AHC: Longer-lasting Sui Dynasty

Historically, the Sui Dynasty, despite reuniting China, lasted only 37 years between 581 and 618, so, your challenge is for the Sui dynasty to last at least a century. Bonus points if you get the Sui Dynasty to last as long as the Tang Dynasty historically.
 
Pretty easy actually.Yang Guang never ascends the throne.He was never meant to be emperor in the first place given he was a second son and that his older brother was originally the crown prince.If he was never emperor then most like the Sui Dynasty wouldn’t have collapsed so quickly.The problem with the man was that he’s got the right ideas,but tried to do too much at the same time without regard to the welfare of his subjects.He was also a rather incompetent commander.
 
I wonder what major differences would there be between a lasting Sui Dynasty and OTL's Tang Dynasty.
You most likely won’t see someone like Wu Zetian taking over.There might not be a Grand Canal assuming Yang Guang never took over and that whoever replaced him didn’t build it instead.

China most likely would be much more powerful than the Tang Dynasty during the 7th century given that the wars which followed Sui’s fragmentation actually did tremendous damage.The first Sui Emperor’s reign was actually common seen as a golden age.

The Sui Dynasty might not try to conquer the Steppes like the Tang did,given the Sui Dynasty managed to fragment the Turkic Khanate by virtue of diplomacy and limited military expeditions.
 
Another thing is that depending on the circumstance of Sui survival,you might still see large aristocratic clans monopolizing government offices.Yang Guang was vital for introducing the Imperial examination,which partially broke the aristocratic monopoly of government offices.

Basically Yang Guang as a ruler was both brilliant/incompetent/horrible at the same time.

As mentioned,he introduced the Imperial examination system.

Along with other measures like moving the capital from Chang’an to Luoyang and employing aristocrats from other regions of the empire,he tried to crackdown on the power of the powerful Guangzong nobility.This ended up alienating the Guangzong nobility—who then sponsored his cousin Li Yuan’s (the first Tang Emperor)revolt.

He built the Grand Canal,which would be vital for the economy of China as well as logistics for military campaigns,but because of the way how he built the canal in less than ten years with corvee labour,he created tremendous civil unrest.

His campaigns against Goguryeo most likely succeeded in heavily weakening Goguryeo,but all of his campaigns ended in defeat despite the massive advantage of Sui in numbers and equipment because of his inept military leadership(he basically tried to micromanage the war and did not allow hus commanders to take individual initiative).To fill up his army after repeated defeats,he had to conscript large numbers of men,which further destabilized his rule.

The guy also conquered other places like Tuyuhun and Champa,but most of his conquests were short-lived since the massive civil unrest meant that the areas he conquered had to be abandoned or re-conquered by his enemies.

Among other things,he was ridiculously greedy.Even though the granaries were overflowing with food,he still taxed his people heavily and refused to distribute grain to his people when his constructions or military campaigns caused famine.

If he died within the first ten years of his reign,Sui most likely would have survived while still having many of his innovations in place.
 
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