Biography
Family Background and Early Life
Xiao Yan was born in 464, the eighth year of the Daming era under Emperor Xiaowu of Liu Song, at the Sanqiao residence in Tongxia Ward, Moling County. His father, Xiao Shunzhi, was said to be a descendant of the Western Han chancellor Xiao He and a clansman of Emperor Gao of Southern Qi, Xiao Daocheng. Xiao Shunzhi held offices including Attendant, Commandant of the Guards, Chamberlain for the Heir Apparent, General of the Guards, and governor of Danyang, and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Linxiang County. Xiao Yan's mother, Zhang Shangrou, was said to be a sixth-generation descendant of the Western Jin minister Zhang Hua and came from Fangcheng in Fanyang. According to the genealogy presented in the source, Xiao Yan's family traced its settlement in Lanling County, Donghai Commandery, to Xiao Biao, a grandson of Xiao He. In 291, the first year of the Yuankang era of Western Jin, Lanling Commandery was separated from Donghai Commandery. Xiao Yan's great-great-grandfather Xiao Zheng served as magistrate of Huaiyin County; in the early Eastern Jin the family migrated south and settled at Dongcheng Ward in Wujin County, Jinling Commandery, where Southern Lanling Commandery was established as an émigré commandery. The Xiao clan was thereafter regarded as a Southern Lanling family.
Xiao Yan was intelligent and eager to learn from childhood and was especially gifted in literature. Benefiting from his family background, he first entered office as a legal aide in the household of Xiao Zilun, Prince of Baling, and later served as an Eastern Pavilion libationer under Wang Jian, General of the Guards. Wang Jian valued him highly on first meeting and recommended him for a post in the Revenue Section. He reportedly told the notable He Xian: “This young Xiao will become an Attendant before he is thirty; beyond that, his rank will be beyond measure.”
The Eight Friends of Jingling and Service under Southern Qi
In the first lunar month of 484, the second year of the Yongming era, Xiao Ziliang, Prince of Jingling, opened his Western Residence and gathered literary men. Xiao Yan associated there with Fan Yun, Xiao Chen, Ren Fang, Wang Rong, Xie Tiao, Shen Yue, and Lu Chui; the eight were known as the “Eight Friends of Jingling.” Wang Rong, famed for judging talent, often told friends and relatives: “The man who will govern the realm must be this one.” During this period Xiao Yan became known not only for literature but also for strategic ability and competence in both civil and military affairs.
In 490, the eighth year of Yongming, Xiao Yan became an advisory officer to Xiao Zilong, Prince of Sui. Soon afterward his father Xiao Shunzhi died, and Xiao Yan left office and returned to Jiankang to observe mourning for three years. In 493, the eleventh year of Yongming, Emperor Wu of Southern Qi, Xiao Ze, became gravely ill. Xiao Ziliang appointed Xiao Yan, Xiao Yi, Wang Rong, Fan Yun, and others as military commanders within his retinue. Wang Rong planned to forge an imperial order and install Xiao Ziliang as emperor. Xiao Yan judged that the plan would fail and told Fan Yun, “Wang Yuanzhang is not a man capable of saving the age; watch him fail.” As he predicted, Xiao Luan, Marquis of Xichang, thwarted Wang Rong's plot and supported the accession of the imperial grandson Xiao Zhaoye.
After Xiao Zhaoye came to the throne, he devoted himself to pleasure. Xiao Luan, Xiao Yan, and others plotted to depose him. Xiao Yan advised Xiao Luan on how to neutralize Xiao Zilong, Prince of Sui, arguing that Xiao Zilong was mediocre and that his subordinates Yuan Lisheng and Bian Bailong could be won over with high office and generous rewards. He also suggested reassuring Wang Jingze by means of beautiful women. Xiao Luan followed these plans and removed the threats. In 494, the first year of Longchang, Xiao Yan was appointed Gentleman of the Secretariat and then Yellow Gate Gentleman. For his role in supporting Xiao Luan's accession, he was made Baron of Jianyang County with a fief of three hundred households. His position thereafter rose steadily, although he later avoided discussion of this episode and did not wish to be reminded that he had been one of the “founding supporters” of Xiao Luan's enthronement.
