The world knows the greatness of Emperor Xiaowen's reforms, but he did not expect that the reforms would directly send the empire to hell!
Emperor Xiaowen of Wei
Emperor Xiaowen of Wei and his grandmother
The reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty are very famous in history because they are in history textbooks. Moreover, although this reform also went through hardships, it was finally successful, so emperor Xiaowen of Wei was an outstanding ethnic minority politician.
This evaluation is generally correct, the powerful Northern Wei Dynasty was painstakingly managed by successive emperors such as Tuoba Jue and Tuoba Tao for decades, and by the time of Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong, the national strength had developed to its peak.
It is not accurate to say that Emperor Xiaowen reformed, because before him, Empress Feng had already laid a good foundation for reform.
Empress Feng is one of the most famous empresses in history, and can be listed as the three most famous empresses in China alongside Empress Lü of the Western Han Dynasty, Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, and the statue of Cixi Laofo in the late Qing Dynasty. This is a powerful woman, but also a fierce woman.
Contents of Emperor Xiaowen's reforms
Empress Feng was Emperor Xiaowen's grandmother, but this grandmother was not as kind and kind as the average grandmother, on the contrary, Emperor Xiaowen's father, Emperor Xianwen, was poisoned by Empress Feng, and Emperor Xiaowen's mother was also killed by this old lady; moreover, she did not seem to be very good to Emperor Xiaowen, and once locked him up for three days in the winter, with the purpose of making him leave peacefully without clothes and food.
But later Empress Feng found that the imperial clan and court ministers were on the side of the young Emperor Xiaowen, and she instantly understood that she could no longer move him. So the extremely clever old lady immediately turned around and became the excellent guardian of Emperor Xiaowen, and many of the reform actions before Emperor Xiaowen's pro-government were actually completed by Empress Feng.
It may not be appropriate to say that Mrs. Feng is the empress dowager, but to be precise, she is the empress dowager.
Empress Feng stills
The Northern Wei themselves were Hu people, and they also cursed other people's Hu people
The Northern Wei Dynasty was the most powerful northern dynasty in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and there was no one, former Qin was once very powerful, even threatening the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the south, but a battle of Shuishui immediately collapsed. And the Northern Wei Dynasty, although it also declined later, still lived for many years before reluctantly swallowing. Therefore, the conclusion is that the Northern Wei Dynasty is stronger than all the Northern Dynasties of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
The Northern Wei Dynasty was a dynasty established by the Xianbei people, and according to the saying at that time, it was naturally a Hu dynasty. However, in that era of great national integration, every ethnic minority court had different degrees of Sinicization, and the good habit of ministers wearing Hanfu, speaking Chinese, and reading Chinese books became popular. Therefore, the Northern Wei Dynasty was established for a long time and was also strong for many years, and slowly regarded itself as the orthodox dynasty of the Central Plains. As a result, other ethnic minorities are treated as Hu people.
The most powerful Hu opponent of the Northern Wei Dynasty was Rouran.
Map of the situation in the Northern Wei Dynasty
The six towns of northern Wei
Although Rouran is called Rouran, it is not soft at all. On the contrary, this is a fierce character, beating the once powerful Northern Wei to the ground and looking for teeth. As a result, the Northern Wei Dynasty consolidated and set up six military towns on the front line of the battle against Rouran, similar to the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty, all to guard against nomadic peoples from the north.
From west to east, the six towns of Northern Wei are in order
Woye, Huaishuo,
Takekawa
, Fu Meditation, Soft Xuan,
Nostalgia. The six military towns formed the forefront of the Northern Wei's resistance to Rouran. The Northern Wei Dynasty itself was a strong nation with fast horses and machetes, and the entire government and the opposition were permeated with a martial spirit, and thousands of enthusiastic young people of the Xianbei ethnic group demanded that they go north to join the army to resist the strong enemy in order to defend the motherland.
In that special period, going to six towns became the strongest voice of the times. And the country did not treat the proud sons of these days badly, give the best status, give the best treatment, give the best honor, as for the generals who led the troops in the six towns, they were even more pillars of the imperial court, often in the six towns, it was gilded, and the next thing was definitely to get promoted and get rich.
Therefore, those who can make a name for themselves in the six towns are either Xianbei nobles or Xianbei youths with military DNA, of course, there are also Han Qiangzong disciples from the south, but the proportion is not too high. As for the cold disciples, they don't want to think about it.
But became Xiao He, defeated xiao He, the six towns achieved a powerful Northern Wei Dynasty, and eventually buried the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Distribution map of the six towns of northern Wei
Emperor Xiaowen of Wei reformed
Just when the children of the Northern Wei nobles were enjoying the glory and dreams of the six towns, the news came that the great Emperor Xiaowen had carried out a vigorous Sinicization reform.
