The History of China - #74 - S&N 18- The Fall Of Northern Qi

Episode Date: September 15, 2015

In the Northeast of China, Northern Qi just can’t catch a break. First it was Emperor Wenxuan’s murderous paranoia, and now it will be subjected to Wucheng’s indolent hedonism, “immoral games,” and general excesses… and then the penultimate Qi emperor, Houzhi, will decide that the state treasury is his own personal piggy-bank and startin singing “Hakuna Matata” while the state burns.Meanwhile to the West, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou will finally break out of his uncle Yuwen Hu’s shadow – by shattering his skull – and then begin eying the swiftly foundering Northern Qi debacle hungrily, eager to reunite the North after almost a half-century of seperation. By episode’s end, it will be a climactic showdown between the two powerful states: one waxing, one waning… which will emerge victorious?Time Period Covered:561-578 CENotable Figures:Northern Qi:Emperor/Retired Emperor Wucheng (Gao Dan) [r. 561-565, d. 569]Empress Hu [565-572]Prime Minister He Shikai [524-571]Zu Ting [550-577]Emperor Houzhu (Gao Wei) [r. 565-578]Gao Heng (Youzhu) [570-577]Northern Zhou:Emperor Wu (Yuwen Yong) [r. 560-578]Emperor Xuan (Yuwen Yun) [r. 579-582]Yang Lihua (Crowned Princess/Empress of Zhou) [r. 579-582]Prime Minister Yuwen Hu [513-572]Yang Jian, Duke of Sui [541- ]Göturk Khannate:Muqan Khagan (Ashina Yando) [554-572]Empress Ashina [551-582] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Once again, that is p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com slash thehistoryofchina. Thank you all so very much. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 74, The Fall of Northern Qi. Last episode, we went through the tale of Northern Qi in the northeast of China, and the disastrous reign of its founding emperor, Wen Xuan, over the course of the 550s. We left off with Qi, once the preeminent power among the rival Chinese states, critically weakened, deeply impoverished, and with ineffectual leadership at its helm. To the south, the Chen dynasty continued to amble along as the much-reduced, but still

formidable successor state to the extinct Liang dynasty. And by 560, it held a similar standing to, oh, say, Great Britain during the Second World War. Too strong to fall, too weak to win. At least for now. Today, then, we will pick back up our tale in Northern Qi following the death of Gan Yan, or so briefly the Emperor Xiao Zhao, in 561. Though between Wen Xuan and himself, Qi had already been scraping its hull against the rocks below, surprisingly, the ship of state would continue onward, listing heavily though it might be for another decade and a half, with each subsequent emperor and his lackeys even worse than the one prior. The next to ascend the throne was the late great general Gaohuan's fourth son,

Gaodan, who would be enthroned as Wucheng at the age of 25. Prior to that though, over the course of his elder brother Wenchuan's increasingly degenerate reign, he, along with several of his other brothers, has spent much of the 550s serving as pretty much their big brother's punching bag. In fact, Wenchuan would wind up ordering the execution of two of those brothers. This isn't to say that Gao Dan's hands were clean in any of this, though, since he apparently had such a beef with at least one of his other brothers, that when Wenchuan was considering releasing them from his dungeons, Dan persuaded him not to, stating, quote, how can you let fierce tigers out of their cages?

His elder brother wound up agreeing, and then carried out their brother's executions instead. With him on his journey to the capital to be enthroned, he brought along two of his closest confidants, men Wucheng was so close to that he thought of them as more of his true brothers than those he actually shared parents with. They were named He Shikai and Zuting, respectively, and would prove to be some of the prime movers over the course of Wucheng's strange period of reign. Zuting would serve variously as one of Wucheng's prefectural governors, then later as the promulgator of imperial edicts, and later still as the official northern Qi ambassador

to Chen. He Shikai, meanwhile, served as the emperor's right hand. The co-dependency between Wucheng and Shikai ran deep. The emperor couldn't bear the thought of his bestie being out of his sight, or at the most, out of the palace, so badly that when Shekai's own mother died in 561 or early 562, Wucheng wound up getting so worked up over his absence that he recalled He and four of his brothers back to the capital