The Battle of Yiyang and Command at Yongzhou
In 495, the second year of the Jianwu era, Northern Wei emperor Xiaowen, Tuoba Hong, led an army said to number three hundred thousand against Southern Qi and advanced east along the Huai River toward Zhongli. Xiao Luan first sent Cui Huijing and Pei Shuye to resist and then dispatched Xiao Yan together with the General Who Pacifies the North, Wang Guangzhi, to relieve Yiyang. When Wang Guangzhi reached a point one hundred *li* from Yiyang, he became hesitant after hearing of the size of the Wei force. Xiao Yan asked to act as vanguard. Marching by a small road through the night, he reached Xianshou Mountain, only a few *li* from the Wei camp, and ordered banners planted across the hills. At daybreak the Qi defenders inside Yiyang saw the banners, believed that a large relief army had arrived, and their morale rose. They sallied out and attacked the Wei army, setting fires with the wind. Xiao Yan personally led a simultaneous attack from the other side. Pressed from front and rear, the Wei army broke out and withdrew, and the Qi forces won a major victory.
Xiao Yan later held posts including Central Attendant to the Crown Prince and concurrently Director of the Feathered Forest Guard. In 497, the fourth year of Jianwu, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei again campaigned south. Xiao Yan led reinforcements, but at the Battle of Dengcheng he was forced to withdraw after commander Cui Huijing fled the battlefield. Xiao Yan regrouped the troops and retreated while fighting, eventually withdrawing safely. After Emperor Ming of Southern Qi, Xiao Luan, died, Xiao Yan was appointed governor of Yongzhou and stationed at Xiangyang. There he strengthened the army and quietly accumulated military power, laying the groundwork for his later uprising.
Rebellion against the Marquess of Donghun and the Founding of Southern Liang
In 500, the second year of the Yongyuan era, the Marquess of Donghun, Xiao Baojuan, ruled violently. Xiao Yan's elder brother Xiao Yi, governor of Yuzhou, was falsely accused of treason and ordered to die. On learning of this, Xiao Yan raised troops at Xiangyang against the Marquess of Donghun. He secretly had large quantities of bamboo cut around Xiangyang and submerged in a lake for later use in shipbuilding, giving rise to the later story of “cutting bamboo and sinking timber.” Xiao Yan wrote to Xiao Yingzhou, acting administrator of Jingzhou, urging him to join the uprising. Persuaded by his subordinates Xi Chanwen and Liu Chen, Xiao Yingzhou killed Liu Shanyang, a general sent by the Marquess of Donghun, joined Xiao Yan's revolt, and supported Xiao Baorong, Prince of Nankang and governor of Jingzhou, as their nominal leader.
In 501, the first year of Zhongxing, Xiao Yan besieged Yingcheng for more than two hundred days before taking it, then marched east toward Jiankang. In the twelfth lunar month the Marquess of Donghun was killed in a coup led by the general Wang Zhenguo, and Xiao Yan occupied Jiankang. In 502, the second year of Zhongxing, Xiao Yan accepted the “abdication” of Emperor He of Southern Qi, Xiao Baorong, founded Southern Liang, and became Emperor Wu of Liang. He reduced the former emperor to Prince of Baling and had him ordered to die the following day.
Reforms and Achievements in the Early Reign
In the early years of his reign, Xiao Yan paid close attention to government and attempted to correct abuses inherited from the Liu Song and Southern Qi periods. To bring the provinces and commanderies under his control, he replaced opponents, appointed trusted men, and used military force when necessary. He revised the “Hundred Families Genealogy,” treated members of the imperial clan with relative leniency, and sought to mediate tensions between great aristocratic lineages and families of humbler status. Militarily, he resisted Northern Wei incursions. In 506, the fifth year of Tianjian, Liang forces dealt Northern Wei a major defeat at the Battle of Zhongli, helping preserve the balance between north and south. Xiao Yan later launched several northern campaigns, but with limited results.
In culture and scholarship, Xiao Yan strongly promoted learning and sponsored the organization of classical, historical, and literary texts. In 512, the eleventh year of Tianjian, regulations for the Five Rites—auspicious, funerary, military, guest, and festive rites—were completed in more than one thousand juan and 8,019 provisions and promulgated for use. Dissatisfied with the dynastic-history format represented by the *Book of Han*, he also sponsored the compilation of a six-hundred-juan *Comprehensive History* and personally wrote its encomia and prefaces. Under his patronage, Southern Dynasties culture reached what the source describes as its greatest prosperity since the Eastern Jin. Li Yanshou, author of the *History of the Southern Dynasties*, wrote: “In the more than two hundred years since the dynasty crossed the Yangzi, material and cultural refinement was never more flourishing than at this time.”
