The Song Dynasty was a very puzzling dynasty.
This dynasty, founded by the professional soldier Zhao Kuangyin, was a dynasty that was weak in foreign warfare but extremely brilliant in culture.
Qian Zhongshu once said: There are several eras in the history of Chinese culture that have always been on a par with each other, literature says "Tang and Song", painting says "Song and Yuan", and academic thought says "Han song", only Song is indispensable.
It can be seen that the cultural achievements of the Song Dynasty are high.
However, Song Zhi's "accumulation of weakness" is also obvious to all. It was the one with the smallest territory and the largest amount of foreign indemnities among the Great Unified Central Plains Dynasties of China.
As for the weakness of the Song Dynasty, the most criticized military system has always been the military system of using civilians to control the military, believing that it was the civilian officials who led the army to the low combat strength.
Is this really the case?
In fact, the civil leadership system of the Song Dynasty was not an isolated case in Chinese history, and the same was true of the Ming Dynasty. In the internal and external wars at the end of the Ming Dynasty, all the fierce men who could be called by the trumpets, such as Yuan Chonghuan, Sun Chuanting, Sun Chengzong, and so on, were all literati.
Therefore, civilian officials governing the army does not mean that the military force is necessarily relatively weak.
In the final analysis, the confrontation between the two armies is not a one-on-one single challenge, and the military chief does not need to personally go into battle to cut people, whether he is from the army or not, in fact, it does not matter much. For example, the three kingdoms that everyone is familiar with, the famous military commanders Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Lu Xun, and so on, are also cultural people.
In fact, the military strength of the Song Dynasty was not weak.
In the early days of the Song-Jin War, due to the inaction of Huizong and Qinzong, the two artists did not have much face, but the performance of the Song Army in the later period was still remarkable. Not only did Yue Fei, Liu Qi and other famous generals have a good record against Jin, but Yu Yunwen, a scholar, also broke the Golden Army at the quarry.
Even at the end of the dynasty, a generation of war god Meng Jue also attacked the capital of the Jin Kingdom before the Mongolian army in the battle to destroy Jin, and finally achieved remarkable results in the war against Mongolia.
The last rival of the Song Dynasty, the Mongol Khanate, the strongest rival it encountered in the process of conquering the world, was also the Southern Song Dynasty, which was generally considered to be relatively weak.
The Mongols were devastated and invincible all the way to Eurasia. However, in fighting the Southern Song Dynasty, it encountered the most tenacious resistance.
From Wokoutai to Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, from the southern Song Dynasty to the second year of Xiangxing (1234-1279 AD), the Mongol Yuan army attacked the Southern Song Dynasty, which took a full 46 years.
In order to take over the Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongols paid a huge price, for example, it was during the attack on the Southern Song Dynasty that The successor of Wokoutai, Möngke Khan, died under diaoyu city (present-day Hechuan Diaoyucheng, Chongqing).
This is an event that changed the world and history.
After Möngke's death, the various princes of the Mongol army on the Eurasian battlefield returned to the north of the desert and fought for the Khan's throne, and the unified Mongol Khanate fell apart. After that, the Mongol cavalry was no longer able to look west, and European civilization escaped the fatal fate.
This is why Western historians called the Diaoyu City of the Southern Song Dynasty the holy city of Mecca in the East.
The Song Dynasty's foreign war was "weak", the most important reason was its bad luck, the opponents were stronger than one, and the one was more ambitious than the other.
The early nomads, such as the Xiongnu of Han and the Turks of Tang, the purpose of military action was only to fight the autumn wind, and there was no fatal threat to the Central Plains Dynasty, so the strategic initiative has always been in the hands of the Han and Tang Dynasties. Whether to fight or not, when to fight, can be determined according to their own situation.
For example, in the early han dynasty, from Han Gaozu to The Second Emperor Wenjing, when the strength was insufficient, they could choose to recuperate and recuperate, and did not have to worry about the Xiongnu attacking Chang'an (of course, they also paid the price of peace).
But the situation in the Song Dynasty was very different. Whether it is the Jin or the Mongols, Nianzi zaizi is to destroy the Song Dynasty and occupy the world of flowers and flowers of the Han People, so their threat to the Song Dynasty has always been there.
A dynasty cannot always be at its peak, and an opponent who is eyeing the tiger may "take advantage of your illness and take your life" at any time. The existence of such an opponent is really invincible, and a slight nap will cost you, and the change of Jing Kang is an example.
What is even more tragic is that in the end, after the Existence of the Song Dynasty for nearly three hundred years, Heaven sent it a big bug that could not be solved.
The Mongol Khanate of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was a perfect war machine, unbeatable in the world at that time. Imagine, among the dynasties established by the Han people, which one can still compete with such an opponent in the later period?
The answer is no, there is not a single one, even if it is the powerful Han and Tang Dynasties, after 300 years of the founding of the country, there is still nothing to do in the face of the Mongolian Iron Horse.
Some people say that the male lords of the Han and Tang Dynasties will not give the enemy a chance to grow. But the Western Xia, the Liao, the Jin Dynasty, and the Mongols did not rise at the same time, and it was too wishful thinking to rely on one or two monarchs to strangle them all in the cradle.
Therefore, if they get along in different places, the end of the Han and Tang Dynasties should not be better than that of the Song Dynasty.
This may only be explained by fate, because in the final analysis, the victory of barbarism over civilization is the norm in the era of cold weapons.
The reason is very simple, in the era of cold weapons, the advanced nature of science and technology culture cannot make a nation take much advantage on the battlefield. For example, the Song Dynasty's little advantage in equipment can be basically ignored in the face of the mobility of the nomadic cavalry.
If militarily the Song Dynasty still has slots, in addition to the military, the two Song Dynasties are god-level beings. Or it can be said that the Song Dynasty was the most prosperous period in China's history in terms of economy, culture, science and technology, and the peak of China's feudal society.
The prosperity of the Song Dynasty was inseparable from its relaxed political environment.
The two Song Dynasties implemented the practice of the emperor and the scholar to jointly govern the country, which was a matter of major right and wrong, and it was necessary to "discuss the public."
The so-called public consultation, in simple terms, is that a group of ministers gather together to openly discuss the major countries with differences and form a final resolution. Importantly, this resolution, the emperor is needed to implement.
The public deliberation system was a constraint on the courtiers and emperors, so the imperial power in the Song Dynasty was significantly weaker than that of the previous dynasties, and the status of the civil servants was the opposite.
On this point, there are quite a few people who would like to take the floor.
For example, Kou Laoxi, who dragged Song Zhenzong up to the city tower to supervise the battle; for example, the bag of black charcoal that splashed spit on Song Renzong's face...
In fact, the emperors of the Song Dynasty were not only tolerant of their courtiers, but also very tolerant of the literary and artistic elders and young people in the opposition.
For example, Li Qingzhao's sister wrote a poem such as "Still thinking of Xiang Yu, refusing to cross Jiangdong" and ran away from Emperor Zhao Zhao, still safe and sound.
In addition to being more wealthy than the Han and Tang dynasties, the freedom of the Song dynasty people was not comparable to that of other dynasties. It was a dynasty without curfews, and in big cities like Fenjing and Lin'an, the nightlife of the citizens was abundant, which was the only one in Chinese history.
Such a dynasty is somewhat worthy of a little applause.