618 AD
Jiang Du Mutiny: Is it because Yang Guang is traveling in the mountains and rivers?
On March 11, 618, Yang Guang was killed at Jiangdu (present-day Yangzhou) at the age of 50, known in history as the "Jiangdu Mutiny". It was the Forbidden Army that he trusted the most and was also the most powerful in the Empire, the Xiaoguo Army.
The direct cause of the Jiangdu Mutiny was these Janissaries from Guannei, and when they followed the Sui Emperor Yang Guang to Jiangdu City, they heard that their hometown had also been occupied by other rebels, and because they were worried about their relatives in their hometown, they wanted to kill the Sui Emperor and return to Guanzhong to fight the rebels.
Yang Guang's mood towards the forbidden army was very clear. With a carrot in one hand, he forcibly promised the widows and unmarried women of Jiangdu to the sergeants of the Xiaoguo Army, forcing them to establish a family in Jiangdu; in the other hand, he held a large stick, and before that, there was a group of fleeing generals, namely Zhonglang General Dou Xian and his subordinates, yang Guang executed everyone in order to kill chickens and monkeys.
Why did Yang Guang insist on going down to Jiangnan? Did he really ignore the lost territory and blindly go sightseeing?
There is now a saying that this is not the case. The Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang had a deeper consideration. A year earlier, after Li Yuan raised an army in Jinyang, he entered Guanzhong Chang'an, and established Yang You, the grandson of the Sui Emperor, as emperor, and Emperor Yaozun as emperor taishang. Yang Guang, based on the consideration of the reality of the north, and the fact that he had defended Yangzhou before he became emperor, planned to move the capital to Danyang to protect half of the jiangnan.
However, this move did not become a measure to slow down the army, but became a fuse to intensify the contradiction with the Xiaoguo Army. On the evening of March 10, 618, the leader of the Xiaoguo army, the general Sima Delang (司馬德戡), began a mutiny. Those who responded to him were Pei Qiantong and others in charge of the security of the palace, and Tang Fengyi, who was in charge of the security of the city gate.
In the middle of the night, Sima Dejie's army raised their torches and began to attack the palace. Yang Guang saw the fire, but at the same time heard the noise outside and asked what had happened. Pei Qiantong lied that the hay storehouse was on fire and that someone was being sent to rescue him. These people were Yang Guang's closest confidants, so Yang Guang believed it. Sima Dejie soon surrounded the palace and began to look around for The Sui Emperor Yang Guang. The Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang had also heard about the rebellion at this time, and hurriedly changed his makeup and fled to Xige. However, through the guidance of the palace maid, Pei Qiantong successfully found the Sui Emperor and arrested him.
When the Sui Emperor saw that it was Pei Qiantong, who had followed him when he was the King of Jin, he was surprised and asked why he did this. Pei Qiantong was also honest, saying that he and the soldiers just wanted to go home. It is hoped that Yang Guang can grant this request and personally comfort these soldiers. Yang Guang had no other choice and accepted the request. At this time, Yu Culture and appearance. Yu Wenhua is a complete opportunist, and he is also particularly timid and afraid of things. At the time of planning this, Sima Dejie and Pei Qiantong and others were of relatively low status, hoping to let Yu Wenhua and be the leader. After Yu Wenhua heard about it, his face changed and he sweated.
At this time, when the successful soldiers of the mutiny came to greet Yu Wenhua in time, he was even more frightened that he could not speak clearly, and he repeatedly prostrated his head and said that he was guilty. When he heard that Yang Guang had been pulled out to see the soldiers, Yu Wenhua was even more worried about the change, and hurriedly ordered Pei Qiantong to bring the Sui Emperor back to the palace and order him to be killed directly. It can be seen that until the last moment, he was still the first rat at both ends.
The Sui Emperor was confused, believing that even though he was sorry for the people of the world, these rebellious people had enjoyed all the glory and wealth with him. Therefore, he questioned Sima Dejie, Pei Qiantong, and others, who knew that they were wrong and could only take the world's resentment against Yang Guang as an excuse. In fact, Yu Wenhua and Sima Dejie and others also have their own ideas. To put it simply, they wanted to gain benefits for a longer period of time, so they didn't want the Sui Dynasty to be buried in the hands of the Sui Emperor.
In any case, the Sui Emperor was bound to die, and the Sui Emperor could only harden himself as a good man in the end, calling himself the Son of Heaven, and wanting to die in the form of poisoned wine. However, these people rejected Yang Guang's proposal. The Sui Emperor had no choice but to untie the white ribbon on his body, put it around his neck, and hand the ribbon to the rebel generals and let them strangle themselves.
At this point, the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang's soul returned to the Western Heavens. Yang's relatives and relatives were subsequently executed.
Conclusion: The Sui Dynasty II died, and the world was once again in chaos. Uprisings sprung up everywhere, and many heroes appeared on the scene, staging a "Legend of Sui and Tang Heroes" that was constantly talked about by posterity.
After the Jiangdu Mutiny, Li Zitong cleverly took Jiangdu, and Du Fuwei deeply resented this.
Dou Jiande established the Kingdom of Bactria : The North Contended for Dominance
In 618, Dou Jiande, the leader of the peasant revolt at the end of the Sui Dynasty, established the State of Great Xia, with the capital Leshou (present-day Xianxian County, Hebei) and proclaimed himself the King of Xia.