Buddhism in His Later Years and the Four Self-Offerings
On the eighth day of the third lunar month of 527, the eighth year of Putong, Xiao Yan made his first self-offering at Tongtai Temple, becoming a monk. Three days later he returned to lay life and the palace, granted a general amnesty, and changed the era name to Datong. On the fifteenth day of the ninth lunar month of 529, the third year of Datong, he went to Tongtai Temple for a second time, held an unrestricted assembly of the fourfold Buddhist community, removed his imperial robes and put on a monastic robe, offered himself to the monastery, and lectured on the *Nirvana Sutra*. Court officials contributed one hundred million cash to redeem him. On the tenth day of the fourth lunar month of 546, the twelfth year of Datong, he entered monastic life a third time, and officials paid two hundred million cash for his return. On the third day of the third lunar month of 547, the first year of Taiqing, he entered Tongtai Temple for the fourth time, remained there for thirty-seven days, and was redeemed by the court for one hundred million cash.
Xiao Yan was deeply devoted to Buddhism. Beyond his four self-offerings, he sponsored temple construction on a large scale. Guo Zushen described the capital as having “more than five hundred Buddhist monasteries, magnificent to the utmost; more than one hundred thousand monks and nuns, with rich estates.” The source attributes to Xiao Yan hundreds of juan of exegetical writings on the *Mahaparinirvana Sutra*, the *Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra*, the *Vimalakirti Sutra*, the *Three Wisdoms Sutra*, and other scriptures, as well as the creation of the *Liang Emperor's Jeweled Repentance*. It also credits him with promoting vegetarianism in Chinese Buddhism. He further combined Confucian ritual norms, the Daoist idea of “nonbeing,” and the Buddhist doctrine of karmic retribution into a theory that the Three Teachings shared a common source, which the source presents as significant in the history of Chinese thought.
The Hou Jing Rebellion and Death
In 547, the first year of Taiqing, Eastern Wei general Hou Jing rebelled in the thirteen provinces of Henan after falling into conflict with the chief minister Gao Cheng and initially submitted to Western Wei. Because Yuwen Tai of Western Wei distrusted him, Hou Jing then wrote to Xiao Yan, offering the thirteen provinces of Henan in return for acceptance by Southern Liang. Xiao Yan accepted Hou Jing, appointed him General-in-Chief, and made him Prince of Henan. Eastern Wei soon attacked Hou Jing. Xiao Yan sent his nephew Xiao Yuanming to support him, but Xiao Yuanming was defeated and captured. Gao Cheng then feigned an offer of peace in order to drive a wedge between Hou Jing and Liang. Ignoring the warnings of his ministers, Xiao Yan exchanged envoys with Eastern Wei. Hou Jing forged a letter in the name of Eastern Wei proposing that Xiao Yuanming be exchanged for Hou Jing; Xiao Yan unexpectedly agreed. Hou Jing then rebelled.
In 548, the second year of Taiqing, Hou Jing crossed the Yangzi with Xiao Zhengde acting as his internal collaborator and besieged Jiankang. After a long siege, the city ran out of food, hunger and disease spread, and fewer than four thousand men remained capable of defending the walls. The princes of Southern Liang commanded substantial armies but distrusted one another and failed to act. On the twelfth day of the third lunar month of 549, the third year of Taiqing, Hou Jing entered Jiankang and allowed his troops to plunder the city. Members of the Xiao imperial clan, the Wang clan of Langya, and the Xie clan of Chen Commandery were all subjected to slaughter. After the fall of the city, Hou Jing's soldiers moved freely through the palace, and Xiao Yan's food was reduced. Elderly and suffering from a bitter, dry mouth, he asked for honey water but was refused. After shouting several times, he died amid hunger and thirst at the age of eighty-six. He was buried at Xiuling (in present-day Lingkou, Danyang, Jiangsu), with the posthumous title Emperor Wu and temple name Gaozu.
Xiao Yan, styled Shuda and known in childhood as Lian'er, was a native of Zhongdu li in Southern Lanling, of the line of the Han chancellor Xiao He. The genealogy in the Book of Liang traces him through the marquis of Zhan, an attendant gentleman, a succession of governors and academicians down to Xiao Zheng, magistrate of Huaiyin, and so to Xiao Daoci, whose son Xiao Shunzhi was his father. Xiao Shunzhi was a collateral cousin of the Qi founder, Xiao Daocheng, had a share in founding the dynasty, was enfeoffed marquis of Linxiang and held a series of high posts, being posthumously made general of the north. Xiao Yan was born in 464, his mother the empress Zhang Shangrou. Xiao Zheng had two sons, one the great-grandfather of Xiao Daocheng and the other the great-grandfather of Xiao Yan, both branches of the Lanling Xiao; this family background did much for his later career.
