AD 617, the thirteenth year of Sui Daye. At that time, the sky was shattered, the sun and the moon were dark, and darkness enveloped the earth.The mountains and rivers collapsed, the vegetation turned to ashes, and the sea boiled like soup.At that time, the Sui Dynasty lost its deer, and the heroes competed, and the attacks and killings continued year after year.The land in Shenzhou is sinking, the Central Plains are swaying, and thousands of corpses have built up mountains and peaks.At that time, the endless wind dried Zhengren's tears, the bloody rain stained the general's shirt red, the soldiers in troubled times (xian) roasted the souls of the living and the dead, and the doomsday beacon smoke hurt the eyes of the elderly and children .At that time, the once prosperous and powerful Sui Empire was already precarious and on the verge of collapse.

This year, a man named Li Yuan was standing on a city named Jinyang, looking at the chaotic clouds flying across and the hazy sky, with a dignified expression and thoughtful expression.Behind him stood three tall and straight young men with shiny armor.One of them was imposing, with a resolute expression, and a kind of light that looked down on the world faintly shone in his deep eyes. His name is Li Shimin. No one knows that in just one year, this young man will follow his father Li Yuan to unleash the uprising flag, point his sword at Chang'an, and finally overthrow the Sui Dynasty, wipe out all heroes, and unify the country.

No one knows that a few years later, this young man will stand on the ruins of the collapsed Sui Dynasty, create an unprecedented and unprecedentedly powerful empire, create a prosperous world in which the world is peaceful and all nations come to court, and finally become the shining sun and the moon. , the eternal emperor who is famous in history! In 617 A.D., Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was still drunk in the Li Palace in Jiangdu, enjoying the last luxury in his life with an ostrich mentality of "there are no thieves in the world".But this year, all the heroes in the Quartet no longer respected the Zhengshuo of the Sui Dynasty, and all joined forces to claim the emperor and king, such as Dou Jiande, Li Mi, Liu Wuzhou, Liang Shidu, Guo Zihe, Xue Ju, Li Gui, Xiao Xian (xian) etc.In addition, there are countless grass-headed kings, large and small, scattered among the mountains, lakes and seas.

In the middle and late period of the whole great cause, all the people with a little game capital in the Sui Dynasty seemed to be impatient to rise up, and only one powerful official of the frontier remained unchanged. He is Li Yuan, the Duke of Tang, who stayed behind in Taiyuan (Jinyang, the county government) in the Sui Dynasty. Over the years, no matter how turbulent the world is, no matter how lively the game of heroes vying for the throne is, Li Yuan has always acted calmly, as if everything has nothing to do with him. Could it be that Li Yuan really has no aspirations to win the world?

No, he was lurking. Li Yuan knew very well that the rafters in his early years rotted first, so he was not in a hurry.He wants to keep a low profile and fight hard, and wait until the foundation of the Sui Dynasty's rule is completely shaken, and when the heroes of the Quartet kill each other and hurt each other, he will take action decisively and strike later! In the seventh month of the lunar calendar in 617 A.D., Li Yuan and his son, who had been dormant for many years, finally set up troops in Jinyang, and then went straight to Chang'an with invincible momentum, and invaded Guanzhong in September of the same year.In November, Li Yuan conquered Chang'an, supported the acting king Yang You (you) as emperor, made himself Minister of the Book and Prime Minister, and became the king of Tang.

In the third month of the lunar calendar in 618 A.D., Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, was hanged to death by Yu Wenhuaji and others in the Li Palace in Jiangdu.In May of the same year, Li Yuan forced Yang You to abdicate, ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor in Chang'an, established the Tang Dynasty, and established Yuan Wude. A peak dynasty that lasted for 289 years has thus kicked off a magnificent prelude. Once upon a time, the Sui Dynasty was also a prosperous and powerful empire.Yang Jian, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, reigned for 24 years. The society was stable, the population increased, the people's livelihood was prosperous, and the country was growing.It can be said that without the institutional framework and national scale established by the Sui Dynasty, there would be no prosperous Tang Dynasty that came out of nowhere.However, such a dynasty that started with a high-profile attitude as a century-old shop only existed for 37 years before being buried in the hands of Sui Yang Emperor Yang Guang.

what is this? In fact, Yang Guang is not a fatuous and incompetent second generation emperor.He was not only endowed with extraordinary talent since he was a child, but also possessed a high literary talent, he was also humble, self-disciplined, diligent and self-disciplined, and morally flawless; as an adult, his performance in politics and military affairs was even more outstanding and eye-catching.Therefore, as early as in his youth, Yang Guang was the best son in the eyes of Yang Jian and his wife, and also the wisest prince in the eyes of the subjects of the empire. ("Sui Shu·Yangdi Ji": "Yangdi Yuanyuan was at a weak age, and he had heard about it for a long time. Wu and Hui were in the south, but the Xiongnu in the north. Among the Kun brothers, he was the only one who made a name for himself.") Because of this, his body Yang Guangcai, who was the second son, broke the principle of "the eldest son's succession system", successfully seized the position of the eldest son Yang Yong as the crown prince, and then ascended the throne as emperor.

