Liu Yuan
Liu Yuan was indeed remarkable, he overthrew the newly unified Western Jin Dynasty, but this process was the only exception for China. The power of a large-scale unified China is so strong that its collapse usually begins with an internal uprising. This was true of the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty, and even the Great Qing Dynasty did not die from foreign enemies, but from the uprising of revolutionaries. The Eight-Power Alliance expelled the Western Empress dowager and also commented: There is no way for my generation to rule over 40 million people full of wisdom. But why was Liu Yuan able to re-establish the Xiongnu hegemony, thus opening the prelude to the "Five Hu Chaohua"?
Liu Yuan(?) ~310), han guangwen emperor, ziyuanhai. A native of Xinxing (present-day Xinzhou, Shanxi), the grandson of the Southern Xiongnu Shan Yu Yufuluo, the son of Liu Bao, the Xiongnu Zuoxian King, and the founder of the Xiongnu Han Dynasty, he reigned from 304 to 310 (emperor in 308).
For the Western Jin Dynasty, Liu Yuan was not the first to cause trouble, because since the Western Jin Dynasty took the throne of Emperor Hui, natural disasters and man-made disasters continued, and the rebellion of displaced people occurred from time to time. In the first year of Yuan Kang (291), only four years after the death of Emperor Wu of Jin, a Xiongnu named Hao San was the first to launch a rebellion, capturing Shangdang and killing local officials. Prince Washima Jiang tong also specially made a "Migration Theory", which requested that the ethnic minorities be put back into the area where they originally lived! At the same time as Liu Yuan, there was also Ba Yi Li Te in Bashu, a gathering place of displaced people. Of course, before this, let's talk about the history of Liu Yuan's family.
After Liu Yuan claimed to be Mao Dun, the history books recorded: "Han Gaozu took zongnu as the princess's wife Mao Dun, about a brother, so his descendants were surnamed Liu. Regarding his birth, the records in the history books are also quite legendary, because before he was born, there was a good omen: "Liu Bao's wife Hu Yanshi went to the Dragon Gate to ask for a son, and suddenly there was a big fish with two horns on the top, and the scales and hairs entered the Dragon Gate Festival, and it took a long time to leave." Yes, Hu Yanshi dreamed that there were fish that changed into people, and thirteen months later, he was born in the Yuanhai. The time of this account should be during the reign of Wei Jiaping (249-253). Attila was born, although not the eldest son, and due to various magical omen fantasies, his fame surpassed that of his brother in the tribe. These reckless heroes are indeed inseparable from this early legend.
As a teenager, Liu Yuan was very fond of reading, and he worshipped Cui You, a famous scholar of the Party (now Changzhi City, Shanxi Province), as a teacher, and studied Confucian classics and read the Shizi of Shihan. He famously said, "He who does not know a thing is also ashamed of the Zhou Junzi." Therefore, Liu Yuan's Han education level was very high, and he was valued by the Taiyuan celebrities Wang Chang, Wang Hun and others at that time. After waiting for a little older, he began to study holes at the same time, and his martial arts were also quite skilled, and his arm strength was far beyond ordinary people.
Liu Yuan first entered the career by inheriting the official position of his father Liu Bao. As early as the twenty-first year of Jian'an (216), Cao Cao divided the Xiongnu into five divisions, with Liu Bao serving as the left commander and tasked with garrisoning Xinxing (now north of Xinzhou, Shanxi), and in 279, after Liu Bao's death, Liu Yuan took over the position of left commander. Attila was only one of the leaders of the three tribes of the Huns roaming the Russian steppes in the beginning, and the two were the leaders of a small tribe, but gradually they grew into the rulers of the entire steppe empire, and the process was very similar! It seems that Liu Yuan and Attila are really difficult brothers.
The Western Jin Dynasty was founded in 265, and before that, the government of the State of Wei was largely controlled by Sima Shi. Sima Shi was also worried that the Xiongnu in the north would rebel, so Liu Yuan, a descendant of the Xiongnu nobleman Liu Shi, stayed in Luoyang as a squire (hostage) during the Xianxi period (264-265). When the Western Jin Dynasty was just established, the xianbei trees could raise troops in Liangzhou. Li Xi of the Shangdang suggested appointing Liu Yuan as a general and recruiting five Xiongnu expeditions to the west. However, the chancellor Kong Ke objected: "If Liu Yuan can pacify Liangzhou, then the disaster in Liangzhou has just begun." Once the dragon encountered the cloud rain, it was no longer a thing in the pool. Emperor Wu of Jin also gave up this plan. Sima You, the King of Qi, saw Liu Yuan's extraordinary talent and persuaded Emperor Wu of Jin to say, "Without getting rid of Liu Yuan, I am afraid that Hezhou will never be able to get peace." However, Liu Yuan relied on the help of Wang Hun and others to save his life. In the tenth year of the Western Jin Dynasty (289), Sima Yan, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, made Liu Yuan the capital of northern Xiongnu. After Emperor Hui of Jin succeeded to the throne in 290, Yang Jun served as an auxiliary chancellor, but appointed Liu Yuan as the general of Jianwei and the governor of Wubu, and the marquis of Hanguang Township. In 301, after the outbreak of the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, Sima Ying, the king of Chengdu, ruled Zhenyi and appointed Liu Yuan as the general of Ning Shuo, in charge of the five xiongnu military departments. Liu Yuan was well aware of the importance of talent, so after becoming a marshal of the five departments, he tui cheng received soldiers, light wealth and good charity, and celebrities from You and Hebei came to join him.
