The five-volume "General History of China" of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences combines biographies with major events, and 100 special topics narrate Chinese history from the origin of mankind in China to the late Qing Dynasty. Standing at the historical height of the 21st century, the whole book grasps, perspectives and thinks about the course traveled by the Chinese nation, and at the same time examines Chinese history in the context of world history, solemnly answering the major concerns of Chinese about its own history in the era of globalization.
In 1208, Jin Zhangzong died, and his uncle King Wei completed Yan Yongji to the throne. In the past, When Genghis Khan paid tribute to Jingzhou, he had seen Yan Yongji and understood his mediocrity and incompetence. After Yan Yongji ascended the throne, he sent envoys to pass on the edict to Mongolia. Genghis Khan asked the messenger who the new king was before kneeling down to receive the edict, and the envoy told him that he was the King of Wei. Genghis Khan immediately spit to the south: "I say that the Emperor of the Central Plains is a heavenly man, and such a cowardly coward is also for it. "Ride away on horseback.
The Lugou Bridge, which quietly spans the Yongding River, tells people about the prosperity of Jinzhongdu in that year
During the Liao-Jin Dynasty, there were frequent wars in the north, and perennial wars were bound to cause economic recession. For a long time, historians generally believed that the northern economy during this period was seriously damaged, and even had a serious retrogression, and since then the northern social economy has entered a dark era. How should we view the economy of the Jin Dynasty?
In the early years of the Jin Dynasty, Xu Kangzong, an envoy to the Jin Dynasty, saw with his own eyes in central Hebei that the land of Youzhou was fertile and wild, with grains and fruits, and good wood and beautiful wood. Shandong's economy also recovered so quickly that the Jin people called Shandong rich and prosperous. Henan's economy, which could not be developed because of the long war, was given the opportunity to develop due to the large number of people moving south.
During the reign of Emperor Jin Shizong, the Southern Song Dynasty emissary Lou Kui found that the city in Hebei was prosperous, far beyond the south of the Yellow River. When there was a large-scale famine in the Southern Song Dynasty, a large amount of wheat was transported from Jin to the Song-Jin border in exchange for a very short shortage of copper coins. In the seventh year of Zhang Zongtaihe (1207), the number of hukou in the Jin-ruled areas had already surpassed the northern regions of the former Northern Song Dynasty.
Overall, the Economy of the Jin Dynasty, although briefly devastated by war, recovered quickly and soon. During the fifty years of the reign of Jin Shizong and Zhangzong, "the rule of the interior was long, and the Uchi was well-off", and the Jin Dynasty appeared in a peaceful and prosperous situation, which is known in history as "the rule of Dading Mingchang".
King Hailing completed Yan Liangzhi's great talent, and the Song Dynasty was killed
Dading was the era name of Jin Sejong (reigned 1161-1189), who took advantage of the tyrannical Hailing King's reign to launch a coup d'état in the rear. Compared to Emperor Wen of Han and known as "Xiao Yao Shun", during his reign he straightened out the administration of officials, selected the best and the best, rewarded and punished clearly, encouraged advice, lightly dispensed with thin gifts, invited exile, developed production, and rested with the people, thus giving rise to the heyday of "courtiers keeping their duties, making peace between the upper and lower levels, giving people enough at home, and having more than enough warehouses", "taxes are not as good as tithes, two taxes, there is no excess, and in a few years, the warehouses are full, the people are rich, and the four Yi are obedient, so that the peace of Dading for thirty years" has emerged.
Mingchang was the era name of Emperor Jin Zhangzong (reigned 1190-1208). Zhangzong Was the grandson of Sejong and had been studying Jurchen scripts and Chinese scriptures since childhood. He inherited his grandfather's political strategy, starting with the rectification of the bureaucracy, appointing the best and the most powerful, rewarding and punishing in an orderly manner, laying off redundant personnel, and restricting the frequent movement of officials. Jin Shi · The Biography of the Officials says: "After Sejong Chenghai Ling withered, he rested and recuperated, and until between Mingchang and Cheng'an, the people's goods multiplied, and the officials came out of the way." ”
Behind the appearance of the prosperity of the Jin Dynasty, there are signs of prosperity and decline. Liu Qi's "Gui Qianzhi" said: "Zhangzong was intelligent and had a father's style, belonged to literature and learning, and advocated Confucianism, so for a while there were many famous scholars, and the ministers and ministers had many literary talents and learning to be desirable, and all the officials and ministers could be used prominently, the government decrees were repaired, the civil rule was rotten, and the prosperity of the Jin Dynasty was extremely great." ”
Miscellaneous drama diagrams
However, "literature stops at the words, and does not know how to explain the scriptures as the way to protect the country and the people, and to tuji zuo for a long time." He is also quite pompous and extravagant, chongjian palace que, foreign relatives and villains are more pre-government, and there is no ambition for sages and sages, and yin and shangyi are windy. The minister knows flattery and does not dare to go against his liking. Therefore, there is no strategy for maintaining a long life, and there is a moment of happiness, so the weakness of Qi Da'an and Zhenyou is also. ”
During the reign of Emperor Zhangzong (1196-1200), the Jin Dynasty began to decline. The Yellow River levee broke three times, and the people were seriously affected and displaced; corruption among officials became a common practice; the indiscriminate issuance of paper money caused by the devaluation of currency; and social contradictions intensified and ethnic contradictions intensified. Internal and external troubles exacerbated the decline and fall of the Jin Dynasty.