to resume their posts immediately and forbade them from observing the customary mourning period. Not that He Shikai was likely to have complained, though, since he was so possessive over the status of being the one indispensable man to the emperor, that he'd initially send Zuting out of the capital entirely, appointed as governor of an outlying province, for fear of him being replaced. Later on, he'd actually buy into the notion that he and Emperor Wucheng were spiritually linked and that the fate of either would rebound onto the other. Perhaps it was this notion of fates intertwined that drove He Shikai

to grow so overprotective of Wucheng. One notable instance came about over the emperor's drinking habits. Like his brother before him, Wucheng liked to get his drink on. The difference, though, was that unlike Wenshan, who could go on a rice wine bender like no other, Wucheng frequently experienced moderate to severe breathing problems once he began drinking. It is often chalked up by historians to a form of asthma or alcohol allergy, perhaps, which isn't actually far-fetched at all. In fact, if that was the cause, it's actually pretty common as the well-known Asian flush effect. If you don't happen to be familiar with that, it's basically what it sounds like, which is a high proportion of people of East Asian descent, especially among Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans,

around about 30-50% according to some studies, tend to go splotchy red with even a small amount of alcohol, and in more severe cases can lead to, indeed, esophageal swelling and breathing difficulties, and in the long term, a higher incidence of throat and esophageal cancer. Interestingly, this is apparently caused by a gene found among no other population in the world. This special gene variant essentially renders the body unable to effectively break down the acetaldehyde alcohol is converted into. The resulting buildup of the toxin in the body then manifests as the splotchy reddening of the

skin and likewise other unpleasant effects. So anyway, Emperor Wuchang, in spite of He Shikai's repeated urgings against it, and in spite of the fact that he was at the time already having some asthmatic breathing problems, was making ready to get sauced. At this, Shikai grew so distraught that he broke down crying in the emperor's presence and was rendered unable to speak. At this, Wucheng stopped what he was doing and realized, you are making a speechless correction of me. He then recorked the bottle and put it away and stopped drinking, though it's rather unclear if it's meant to be taken that he quit drinking entirely or just that particular binge. Regardless, the pair were inseparable,

and with the emperor rewarding Shi Kai with tremendous wealth and keeping him on hand at all times. Quickly, their relationship took a turn beyond that of emperor and official, and often blurred the lines between boundaries of subject and monarch. They would play so-called immoral games together. As to what that means, the term immoral game, or xiexia, has often been used by traditional historians as a euphemism for engaging in sexual acts with court eunuchs. The Book of Northern Qi writes of their exploits, quote, the emperor delighted He Shikai with statements of flattery, games of obscene sexual Well now, it certainly seems like there was some passion-of-the-cut-sleeve stuff going on between Wuchong and Shekai, and that may have well been the case, but it remains ambiguous at best. The annals remain pretty vague about the specifics,

but it is important to keep in mind that ideas of sexuality and what it means have varied across time and place. Throughout the Han Dynasty and up until at least the Tang in the 7th century, behavior our modern minds would have deemed homosexual or bisexual was in fact thought of quite differently. In fact, the official histories of the Liu Song dynasty in the south declared outright that male to male sexual relationships were just as common and normal as male to female, if not more so. It states, quote, from the western gene dynasty of the late third century onwards,

male favoritism flourished considerably and was as extensive as attraction to women. All of the gentlemen and officials esteemed it. All the men in the realm followed this fashion to the extent that husbands and wives were estranged, resentful unmarried women became jealous. End quote. It wouldn't, in fact, be until Christian missionaries became more prominent within China that overt and official sanctions against same-sex relationships would begin to assert themselves within the empire. Much as later historians may have wanted to