However, Yang Guang, who looked so good, finally pushed the Sui Dynasty into the abyss of eternal doom, and he was firmly nailed to the pillar of shame in history in the name of a tyrant. The reason is not that Yang Guang is incompetent, on the contrary, but - he is too conceited of his own ability! Out of this kind of conceit, Yang Guang firmly believed that, on the basis of inheriting the strong national strength left by Yang Jian, he would be able to make great strides forward and create a glorious imperial career that would shine through the ages.In order to complete this "big cause" as soon as possible, Yang Guang, as soon as he ascended the throne of God, couldn't wait to take the step of building large-scale construction and blindly expanding.

From the first year of Daye (AD 605), Yang Guang devoted all his national resources to start a series of large-scale construction projects, such as building the Eastern Capital, digging canals, building Chi Roads, building the Great Wall, building palaces, and building dragon boats.At the same time, Yang Guang launched a series of foreign expansion and strong diplomacy with thunderous momentum: first Xuanwei Turkic, defeated Khitan, conquered Tuyuhun, and controlled the Western Regions; Liu Qiu (today’s Taiwan region) and Consolation Chitu (today’s Malay Peninsula) made Chenla (today’s Cambodia), Poli (today’s Malay Peninsula) and Wa Kingdom (today’s Japanese archipelago) to recognize the Sui Dynasty. The status of the suzerain state, and sent envoys to the court, proclaimed their ministers and paid tribute.

In the seventh year of Daye (AD 611), with the completion of various projects and the attachment of neighboring countries, a prosperous blueprint called "Daye" seemed to have been perfectly displayed in front of Yang Guang.However, in Yang Guang's view, this blueprint is not perfect, because there is still a small spot on it - Gaoli. Goryeo is the abbreviation of Gouli (Gouli). It was a local government established by the Fuyu ethnic minority in Northeast China at the end of the Western Han Dynasty. Its territory roughly includes the eastern part of Liaoning, the southern part of Jilin and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.For a long time, Goryeo claimed to be a vassal to the Sui Dynasty on the surface, but in fact it often harbored ulterior motives.In the eighteenth year of Emperor Kaihuang (AD 598), Goryeo "drove Mohe and banned Khitan", sent troops to invade western Liaoning, and secretly contacted Eastern Turks in an attempt to jointly fight against the Sui Dynasty.Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty was furious when he heard the news, and immediately mobilized 300,000 land and water troops to attack Goryeo. Unexpectedly, halfway through the journey, the army encountered floods and plagues, and the navy also encountered storms at sea, causing a large number of ships to sink.The army was forced to retreat, and when they returned to Chang'an, the number of casualties reached nine out of ten.

Since then, Goryeo has become a heart disease that the monarchs and ministers of the Sui Dynasty cannot forget. In the third year of Daye (AD 607), Yang Guang visited the north and happened to meet the envoy of Goryeo in the royal court of Qimin Khan of East Turkic. Yang Guang immediately ordered him to tell Gaoyuan, the king of Goryeo, to meet him in the pilgrimage, otherwise he would go to his country in person. "Patrol".However, Gao Yuan turned a deaf ear to Yang Guang's intimidation.Yang Guang was furious, and immediately began to expand his armaments, preparing to launch a war against Korea. In hindsight, it was this war that ultimately brought down the Sui Dynasty. Because, since Yang Guang came to the throne, a series of large-scale projects and continuous external expansion have greatly consumed the national power of the Sui Dynasty, and the common people who have been conscripted for many years are overwhelmed.At this time, the people's livelihood of the Sui Empire was already in decline, famine was everywhere, and various social crises were brewing sharply, which could erupt at any time.However, Yang Guang, who was extremely conceited and overjoyed, turned a blind eye to this and insisted on issuing a war mobilization order to conquer Korea. Thus, the tragedy of the Sui Dynasty's downfall was doomed. In the seventh year of the great cause, when Yang Guang drove the imperial chariot recklessly onto the track of war, he didn't know that what was waiting in front of him would be an abyss where one person would perish and the country would perish...