Clever and fond of learning from boyhood, broadly accomplished and especially gifted in letters, he began his official life as a staff officer in the household of the prince of Baling and afterward became master of the eastern pavilion to the general Wang Jian, who saw at once that he was extraordinary, asked for him as an aide and told He Xian of Lujiang that this young Xiao would be an attendant gentleman before thirty and beyond that too exalted to name. When the prince of Jingling, Xiao Ziliang, opened his western residence to men of letters, Xiao Yan moved there with Shen Yue, Xie Tiao, Wang Rong, Xiao Chen, Fan Yun, Ren Fang and Lu Chui, and they were called the Eight Friends; among them Wang Rong, brilliant and perceptive, held Xiao Yan in particular esteem and often said that the man who would rule the empire must be this one. He rose to be a staff adviser to the prince of Sui and soon left office for his father's mourning. His resourcefulness and his combination of civil and military talent showed themselves again and again in the political storms that followed.
When the Qi emperor Wu fell ill, Wang Rong meant to take the occasion to put the prince of Jingling on the throne, and Xiao Yan saw what was coming: he told Fan Yun that the streets were full of talk of some extraordinary move, and that Wang Rong was no man to save the world and would be seen to fail; when Fan Yun said that Wang was the only man who cared for the state, Xiao Yan asked whether he meant to be a Duke of Zhou and Shao or a Shudiao of old, and Fan Yun did not answer. The heir Xiao Zhaoye entered the palace, Wang Rong in crimson robes blocked the eastern palace guard at the gate of the secretariat, and when the emperor revived he called in the eastern palace arms and gave the government to the marquis of Xichang, Xiao Luan; on his death Wang Rong barred the gates with the prince of Jingling's troops, but Xiao Luan rode to the Yunlong gate, was refused entry, declared that he was summoned by edict, forced his way in, brought the heir to the hall, had the prince of Jingling led away, and disposed everything with a voice like a bell, so that none in the hall disobeyed. Xiao Zhaoye, once emperor, thought only of pleasure; Xiao Luan consulted Xiao Yan on deposing him, and needing to recall the prince of Sui from Jingzhou and fearing Wang Jingze in Kuaiji, asked his advice. Xiao Yan answered that the prince of Sui, for all his fair name, was a mediocre man whose only props were two officials who would go anywhere for profit, and that a letter would bring him; and that Wang Jingze wanted only to sit at ease in Jiangdong in the utmost wealth, and should be given beautiful women to amuse him. Xiao Luan approved, called the two officials to court and summoned the prince of Sui, who was given to take his own life. When the governor of Yuzhou, Cui Huijing, an old servant of Emperor Wu, grew uneasy, Xiao Luan sent Xiao Yan to Shouyang ostensibly against the Northern Wei but really to watch him; at Changlai Cui Huijing came out in plain clothes to meet him in fear of punishment, and Xiao Yan, though his officers asked leave to kill him, said he was like a child in the palm of one's hand and it would be no feat, and soothed him, and Cui Huijing was quieted. In 494 Xiao Yan was made a secretariat attendant and promoted to the yellow gate.
In the process by which Xiao Luan took the government and then the throne, Xiao Yan's part in the coup raised him steadily: made a general and posted to Shouchun when Xiao Luan took over the government, he became an attendant of the heir and yellow gate attendant after mourning, with the run of the palace, and was enfeoffed a baron of Jianyin county with three hundred households for his share in the coup. Yet he was afterward close-mouthed about it and disliked being called a kingmaker of the Ming emperor: when Wu Jun, wanting to make a name by writing history, asked for the Qi court diaries and the conduct records of the ministers and was refused, he privately wrote his Spring and Autumn of Qi and presented it, and it called Xiao Yan the kingmaker; the emperor, disliking so plain a record, had the secretariat attendant Liu Zhilin question him on dozens of points, and when his answers fell apart had the book burned in the department and dismissed him.