over-moralize what they deemed licentious or immoral behavior, in large part during and before the period of disunion, opinion of a man's — or at least one of means, in any case — sexual appetites was pretty much, eh, whatever floats your boat. Almost needless to say, though, these kind of laissez-faire attitudes on sexuality applied overwhelmingly in men's favor, and only very rarely would it be deemed acceptable for a woman to pursue similar relationships. That prohibition against women enjoying the same level of sexual freedom as their husbands, in fact,

is what made Hachikai's possibly most infamous affair all the more lurid, when he wound up becoming the lover of none other than the Empress Hu herself, who was also infamous for her appetites of the flesh, and likewise purportedly engaging in immoral games with her retinue of eunuch servants. Between He Xiekai's and Emperor Wucheng's pursuit of indolent hedonism, the wheels of the imperial government of Northern Qi began to grind to a halt. Realizing that, well, someone had to maintain the helm of state, but likewise not

wishing to lose his favorite playmate to such a boring task, Zhikai entreated Wucheng, quote, Kings and emperors, no matter their greatness in life, do nothing more than turn to dust against the ravages of time. Be they celestial beings like the three sovereigns and five emperors of time immemorial, or cruel and despotic tyrants like Jie of Xia or King Zhou of Shang. Ultimately, what's the difference? They're all dead and gone, their triumphs and sins alike reduced to legend and ashes. You, Imperial Majesty, should do your utmost to enjoy all the pleasures life has to offer you while you are still young and vibrant.

A single day of extraordinary happiness is greater still than a thousand years of tedium. Entrust the affairs of state to your high officials and trust that they will run your empire for you. Don't be so foolish as to waste your precious days on dull affairs. End quote. Pretty persuasive, right? Well, Emperor Wucheng certainly

thought so, and therefore entrusted his government to the care of a council of his trusted officials, while he and Shi Kai went off to engage in whatever idle pleasure crossed their minds at the moment, and only checking in to council meetings once, maybe twice, a week.

For the next couple of years, the empire would be run, in effect, on autopilot, while its emperor delved into the depths of his immoral games alongside his man-crush, Shekai. All the while, He Shekai used his favored status to leverage many of the officials of the state, allowing many officials to be overlooked for their wrongdoings or corruption, in exchange for, oh, let's call them, favors to be determined on his behalf. Under his watch, the government would continue to spiral into corruption and decline. But in 565, something strange, no, not strange, out and out unprecedentedout unprecedented—occurred for the head of the Northern Qi government. You see, He Shikai had been convinced by his fellow Wucheng bestie,

Zhu Ting, that his own fate was inextricably bound to that of Emperor Wucheng. Should one rise, or fall, so too would the other. Zhu convinced He, probably not unreasonably, that given He's especially favored status by the monarch, he'd come to be despised by the rest of the imperial court, virtually to a man. Should the emperor meet with any unfortunate fate, then, Shikai's own position would evaporate in a moment, and he'd find himself at their collective mercy.

Duly convinced that their fates were intertwined, it must have been a rather simple task for Zhu Ting to convince He Shikai of the wisdom of ensuring the Emperor's absolute safety. After all, we wouldn't want anything bad to happen to the both of you. Zhu convinced He that the best way to remove Wucheng from any possible danger would be to convince the monarch to retire. No, not be overthrown or put under house arrest, but to really actually retire. Pension, rocking chair, the whole works.

And it seems like it was a pretty easy sell for the emperor, too. Between some rather vague rationale concerning astrological signs, And it seems like it was a pretty easy sell for the emperor, too. Between some rather vague rationale concerning astrological signs, along with that whole enjoy every day to its fullest line Shikai had been pushing on Wucheng for some time now, it seems to have been a relatively simple task to convince the emperor that why the only position more noble, esteemed, and honored than to sit the imperial throne yourself would be to be the

retired father of the man who did such a thing. Why, what an honor! And better yet, it was a position that carried with it none of those burdensome expectations of rule or authority, the best of all worlds, most assuredly. Emperor Wuchang nodded along and agreed readily. Thus, in the summer of 565, in a move almost completely unprecedented in Chinese history, Emperor Wucheng of Northern Qi voluntarily retired and ceded the throne to his crowned prince, the eight-year-old Gao Wei. Gao Wei would be remembered in most historical texts as Emperor Houzhu. As such, we will also be calling him that. However, it is in many ways a bit of a misnomer.

