Speaking of the Northern Wei regime, most people are no strangers to the Sinicization reforms of Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong. But by the time the "baton" of reform was handed over to him, Tuoba's ancestors had built Pingcheng (present-day Datong, Shanxi) into the political center of northern China, laying a certain political foundation for reform.
Before the capital luoyang was moved, it ruled for a century from the first year of Tianxing (398) to the eighteenth year of Taihe (494), known as the Northern Wei Pingcheng Era.
Emperor Tuoba Jue of the Northern Wei Dynasty
In order to stabilize the regime, Emperor Daowu killed the founding heroes; in order to prevent the mother and foreign relatives from causing chaos, he also established a system of overcorrected sons and noble mothers. In the long reform of gradually pushing loose tribal alliances to feudalization, the political system of the early Northern Wei regime was always in a fierce struggle and change.
Teacher Li Ping, the author of "The Pingcheng Era of Northern Wei", used rich literature and the research results obtained by field investigations to examine in detail the evolution of the political system in the early period of the Northern Wei regime, and summarized the main processes including the initial sight of imperial power, the supervision of the state by the crown prince, the interference of the nursing mother, the listening of the empress dowager, and the supervision of the suzerain, so that the confusing historical truth and development laws became clear.
Northern Wei Pingcheng Era Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House
Looking at history at home and abroad, the Martingale Revolution, peter the Great's Westernization of Russia, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the French Revolution, the social reforms in full swing seem to have pushed the contradictions of society to the extreme, full of violence, bloodshed and killing.
In the tortuous process of feudalization of the Pingcheng regime in Northern Wei, the Tuoba family was always at the center of the political whirlpool. Putting aside the political level of research, I would like to follow the basic context of this book, from the background of the events, from a humanistic perspective to analyze how the Northern Wei Dynasty moved from a firm choice of nomadic tribes to the Central Plains Han culture, and how it made great sacrifices.
The author first talks about the personal experience of Emperor Daowu, the founder of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The predecessor of the Northern Wei Pingcheng regime was a tribal alliance centered on the Tuoba tribe that had been active in the steppes south of the Yinshan Mountains since the Wei and Jin dynasties, and its sphere of influence once expanded to the jinzhong area.
In 376 AD, Former Qin's Sima Fuluo led an army to defeat the daiguo, the tribe was defeated, and his royal family members were also exiled to the Central Plains, including the 6-year-old Daowu Emperor. Emperor Daowu, who had a troubled fate, wandered to Shudi and the Central Plains and other places, and tasted the hardships of displacement in foreign countries.
However, objectively speaking, it also created conditions for him to contact and learn from the advanced culture of the Han nationality, which had a great influence on the establishment of the Northern Wei regime and the formulation of subsequent national policies.
Schematic diagram of the Battle of Shuishui
In 383, Jian Jian was defeated in the Battle of Shuishui, and the northern peoples broke away from Former Qin rule. Emperor Daowu, with the support of his mother,the Helan clan, held a tribal assembly at Niuchuan (牛川, in present-day Xilamlinhe, Inner Mongolia) to succeed to the throne and proclaim the restoration of the kingdom.
Emperor Daowu, who was working hard to rule, appointed xianneng, and through measures such as dispersing various ministries, persuading classes to cultivate, and promulgating edicts of Yiwei and Bingshen, it marked that the Northern Wei regime broke through the shells of nomadic tribes and began to establish the rudiments of feudal rule.
The shift from a nomadic to agrarian society underwent a fundamental change in nature for the Tuoba shobu, which also touched the interests of the old nobility, and various forms of resistance and repression arose one after another.
Daowu Emperor, who grew up in the political environment of Eryu and I, gradually developed a lonely, violent, and jealous personality in this high-pressure political environment, and in order to relieve stress, he began to take cold food in his old age, and whenever he had a seizure, he was moody and often in a state of schizophrenia.
In the early years, the generals who accompanied him in the conquest and were born into death were executed or deposed on trumped-up charges if they were not careful.
After the establishment of the Northern Wei regime, Emperor Daowu intended to abolish the old tribal system of brothers and brothers, and established his eldest son Tuoba Si as the crown prince to inherit the throne. In order to ensure the smooth transfer of power and prevent foreign relatives from interfering in politics, Emperor Daowu vigorously maintained the death system of Zi Gui's mother, and killed Tuoba Si's mother, Liu Guiren.
