farmland and registered with the civilian population. This removed them
from the immediate control of their military commanders and gave them a
way to provide for their own upkeep. Local military authorities main-
tained a list of these soldiers who were now farming so that they could be
called up as needed. Some of these units served in rotation at the capital.
Thus soldiers and their martial arts were broadly dispersed into the rural
countryside.
The second important policy of the Sui was instituted in 595 .On 12
April of that year, the government gathered all the weapons in its territory
and forbade the manufacture of any new arms (outside of its own arsenals,
of course). The Guanzhong area, the original territorial core of the Sui, was
exempted from the weapons prohibition. This was an attempt to demili-
tarize the populace in general and to prevent any organized, armed, large-
scale uprisings. Given the centuries of warfare that had preceded this
policy, it was unlikely to have been wholly successful, but it was a start.
Weapons and the martial arts that made them effective were widespread
in society. Blacksmiths all over China would have been similarly experi-
enced in manufacturing weapons. The 595 edict attempted to maintain
martial capabilities in the Sui core and remove them from the less politi-
cally reliable parts of the empire.
Yang Jian’s 590 order was instrumental in transforming what had been
the Twenty-four Armies of the Northern Zhou into what would become
thefubing(territorial soldiery). Yang Guang took further steps in 605 to
diminish the power of regional commanders by completely abolishing posi-
tions that combined civil and military authority in a locality. Henceforth,
all troops were controlled by the central government directly. This military
system was spread from the northwest to the south and east both to draw in
the Chinese elites in those areas and to recruit men with military skills. The
path of career advancement through military accomplishment removed a
martial threat to the state and placed it in service to state power.
All of these organizational processes strengthened the Sui state but were
not enough to preserve it when Yang Guang overreached in a massive
attack on Koguryo (a state in what is now north and central Korea) from
611 to 612. Despite enormous losses and growing banditry in China, the
emperor resolved to try again in 613. This time a rebellion in his rear cut
short a campaign that was not progressing well. Yang Guang’s fortunes
continued to decline, and his own troops killed him in 618. Constant
campaigning had weakened the Sui state in men and material. The collapse
of Sui authority starting about 612 unleashed a familiar set of players in
the struggle for power. David Graff describes these as“bandit-rebels
94 The Sui and Tang Dynasties