Since the Xizong Dynasty, the Mongols have constantly harassed the northern borders of the Jin Dynasty. By the time of Dading and Mingchang, Mongol power had developed rapidly and became a major threat to the Jin Dynasty. During the Dading period, there was a folk song widely circulated in the north: "Tatars come, Tatars go, and the officials have nowhere to go." In order to resist the invasion from northern Mongolia, the Jin Dynasty successively built a long boundary trench, which was later called the Golden Great Wall.
Mongol ministries before reunification
In the sixth year of Jinzhang Zongtaihe (1206), Genghis Khan (1162-1227) unified the Mongol ministries and established the Great Mongolian State, at this time Genghis Khan was 44 years old. The Jin Dynasty had just experienced the heyday of Sejong and Zhangzong, and Genghis Khan was very cautious at first, did not dare to rush into the attack, and still paid tribute to the Jin Dynasty according to the custom. However, when he learned through the Khitan descendants that the Jin Dynasty was politically corrupt, militarily lax, and had serious internal contradictions, his view of Jin began to change.
In the first year of the Southern Song Dynasty, jin taihe and the eighth year (1208), Jin Zhangzong died, and his uncle King Wei completed Yan Yongji to take the throne. In the past, When Genghis Khan paid tribute to Jingzhou, he had seen Yan Yongji and understood his mediocrity and incompetence. After Yan Yongji ascended the throne, he sent envoys to pass on the edict to Mongolia. Genghis Khan asked the messenger who the new king was before kneeling down to receive the edict, and the envoy told him that he was the King of Wei. Genghis Khan immediately spit to the south: "I say that the Emperor of the Central Plains is a heavenly man, and such a cowardly coward is also for it. "Ride away on horseback.
When Yan Yongji got the news, he was extremely angry and wanted to wait for Genghis Khan to pay tribute next time, lay an ambush and kill him. However, the news leaked, Genghis Khan announced that he had broken off diplomatic relations with Jin, and in the spring of the fourth year of the Southern Song Dynasty Jiading and the third year of Jin Da'an (1211), a large-scale southward march, the Battle of Wild Fox Ridge, the main force of the Jin army of 300,000 all collapsed, "the elite of the Jin people was lost here", thus opening the prelude to the Mongol conquest of the Jin Dynasty.
The Battle of Wild Fox Ridge
In the sixth year of the Southern Song Dynasty and the first year of the Jin Dynasty (1213), a coup d'état occurred in the Jin Dynasty, emperor Yan Yongji was killed, and Jin Xuanzong took the throne. At this time, the Mongolian Three Roads Army had almost all sorted out the area north of the Yellow River, "Where more than ninety counties are broken, all that have passed will be destroyed." For thousands of miles in Lianghe and Shandong, the people slaughtered several times, and the gold, children, cattle, sheep, horses, and livestock were all swept away, the houses were destroyed, and the city was ruined. ”
In the spring of the seventh year of the Southern Song Dynasty and the second year of Jin Zhenyou (1214), the Mongol Three-Way Army met under the capital city, and forced by the situation, Jin Xuanzongjin offered the Princess of Yan Yongji and a large number of gold coins, a large number of boys and girls, and this princess was known as the "Princess Empress" because of her noble birth. Genghis Khan, loaded with captured people, livestock, and belongings, withdrew from the guanxi.