In 495, when the Northern Wei sent Liu Chang and Wang Su against Sizhou, Xiao Yan served as a general in the relief force under the governor of Jiangzhou, Wang Guang. When the force halted a hundred li from Yiyang and the officers hung back before the Wei numbers, Xiao Yan asked to lead the way, and Wang Guang gave him picked troops; that night he advanced, halted a few li from the Wei camp and went straight up Xianshou hill, planting banners over the whole slope. The Wei, unable to judge his numbers, dared not attack; at dawn the garrison saw the relief come and attacked the Wei stockades, while Xiao Yan charged from without, so that the Wei were caught between and abandoned the siege. He was made a staff officer, then an attendant of the heir with command of the guards, and posted to Shitou. In the autumn of 497 the Wei came south again and took Xinye and Nanyang, and Xiao Yan was sent to relieve Yongzhou, reaching Xiangyang in the tenth month and afterward serving under the minister Cui Huijing. In the third month of the next year the two met the enemy at Dengcheng, where the Wei commander arrived suddenly with more than a hundred thousand cavalry. Cui Huijing lost color and wanted to retire; Xiao Yan urgently tried to stop him and was ignored, and Cui Huijing fled with his own following, the Wei falling on them and routing the army. Xiao Yan alone held the enemy off, killing some hundreds, and so got his men into order and brought them off to the boats at nightfall, Cui Huijing's army being all but destroyed while his own came back whole. Instead of blaming him for the defeat, Xiao Luan put him in charge of the defense of Yongzhou as its governor in Cao Hu's place — and from then on Xiao Yan had a fixed base of his own, the foundation of his later power.
In the seventh month of 498 Xiao Luan died after only five years on the throne and his son Xiao Baojuan succeeded. Xiao Baojuan was savage, killing his great ministers on taking the throne and taking back their powers, and employing mean men, so that revolts broke out repeatedly and the provincial commands each had their own plans. In the winter of 500, hearing that his full brother Xiao Yi had been killed by Xiao Baojuan, Xiao Yan secretly summoned his chief of staff Wang Mao, his officer Lü Senzhen and two others to consult, and finding them in agreement began to raise troops, on the yisi day of the eleventh month gathering his staff and announcing the rising, setting up his standard the same day, and cutting timber from the Tan stream to fit out ships, so that within ten days the work was done and those who wished to follow him furnished five thousand armored horses and thirty thousand soldiers. He had Liu Shanyang, whom Xiao Baojuan sent against him, killed by a stratagem, and set up Xiao Baorong, prince of Nankang, as his figurehead; refusing his officers' proposal that he take the throne himself, he joined with Xiao Yingzhou and established the commandery of Xinye south of the Mian to gather new adherents. In the second month of 501, when the prince of Nankang took the style of chancellor and set up a western administration, Xiao Yan was made its general and the campaign downriver against Jiankang began.
In the second month of 501 the prince of Nankang took the style of chancellor with a western administration and made Xiao Yan general of the eastern expedition; he left Xiangyang and published his proclamation at Jianye. At Jingling he put Wang Mao and the governor Cao Jingzong in the van and left Zhang Fa'an to hold the town; the two crossed the river and halted nine li on, where the governor of Yingzhou, Zhang Chong, came out and was badly beaten. Xiao Yan then built a fort at the Han mouth to hold Lushan and sent his naval commanders Zhang Huishao and Zhu Siyuan to patrol the middle of the river and cut the communications of Ying and Lu. In the third month the prince of Nankang took the throne at Jiangling, changed the era name to Zhongxing and degraded the marquis of Donghun to prince of Fuling, making Xiao Yan president of the secretariat, general of the eastern expedition, commander of all campaigns and giver of the yellow axe; in the fourth month Xiao Yan moved out on the Mian and pressed on Ying. In the seventh month he sent Wang Mao with three commanders to surprise Jiahuy, where the thirteen relieving columns of Wu Ziyang and Guang Zijin lay; the river being low, ships could not pass and Guang Zijin was pleased — but that night a meteor fell on his city and in the fourth watch, without rain, the water rose suddenly, so that the fleet came on with the current, beat the drums and attacked, and the enemy collapsed in a moment, Wu Ziyang fleeing and the rest drowning in the river, Wang Mao taking the survivors back; and Ying and Lu lost heart.
