nanyang in Henan. 498 would prove Emperor Ming's last, and after taking ill, he died in late autumn at age 46, having effectually run the state of southern Qi, but having almost completely gutted entire branches of his own family, and thereby depleted the imperial household of much of its able-bodied

and able-minded administration, a blow from which the dynasty itself would never recover. He was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Xiao Baozhuang, a 15-year-old game-playing introvert who sounds pretty much more cut out for a Starcraft tournament than as head of government, but such is the role of the monarchical dice. As he was yet a minor, Emperor Ming's will had left the imperial government in the hands of a cabal of officials to oversee its operations. The young emperor reportedly greatly preferred the company of his eunuchs, messengers, and bodyguards, rather than having to deal with his officials and courtiers, and would while

away the hours playing games for stakes with those he preferred to keep near him. Though he was eager to flex this new imperial might, he often grew bored and fidgety in those stuffy, interminable official meetings, which basically describes every fifteen-year-old I've ever met. Nevertheless, it would prove a sticking point that would quickly circle back around on the young monarch. After all, given the dearth of talent his father's fratricide happy reign had engendered, there weren't exactly a plethora of alternatives to the emperor's personal whim.

This would come to a head in 499, with a failed coup attempt, which is complicated but ultimately pointless enough that I feel comfortable glossing over the details. After all, we're burning through a lot of names already today, and adding more to the mix just sort of confuses things. Especially since about 75% of them are part of the extended royal family, it is such I'll just have the same family name. So to sum it up, they were planning on removing Bao Juan from the throne on account of him being completely irrational. But Bao Juan found out and acted first, resulting in the coup plotters all being arrested and executed.

And as a result, Emperor Bao Juan's personal powers increased greatly. As did his idiosyncratic behaviors, such as not wanting anyone to see his face. Enough so that when he visited any place outside the royal palace, his palace guards would be dispatched there first to forcibly evict the residents who lived there and put them to death if they refused. The spring of 500 saw yet more problems for Southern Qi's young, strange emperor. The important and fortified border city, Shouyong, flipped to Northern Wei's control after its governor defected out of fear that he would be targeted next by Baozhuang. And when the emperor dispatched his top general to head a military force to retake the vital

defensive position, they barely had left the city gates when the commanding officer, General Cui, announced that no, he would not be marching to Shouyang, but was instead turning right around and launching yet another coup against the emperor, owing to his quote, violent behavior, and convincing Bao Zong's brother to join his cause. This also would prove ill-conceived, as the emperor was able to get word to the other general he had dispatched to Shouyang, his prime minister in fact, ordering him to turn around and defeat the treacherous General Cui. In short order, the rebel general and prince were rounded up and executed,

once again stuffing that particular cat back in its bag. As a reward for his victory over the rebels, Emperor Bao Zhan initially gifted the loyal prime minister with great honors, titles, and gifts. But by that winter, he had convinced himself that he should instead follow his father's example and order his death. You know, just in case. And this winter's suicide order would be, at last, where Emperor Bao Zhan's luck finally ran out. The deceased prime minister's brother, named Xiao Yan, the governor of Yong province, immediately

declared a rebellion against the throne and mobilized his armies against Nanjing. He made startling progress over the course of the winter, and by the following spring he effectively controlled the western half of southern Qi, and showed no signs of slowing down. Of course, an effective rebellion would need a figurehead, and General Xiao had just the dupe. The emperor's 14-year-old brother, Prince Bao Rong, whom he declared Emperor He and situated at his provisional capital, Jiangling City. Meanwhile, the old emperor, Bao Zhan, was discovering the downside of having

absolutely no one like you, since his generals kept defecting, and the people even within Nanjing began several local uprisings against him as well. All of this was distracting enough for the imperial government that Shaoyan's rebel army was able to capitalize on the confusion over the course of 501. First by taking the strategically vital Ying city that summer, then forcing the surrender of the entirety of Jiang province that fall, and finally arriving at the capital city that winter, quickly seizing control of the outer city and laying the imperial palace to siege. Gee, I bet they wished they'd finished that city wall by now. As the new year of 502 rolled around, the last real allies of Emperor Baozhuang realized

