In China's nearly 5,000-year history, every few hundred years there will be a situation of world strife. Sometimes because of its own infighting, sometimes because of foreign invasions, but any major blow or failure can be summarized as a page of shame.
Can we draw lessons from these tragic histories? We need to reflect, we need to make progress
1. Zhou Dynasty: The first time it was destroyed by barbarians
After King Zhou You's succession, a major earthquake occurred in Guanzhong, followed by drought and starvation. King Zhou Youwang was sad that he did not smile, and for bo meiren, he actually lit more than 20 beacon towers in a row.
The princes of the four sides thought that Xi Rong was invading, and hurriedly led troops to serve the king. Seeing the noise of the people outside the city and the roar of the war horses, she finally returned discouraged and couldn't help but smile. This laugh made everyone in the world drunk.
King You of Zhou killed his wife and crown prince Yiusu and made his son crown prince. He also raised an army to attack his father-in-law Shen Hou, and Shen Hou was furious and joined forces with the nomadic tribe Inuyasha to fight the capital. King Zhou You hurriedly lit a beacon for help, but no one sent troops to serve the king. In the end, King Youwang of Zhou was killed and Qiu Ji was taken captive.
This was the first time that the nomads had destroyed the Central Dynasty, King You of Zhou died, and the Qin tribe rose from then on.
2. Qin Dynasty: The Imperial Wrath of Qin Shi Huang
After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, the doctrine of the Warring States Hundred Schools of Thought was still in place, and the people's thinking of the original Six Kingdoms was not unified. The old Qi state doctor Chun Yuyue opposed the "county system" and demanded that the sons of the former princes and nobles be divided according to the ancient system.
In this way, Li Si, the minister of state, said of the corrupt Confucianism: "If you enter, you will be wrong, if you go out, you will discuss in the alley, if you do not think that the Lord thinks it is in the name, if you think that the tendency is high, and if you lead the group to create slander." As a result, Qin Shi Huang ordered the destruction of the six kingdoms history books other than the Qin Records and the "Poems" and "Books" privately stored in the folk, and many ancient books with high cultural value were also burned.
In the second year of the book burning, several alchemists did not refine the elixir of immortality, and after escaping from the palace, they spread rumors and ridiculed Qin Shi Huang. In a fit of rage, Qin Shi Huang pitted more than 460 warlocks in Xianyang, and tortured and implicated more than 400 students, all of whom were pitted and killed.
Qin Shi Huang's high-pressure policy of burning books and pit Confucianism hastened the demise of the Qin Dynasty, and Xiang Yu Liu Bang has since made his mark.
3. Jin Dynasty: The first time to cross the south
The last emperor of the Western Jin Dynasty, Sima Yi (Emperor Huan of Jin), led more than 100,000 subjects to surrender to the Xiongnu Han state under the siege of the city, and was soon killed after being insulted like the previous emperor Sima Zhao (Qingyi Youjiu). The Fall of the Western Jin Dynasty was only 37 years after the founding emperor Sima Yan.
The Western Jin Dynasty was the loosest and most incompetent dynasty in Chinese history, and the rate of subjugation was comparable to that of the Qin and Sui, but it did not make any contribution. It was difficult to end the nearly one hundred years of division at the end of the Han Dynasty, but it plunged China into an even more tragic chaotic world for more than three hundred years.
The upper classes of the Western Jin Dynasty were absurd and corrupt, and the lower classes were better off alive than dead. After Sima Ye surrendered, the men of Chang'an City were almost killed, and the women became a tool for the Xiongnu to play. Since then, the Central Plains Han people have moved southward, and the northern Han people who remained behind have been killed in ten rooms and nine empty spaces.
4. Sui Dynasty: The fiasco of the expedition to Goryeo
The Sui Emperor prepared an expedition to Goryeo, and he learned the lesson of his father's disastrous defeat in attacking Goryeo (insufficient logistical supplies). This time, a large number of grain and weapons were collected in 190 counties across the country. There are 50,000 transport vehicles, and tens of thousands of boats in the Grand Canal are connected end to end, and it is almost impossible to see the surface of the water.
In order to expropriate enough military grain, the government forcibly collected the peasants' rations. At this time, natural disasters occurred frequently in many parts of the country, and the corruption of officials ignored the lives and deaths of the people. Coupled with the previous fiasco, the war weariness within the army is very serious.
The Sui army crossed the Yalu River, and the sticks smelled the wind and fled. After the Sui Emperor led his army deep into the territory, the Goryeo army began to counterattack fiercely. The Sui army killed more than 100,000 people, and the sticks piled the corpses on both sides of the road for several kilometers to show off to the Chinese, and the Sui Emperor was eventually forced to withdraw.
The war against Goryeo almost hollowed out the treasury of the Sui Dynasty, and 6 years later the Sui Emperor was killed, and the Tang Dynasty came into being.