Blockaded and without relief, Ying and Lu surrendered one after another. Plague had swept Ying, where of more than a hundred thousand soldiers, officials, men and women seven or eight in ten had died; when the gates opened Xiao Yan comforted the survivors and provided coffins for the dead. Chen Bozhi, wavering, was pressed by Xiao Yan, who sent Deng Yuanqi downriver that same day; as Deng approached Xunyang Chen Bozhi took fright, drew back to Hukou and left his son in Pensheng, and when Xiao Yan arrived he laid down his arms and confessed. In the ninth month an edict authorized Xiao Yan to pacify the east at his own discretion; his vanguard reached Wuhu, the governor of Southern Yuzhou abandoned Gusbu and the army occupied it, and the people welcomed them along the road as though clothed in new silk. He sent Cao Jingzong and Xiao Yingda with horse and foot to Jiangning and drove off the general Li Jushi; Wang Mao, Deng Yuanqi and Lü Senzhen occupied Chibiluo and Cao Jingzong and Chen Bozhi ranged as flying columns; when the lord of Xinting fort, Jiang Daolin, came out to fight he was taken in the field. As the army reached Xinlin the whole population of Jiankang turned out, some sending in their allegiance written in blood; Xiao Yan posted his commanders at Yuecheng, at Zaojia bridge, at the Daoshi mound and at the hedge gate. In the tenth month Xiao Baojuan sent the general Wang Zhenguo to draw up on the great road south of the dam with his best men and weapons, more than a hundred thousand still, with a eunuch holding the white tiger banner to urge on the troops; Wang Mao and Cao Jingzong fell on them in a pincer and Wang Zhenguo's host collapsed at once. Li Jushi surrendered the Xinting fort and Xu Yuanyu the eastern prefecture; the forces at Shitou and Baixia dispersed by night. On the renwu day Xiao Yan took post at Shitou and set his armies about the six gates of the palace city, building a long wall about them, and by proclamation brought over the garrisons left at Jingkou, Guangling and Guabu; he posted his brothers at Jingkou and Podun and his cousin at Guangling. On the night of the bingyin day of the twelfth month the guard commander Zhang Ji and the governor Wang Zhenguo killed Xiao Baojuan, sent his head wrapped in yellow oil to the camp, and Xiao Yan had the treasuries and registers sealed before entering, put the favorite Pan to death, and handed the forty-eight of the wicked party to the judges. The empress of Xuande degraded the prince of Fuling to marquis of Donghun and gave Xiao Yan the offices of secretary, grand marshal, director of the secretariat, general of the agile cavalry, commander and governor of Yangzhou, enfeoffing him duke of Jian'an with ten thousand households and forty sword-bearers, all in the form used in the case of the Jin prince of Wuling. He then took up his seat in the parade hall, proclaimed a general amnesty, ordered the search for and abolition of all the marquis of Donghun's perverse taxes and cruel punishments, and sent a governor with five thousand men to reassure the twelve commanderies of the east.
In the first month of 502 the Qi emperor's envoy reached Jiankang to congratulate him and to grant posthumous titles to his father and grandfather, and on the wuxu day he was formally made grand marshal; soon after he was given command of all military affairs with leave to enter the palace in shoes and with his sword, to walk unbowed and to be announced without name, with bands and escorts before and behind, and with the right to open his own headquarters and appoint his own staff. On the jiayin day he was made chancellor with the direction of all government, enfeoffed duke of Liang in ten commanderies with the nine bestowals, the distant-travel cap and the green ribbon, above all the princes; declining at first, he accepted the chancellorship and dukedom in the second month at his staff's repeated urging. Portents followed one another — jade-carved unicorns found in a well at Xuanwu city, phoenixes seen at Tongxia li in Jiankang county — and his fief was enlarged to twenty commanderies, which he accepted as prince of Liang on the guisi day of the third month after a show of refusal. He had the emperor's attendants press him to abdicate, and his brother Xiao Dan, governor of Jingzhou, had a ballad circulated that the "water in the middle" was to be son of heaven, playing on popular superstition to make opinion for him. On the bingwu day the emperor granted him the twelve-tasseled crown, imperial banners, the clearing of the way and closing of the gates, the golden-rooted carriage with six horses and the five seasonal attendants, the eight-rowed dance, and the titles of consort and princes in the old fashion; on the bingchen he issued the decree of abdication and in the fourth month the formal document, sending two ministers with the imperial seals to conduct the ceremony of receiving the end of the dynasty exactly as in the case of Tang and Yu.
When the decree came Xiao Yan again made a show of declining, and so Fan Yun led a hundred and seventeen ministers to memorialize as subjects asking him to ascend, while eight hundred and nineteen princes and officials of Qi and the hundred and seventeen of his own chancellery petitioned him, and the astronomer presented sixty-four portents, whereupon he let himself be "persuaded". On the bingyin day of the fourth month of 502 he sacrificed to heaven and earth in the southern suburb and took the throne, founding the Liang dynasty with the era name Tianjian. He enfeoffed the Qi emperor Xiao Baorong as prince of Baling and then sent him raw gold to take his own life; Shen Yue citing Cao Cao's saying that one should not court an empty name and suffer the reality, Xiao Yan sent his man Zheng Boqin to Gusbu with the gold, and Xiao Baorong said that to die he had no need of gold and mellow wine would do, drank himself insensible and was strangled, his death being announced as illness and his funeral and tomb conducted in imperial style.