If you run that name through a simple Google Translate, for instance, it comes back as the baffling Emperor Emperor. The better understanding, and indeed why the title doesn't typically include the term Huangdi in it, is that Houju translates best as the later ruler, or one of the final monarchs of the dynasty. Nevertheless, for consistency's sake, as well as to avoid an overabundance of gaos, I'll be referring to this latest occupant of Northern Qi's increasingly chaotic throne as Emperor Houzu. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past.

By contrasting both the experiences of contemporaries and the conclusions of historians, grey history dives into the detail and unpacks one of the most important and disputed events in human history. From a revolution based on hope and liberty to its descent into the infamous reign of terror, there's plenty to discuss and plenty of grey to explore. One can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So if you're looking for your next long-form, binge-worthy history podcast, one recommended by universities and loved by enthusiasts, then check out Grey History, The French Revolution today, or simply search for The French Revolution. Nevertheless, Wu Cheng, now becoming one of only about a half-dozen Chinese monarchs to

ever hold the title, adopted the title of Taishang Huang, or Retired Emperor. In reality, though, he continued to hold tremendous political power over his government, even as he continued to rule it effectively in absentium for the next several years. This situation would remain largely unchanged until the spring of 568, when he would suffer a significant health scare, only to be nursed back to health by his imperial physicians. But that following winter, his condition would return with a vengeance, prompting him to take to his bed and summon, who else, a Shekai to attend to him. Around the new year of 569, he would at last shuffle off the mortal coil, holding his best friend Shekai's hands,

and having entrusted the vital matters of state to his friend's authority. Wucheng was only 32 years old. In the state of Northern Qi, now in reality as well as rhetoric, was in the hands of Emperor Houzhu, the now 12-year-old monarch, and with He Shikai heading his ruling coalition of ministers in the adolescent emperor's name. Yeah, that'll sure go well.

Instead of continuing down that path of ruin just now, however, we're actually going to move once again westward, back to the state that has gone from unimpressive underdog to by 560, a real dark horse in the competition between the Northern and Southern dynasties. I speak, of course, of Northern Zhou, which had began its existence as probably divided China's weakest sovereign entity, now controlling not only the northwest but also much of the southwest of Chinese territory, as well as acting as the puppeteer for the rump state of western Liang,

in pretty much the exact center of the larger empire. When last we took a detailed look at northern Zhou, it had been ruled over by its third emperor, Wu the Marshal, who had acceded his older brother Emperor Ming at the age of 16, after Ming had mysteriously been poisoned by sugar cookies in the summer of 560. And as you may recall, that Ming had only gotten the top job himself when their mutual middle brother, Northern Zhou's first emperor Xiaomin, had been removed from office and then assassinated.

Through this rapid-fire spree of short-lived and ever-younger imperial figureheads, the calm node at the center of the storm was the three, well, now one, brother's uncle, Yu Wenhu, the Duke of Jin, imperial reg Regent, and the true power behind the throne. Uncle Hu, obviously, had no compunction against replacing a nephew who was anything other than compliant. And well before his coronation, Emperor Wu must have known that the surest way to stay alive was to live by the old maxim, be seen but not heard. As such, over the course of the 560s, Emperor Wu did his best impression of a wallflower, while Regent Hu continued to rule the empire under his own iron directives. Nevertheless, as the decade plotted

on and Wu grew into his adulthood, the relationship between the emperor and his prime minister grew increasingly grating. One potential example of Wu beginning to come into his own would occur in 568, following the death of Yuan Hu's wife, Lady Yu. In an uncharacteristic move, the emperor ordered Hu to forego the customary three-year mourning period and continue to serve him in his position within the government, an edict Hu was forced to comply with. Granted, this situation probably could have swung either way. Yuan Hu might have instructed the emperor to issue such an order so that he'd remain the indispensable point man of the dynasty.

