Dou Jiande
| Dou Jiande | |||||||||
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| Reign | February 15, 617 – May 28, 621 | ||||||||
| Born | 573 | ||||||||
| Died | August 3, 621 | ||||||||
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| Dynasty | Xìa (夏) | ||||||||
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| Era dates | |
| Dīngchǒu (丁丑) 617-618 Wǔfèng (五鳳) 618-621 |
Dou Jiande (Chinese: 竇建德; 573 – August 3, 621) was a leader of the agrarian rebels who rose against the rule of Emperor Yang of Sui near the end of the Chinese Sui dynasty. Generally considered the kindest and most able of the agrarian rebel leaders of the time, he was eventually able to capture the modern Hebei region and declare himself initially the Prince of Changle, and then the Prince of Xia. In 621, when the Tang dynasty general Li Shimin (later Emperor Taizong) attacked Wang Shichong the Emperor of Zheng, who ruled the modern Henan region, Dou believed that if Tang were able to destroy Zheng, his own Xia state would suffer the same fate, and therefore went to Wang's aid, against the advice of his strategist Ling Jing (凌敬) and his wife Empress Cao. Li defeated him at the Battle of Hulao, capturing him. Li's father Emperor Gaozu of Tang subsequently put Dou to death. Xia territory was briefly seized by Tang, but soon Dou's general Liu Heita rose against Tang rule, recapturing Dou's territory, and held out against Tang until 623.
Dou Jiande was born in 573, when his birth area Zhangnan County (漳南縣, in modern Handan, Hebei) was under the rule of Northern Qi, although subsequently it came under the rule of Northern Zhou and then Sui dynasty. It was said that in his youth, his honesty and willingness to help others made him well known in his home territory. In particular, once, when a man from his county lost his parents but was too poor to give his parents a proper burial, Dou was tilling in the fields, but he dropped his tilling and immediately went to help the man bury his parents, and after this incident he became particularly praised among the people. For a while, he served as the leader of the neighborhood, but after he was accused of crimes, he fled, returning home only after a general pardon. When his father died, more than a thousand people attended the funeral, and Dou refused all gifts given him for the funeral.
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