During the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, the foreign tribes in the north took advantage of the chaos in the Central Plains to strengthen themselves, and Liu Yuan, who was well versed in Han culture, was naturally one of the best. However, he did not rush to rebel, perhaps knowing the truth of "guns shooting the head bird". In addition, there was the relationship between Wang Hun, who had helped him a lot during the Luoyang period, because the Taiyuan Wang clan at that time had a strong political power in Hezhou. However, by the time Liu Yuan really started an incident, this Wang Hun was already in his twilight years, and it was difficult for him to make great achievements personally. In fact, as early as after the major changes in the balance of forces between Hu and Han, the Xiongnu Liu clan began to plan "rejuvenate the state and restore the industry" and rebel against the Jin. In 304, Sima Ying, the king of Chengdu who had given Liu Yuan great help, was dissatisfied with the other kings because he became the emperor's brother-in-law, and was besieged by Wang Jun and Sima Teng, so he thought of Liu Yuan and wanted to use the Xiongnu soldiers as his foreign aid. Liu Yuan returned to Xiangzhou with Sima Ying's orders, but he took the opportunity to declare independence. With his prestige, Liu Yuan had just returned to ZuoguoCheng (左国城, in present-day Lishi County, Shanxi), and was pushed by the various ministries to be the great danyu, and in just two months he had 50,000 soldiers. In the first year of Yongxing (304), Liu Yuan proclaimed himself the King of Han, changed his era name to Yuan Xi, posthumously honored Liu Chan as Emperor Xiaohuai, established the three ancestors and five ancestors below Han Gaozu as the god lord to sacrifice, and established his wife Hu Yanshi as queen. At the same time, a hundred officials were appointed with reference to the Han system, with his grandfather Liu Xuan as his chancellor, Cui You as the imperial master, and Liu Hong as the eunuch, and established the Han state.
When Sima Teng heard this news, he hurriedly led his troops to suppress it, and the generals Nie Xuan and Liu Yuan fought a major battle at Daling (大陵, in modern Wenshui County, Shanxi), resulting in Nie Xuan's defeat. Sima Teng was very frightened, so he led more than 30,000 households in Hezhou to move to Shandong. Taking advantage of the victory, Liu Yuan's army successively captured Fashi (present-day Gaoping County, Shanxi), Tunliu (present-day Changzi County, Shanxi), and Zhongdu (present-day Taiyuan, Shanxi). The Battle of Daling became the basis for Liu Yuan's ascension to the throne. After the Battle of Daling, the Han lost their military superiority over the Hu! At that time, Sima Teng, the assassin of Xiangzhou, was only defeated, and it can be seen that the military strength of the Western Jin Dynasty was still very strong at that time, so it was possible for the later Liu Kun to lead the remnants of the army to move in Xiangzhou.
In the second year of Yongjia (308), Liu Yuan officially declared himself emperor and moved the capital to Pingyang, with the state name of Han. The later Xiongnu Han Kingdom came into the hands of Liu Cong, the son of Liu Yuan, and only then did the Xiongnu clan's glory emerge.
Schematic map of the distribution of the Five Hu and Sixteen Countries
After Liu Yuan's death, his son Liu Cong succeeded to the throne. In the fifth year of Yongjia (311), Liu Cong sent Shi Le to eliminate more than 100,000 Jin troops at Ningping City (present-day Luyi, Henan), and captured and killed Taiwei Wang Yan and others; then he sent Liu Yao to break the army in Luoyang, captured Emperor Huai of Jin, and killed more than 30,000 soldiers and civilians, which is called the "Yongjia Rebellion" in the history books. Although the fruit was fruitful, Liu Cong himself soon fell into the decline of the Chinese style dynasty, which was indeed a discord between the old national traditions of the Xiongnu and the thousand-year-old indoctrination of the Han people! If Liu Yuan is still alive, with his mature political acumen, it is very likely that he will stabilize the situation of strife between the various ethnic groups in the north and further improve the ruling order of the barbarians.
Liu Yuan opened the curtain on Wuhu Chaohua, and some people thought that he could be called China's "Attila". However, whether or not the merits of the two men can be compared, at least the experiences of the two are so similar, and Attila also had the experience of being a hostage in the Roman court at that time, which made them familiar with the political and military hypocrisy of the enemy.
Similar experiences and environments have created similar tyrants in two different regions, which cannot but be said to be a coincidence or inevitability of history.