But the way the passage is written makes it sound more like Emperor Wu, by this point in his mid-20s, may have finally begun to grow a backbone and, no, demanded that his uncle get back here and get back to work. Emperor Wu had also begun to cultivate a network of powerful allies above and outside the influence of his uncle Hu's interference. Among them, critically, was the third Khan of the powerful Gukturk Empire of the North, Mu Khan or Mughan Khagan, the second son of the Guq Turk founder, Ashina Bumin. For the better part of the previous decade,

the Emperor of Northern Zhou and the Guq Turk Khan had been agreeing to, and then reneging upon, and then agreeing to again, a marriage alliance between Emperor Wu and the Khan's daughter, Princess Ashina. After yet another instance of the Khan backing out of his agreement in 565, though, a bout of terrible weather that substantially damaged his headquarters convinced him that his oath-breaking had caused his people's prime deity, Tangzhi, or the Great Blue Sky, to become displeased with him. Fearing heaven's divine wrath, the Gokturk Khan at last went through with the initial agreement, marrying his daughter to Emperor Wu in the summer of 568. She would shortly thereafter

be named Wu's Empress Ashina, and the bond between the two states was, for now, cemented. In 568 as well, a new figure would inherit a powerful position within the northern Zhou aristocracy, and warrant our attention. The young noble, Yang Jian, had at 27 years old inherited his father's duchy of Sui, becoming its new duke. He won't be immediately important, but he certainly will be, so I suggest you put a few asterisks next to the name, Duke Yangjian of Sui. In 569, the temporary peace between Zhou and Qi was broken once again when Emperor Wu's brother took his army and launched an invasion of northern Qi, aimed at seizing the strategically valuable fort at Yiyang. That would be fought to a stalemate over the course of the next year, and finally the armies of northern Zhou were forced to call off their siege operations against the fort when the prominent general Hu Lu of

Northern Xi led a raiding party into Zhou's heartland and began taking large tracts of territory. Forced to respond or lose much of what they already had, the imperial forces of Northern Zhou were forced to fall back and fight off this unexpected strike well into 571. But by 572, Uncle Yuan Hu, who had been effectively in charge of most of Northern Zhou for some 16 years at this point, had thoroughly worn out his welcome with the by this time almost 30-year-old Emperor Wu. As I said before, though he outwardly showed nothing but deference towards the commander

of the Zhou military and government, Wu had nevertheless been squirreling away a nice little corps of like-minded conspirators, all equally displeased with old Uncle Hu holding the reins of state. Princes, dukes, generals, and imperial clansmen all formed what seems to have been a rather large, and incredibly secretive, group plotting the right moment to overthrow the military dictator and re-establish the monarch's supremacy over the state. And in the spring of 572, it was deemed that the time had indeed come to enact their strange, rather convoluted plan to get rid of Yuan Hu. In a scheme that seemed to have about six steps too many,

Emperor Wu first met with his uncle to discuss his mother, the Empress Dowager. In confidence, he intoned that the Empress had developed an unmanageable drinking problem, and urged Hu to stage, in effect, an intervention. He gave Uncle Hu a copy of the Jiao Gao, or the Declaration on Drunkenness, which was a royal decree against alcoholism dated back to the reign of King Cheng of Zhou, a millennia and a half prior. The emperor then suggested that Hu read the declaration to the Empress Dowager, and when he assented, the two made their way to the Empress Dowager's residential chambers in the imperial palace. Yuan Hu, before the empress, duly began to read the ancient edict

to the likely baffled Empress Dowager, who must have been wondering why she of all people was being regaled with a twelve-step program from the second millennia BCE when she barely ever touched alcohol at all. Just then, Emperor Wu deftly stepped behind Hu as he read the ancient text, produced a heavy jade tablet from the folds of his robes, cocked his arms, and proceeded to slam the solid stone into the back of his uncle's cranium, knocking the unsuspecting noble utterly senseless. At this, the emperor's brother, Prince Yuanzhi, jumped out from his own hiding place not far away, produced his blade, and decapitated Uncle Hu on the spot,

