Xiao Yi

Biography

A prince based in Jingzhou

Xiao Yi belonged to the Liang ruling house. He lost the sight of one eye after an illness in childhood. The Liang Shu describes his early ability to recite texts and his later wide reading and writing. Its accounts of dreams foretelling kingship belong to the biography's literary and political framing, rather than verifiable proof of a future succession. In 514 (the thirteenth year of Liang's Tianjian era) he received the title Prince of Xiangdong. After several provincial postings, he again governed Jingzhou in 547 (the first year of Liang's Taiqing era). The troops and resources around Jiangling gave him the base from which he later claimed leadership of Liang.

the Hou Jing Rebellion and accession

Hou Jing surrounded the palace city at Jiankang in 548 (the second year of Liang's Taiqing era). other accounts's full article and the Liang Shu record that Xiao Yi issued appeals and sent Wu Ye, Fan Wenjiao, his son Xiao Fangdeng, Wang Sengbian, and other forces east. These forces did not lift the siege in time. After Emperor Wu died, Xiao Yi fought his relatives Xiao Yu and Xiao Cha for control of the upper Yangtze region. He entrusted much of the campaign against Hou Jing to Wang Sengbian; Chen Baxian also took part in suppressing the rebellion. Hou Jing fell in 552 (the first year of Liang's Chengsheng era), but the old capital and the provinces had not returned to a stable political order.

Xiao Yi then ordered the killing at Jiankang of Xiao Dong and his brothers, whom Hou Jing had earlier used in the succession. The Liang Shu attributes the decision to Xiao Yi. After repeated petitions from officials, Xiao Yi became emperor at Jiangling on 13 December 552 (the bingzi day of the eleventh month in the first year of Liang's Chengsheng era). He did not move the court back to Jiankang. His brother Xiao Ji had already claimed the imperial title in Yizhou, so the ruling family's contest continued.

Western Wei and the fall of Jiangling

In 553 (the second year of Liang's Chengsheng era), Xiao Ji advanced eastward. Xiao Yi sent forces against him and requested that Western Wei attack Yizhou. Xiao Ji was defeated and killed, while the Western Wei commander Yuchi Jiong seized Yizhou. Victory in the family conflict thus coincided with Liang's loss of the Bashu region. Disputes with Western Wei over territory and diplomatic protocol followed. In 554 (the third year of Liang's Chengsheng era), Western Wei sent Yu Jin and others against Jiangling; Xiao Cha, another Liang prince, joined them. Xiao Yi called for reinforcements and organized the city's defenses, but the city fell. The Liang Shu records his capture and his death on 27 January 555 (the xinwei day of the twelfth month in the third year of Liang's Chengsheng era). Both encyclopedias connect Xiao Cha's side to the execution, though details of the method should be stated only with their source limits.

Xiao Yi was the seventh son of Emperor Wu of Liang and the fourth ruler of the dynasty, reigning from 552 to 555 and at the same time an important man of letters and painter of the late Southern Dynasties. Posted repeatedly in his earlier years to Jingzhou and Jiangzhou with military and civil authority over a region, he held the upper Yangtze during Hou Jing's rebellion, defeated Hou Jing's forces and took the imperial title at Jiangling. After his accession he struck the clansmen who had contended with him from the clan register and changed their surnames, a severity notable among the clan struggles of the Southern Dynasties.

In 554 his arrogant language toward the Western Wei provoked its attack on Jiangling. The city fell the next year and he was captured and killed at forty-seven. As Jiangling fell he had more than a hundred and forty thousand volumes from the palace library burned — a great loss in Chinese cultural history — and his lament that he had read ten thousand scrolls and come to this is often quoted.

In letters he was one of the representative writers of palace-style poetry and, with his brothers Xiao Gang and Xiao Tong, a central figure in the literature of the Liang. His Master of the Golden Tower partakes of both the philosophical treatise and literary criticism, its classification and evaluation of writing being important material for the literary ideas of the Southern Dynasties. As emperor, however, he urged reform of the ornate style in favor of plain and practical writing — a turn contrasting with his earlier work and reflecting the shift in literary fashion of the late Southern Dynasties.