For the next dozen years Liang and the Northern Wei struggled back and forth along the Huai. In 504 Cai Ling'en at Yiyang, his strength spent, surrendered to Wei, the relief force was beaten and the commanders of the three passes abandoned their posts. In 506 Xiao Yan sent his brother Xiao Hong, prince of Linchuan, with the whole army north; the equipment was new and the display such as the northerners had not seen in a century, and the Liang took the Wei towns of Xiaoxian and Hefei, advanced to the Luo mouth and took Liangcheng with the van. But Xiao Hong, timid and inept, would not press the advantage; the Wei, knowing him no soldier, sent him women's clothes and sang that they feared not Lady Xiao and Mother Lü but only the Wei tiger of Hefei — that is, Wei Rui. On the night of the jiichou day of the ninth month a storm broke over the Luo mouth, the camp panicked, Xiao Hong fled with a few riders, and the troops, unable to find him, scattered for home, throwing away armor and weapons until the roads and river were choked, abandoning the sick and the old, some fifty thousand dying. From the tenth month of 506 the Wei general Yuan Ying with a host said to be a million besieged Zhongli, held stubbornly by Chang Yizhi; Xiao Yan sent Cao Jingzong and then Wei Rui with more than two hundred thousand to relieve it. In the third month of 507 Wei Rui seized the moment when the Huai rose in flood, attacked with the fleet and broke the Wei utterly, pursuing them to the Wei river, so that for a hundred li along the Huai the bodies lay on one another and the river could not flow; more than a hundred thousand were killed and as many drowned, with fifty thousand taken prisoner — the greatest victory won by the south since the campaigns of the early Yuanjia years of the Liu Song. In the tenth month of 508 the Wei commander at Xuanhu killed his governor and surrendered the province to Liang, and Xiao Yan sent Ma Xianpin to relieve him, recovering Yiyang and the three passes for a time; but Yuan Ying then defeated the Liang columns in turn and all the recovered land was lost, Xiao Yan having to post Wei Rui at Anlu to hold the Wei advance. In 511 the people of Qushan killed the two governors of Dongguan and Langya and gave the town to Wei, and Xiao Yan had Ma Xianpin attack it with full support; the two sides faced each other outside the walls until the twelfth month, when the garrison, starving, surrendered first and the Wei army broke with heavy losses.
After the Datong years Xiao Yan continued to receive defecting Wei commanders and cities: in 532 the governor of Southern Yanzhou came over and the province was renamed Qiao; the next year the lord of Jianyi killed the Wei governor of Eastern Xuzhou and surrendered Pijiang, which was renamed Wuzhou; in 535 Lan Qin took Hanzhong and the Wei governor of Liangzhou surrendered. The Wei general Hou Jing also raided south from time to time: in 536 he invaded Chuzhou with seventy thousand men, took its governor prisoner and advanced to the Huai, writing to Chen Qingzhi to urge his surrender, and when Xiao Yan's relief force reached Lijing Chen Qingzhi had already beaten him, so that in bitter snow he abandoned his baggage and fled. In the tenth month of that year Xiao Yan again decreed a great northern campaign and at once recalled the armies, and in the twelfth month agreed to Wei's request for peace, after which no large-scale fighting occurred between the two states until Hou Jing came over.
Xiao Yan reigned nearly half a century, longer than any other sovereign of the Southern Dynasties. He had some experience of government before taking the throne and had seen the rottenness of the Qi at first hand, and he set about governing diligently, adjusting policy in several ways: he attended to the tension between the great pedigree families and the lesser houses and used men from both; he abandoned the excessive severity of the Song and Qi emperors' handling of subordinates, which had bred revolt, and was generous instead; within his own house he wished to replace kin-killing with kin-affection; and he had the Code of Liang drawn up, an important code of the Southern Dynasties after those of Song and Qi. His policy had two sides: in practice he was harsh with the common people and lenient with the powerful, which bred resentment below and license above, though in his earlier years the contradictions had not ripened and politics kept a rough order, while in his last years he delegated affairs to favorites and government grew dim.