ensuring that his reign over Northern Zhou was well and truly over. Heaven knows what the Empress Dowager, watching through it all, must have thought of such a grisly display brought about by her own two sons. In the aftermath of his assassination, Emperor Wu made absolutely sure there'd be no vengeance-seekers down the line by making sure that there would be no one left to take revenge at all, human whose brothers, sons, and his key associates were all rounded up, one and all, and executed en mass. Now at long last free from his overbearing uncle and ruling his empire in his own right,

Emperor Wu named his son Crown Prince Yun, and used the opportunity to posthumously honor his deceased elder brother, Emperor Xiaomin, a practice Yuan Hu had forbidden during his time in power. Prince Zhi, the younger brother who had taken Uncle Hu's head, sought to claim what he felt was his just reward by seeking to fill in Yuan Hu's post as Prime Minister and the head of the military. But Emperor Wu had had more than his fill of a single person holding that much authority. Heck, he'd just begun to reign for himself, and he wasn't about to let that slip from his grasp right out of the starting gate. As such, and much to Prince Ji's chagrin, Wu dissolved the position entirely and delegated

some of its responsibilities to lower-level officials, though he kept most of the accumulated power for his own direct use. His final notable act of 572 would be to, when word arrived that the Northern Qi general Hu Luguang had been executed by his own monarch in a fit of misplaced paranoia, to issue a general pardon to the whole empire as a celebratory gesture. In 573, Emperor Wu determined that it was high time that his heir, the crowned prince Yu Wanyun, get hitched. After careful consideration, he found a suitable match, the 12- or 13-year-old daughter of Duke Yangjiang of Sui, named Yanglihua. The two were wed, with her becoming the crowned princess Yang, and her father, the Duke of Sui,

reaping yet further honors and rewards for the match. And yes, if you're paying attention, it is that Duke of Sui. The new year of 574 would see Emperor Wu initiate a series of events that would come to be known as the Second Disaster of Wu. Now, you may recall that the First Disaster of Wu had been back in 446, under the authority of Emperor Tai Wu of Northern Wei. Tai Wu, a devout Taoist, had declared Buddhism illegal and slaughtered the majority of the empire's practicing Buddhists, a holocaust that would only end after his grandson took the throne of Wei in 552. Well, compared to that bloodbath, the second disaster is a relatively small potatoes, but still worth mentioning. In a contest remarkably similar to the Great Debate put on by Emperor Wen Xuan of Northern

Qi last episode, Emperor Wu called forth the scholars of Taoism, Buddhism, and also Confucianism, and had them each lay out their respective cases for existing. At the end of the debate, he declared the winner, and it was a surprising conclusion indeed. Confucianism was the philosophy he rated highest, followed by Taoism, and with Buddhism pulling up the rear. And like the purge that had followed the outcome of the Northern Qi debate, in Northern Zhou as well, there could be only one. Buddhism and Taoism were both banned forthwith, with their respective monks and priests stripped of their vows and ordered to return to civilian life. There's official prohibition on the two major faiths of the age, though relatively bloodless compared to the first disaster generations prior,

would nevertheless remain enforced throughout the remainder of Wu of Northern Zhou's time on the throne. That same autumn, fed up with what he deemed his insufficiently rewarded role in dispatching Uncle Yuan Hu, Prince Zhi began a rebellion against his older brother from within the capital itself, while the emperor was away from Chang'an. This would prove ill-advised, however, since even with his brother out of town, the imperial guard and the crown prince Yun were able to easily crush this little temper tantrum of Zhi's, and he was quickly arrested and executed. Back in northern Qi, things were continuing on the downhill slide we'd left them on.

