Ch.292Side Story) Who is Sunggoje? (2)

# Why is Emperor Sunggo Considered the Greatest Monarch of Today?

Why is Emperor Sunggo considered the preeminent ruler among today’s great monarchs?

Is it because he conquered vast territories? Because he transformed the Burgundy Duchy, which he inherited as a pile of mud, into the Lotharing Empire adorned with marble? Or because he enabled humanity to escape the dark ages through various social and administrative reforms?

While all of these are true, I assert that the greatest reason Emperor Sunggo is regarded as the preeminent monarch lies in his maximization of human resources.

When I speak of maximizing human resources, this might evoke thoughts of Prussian Kingdom’s authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and militarism—but that’s not it. Maximizing human resources literally means giving opportunities to lower-class people who couldn’t utilize their talents due to the constraints of the class system.

Before Emperor Sunggo’s emergence, throughout history and across the world, those who held important positions were mostly from the upper classes. Born into privilege, they received excellent education from childhood and suppressed the vast majority of lower-class people who had potential but lacked opportunity.

Of course, I’m not criticizing the fact that upper classes received education. Such a notion would be reminiscent of the anti-intellectual ideology—the darkest aspect of communism that was eradicated with the end of the Cold War.

What I’m trying to say is that fishing in a vast ocean is more likely to yield a big catch than fishing in a small pond.

Think about it—only the chosen 1% of the population receiving all forms of education and occupying numerous positions, while the remaining 99% couldn’t even attend school and simply continued their parents’ trades and shackles as they were born into. Isn’t that terrible? If such practices were forcibly applied to modern society, the world would descend into chaos, losing all its brilliant innovations and reverting to the dark ages that preceded Emperor Sunggo’s emergence.

Emperor Sunggo shattered that dark age. He transformed the churches that filled Lotharing into theological elementary schools that taught basic theological knowledge along with various common sense subjects. Using these schools, he recruited talented individuals from across Lotharing and poured tax money into sending them to Dijon University to learn advanced knowledge. The most famous figure in this field is Ellen Burgundy de Medici, Emperor Sunggo’s concubine who revolutionized medicine in Lotharing. As the first beneficiary of Emperor Sunggo’s human resource utilization policy, she drove out the “magical medicine” that filled Lotharing and is recorded in various historical texts as a great figure who increased the average lifespan of Lotharing people by a remarkable 10 years.

As seen in Ellen’s case, Emperor Sunggo’s goal of maximizing human resources had already fulfilled its role through the recruitment of officials and the production of intellectuals. However, being ambitious and greedy, Emperor Sunggo didn’t stop there. He revived the systematic conscription system, which had completely disappeared since the fall of the ancient empire, in the form of universal conscription. This system became a tremendous force that allowed Lotharing to maintain its hegemonic position for hundreds of years after Emperor Sunggo’s death, repelling threats from other challenger states. Moreover, he placed people from ethnically and linguistically divided Lotharing into the military without discrimination, giving them a unified consciousness that “we are all Lotharingians.” Thus, universal conscription can be evaluated as the most important pillar that allows Lotharing to exist as Lotharing today.

Furthermore, the Senate created by Emperor Sunggo allowed for an unfiltered assessment of the conditions of the commoner class, who constituted the vast majority of Lotharing, enabling more effective utilization of human resources and making commoners aware of their position. Realizing that anyone could advance through effort, commoners began to strive for success and advancement even without orders or guidance from above, and the results of these efforts created the modern world in which readers of this column now live.

The reasons why Emperor Sunggo established such systems have not been clearly revealed. Some say the massive appointment of commoners was merely to check the church and nobility that dominated Lotharing society; others say large-scale conscription was conceived to overcome a situation where neighboring countries were filled with enemies; and still others say the creation of the Senate was a ploy to make domestic forces fight each other to divert attention from the emperor.

However, what is certain is that thanks to Emperor Sunggo’s achievements, Lotharing was able to enjoy a brilliant golden age for hundreds of years.

Looking at the civilization level scale graph compiled by scholars, Emperor Sunggo’s achievements become clear. The civilization score of the Burgundy Duchy, which had been rising in a very gentle quadratic curve, underwent a steep rise approaching vertical during Emperor Sunggo’s reign. This suggests that without Emperor Sunggo, the maximization of human resources might have been achieved only hundreds of years later.

Despite these achievements, Emperor Sunggo still receives controversial evaluations. Having accomplished not just one but dozens of epoch-transcending achievements, yet still being controversial—could it be that later generations are simply too critical?

No. No one denies his achievements. The controversial evaluation, as readers of this column might expect, lies not in his achievements but in Emperor Sunggo’s personality itself.

Emperor Sunggo disliked culture and etiquette. He disliked social status and nobility. He disliked religion and gods. He disliked allies and hated enemies even more. There are even occasional findings in historical texts that he sometimes disliked himself.

If it were simply a matter of dislike, his personality wouldn’t be the most discussed topic when evaluating Emperor Sunggo today. Emperor Sunggo did not hide his feelings of dislike but revealed them fully, and those revealed emotions cost the lives of the objects of his dislike. Emperor Sunggo killed or eliminated the things he disliked from this world by any means necessary.

There are 7 documented assassinations with physical evidence recorded in historical texts, and a staggering 51 assassinations with circumstantial evidence but no physical proof. Excluding assassinations, the number of people he directly ordered to be executed is 1,077, according to official records, not rumors. Monarchs who carried out so many assassinations and ordered so many executions are extremely rare.

Moreover, Emperor Sunggo didn’t even consider inflicting pain on those condemned to death. In an era overflowing with methods to execute someone while maximizing pain—burning at the stake, crucifixion, dismemberment, lingchi, boiling, and waist-cutting—Emperor Sunggo showed no interest in any execution method and focused only on swift beheading using the guillotine. Of course, in modern times, it’s natural to execute death row inmates with minimal pain, but it’s important to note that in pre-modern times—excluding the last 100 years—this was not the case.

This behavior, which directly contradicts records of his great anger toward those condemned to death, reveals that Emperor Sunggo’s mental state was so unusual that even today’s psychiatrists find it difficult to definitively categorize. If Emperor Sunggo had been a psychopath incapable of empathizing with others’ emotions, he would have felt intense negative emotions like anger and irritation, and would have vented these feelings on the condemned, inflicting maximum pain. If Emperor Sunggo had suffered from schizophrenia, he would have experienced a collapse in his ability to infer cause and effect, and many of his achievements would never have materialized.

So was Emperor Sunggo simply a person with an extremely bad personality? That’s not quite right either. Unlike people he recognized as others, whether enemies or allies, Emperor Sunggo was exceptionally devoted to his family. In front of his four wives, he was merely an ordinary civilian husband who got nagged; in front of his children, he was just a kind father worried about their future. This stands in stark contrast to his indiscriminate violation of women due to uncontrollable sexual desire despite already being married, making them his wives.

Scholars believe that Emperor Sunggo’s attitude was deeply influenced by his illegitimate birth. Having experienced the hellish life of a bastard himself, he made his concubines legally recognized to prevent his children from becoming illegitimate. While this interpretation cannot explain why Emperor Sunggo took a submissive attitude and was devoted to his wives, it’s important that it helps explain some of his behavioral patterns.

With this jumbled personality and outstanding abilities, Emperor Sunggo became the most favored subject of creation for later generations. He has been a source of inspiration in all kinds of arts and legends, and the fictional characters modeled after him are innumerable. With an excessively three-dimensional personality, Emperor Sunggo exists among us even today, a thousand years after his death, as the archetype for fictional characters.

Dijon Monthly Magazine “Who is Emperor Sunggo” (2/3)