By the time of Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, he had lost a large area of territory north of the Yellow River, and the capital had become an isolated city. Emperor Xuanzong of Jin chose to abandon Zhongdu and a vast area of Hebei and move south to Beijing (present-day Kaifeng, Henan). After hearing the news that Jin Xuanzong had moved south, Genghis Khan sent the army of Sanmu Hebadu and Shi Moming'an to the south again, and surrounded Zhongdu with the mutinous Jin Dynasty army. In May of the following year, Zhongdu fell.
In the ninth year of the Southern Song Dynasty and the fourth year of Jin Zhenyou (1216), Genghis Khan made Muhuali, one of the four masters, a taishi and king, and awarded the Nine White Banners, which symbolized the authority of the Great Khan, and commanded the armies of Za lai'er, Hongji, Yi Qilesi, Wulu, and Busy Wuwu, as well as the Khitan, Jurchen, and Han armies, with Yan and Yun as the forward bases, specifically through the Jin Dynasty. Genghis Khan began to turn his attention to the Western power, Khwarazm, and the Jin Dynasty was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Jin Xuanzong successively conquered the Southern Song Dynasty in the south and the Western Xia in the west to expand his territory, and continued to fight against the Mongols. At this time, the Internal Affairs of the Jin Dynasty were poor, the military strength had declined, and after many wars, the Jin Dynasty was in an embattled situation. In 1224, Emperor Xuanzong of Jin died, and his third son, Emperor Shouxu of Yan, succeeded him, emperor aizong of Jin. After Emperor Aizong of Jin ascended the throne, he encouraged agricultural production and made peace with the Southern Song Dynasty and Western Xia. Establishing a loyal and filial army directly under the central government, appointing famous anti-Mongol generals such as Yan Chen monks, in 1228 Dachangyuan (present-day Ning County, Gansu Province) defeated the Mongol army. Later, the Jin army recovered a lot of land, so that the Jin Dynasty came back to life.
In the spring of 1225, Genghis Khan returned to Mongolia after his western expedition. In the summer of 1227, Genghis Khan died on the eve of the destruction of Western Xia. In 1229, his vast Mongol Empire was officially succeeded by his third son Wokoutai, who launched a general attack on the Jin Dynasty the following year. At Sanfeng Mountain in Yuzhou, Henan, the main force of the Jin army was defeated by the Mongol army led by Tuolei, and the Jin Dynasty was gone.
When the Mongol regime was established, the army was only a few hundred thousand people, but in foreign wars, Genghis Khan constantly absorbed countries to surrender to the army, and the number of troops was rapidly replenished. The mongols' rich hunting experience and Genghis Khan's outstanding military talents enabled the Mongol army to skillfully use various tactics and give full play to the mobile combat capabilities of cavalry. In addition, the introduction of advanced weapons from various countries has also made the Mongolian iron horse more powerful and invincible. When summarizing the reasons for the Mongol victory, Jin Aizong once lamented: "The Northern Soldiers often take the golden victors, and the horsepower of the North is the ear of China's skill." ”
The Mongol Empire flourished in the mid-13th century
Emperor Aizong of Jin insisted on abandoning Fenjing until the end of the year and moving the capital to Defu (德府, in present-day Shangqiu, Henan), where the defender cui Li surrendered to Mongolia. The Mongol general Shi Tianze pursued him all the way, Jin Aizong fled to Cai Prefecture, and the Mongol army of the Song general Meng Gong led an army to jointly besiege. In the first month of 1234, Cai Prefecture was in danger, and Emperor Aizong of Jin did not want to be the king of the fallen country, and passed the throne to the commander-in-chief Yan Chenglin, who was the emperor of the late Jin Dynasty. At this time, the city of Caizhou fell, Jin Aizong committed suicide, the last emperor died in the rebellion, and the Jin Dynasty fell.
The Jin Dynasty lasted for nine generations, and in 120 years, it was the most prosperous dynasty compared with the Liao and Western Xia, but it was also the shortest-lived dynasty. Why did this prosperous dynasty die out in such a short period of time?
"Gold gains the country with soldiers, but also loses the country with soldiers." Although the destruction of the Liao and Northern Song dynasties by tens of thousands of people was related to the decay and incompetence of the Liao and Song rulers, the jurchens' hard-working, heroic and warlike character was also crucial. However, after the founding of the Jin Dynasty, the Jurchen Meng'an Muke moved to the area inhabited by the Han people to engage in Tuntian, and the change of lifestyle and the long-term comfortable life cultivated their lazy, extravagant, and hedonistic life style, and the influence of Han culture also completely eliminated their heroic and warlike character, and they were soon defeated under the impact of the huge Mongolian iron horse.