The new adolescent emperor, Hou Zhi, sat the throne, but he was in no way a capable or even moderately okay monarch. As Sima Guang put it in the Zizhi Tongjian, quote, the ruler of Qi spoke were not allowed to look at him, and therefore the officials could only make summary reports and then quickly withdraw. He inherited the luxurious and wasteful living habits of Emperor Wucheng and thought that this was proper. End quote. Historian Sima then goes on to list many of the most egregious examples

of Houj's exorbitant spending habits, including opulent fashions that could change from one day to the next, building hugely expensive palaces and gardens, then deciding that he was bored of that particular design and having it all torn down and rebuilt anew. Some of his other hugely wasteful building projects included a model village for him to play dress-up as a beggar and go around begging for change from the officials he had populate the town.

To full-scale models of border cities, where he would play soldier, and he and his favorite eunuch servants acting as the valiant armies of Northern Qi, while other soldiers were ordered to attack them as invaders from Northern Zhou. Should the nation be afflicted by disasters or ill omens or rebellions, and sure as sunrise, they were afflicted by all of those three, he, the very son of heaven, would deflect blame from himself, and then weakly seek to appease the gods with great vegetarian feasts to treat the Buddhist and Taoist monks, believing that this would bring divine blessing and end the trouble, whatever they might have been this time. Infamously, he wrote a song for the pipa,

entitled The Song of No Worries, and had several hundred of his servants sing it with him. This strange display led to him being known across the empire as the Son of Heaven with No Worries, or as I've come to think of him, the Hakuna Matata emperor, corruption likewise ran rampant. With him singing and playing make-believe, he left control of the government to his favored servants, and they then brought their own families and best friends to be promoted way beyond their means, all of which proved entirely dependent on the size of the bribe

they were able to pay to their patron official. Semaguang writes with obvious disgust about the overwhelming levels of graft in the Northern Qi administration, writing, quote, creations as princes as well. There were more than 20 generals of the imperial guard. Even dogs, horses, eagles, and hunting cocks received official posts and were allowed to enjoy the food portions of their salaries. Later, after the imperial treasury was exhausted, he used the prefectures and counties as awards, giving two or three prefectures, or six to seven counties at a time, to allow the servants to auction off the governor and magistrate positions and pocket the proceeds.

Therefore, the prefectural governors and county magistrates were largely wealthy merchants who could find ways to extract and extort from the people, and the people could not live. End quote. With Northern Qi being dragged down into opulence, corruption, and total bankruptcy, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou determined that the time to strike and bring about a final end to the Division of the North was at hand. His first strike would be in the fall of 575,

in an all-out attack against the ancient capital of China, Luoyang City. Led personally by Emperor Wu, the army of Zhou besieged the city for some 20 days, but were unable to overcome its defenses. And when Emperor Wu took ill over the course of this short-lived campaign, his armies were forced to withdraw back to their own territory, marking this initial campaign as a failure to gain much of anything. While Wu recovered from his ailment, his son, the crown prince Yun, set off on a campaign of his own in the opposite direction, into the far western reaches of what had once been the Han dynasty-controlled territories along the now largely defunct Silk Road trade route, a region now controlled by the Teyuhyun Empire, itself lorded over by

the eponymous tribe of steppe warriors, who controlled at least 100 other lesser clans in the area, and had done so since Han authority had collapsed in the region post-284 CE. Though the crown prince's campaign would prove moderately successful in the course of the year against the proto-Mongolian Western Empire, it would prove ultimately inconclusive. He would return home without too terribly much territory being gained. But by the winter of 576, Emperor Wu had returned to his good health and was ready to renew operations against Northern Qi, as it continued to flounder. Once more, the armies of Zhou marched eastward. This time, however, rather than attempting to immediately take the heavily fortified Luoyang,

