Abstract: With "to enhace conventions, to encourage benevolent rules and proprieties" as the guiding ideology, Emperor Suwen of Sui Dynsaty decreed that the legislation should require light penalty instead of serious one, and turning death into life, and that the enforcement of the law should be fair with careful imprisonment and just penal discretion. Thus, Sui Dynasty was characterized by clear and upright politics, prosperous economy and steady society. But in the late reign, Emperor Suiwen broke legislation and decided cases beyond the law, which led to the decay of its dynasty.
