杨广 / Yang Guang (Wei Xiao retainer)

Overview

杨广 / Yang Guang is a source-bounded Wei Xiao subordinate in Hanji 703 and Hanji 704. His current significance is not an independent biography but a remonstrance-pressure role: Ma Yuan writes to him because Yang Guang is positioned to persuade Wei Xiao, and because official obligation plus private friendship should either produce frank warning or justify leaving before collective ruin.

Current Profile

Hanji 703 now introduces Yang Guang inside Wei Xiao’s failing western field before the later apology sequence. Ma Yuan writes him to ask that he persuade Wei Xiao, rejects Wang Yuan’s claim that the Han side is weak, and invokes Wei Xiao’s son Wei Xun in Luoyang as a hostage whose danger makes continued rebellion a family-security problem.

Hanji 704 then sharpens the same role. Ma Yuan urges Yang Guang to join Niu Han and others in remonstrating with Wei Xiao, arguing that the balance of commanderies makes resistance untenable: Wei Xiao holds only two commanderies against the rest of the realm.

The episode then narrows Yang Guang’s profile by silence. Yang Guang does not answer Ma Yuan, so the current wiki should not infer later defection, martyrdom, or policy influence. His importance is the pressure point itself: Ma Yuan treats honest counsel as a duty created by both public hierarchy and private friendship, while the absence of a reply shows how hard such counsel can be inside a collapsing camp.

Key Characteristics

• Wei Xiao retainer whose current evidence is limited to Hanji 703 and Hanji 704 warning-letter episodes.
• Recipient of Ma Yuan’s family-security pressure around Wei Xun’s hostage exposure.
• Recipient of Ma Yuan’s strategic arithmetic about two commanderies standing against the wider realm.
• Actor positioned between public ruler-minister obligation and private friendship obligation.
• Silent figure whose nonresponse keeps his later stance source-scoped.

Evidence

• Earlier persuasion request: Hanji 703 says Ma Yuan writes Yang Guang to ask him to persuade Wei Xiao.
• Wang Yuan critique and hostage pressure: Hanji 703 says Ma Yuan rejects Wang Yuan’s weak-Han framing and invokes Wei Xun’s Luoyang hostage exposure as a family-danger argument.
• Position and obligation: Hanji 704 says Ma Yuan addresses Yang Guang as someone tied to Wei Xiao by both official and private relationship.
• Strategic warning: Hanji 704 says Ma Yuan frames Wei Xiao’s position as two commanderies against the remaining 104 commanderies and kingdoms.
• Remonstrance duty: Hanji 704 says Ma Yuan urges Yang Guang to remonstrate with Wei Xiao alongside Niu Han or leave if persuasion fails.
• Nonresponse boundary: Hanji 704 says Yang Guang does not answer the letter.

Qualifications

The page remains source-bounded and should not be merged with Emperor Yang of Sui or Yang Guangxian. Hanji 703 adds Wang Yuan and Wei Xun pressure but does not establish Yang Guang’s later career, exact office, clan background, reply to Ma Yuan, or final decision. Niu Han is named only as another person to join in remonstrance in Hanji 704.

What Changed

• Added Hanji 703 as the earlier warning-letter layer: persuasion request, Wang Yuan critique, and Wei Xun hostage-family pressure.
• Preserved Hanji 704 as the sharper obligation-and-commandery-arithmetic layer.
• Kept Yang Guang defined by Ma Yuan’s warning-letter evidence rather than by an inferred biography.

Relationships

• 隗嚣 - leader whose failing position Yang Guang is urged to confront or leave.
• 马援 - adviser who warns Yang Guang through strategic arithmetic and role obligation.
• 保面子式归降失败 - related because Yang Guang’s warning context is Wei Xiao’s inability to turn apology into credible subordination.
• 交权换安全 - contrast because Yang Guang is warned before Wei Xiao rejects a survivable lower-status settlement.
• Hanji 703 - earlier current source for this entity.
• Hanji 704 - later current source for this entity.