Wu opted to strike at the smaller, less defended city of Pingyang, and captured it before the Qi defenders could even muster long enough to make an attack. Emperor Wu then left the city under the control of his general Liang Shiyan, and withdrew a distance westward to reconfigure his forces in preparation to follow up on his initial victory. But with the bulk of the Zhou army having left Pingyang, the northern Qi military arrived and began to lay siege to the captured city itself. It was a close shave, but General Liang managed to hold out long enough for Emperor Wu to complete his military reorganization and march east once again to lift the siege

and drive off the Qi counterattack. There, outside the walls of Pinyang, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou faced down Houzi of Northern Qi directly. And when the battle commenced, the wasteful monarch of Northern Qi took to panic and fled the battlefield, sealing the fate of his now disheveled and leaderless army. The Battle of Pinyang quickly turned into a brutal rout for northern Qi. Its emperor and the remnants of his army were forced to flee first for the secondary capital, Jianyang, and when Wu showed no signs of giving up the chase, further still,

back to the main capital, Ye City. Once ensconced within his walled capital city, the thoroughly shaken Hou Zhi realized what he had to do. Well, clearly there was some kind of a bad omen at hand, casting bad luck onto his imperial throne, and his astrologers indeed confirmed that the heavens were showing that there was soon to be a change in the imperial seat. Therefore, he determined that he could save himself if he preemptively changed the reigning monarch before the enemy even arrived. And it just so happened that he had a crown prince, his seven-year-old son, Gao Heng. Thus, in the spring of 577, the child assumed the throne, and Hoja became the second emperor in this episode, to assume the title of Taishang Huang, retired emperor.

Confident that his little celestial trick would work, he then committed himself back to the field of battle. After all, the throne had already changed hands. He'd be perfectly safe now, right? As the Northern Zhou army approached Ye City, however, with no signs of stopping, Hojo's Minister of Defense suggested that their best strategy would be to wage an all-or-nothing last stand from behind the fortified walls of the capital city.

But Hojo would hear nothing of such a heroic course. Instead, he planned to take his army and leave Ye entirely, then head south and just keep going all the way across the Yellow River, where he'd either decide to regroup the remainder of his troops and then launch an attack from there, or if they wouldn't rally or if he just didn't feel like it, well, there was always the option to just keep on going, south, to Chen, and then beg for asylum. Ah yes, very inspiring. Houzi, or should I say Gao Wei, sent his family ahead of him, and then abandoned the capital to the advancing Northern Zhou Imperial Army, who took and occupied the city in the late spring. Once within, Emperor Wu enlisted

the assistance of one of Northern Qi's top imperial officials to feed him information as to the fleeing retired monarch's location. He was therefore able to quickly catch up and capture Gao Wei and his retinue. There would be no flight to Chun, and there would be no more Northern Qi. With the exception of a single, far-flung province far, far to the north, along the Korean border, Northern Zhou annexed the entire rival's territory, rendering Northern China unified once again after four decades of split and rivalry. Emperor Wu returned to Chang'an with his cadre of imperial prisoners in tow.

There, he demoted Houjie back to prince, and shortly thereafter ordered the execution of the former emperor of Northern Qi, and then that his entire clan commit suicide. After all, one can never be too careful. Victorious in a way that no Emperor of the North had been since the creation of Northern Wei almost a century prior, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou nevertheless had scarcely any time at all to bask in the glory of what was surely his greatest accomplishment. With the destruction and annexation of its greatest rival, Northern Zhou suddenly emerged as an existential threat to the remaining parties, and both the Chen dynasty in the south

and the Gukturk Khanate in the north almost immediately launched independent attacks on the newly reformed superstate. Though he was able to fend off both and conclude at peace with the Guktarks in the summer of 578, Emperor Wu would shortly after take ill and die at the age of 35. His crown prince Yuan Yan would succeed him as Emperor Xuan. But that is where we will leave off today. The north is reunited, and a new emperor of Northern Zhou sits on the throne. But with an emperor, so too ascends his empress.

In this case, the daughter of the ambitious Duke of Sui, Yang Jian. And next time, he will begin to parley that proximity to the throne into a plot that will either threaten to rip the newly reunified North right back apart, or just maybe enact a new order that will be the most powerful entity Eastern Asia has seen in centuries. Thank you for listening. 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.