Sui

Yang Jian, a relative by marriage of the Northern Zhou house, took the throne and founded Sui; eight years later Sui crossed the river and destroyed Chen, ending nearly three centuries of division. Like the Qin, the Sui was short-lived — and like the Qin, it changed everything after it.

Emperor Yang dug the Grand Canal linking north and south, and the court began the examination system: scholars could win office by test rather than birth. Both lasted for over a thousand years.

But years of works and distant wars drained the people, and rebellions spread. Sui fell in 618; the Tang, close behind, carried its institutions to their height.