During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, most scholars wrote ornate, flashy prose that prioritized fancy words over substance. This trend persisted into the Sui Dynasty, where Emperor Wen, known as Yang Jian, deeply despised it. In the fourth year of the Kaihuang era, he issued an imperial decree demanding that all official and private writings abandon frivolous embellishments and focus on practical content. To enforce this, he dismissed and punished Sima Youzhi, the governor of Sizhou, for submitting nothing but hollow, extravagant essays.
Li E, an imperial advisor to Emperor Wen of Sui, also opposed this literary style and specially wrote a "Memorial to Emperor Wen of Sui," in which he stated:
When selecting officials and recommending talents, prefectures and counties only judged by the beauty of one's essays, ignoring moral character and Confucian learning. Scholars, desperate for office, competed in crafting flowery prose, turning this into a vile trend. Their writings abandoned righteous principles for hollow embellishments, obsessing over a single rhyme or a cleverly placed character. They churned out piece after piece about moon, dew, wind, and clouds—nothing but affected moaning over imaginary sorrows. What meaning could such writing possibly hold?
Emperor Wen of Sui and his advisor Li E's advocacy for plain writing had little lasting effect. Soon after, Emperor Wen was murdered by his son, Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang. Emperor Yang himself was enamored with ornate prose, and the imperial examinations he established selected officials solely based on the superficial elegance of their essays.
Later, the idiom "Lian Pian Lei Du" came to describe lengthy, verbose writing.
Source: *Book of Sui*, "Biography of Li E"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "连篇累牍" came to describe lengthy, verbose writing.