His conduct during Hou Jing's rebellion is interwoven with the feuds among his brothers and nephews. After the palace fell the princes of the Liang held separate regions: Xiao Yi at Jingzhou, Xiao Ji at Yizhou, Xiao Cha at Xiangyang and Xiao Lun downstream. Xiao Yi defeated Xiao Lun and Xiao Ji in turn, the campaigns and killings greatly weakening the clan and opening the way for Western Wei intervention.

After Jiangling fell the remnants of the Liang set up Xiao Fangzhi at Jiankang, power passing thereafter to Chen Baxian and ending in the founding of the Chen. Xiao Yi's reign thus falls in the phase when the Liang existed in name only, his personal gifts contrasting with the brevity of his regime.

He governed Jingzhou for a long period and gathered men of letters about his staff, Jiangling becoming one of the cultural centers of the later Southern Dynasties. In Hou Jing's rebellion the books and scholars of Jiankang were largely scattered, while Jiangling preserved a considerable part of the Liang's cultural accumulation until it fell in 554.

His reform of style as emperor is set out fairly fully in the Master of the Golden Tower: he distinguished "writing" from "notes" and held that composition should serve government — a view contrasting with his earlier palace-style verse. His literary ideas are therefore often used by scholars to discuss the change of fashion in the late Southern Dynasties.

The hundred and forty thousand volumes burned when Jiangling fell were the main part of the Liang library. Since the palaces and books of Jiankang had already suffered in Hou Jing's rebellion, the fall of Jiangling left the Southern Dynasties' official collections almost wholly lost, a loss still mentioned in Sui and Tang times.

Accounts of his death differ: some record that he was killed by Western Wei troops after capture, others that he died as the city fell. His son Xiao Fangzhi was afterward raised at Jiankang, the Liang continuing in name for several years until Chen Baxian received the abdication.

After Hou Jing's rebellion nearly the whole Liang clan was drawn into the contest for the throne, the wars among Xiao Yi, Xiao Ji and Xiao Cha draining the dynasty further. Xiao Cha later founded the Western Liang with Western Wei support, the politics about Jiangling splitting accordingly.

After Jiangling fell his sons were moved by the Western Wei to Chang'an, the Liang clan thereafter divided between north and south and its political weight fading. With the founding of the Chen the center of gravity in southern politics shifted from clan strife to the relations between the Chen house and the local magnates.

Besides the Master of the Golden Tower he left collections of poetry and prose and some writings on painting, his remarks on the art holding a place in the history of Chinese painting criticism. His Portraits of Tribute Bearers is said to depict envoys from various lands then coming to court, an important clue for the study of Southern Dynasties foreign relations and visual materials.

The edicts of his three-year reign concerned chiefly the ordering of the armies and the settling of the provinces; Jiangling as a capital had far smaller defenses and stores than Jiankang, one reason it fell so quickly before the Western Wei attack.

His arrogant language toward the Western Wei, as the Book of Zhou and the Comprehensive Mirror record, came of his demand that the Western Wei treat him as an equal and return the clansmen it had taken, whereupon the Western Wei strongman Yuwen Tai used it as a pretext for war. In the Jiangling campaign the Western Wei army and Xiao Cha's troops attacked together, the Liang forces failing and the city falling.

His prose and verse have a manner of their own in Southern Dynasties literature, his descriptions of scenery and lyrics often quoted by later readers. His views on writing both agreed and differed with his brother Xiao Gang's, the two forming different tendencies in the literary world of the Liang.

After Jiangling fell the Western Wei set up Xiao Cha there as emperor of Liang, known as the Western Liang, a state lasting more than thirty years until the Sui abolished it. Southern legitimacy passed to Jiankang and to the Chen founded by Chen Baxian.

During the siege he sought terms with the Western Wei without success and was taken when the city fell; the Western Wei burned or carried off the palaces and books of Jiangling to Chang'an, the cultural center of the south passing from there to Jiankang.

He also tried to set the administration in order and lighten taxes, but with Jiangling's small territory and limited finances these measures had little effect.

In his reign he maneuvered among the Western Wei and Northern Qi in the north and Xiao Ji in Sichuan, his room for diplomatic and military choice very limited — a chief reason the Jiangling regime could not last.

Later judgments of him waver between two identities, the talented man and the ruler who lost his state: his achievements in letters and painting are acknowledged on one side, his suspicion of his kin and his mismanagement criticized on the other. The two stand together to form the two faces of the man.