In the succession he erred by setting aside the legitimate line for a junior. He had made his eldest son Xiao Tong heir in the year he took the throne; Xiao Tong was of generous bearing and known in the eastern palace for his virtue, loved by court and people alike, but he fell out with his father over the burial place of his mother, the consort Ding: a seller of land offered it through the eunuch Yu Sanfu, who secretly reported that the ground the heir had chosen was less auspicious for the emperor than another, and Xiao Yan, suspicious in his later years, ordered it bought; after the burial a geomancer said the site was unlucky for the eldest son, and wax figures and other objects were buried by the grave; the palace overseer Bao Miaozhi secretly reported that Wei Ya had performed a spell for the heir, and the emperor had the place dug up and found the objects, and though Xu Mian's remonstrance stopped the matter at the death of the Daoist priest, Xiao Tong was ashamed to the end of his life and his line was not made heir. He died in 531 at thirty-one, and though by rule his eldest son Xiao Huan should have succeeded, Xiao Yan, thinking the empire newly settled and a young ruler unfit for a great charge, and bearing his old grudge, hesitated from the beginning of the fourth month to the twenty-first day of the fifth, when he made Xiao Huan prince of Yuzhang and sent him back to his post — the people having a rhyme about the deer opening the city gate which the Southern History reads as the emperor weeping — and on the twenty-seventh made Xiao Gang heir. To compensate Xiao Tong's line and to quiet the talk of setting aside the legitimate, he enfeoffed all his sons as princes of great commanderies with three thousand households each, treated their sisters as full princesses, and kept the heir's widow in her own palace.
The disaster of his last years came from Hou Jing. A commander under Gao Huan of the Eastern Wei, often victorious and much relied on, but unstable by temper and at odds with Gao Huan's son Gao Cheng, he surrendered to Liang in the first month of 547 when Gao Cheng tried to take his troops. Xiao Yan, wary of him, did not receive him warmly, and Hou Jing then offered thirteen provinces; Xiao Yan, pleased, made him prince of Henan and general-in-chief and sent troops to meet him; but when he afterward made peace with Gao Cheng on condition of returning Hou Jing to the Eastern Wei, Hou Jing rose in rebellion on the pretext of destroying the favorites who misgoverned the court. His army drove straight on Jiankang and besieged the palace city; Xiao Yan called out the provincial forces, but the relieving armies each had their own aims and after a few reverses stood still and watched, so that the rebels went on with the siege.
Once in power Hou Jing found Xiao Yan outwardly subject to him but inwardly most unwilling. Hou Jing wished to make his follower Song Zixian minister of works, and Xiao Yan asked what use such a man was for harmonizing yin and yang; he refused another request to make two of Hou Jing's partisans commanders of the side halls. Hou Jing could not force him and was much in awe of him; and when the heir Xiao Gang came weeping to remonstrate, Xiao Yan asked who had sent him, saying that if the state had any spirit it would yet be restored, and if not, what was the use of tears. Hou Jing set his soldiers to keep watch within the palace, some driving donkeys and horses and carrying bows and swords in and out as they pleased; when Xiao Yan asked the reason, the guard commander Zhou Shizhen answered that they were the chancellor Hou's armored men, and Xiao Yan in fury asked why he called Hou Jing chancellor. After that his requests mostly went unanswered, his food and drink were cut down, and the old man, bitter and angry, fell ill and did not rise. On the bingchen day of the fifth month of 549, lying in the Jingju hall of the palace city with a bitter taste in his mouth and asking for honey in vain, he gave two cries of astonishment and died of hunger and thirst at eighty-six. Hou Jing kept the death secret, laid the body in the Zhaoyang hall and only after twenty-six days moved it to the Taiji hall; in the eleventh month he was given the posthumous name Wu and the temple name Gaozu, and buried at Xiuling.
Looking at his government as a whole, its early years had real merits. He had learned from the fall of Qi, was diligent in business, rising at the fifth watch in every season to read and answer memorials until his hands cracked with cold in winter; he loved men of letters but valued administrative capacity, telling Liu Xiaochuo in an autograph reply that fine brocade could not be cut at once and that one should also learn the registers. In appointments he sought good officials: he attended to the great offices at the center, employing able men, men of judgment and men who would speak plainly, and required local governors to be honest, receiving and instructing them in person and decreeing that a magistrate of a small county who did well might be promoted to a larger, and from a larger to a commandery, so that the administration of Liang markedly improved; and officials who were grasping or brutal were punished severely as soon as discovered. Against the abuses of appointment he memorialized for the careful review of the registers so that name and substance should agree, abolishing the old rule by which great families entered office at twenty while lesser men were tested only in middle life; he set up a college of the five classics for sons of humble houses, improved the national academy and increased its students, who paid no fees and were housed and fed by the state and, on mastering one classic and passing the examination, entered the service — the decree declaring that even a shepherd or a cowherd, if he passed and had ability, was to be employed and none to stand in his way — so that students gathered from every quarter and appointment by examination began to be a standing institution, opening the road to the examinations of Sui and Tang. He also opened the channels of speech, decreeing again and again that officials, governors and common people alike might memorialize on law and government for the good of the realm, and setting two boxes by the memorial drums and the stone of appeal: one for men of merit or talent unpromoted and able men blocked, and one for the criticism and proposals of ordinary people.