Personally, I don't think Yang Guang is a bad king.

The reason is:

Like other emperors in history, Yang Guang has its progress and limitations. We must evaluate them in a dialectical way.

Yang Guang is a versatile emperor, and he has contributed a lot.

Sui Dynasty is an important dynasty that inherited the Northern and Southern Dynasties and started the Tang Dynasty. Historians often refer to it collectively as Sui and Tang Dynasties.

The Sui Dynasty unified the whole country and ended the nearly 300-year-long division since the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The Sui Dynasty initiated the Imperial Examination, opened the Grand Canal, developed handicrafts and prospered commercial and foreign trade, which laid a certain foundation for the flourishing age of the Tang Dynasty.

At this point, Yang Guang still has historical achievements.

During his tenure, Yang Guang dug the Grand Canal, started the imperial examination, and unblocked the Silk Road for the benefit of future generations. Among them, the Grand Canal still benefits people.

Yang Guang occupies an important position in the history of literature. More than 40 poems by Yang Guang were recorded in Sui Dynasty Poetry Talk, which had a great influence on the prosperity of Tang literature.

The demise of the Sui Dynasty was certainly related to Yang Guang, but the main factor was not Yang Guang.

The demise of the Sui Dynasty was of course related to Yang Guang's tyranny and political reform, which led to the chaos of the world and the rise of heroes.

But this is only the fuse of the demise of the Sui Dynasty, and we can't put all this on Yang Guang's head. Because the fundamental reason of the Sui Dynasty's national subjugation was the unstable ruling foundation.

Sui Dynasty was a unified dynasty established by China after a long division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Its situation is similar to that of the Qin Dynasty, and its appearance is extremely powerful. Under the unified system, various separatist forces are surging under the undercurrent. There are deep unstable factors buried inside the ruling class, and the ruling foundation is very unstable. This inherent defect of the Sui regime itself is the fundamental reason for the rapid demise of the Sui Dynasty when it was strong.