the establishment of tang dynasty the golden age of china was a team project and the mvps were li yuen and his wife's son lee zuming just to be clear this strapping adonis was also his own flesh and blood but you could hardly ever find such contrasting father and son duo in history and in this episode i will tell you the story of how these two boys beat all that competition in a deadly race against time to overthrow the tyrannical sway dynasty before the sway dynasty was established china was in chaos and northern china was ruled by various nomadic tribes that had settled there li yuen the sentimental family man was born in the year 566 in one of those states the northern zhou dynasty his mother who was of pneumatic shenbe descent had a sister who was married to the man who established the sway dynasty yangjin his uncle but he didn't attain a high rank purely through family connections he was also a great shot and he won his wife's hand in marriage in an archery competition she was also of champagne descent but despite all the shin bay connections li yuen was super proud of his lee family lineage he claimed to be a member of the prestigious lee clan from long sea and among his ancestors were legendary figures such as lee guang the flying general of han dynasty lee singh a famous general of qing dynasty and laozi the author of tao da jin his wife's sister was also married to the current emperor yang guang so with all this connection you would think that he could coast through life relying solely on his quanzi but the problem is that this new emperor was a massive jerk the complete opposite of his wise and frugal father practically everyone suspected that he ordered his own father's assassination he was tyrannical wasteful and murderous to boot countless peasant lives were lost as they were worked to death in mega projects such as the rebuilding of the great wall and digging the grand canal and the death count kept rising by the thousands as he launched wars to all corners of the empire he was considered one of the worst tyrants in chinese history the main difference between him and historical tyrants such as chinseo huang and hanuti was that he was an incompetent loser his father had once failed in his invasion of gokuryo korea in 598 so in 611 he gathered the largest army the world may have ever seen if the records can be believed it was over a million troops and millions more in supporting role he completely dwarfed the gokuryo army yet his invasion in 612 ended with utter crushing defeat with devastating number of casualties that failure led to a series of rebellion as he tried to raise more troops for another invasion no not the koreans anything i will fight anything but the koreans peasants and officers rebelled against the empire so yang guang canceled his next invasion and sent his official wang zuchong to deal with them this dude wasn't a good egg either he was competent yet evil in one instance he promised a group of rebels safety if they were to surrender but once they did he massacred all thirty thousand of them yang guang really didn't give a damn about the rebels he was more concerned about his projects and leisure so he went to inspect the great wall up north as for what would probably be a greater threat than the rebels at the time was the eastern turkic cagnant his father the late emperor had politically neutralized them but if they started to get funny ideas and used the chaos as opportunity to launch a surprise attack then he's in trouble yep he is in trouble information about his visit was leaked and they surrounded him with a massive force oh looks like the story is ending early and the sway dynasty is about to collapse but not if lee simming had anything to say about this 16 years old lee simming was just a junior officer at the time he was once described to be as gracious as leopon the founder of han dynasty and as bold as taotao the famous three kingdoms warlord as the turks saw what seemed to be a massive army approaching them they had no choice but to retreat however that was just a rules lee suming had come up with the idea to deceive his enemies into thinking that the army he was riding with was much larger by carrying more flags and beating more drums apparently he also had the brilliance of those legendary figures at this point the lee family was still loyal to the suey dynasty li suming's father li yuen was recently made the governor of taiyuan in charge of suppressing the rebels and defending against the turks but as the rebellion intensified in 616 the father and son duo could clearly see that the days of the sweet dynasty was numbered but li yuen would never dream of lifting a finger against the empire especially when his other family members were held near the capital if he was to even breathe funny then their lives would be forfeit father the emperor is an evil man and his empire is crumbling i've gathered a ban of rebels it is time to rise up what that's treasonous i will report you to the emperor myself for even daring to say that no he won't but i can't because liuen was a massive softie when it comes to his own family members he may have played with the idea of rebelling himself but the current emperor was still his first cousin after all so it took a lot of convincing to change his mind he hadn't been doing a great job suppressing the rebels and an imperial inspector was coming to question him if that inspector were to also know that he had been having a bit of fun in the imperial harem then he would be in serious trouble look my wife had passed away i was lonely okay knowing that he would be executed either way he was blackmailed into joining the rebellion he may not have his son's courage but this daddy is a smooth operator he knew that the first thing he needed to do was to secure the safety of his family members so he spread rumors that the emperor is preparing for another invasion of gokurio and incited another round of rebellion pretending to be overwhelmed by the rebels he sent out lee silming and other officers to conscript soldiers from other districts he also sent out secret envoys to smuggle his family