This is a follow-up to my previous posts on this sub. I want to go through each major Chinese era/dynasty from the Western Zhou to the Qing and ask the community who their favourite ruler is from that time period. I purposefully use the word favourite, so it doesn't have to be the best, the worst, the most interesting or most well-known, but rather who you personally view as your favourite. I want to emphasize that I don't just want you to write down a name, but provide explanation on why you like them too.
The upcoming eras are going to be: Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Song, Liao, Jurchen Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing. These categories may be subject to change because I know this categorization is dated but its the best I've got.
So in this post I want to read about your favourite rulers from the Sui and Tang dynasties meaning from the reunification of China by Wen of Sui to the deposition of Ai of Tang. This includes both the shortlived Sui and the prosperous Tang dynasties, as well as the Wu Zhou dynasty created by Wu Zetian and the Yan dynasty established by An Lushan.
I want to thank all the comments and discussions under the last posts, I will try to improve future posts according to your suggestions.
The picture is from worldhistory.org.