Empress Feng's prelude to reform paved the way for Emperor Xiaowen, who eventually defeated the conservatives in the court and successfully moved the capital from the remote and desolate Pingcheng (today's Datong, Shanxi) to the wealthy and prosperous Luoyang, while the Sinicization reforms and economic consolidation achieved extremely fruitful results.
Since then, the era of barbaric growth of the Northern Wei Dynasty has completely ended, replaced by a new dynasty with a highly developed civilization, which can really be called a rich and prosperous, ceremonial and civilized state! The humble nobles in the court all abandoned their original national costumes and wore Hanfu, and also took pride in speaking Chinese, especially Emperor Xiaowen emphasized learning the advanced culture of the Han people and put Confucius in a supreme position - the Northern Wei Dynasty completely became a Central Plains Dynasty.
At the same time that Northern Wei changed from a rough barbarian to a weak scholar, his original martial spirit was also changed by Emperor Xiaowen!
Emperor Xiaowen and Empress Feng
Six Towns was hurt
Emperor Xiaowen of Wei moved the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang, which for a long time was regarded as an important symbol of the success of the reform, and every article praising the reform of Xiaowen wrote a special book on the relocation of the capital to Luoyang.
This is also true, the difference between Pingcheng and Luoyang is not only the difference between advanced and backward, prosperous and desolate, comfortable and bitter, but more importantly, Pingcheng is close to Hudi, close to the strong enemy Rouran, while Luoyang is in the hinterland of the Central Plains, where the humble nobles can live a life of peace of mind and singing and dancing.
In the past, when the capital was in Pingcheng, the soldiers of the six towns who defended the soft front had to stay on their pillows all day and sleep with one eye open, because they had the sacred mission of defending the capital. How can the state disappoint the motherland by entrusting them with this crucial task and giving them the highest honor and the best treatment and the brightest future?
But now it was different, the capital moved south, there was no longer any danger of being attacked by Rouran, and Liuzhen obviously felt that he was left out in the cold. The original proud son of heaven, the most high-profile professional soldier in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the most promising and enthusiastic young man in the imperial court, is now unpopular with the imperial court, quite simply, because the six towns are useless. Later, the six towns simply became a paradise for adventurers, and the towns would be left in the wilderness for a long time, and the back of the town was almost always like Gao Huan, a rogue proletarian who even struggled to buy a horse!
The gap is too big!
Gao Huan statue
The six towns that were forced to rebel
Emperor Xiaowen of Wei was undoubtedly a great king, and qingshi left a name, but his personal life was extremely unfortunate, not only his parents were killed at the hands of his grandmother, but as a politician with a strategic height, he must also hold high the banner of his grandmother's reform. In other words, I can't tell you what happened to the parent killer, and you have to raise it high.
And that's not all, during the emperor's southern expedition, he was given a strong green hat. a.d
On April 26, 499, Emperor Xiaowen, who was infinitely close to the Emperor of the Ages, died of anger and illness at the age of 33 in the palace—yes, a generation of Tianjiao, who only lived for 33 years—the Northern Wei Emperor barely lived long.
After the death of Emperor Xiaowen of Wei, he left behind the incomparably powerful and devastated Northern Wei Dynasty to future generations. Less than 25 years after his death, the six towns rebelled.
In 524 AD, the people of Woye Town broke through the Six Han Tombs and unveiled the prelude to the Six Towns Rebellion, followed by the detonation of the powder keg in the north, and the decades-long super chaos in northern China broke out.
Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai confront each other
In the later period of Emperor Xiaowen's reign, due to the capital's southward relocation and southern expedition, the national treasury was empty, and the six northern towns, which had been seriously snubbed, had eaten up and down, and a large number of outlaws had gathered here, becoming a huge powder keg.
Breaking the Six Han Tombs became the fuse of this powder keg!
The great chaos in the six towns made the dynasty, which was already strong in the outside world, and lost the spirit of shangwu, spend a lot of effort to quell the chaos in the six towns, and as a result, what awaited northern Wei was a greater rebellion.
The Shanxi Qihu nobleman Erzhu Rong took advantage of the chaos in the imperial court to march into Luoyang, slaughtering the powerful Empress Dowager Hu and the Little Emperor and thousands of wenwu officials, but it did not take long for him to hold power, and he was replaced by the more powerful Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai. Gao Huan was a Huhua Han, and Yuwen Tai was a Humble Xiongnu, and the two supported a Tuoba family (when Emperor Xiaowen reformed, changed Tuoba to Yuan) as emperors, and the powerful Northern Wei split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei, and the two male competitions between Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai became the main theme of that era.
After Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai died, their heirs did not even want a puppet emperor, so they added their yellow robes to live the emperor addiction. Eastern Wei became Northern Qi, and Western Wei became Northern Zhou. The Once terrible Northern Wei Dynasty finally collapsed, only half a century after the death of Emperor Xiaowen of Wei!
Yuwen Tai