members out of the empire's grasp but unfortunately they were kept on tight leash his daughter couldn't make her way to him and decided to hide where she was near the imperial capital changhan but she knew how to handle herself she said with this assurance li yuen finally launched his rebellion they knew that this is not going to be an easy ride the clock was ticking and many dangers were creeping towards them the emperor not caring about the dire situation of the empire had taken a leisure cruise to the city of zhangtu in eastern china so their main objective for now is to take the capital chang before he and his army could return the turks were also a threat they could strike them from behind at any time so he struck a treaty with them and rented some of their best cavalry warriors but he had to put up a strong front against them at all time if the turks whose totem animal was the wolf could smell any sort of weakness then he would become their prey instead nevertheless the rebellion is on baby in the last few years there was a prophecy spreading around china it said that someone with a surname lee would become the next emperor and could that person really be him he thought probably not because his 2-bit operation was much smaller than the leading contender the rebel leader lee me who wasn't related to him at all if he didn't play his cards right then he would be swallowed by the bigger fish in the pond besides their chosen one wouldn't have gotten stuck in the first obstacle they came across liuen's army had trouble taking hoi which was defended by the elite imperial troops as the days go by the morale of his army started to drop the mass of untrained rebel army was only duct taped together by winning momentum and rations rather than discipline if he can't bring them victories or if they run out of food then they would inevitably disband to make the matter worse he heard that the turks were making their move and his fourth son li yuanji was practically left all by himself to guard the base at tywin maybe he should turn back maybe he wasn't cut out for this after all maybe it is time to give up li yuen thought no lee suming and his elder brother li jin sun pleaded impassionately for their father to keep going it is too late to give up now they had done everything to keep the army together and it is about time for their dad to do the same lee suming even cried outside his father's camp throughout the night to change his mind finally after much deliberation the old man came around and he emerged out of his camp with renewed resolve he then turned his current predicament into his advantage he sent a letter to lee me who was besieging loyang and faint subservience it not only bought him time it also allowed limi to face the main imperial army led by wang sinchon without reserve as for the turks they would need to take the town of mai before they can get to taiyuan so it means that they still have time all they needed to do is to take chang on and make it that new base before taiwan is taken to keep the morale up they will just have to keep winning and seize their enemy's supply with strengthened resolve they were able to trick the enemy commander into leaving the base and ambushed him riding on the wave of this breakthrough they steamrolled past other obstacles with the ferfer of a victorious army as they progressed their army exploded in size as peasants and officials flocked under their banner no looting li suming warned when some petty theft happened he compensated it out of his own pocket and punished neither the soldier nor the peasants because he needed to maintain high morale as they approached their final destination the imperial capital chang-an to prevent being caught in a pincer attack li yuen divided his army into two he ordered his subordinates to assault the city of retung to prevent them reinforcing chang-an the moment he crossed the yellow river he received wonderful news his daughter and other family members were still alive and they had even gathered their own band of rebels so the swimming was sent westward to rendezvous with them and take fufung to prepare for a pincer attack on zhang an along the way the size of his division grew as more people joined him and he also absorbed competing rebel groups that he defeated but then suddenly a massive contingent of men appeared before him it was a formidable force of seventy thousand but he was not faced by them one bit because he recognized the leader of this band it was his very own sister the legendary princess ping young apparently she not only took care of herself she even managed to gather 70 000 men under her command how did she do it well you will find out in a different episode right now we have an empire to topple with the lee family reunited they became stronger than ever together they launched a pincer attack on changhan and took it down in no time to solidify his control li yuan captured the current emperor's grandson yang yo and made him a puppet emperor not long after the original emperor yang guang who was feeling pretty comfortable in his new base in zhengthu was killed by his own subordinates who got sick of his antics seeing that there was no more need to keep a sweetness the emperor for legitimacy the puppet emperor was forced to abdicate and the lee family established the tang dynasty thus li yuen became the first emperor of the tang dynasty and lisumi the prime minister the eldest son li jin chung became the crown prince however china was still in chaos as various factions of rebels and former imperial officers continued to fight each other for the dominion of china there is a lot of cleanup job to do for the lee family but we will leave that story for another time on the next episode we will cover a slightly related topic the evolution of taoism tang dynasty's official religion so subscribe to the channel if you don't want to miss it if you would like to participate in the discussion and vote on future topics then be a pro and join us on patreon you can also help the channel by liking sharing and commenting because it boosts the algorithm until next time stay cool my bros