The Ancestors of Sui and Tang, Uniting North and South

Why write about this period? The most gripping power struggle in Chinese history did not take place during the Three Kingdoms or the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. It was at the end of the Northern Wei.

What does this history contain? A mother who poisoned her own son, Empress Dowager Hu; an emperor who personally assassinated a powerful minister, Emperor Xiaozhuang; a warlord who slaughtered two thousand officials in a single night, Er Zhu Rong; a legendary battle in which thirty thousand defeated two hundred thousand, the Battle of Hanling; and Gao Huan, who rose from a low-ranking clerk to become master of an empire...

It is like a condensed textbook of Chinese history, compressing power, human nature, war, betrayal, and loyalty into fewer than thirty years. This period also directly gave rise to the Guanlong Group, the fubing militia system, and the imperial lineages of the Northern Qi, Northern Zhou, Sui, and Tang, all of which shaped China for centuries.

In other words, if you don't understand the end of the Northern Wei, you don't understand where the Sui and Tang came from.

And the protagonist of this history is a man named Gao Huan. From a poor boy in Huaishuo Garrison, he climbed step by step to the top of the empire. His rival was another genius: Yuwen Tai.

Their clash was not merely a war between two men, but a contest between two systems: rule by men versus rule by institutions, warlord strongholds versus the fubing system, and division between the Han and non-Han peoples versus their integration.

The outcome of this contest determined the course of China's next three hundred years.

All right, let the story begin.