The Sui Empire's Turbulent Times

In the second year of Daye under Emperor Yang of Sui (606 AD), the empire had about 8.9 million households and a population of roughly 46 million. By the eighth year of Wude under the Tang (626 AD), the number of households nationwide had fallen below three million. By the middle of the Zhenguan era, the lower reaches of the Yellow River still had fewer than 700,000 households, based on the commanderies and counties of Hebei, Henan, and Shandong. That was barely one-seventh of the 4.7 million households recorded in those three regions at the start of Daye under the Sui. From the seventh year of Daye (611 AD), when Wang Bo of Shandong raised an army in rebellion against the Sui, to the end of Wude, when the Tang armies finally put an end to the wars in the heartland, the fifteen years of conflict claimed around 30 million lives from some six million households. The densely populated middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River were left strewn with corpses and utterly deserted. At the end of the Sui and the beginning of the Tang, warlords rose on every side, arrows and blades shrieked through the air, and tiger and eagle banners soared. It was an epic age. When countless people sing of this stirring history and praise its celebrated heroes, do they ever hear the cries of the 30 million innocent people of the heartland? Do they ever see the countless bones bleaching on both sides of the Yellow River? To be born in this age was like stepping into hell. And so he stepped into hell, traveling from Dunhuang to Luoyang, from garrison soldier to commander. Filled with hope and dreams, he plunged into the churning currents of history, trying to save those 30 million innocent people.