When the Kingdom of Bactria was first established, its sphere of influence was roughly in the area of present-day southern Hebei and the western part of Shanxi, with more than 100,000 men and horses. Soon after he established his government, the Wagang army occupying the Henan region was defeated by Wang Shichong, an old subordinate of the Sui Dynasty, and Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong divided the territory of the Wagang army, and their power was expanded. In the process of expansion, most of the rebel army in Shandong was annexed to Dou Jiande, and the remnants of the Wagang army in Henan surrendered to Wang Shichong. As a result, the north formed a situation in which Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, and Li Yuan were standing on the three sides, of which Li Yuan was the strongest and Wang Shi was the weakest.
So how did Dou Jiande grow from a commoner to a master of forces that divided one side? Dou Jiande was born in Zhangnan, Bei Prefecture (present-day Gucheng County, Hebei), to a family that had been farming for generations. Because his family was killed by the government, Dou Jiande defected to the leader of the rebel army in Gaoshangda and began the cause of the uprising. At that time, there were more than 10,000 rebel troops in Gaoshangda. The imperial court sent Zhuozhou Tongshou Guo Xuan to lead more than 10,000 people to quell the rebellion. At that time, gundam military power was handed over to Dou Jiande, and he asked him to lead the army to retreat from the enemy.
Dou Jiande resorted to a ruse, and he pretended to have a conflict with Gao Shangda and defected. Then Gao Shangda cooperated with him and killed a woman in front of the officers and soldiers, falsely claiming that this woman was Dou Jiande's wife. In the end, Dou Jiande pretended to surrender the officers and troops, and took advantage of the fact that the officers and troops were not prepared, launched a surprise attack, and finally the rebel army won a complete victory. Later, the imperial court also sent the eunuch Yang Yichen to lead the army to quell the rebellion, Yang Yichen was a general who could fight in the habit, Dou Jiande advised Gao Shangda to avoid his sharp edge, Gao Shangda did not listen, and as a result, he was killed because of his pride and light enemy.
Dou Jiande fled with a small number of people, and after the officers and men retreated, they returned to the same place and led the whole army to wear white mourning clothes to hold a funeral for his comrades-in-arms. The fleeing rebels were very touched when they heard about it, so they gathered around Dou Jiande again, and the morale of the army was restored, so Dou Jiande called himself a general.
Ordinary bandits kill officials when they see them, but Dou Jiande is different, he treats officials and squires with special courtesy, so there are many county officials around him who surrender to him, and the rebel army he leads gradually grows to more than 100,000 people. So in 617, Dou Jiande took advantage of the situation to proclaim himself the King of Changle. The imperial court sent the Right Wing Wei general Xue Shixiong to lead 30,000 people to attack Dou Jiande, but was defeated by Dou Jiande.
The following year, the Jiangdu Incident occurred, and the Sui Emperor was killed by the Right Tun Wei general Yu Wenhuahe. After learning of this news, Dou Jiande posthumously honored Yang Guang as Emperor Min and established the State of Bactria.
Later, Yu Wenhua and established himself as emperor, Dou Jiande immediately attacked Yu Wenhua in the name of avenging the Sui Emperor. After attacking the city, Dou Jiande first went to see Emperor Sui's empress Xiao Shi with the courtesy of a chancellor, and then captured a group of people who plotted to kill Emperor Sui and beheaded them all.
Dou Jiande took the initiative to curry favor with the Sui Dynasty, and he first made Yang Zhengdao, the son of Yang Zhengdao, the Prince of Qi, the Duke of Yun. Then, at the request of Princess Yicheng of the Sui Dynasty, who was married to the Turks, he led more than a thousand people to escort Xiao to the Turks, and also dedicated Yu Wenhua and his head to Princess Yicheng. He also took the opportunity to contact the Turks and gain the support of the Turks.
But Dou Jiande's way of establishing his authority by honoring the Sui Dynasty patriarchate also brought him ills. Because the situation developed to the end, through annexation, only Li Yuan, Wang Shichong and their three forces were left in the north and the central plains. Li Yuan's strength was the strongest, he and Wang Shichong were weaker, and it was reasonable that he should unite with Wang Shichong to deal with Li Yuan to have a better chance. However, Wang Shichong's rebellious act of killing the Sui Gong Emperor Yang Tong made it impossible for Dou Jiande to bypass Morality and unite with him, and the two of them fought separately until Wang Shichong was forced into a desperate situation by the Tang army, and he did not attack, at this time it was too late.
Dou Jiande also made mistakes in decision-making in the later period, and he listened to rumors and mistakenly killed wang Fubao, a good general under the enemy, which led to frequent defeats in later battles. Another time, when Wang Shichong was surrounded by Tang troops, some of his subordinates were bribed by emissaries sent by Wang Shichong, who advised him to send troops to save Wang Shichong. Guozi sacrificed wine Ling Jing to be good at giving advice, advising Dou Jiande not to attack head-on, but to bluff elsewhere to force the Tang army to retreat. The bribed subordinates accused Ling Jing of being a scholar who did not understand military affairs, so Dou Jiande did not adopt Ling Jing's strategy, and his wife advised him to listen to Ling Jing, but he did not listen. In the end, Dou Jiande personally led the army to battle, was captured by the Tang army, and the kingdom of Bactria was destroyed.
Conclusion: The kingdom of Bactria was established, and the north and the central plains were divided into three parts, but Dou Jiande finally made a mistake in decision-making, the soldiers were defeated and killed, and the situation in the world changed, accelerating the pace of Datang's unification of the north.
Therefore, Dou Jiande set the name of the country as Xia, which is also the origin of his being called the King of Xia by later generations.