The fall of the Liang is directly tied to his mismanagement: he weakened the clan in contending for the throne and provoked the Western Wei abroad, so that the dynasty lost its last base. The Chen that followed carried on southern legitimacy, but with far smaller territory and strength.

Most of the documents and inscriptions of his court at Jiangling were lost when the city fell, later knowledge of his regime resting chiefly on the accounts of Sui and Tang historians.

In his reign he issued an edict reforming literary style, holding that writing should serve practical affairs — a view noted by literary historians together with his earlier palace-style work.

Jingzhou, where Jiangling stood, had been the great upriver stronghold of the Southern Dynasties since the Eastern Jin, its possession bearing on the safety of Jiankang. Xiao Yi held it without cooperating with the capital, so that the Liang lost its footing both upriver and down.

His handling of the clan contrasts with his father Xiao Yan's indulgence of it in his last years, a change connected with the reality of clan strife at the end of the Liang.

His literary activity and political career interweave: the poetic gatherings of his youth, the military and administrative business of his middle years and the grief of a lost state in his last days all leave traces in his writing. Such scholar-emperors are not rare in the Southern Dynasties, but his career is unusually tangled.

The financial difficulties of his reign were acute: with refugees numerous and production depressed about Jiangling after Hou Jing's rebellion, the court's tax revenue could hardly support its military and administrative needs.

His books and writings were lost together when Jiangling fell, the titles partially reconstructed from scattered notices being important clues to the transmission of Southern Dynasties texts.

His writings and career are recorded side by side in later sources, making a complete case of the literary politics of the late Southern Dynasties.

His posthumous name was conferred by the Liang house set up at Jiankang afterward, as Emperor Yuan with the temple name Shizu.

Major Activities

The rebellion and dynastic wars

From Jiangling, Xiao Yi directed upper Yangtze armies and appointed Wang Sengbian to attack Hou Jing. He was an important political and military organizer of the Liang campaign that recovered Jiankang. At the same time, succession disputes constrained his choices. Conflict with Xiao Yu, Xiao Cha, and Xiao Ji consumed Liang forces. His appeal for a Western Wei assault on Yizhou helped defeat Xiao Ji in the short term but was accompanied by the loss of Bashu. Keeping the court at Jiangling allowed him to rely on his established military base, yet did not restore durable Liang control over either the west or the lower Yangtze region.

Scholarship, painting, and the library

Xiao Yi wrote Jinlouzi, Xiaode Zhuan, Zhongchen Zhuan, and other works. The Liang Shu describes his wide reading, and later writers grouped him with his father Xiao Yan and brother Xiao Gang as the “Three Xiaos.” Paintings of envoys and foreign peoples associated with his name include Zhigong Tu (provisional romanized title). The surviving work has a history of copies and fragments; it should not simply be identified as a complete painting in Xiao Yi's own hand. Both encyclopedias report that he ordered a large number of books burned while Jiangling was under attack. Their evidence does not establish one uncontested exact day or volume count. The destruction of the books remains a central reason his cultural reputation is contested.

Personal Relations

• Xiao Yan and Ruan Lingying: His father, Emperor Wu of Liang, and birth mother. Ruan received a posthumous honor after Xiao Yi became emperor.
• Xiao Gang and Xiao Ji: His brother Xiao Gang was Emperor Jianwen of Liang. His brother Xiao Ji claimed the throne in Yizhou and died fighting Xiao Yi's forces.
• Xiao Cha: Xiao Yi's nephew, who turned to Western Wei after the Liang family wars and took part in the attack on Jiangling.
• Wang Sengbian and Chen Baxian: Liang commanders in the campaign against Hou Jing. Wang also held major military and political responsibilities under the Jiangling court.
• Xiao Fangju and Xiao Fangzhi: Xiao Yi's sons. Fangju became crown prince and was killed after Jiangling fell; Fangzhi was later proclaimed emperor in the eastern territories.

Historical Assessment

The Liang Shu praises Xiao Yi's learning but also records Jiangling's collapse and the suffering that accompanied it. Both encyclopedias describe his role in defeating Hou Jing alongside the destructive consequences of family warfare, the Western Wei attack on Yizhou, and the burning of books. Criticism that he failed to relieve the palace city must account for the forces he did send and their failure to break the siege. Likewise, Jiangling's fall arose from a complex military and diplomatic situation; a single remark or personal trait cannot by itself explain it. His literary accomplishments and his political decisions require separate assessment.