5. Song Dynasty: The emperor who was lit by foreign tribes
In 1120 AD, the Song and Jin agreed that Jin would attack Liaozhongjing, Song would attack Liaoyanjing, and afterwards Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures would be returned to Song, and the rest of the land would be returned to Jin. However, the Jin army attacked Zhongjing, and the Song Dynasty's 200,000 troops were defeated. The Jin people took the opportunity to capture Yanjing, destroyed the Liao state, and then turned around and attacked the Song.
Five years later, the Jin army attacked Fenjing (Kaifeng, Henan). Emperor Huizong of Song saw that the situation was critical and hurriedly located in Song Qinzong. Song asked for peace and compensated the gold for 5 million taels of gold and 50 million taels of silver, and ceded the three towns of Zhongshan, Hejian and Taiyuan. In August of the same year, the Jin army destroyed the covenant and attacked the Song Dynasty, and the Northern Song Dynasty fell.
After entering Kaifeng, the Jin soldiers plundered and massacred civilians. Emperor Taizong of Jin demoted The Second Emperor Hui Qin to the rank of Shuren (庶人) and imprisoned Empress Zheng and no less than 100,000 men and women such as princes, emperors, horses, princesses, and concubines to return to the north.
The Central Plains Han People began to cross the south for the second time, and the south became the center of China's economy.
6. Yuan Dynasty: First time ruled by foreign tribes
After the Mongols destroyed the Jin Dynasty, Kublai Khan led an army to attack Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. Lu Xiufu, Wen Tianxiang and others supported the little emperor and established a small court in exile. Wen Tianxiang's army was defeated and captured, and the small imperial court was surrounded by Mongol troops at Yashan Mountain in Guangdong, and there was no hope of breaking through.
The 43-year-old Lu Xiufu carried the 8-year-old little emperor to commit suicide by jumping into the sea, accompanying more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians to jump into the sea, and Empress Yang also went to the sea to commit suicide after hearing the news of the death of The Song Emperor, and the Southern Song Dynasty has since perished. It was a nested dynasty, and it was also a very national dynasty.
After the Mongols occupied all of China, they began an expedition to conquer the world.
7. Ming Dynasty: The first emperor to be a chip
After Mongolia was destroyed by the Ming Dynasty, it was divided into two parts: the Wallachians and the Tatars. Tatars reconciled with the Ming Dynasty, and Vara always wanted to restore the glory of the Mongol Empire. Because the eunuch Wang Zhen was reluctant to give more rewards to Vala, the chief also took the opportunity to use troops first. At the instigation of Wang Zhen, Ming Yingzong led an army of 500,000 to march in person.
This gentle emperor did not even arrange logistical support, and after entrusting the city of Beijing to his younger brother Zhu Qiyu, he led an army of 500,000 to go out. With the help of Wang Zhen, the pit cargo, the 30,000 cavalry of the Ming army were killed and plundered, and almost all of the army was killed.
After fleeing to Tumu Fort, Wang Zhen was killed by Fan Zhongzhuang and captured when Emperor Mingyingzong broke through. This was the "defeat of civil engineering" in The history of the Ming Dynasty, and it was also the worst defeat in the battle against foreign enemies, and the supreme leader was captured alive.
8. Qing Dynasty: A bloody case caused by a braid
In 1645, the Qing army besieged Yangzhou, and the Ming general Shi Kefa and the Manchu soldiers refused to surrender. After the Qing army captured Yangzhou, he killed Shi Kefa and killed him in yangzhou. In 10 days, nearly 800,000 people died under the butcher's knife of the Qing army!
Not only in Yangzhou, but also in Jiading and elsewhere, the atrocities committed by the Qing army were innumerable. Historians estimate that in the 20 years since the Qing army entered the Central Plains, nearly 100 million Han Chinese have been killed! That's a horrible number! This is also just a prelude to the humiliation in China's modern history.
9. The Qing Dynasty: The Beginning of Modern Humiliation
At the end of the 18th century, Britain began to import opium into China in large quantities. There are smokehouses everywhere in major cities, and Chinese silver flows to Europe. In June 1839, Lin Zexu overcame all difficulties to publicly destroy opium at Humen, which caused the anger of the British.
In 1840, the British Expeditionary Force, consisting of 45 warships and 5,000 soldiers, entered the southeast coast of China and the Opium War broke out. This was the first time That China had engaged a Western European army, and after nearly a hundred years of self-isolation, the Manchu Qing Empire had finally swallowed the consequences of its own brewing.
In this battle, the Qing army invested 200,000 people and almost completely destroyed the army, and China became a fat pig with rich oil but no resistance in the eyes of Westerners, and since then it has been oppressed by the great powers.
Is there anything else that can be matched by the above 9 events?