which direction the wind was blowing. There was no way for them to lift the siege of the imperial palace, and it seemed very likely that the unhinged emperor would order their executions as penalty for their failure to do so. So they chose another path, assassinating the emperor and surrendering outright to the rebel army. In victory, the new, and last, emperor of southern Qi would not be summoned to the capital, but was

instead left in Jiangling, probably wondering what everyone else was doing. His mother, the empress Dowager, was moved into the imperial palace and made regent, and Xiaoyan himself declared the Duke of Jian'an. As for the late emperor, he was of course posthumously demoted and buried as the Marquis of Donghun, which unusually does not refer to a place, but rather translates as the Marquis of Eastern Incompetence, continuing a long and proud tradition of slamming one's enemies after they're dead. In the months that followed his victory, now Duke Xiaoyan proceeded to take full command of the imperial government by ruling in the Empress Regent's name, all while playing the pretend-the-Emperor-is-invisible game to perfection.

The sequence of events to follow went exactly as you might expect. He was successively promoted within the imperial government, becoming first the Duke and then the Prince of Liang, then the Nine Bestowments and all that jazz. Finally, the young Emperor He's brothers all began mysteriously dining off. Hmm, mysterious indeed. In the late spring of 502, Emperor He himself was at last summoned to take his place in the Imperial capital, and he began his trek eastward. But en route, surprise, Xiaoyan's messengers reached the imperial caravan and more or less forced He to issue an imperial edict

then and there to cede the throne to the Prince of Liang. The former emperor was kept alive for a few days under the promise of being sent to live out his days in a palace purpose built for him, but that was a straight-up lie. Shortly thereafter, he received a bottle of poison from the new emperor, but that was a straight-up lie. Shortly thereafter, he received a bottle of poison from the new emperor, but he refused to drink it. Instead, he opened up his personal liquor cabinet, got himself massively drunk, and then let the imperial agents assassinate

him, which, in my own opinion, was about the best thing he could have done in that situation. If you've got to go out, may as well go out hammered. The Southern Qi dynasty's 23-year tale was both bookended and punctuated by enormous losses of life and continued instability within the realm. It really isn't much of a surprise that it would be bookended by such violent overthrows, but it is rather shocking that it all went downhill so very fast for the fledgling state, especially given the strong start its first two emperors had had during their respective reigns. It just goes to show once again what a dice throw hereditary monarchy tends to be. And so, here we are, with southern Qi dead and gone after only two decades and change,

supplanted by the new Liang dynasty under Xiao Yan, who would ultimately be remembered to history as Emperor Wu. Yes, Wu again, the John Smith of Chinese imperial names. But before we launch into that new new southern dynasty, we'll be swinging back to northern Wei next time to let the Tuoba clan catch up, first under the reign of Xianwan, then under Xiaowen, who would launch a sweeping campaign of Sinicization over his entire country, culminating in virtually the whole country taking new surnames, speaking a new language, and the capital itself moving from Mongolia to the ancient Chinese heartland. Thank you for listening.

Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the show this week. I have a bit of a silly request. I've noticed that the history of China's number of ratings in iTunes is tantalizingly close to 100. 97, in fact, in the US store. It would make my week if we could push that up into the triple digits. So if you use iTunes to listen, please go give us a rating and or review and make me a very happy show host. If going the extra mile is something you'd be into, I can also suggest helping us keep our lights on by donating to the show through our website, thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com, or becoming our patron through the web address patreon.com slash thehistoryofchina. That is p-a-t-r-e-o-n

dot com slash thehistoryofchina. Again, thanks very much. Here's looking forward to hitting rating number 100. And see you all next week. built the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy and I'm Rich and we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for the Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.