Crown Prince Tuoba was overwhelmed with grief and could not accept this fact, so he chose to go out of the palace and march around.
In desperation, Emperor Daowu wanted to appoint his second son Tuoba Shao, the King of Qinghe, and also had to kill his mother Lady He. Tuoba Shao was horrified, plotted against the samurai under the tent, and entered the palace to kill his father, Emperor Daowu, resulting in the tragedy of father-son cannibalism.
Cui Hao, an outstanding politician and strategist of the Northern Wei Dynasty
Later, the eldest son Tuoba Si returned to Beijing to kill Tuoba Shao's mother and son to quell the rebellion, and eventually succeeded to the throne as Emperor Mingyuan. Emperor Mingyuan, who had experienced political turmoil, adopted the suggestion of the Han scholar Cui Hao, established a system of prince supervision of the state, and granted the supreme ruling power to the crown prince Tuoba Tao before his death, so that the first power change in the history of Northern Wei was successfully completed.
However, since then, the princely supervision of the state system has also exposed huge political hidden dangers.
Emperor Taiwu's premature appointment of his eldest son Tuoba Huang as crown prince led to a rapid expansion of power in the Eastern Palace, and conflicts between father and son followed. Framed by the eunuch Zong Ai, Emperor Taiwu eliminated the Eastern Palace clique, and the crown prince Tuoba Huang died in the Eastern Palace due to excessive illness due to anxiety. Afterwards, Emperor Taiwu slowly learned that Crown Prince Tuoba Huang had not done anything illegal, so he felt very regretful.
Fearing that the matter would be revealed, Zong Ai first killed Emperor Taiwu and made the crown prince Tuoba Huang and his mother and brother Tuoba Yu emperor, but soon killed him. A eunuch actually killed Tuoba Tao and Tuoba Yu in succession, becoming the de facto supreme ruler of Northern Wei, and the government and the public were shocked.
The starting point of the princely supervision system was to ensure the smooth replacement of imperial power, but it was not expected to be successfully completed only in the Ming Yuan Emperor's dynasty. At the same time, the deformed system of the death of the son and the noble mother led to the imbalance and vacuum of the power of the Tuoba family, creating conditions for the eunuch forces to seize power and murder the second emperor.
In 452, Emperor Shangshu of the Palace, Sun Thirsty Marquis and Shangshu Luli, and others proclaimed Tuoba Mao, the grandson of Emperor Taiwu, as emperor, and after Emperor Wencheng ascended the throne, he killed the eunuch Zong Ai, and finally eliminated the eunuch forces in the palace, and the Tuoba family regained power.
Yungang Grottoes
After this, Emperor Wencheng cultivated and recuperated, presided over the resumption of production, revived Buddhism, and ordered the construction of the Yungang Grottoes, and the throne was successfully passed to Emperor Tuoba Hong. Although there were successively nursing mothers Chang and Empress Feng during this period, the Northern Wei regime established by the Tuoba family had broken away from the tribal alliance and operated on the track of the feudal system for 70 or 80 years.
Finally, Emperor Xianwen died young, and his eldest son Emperor Xiaowen took the throne, and soon moved the capital to Luoyang, ending the Pingcheng era of Northern Wei.
Looking back at the Pingcheng era of the Northern Wei Dynasty, in order to consolidate the power in their hands, each ruler constantly drew on the political experience of the Central Plains, improved and made up for the system of the dynasty, worked hard to get rid of the old habits of nomadic tribes, successfully completed the establishment of the feudal system, and greatly improved the strength of the Northern Wei regime. In the meantime, the system of mutual suspicion between father and son, brothers fighting for power and enmity, and the system of the death of sons and noble mothers who destroyed humanity reflected the congenital defects of the feudal system.
Of course, the author introduces a large number of historical materials in the text, meticulous research, such as cracking mysteries and reasoning stories, outlining the ins and outs of historical development, which greatly increases the interest of reading this book.
At the end of the article, a story quoted in the Book from the Zizhi Tongjian is concluded with a record of Tuoba Shao, the king of Qinghe, who killed his father Emperor Daowu, and asked Yu Qunchen across the palace gate, so as to show the cruelty of the power struggle.
(Emperor Daowu) collapsed violently. Tomorrow, the palace gate will not be opened until the middle of the day... Shao (Tuoba Shao, the King of Qinghe), said from between the doors: "I have a father and a brother, and who does the secretary of state want to follow?" "The princes have been stunned, and there is no one who is right... Wei Yin Ping Cried away.