China is known as the state of etiquette, and under the education of Confucius's Confucianism, we have a gentle disposition in our bones. This disposition was well demonstrated in the treatment of prisoners of war in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Victory or defeat is a common thing, and any dynasty has to go through wars large and small, so there will be a problem of prisoners of war. From ancient times to the present, the way the Central Plains people treated prisoners of war is understandable, but in some ethnic minority tribes, the way they treat prisoners of war is infuriating.
During the Song Dynasty, a very strange way of treating captives in the northern Jin Kingdom was the "sheep-drawing ceremony", which was treated in this way by the historical Song Huizong and Song Qinzong. This method is extremely insulting and unbearable for the average person.
The Northern Song Dynasty was pinned down by The Great Jin
To talk about the origin of this "sheep-leading ceremony", we have to mention a famous history during the Northern Song Dynasty, that is, the "Change of Jingkang".
During the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, the reuse of traitorous ministers led to great turmoil in the imperial court, and domestic turmoil continued. Many people fell into the grass and formed a confrontation with the imperial court, among which the more famous peasant rebel army was the 108 good men of Liangshan.
Although in the end they were all adopted by the imperial court for their own use, the turmoil in the country gave the Jurchen clan the opportunity to develop and grow next to them. At the same time, it also laid the groundwork for the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty was already weakened by the time of Emperor Huizong of Song, and later he passed the throne to Emperor Qinzong of Song and failed to save the dying Northern Song Dynasty. At this time, the power of the Jurchen clan gradually increased, and the Completed Yan Akuta unified the major tribes of the northern steppe and established the Golden Kingdom, posing a threat to the Northern Song Dynasty.
Although the two sides had just established a pact, in the face of the decaying Northern Song army, Dajin was not willing to sit still and wait, so he took the initiative to attack the Northern Song.
When Song Qinzong heard about Dajin's invasion, he was frightened for a while. It was to send the city, and it was to send gold and silver treasures to Dajin, but it still could not stop the Jinguo from attacking.
Later, the Northern Song Dynasty repeatedly compromised, not only giving the Jin State 400,000 years old coins, but also handing over the taxes of the six states and twenty-four counties to the Jin State, and only then did it get a chance to breathe. However, Song Qinzong rendered such a defeat into a victory and was complacent about his contribution.
As everyone knows, the large amount of money given to Dajin by the Northern Song Dynasty became a favorable basis for their rapid rise. Soon after, Dajin attacked again, song Qinzong was weak and incompetent, and had no power to fight back except to send things, and later had to be forced to move south, almost giving the capital to Dajin.
But how can an arrow not be fired on a string? Dajin's ambition was not only kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, but also the entire Northern Song Dynasty.
Dajin attacked Song
In 1126, Dajin once again launched an attack on the Northern Song Dynasty, and under the leadership of Both Yan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang, they defeated the Northern Song army all the way, and soon after they attacked the city of Kaifeng.
However, they did not immediately attack the city, but pretended to negotiate peace and invited Emperor Huizong of Song to go to Jinying to negotiate. Emperor Huizong of Song was afraid to go, so he lied that he was ill and asked his son Song Qinzong to go on his behalf.
However, when Song Qinzong and his ministers arrived at Jinying, they did not see their commander, and they sent someone to ask Song Qinzong to write a letter of surrender. Song Qinzong immediately wrote it and submitted it, but Daikin was not satisfied, so he revised it until they were satisfied, and Song Qinzong was able to escape.
Song Qinzong, who returned to Kaifeng, felt that he had never been so humiliated in his life, and he hugged and cried with his ministers. However, before Song Qinzong could relax, Dajin sent someone to ask for money. He moved everything out of the treasury barely enough to hand it in.
Later, the Jin people wanted women again, and Song Qinzong handed over his harem concubines, which made many women commit suicide in humiliation.
However, the Northern Song Dynasty's blind greeting did not bring peace, and soon after, Daikin again proposed to let Song Qinzong enter the Jin camp to discuss peace. Song Qinzong had no choice but to go, but he did not expect to be directly imprisoned by the Jin people.
They locked him up in a dilapidated house with only a bed and a table. At that time, it was a cold winter moon, and Song Qinzong had to endure hunger during the day and freeze at night, living an inhuman life.
Later, Daikin proposed that the Song Dynasty prepare 160,000 taels of gold and 2 million taels of silver and 1 million pieces of silk before allowing Song Qinzong to leave. In order to raise two pieces of silver, the ministers sent officers and soldiers to loot money around Kaifeng Province, causing the people to complain.
At this time, it was a cold winter, the crops in the fields were not well harvested, and the people who had been harvested and scraped could only survive by eating leaves and weeds. Later, because more people died of starvation and illness, the plague was born, which led to a depression in kaifeng province.
At this time, the Golden Soldiers directly rushed into the city, burning and looting without evil. In order to curry favor with the Jin people, Yin Xu Bingzhe of the Kaifeng Government also went around scavenging for female relatives to give to the Jin people to enjoy. After the city of Kaifeng was breached, Jin Taizu ordered that Song Qinzong be reduced to a shuren. Zhang Bangchang was made emperor in Kaifeng and a puppet regime was established.
Subsequently, the Jin soldiers arrested the imperial relatives and nobles in the city, and Emperor Huizong of Song and the princes, princes and princesses were all taken prisoner by them, and They were escorted back to Dajin by Emperor Yan Zonghan.
Humiliation of the sheep
Song Qinzong, who was detained in Jinying, did not wait to return, but waited for his father and his empress and concubines. As soon as the father and son met, they hugged their heads and cried, and they were full of grief and indignation.
Yanjing in the first month was very cold, Song Qinzong and his father, as well as the two empresses of the Zheng and Zhu clans, all wore thin clothes and endured the biting cold every day, and the two empresses were repeatedly teased by Jin Bing and humiliated.
They were escorted from Yanjing to Shangjing Huining Province, the capital of Dajin, and imprisoned. In order to celebrate this victory, Jin Guo decided to hold a captive sacrifice ceremony.
On the day of the ceremony, they ordered Emperor Huizong of Song and Emperor Qinzong of Song and their party to wear the clothes of the Jin people, wrap handkerchiefs around their heads, wear sheepskins on their bodies, and go to the temple of Yan Akuta with their upper bodies exposed to perform the "sheep leading ceremony".
The gold men tied ropes around their necks and then led them in front. Emperor Huizong of Song would kneel on the ground like a sheep and circle around the temple of Ah Kuan, offering sacrifices. This is the so-called "sheep-leading ceremony", which is the greatest insult of the Jin State to the Northern Song Dynasty.
In particular, the people in the "sheep leading ceremony" are all naked, regardless of men and women, as men may be able to endure, but women under the feudal etiquette especially feel humiliated, Song Qinzong's Empress Zhu is not willing to be humiliated and chose to commit suicide, and other women who committed suicide are mostly there.
Afterwards, the Jin people also gave Song Huizong and Song Qinzong insulting titles, called "Duke of Duande" and "Marquis of Chongdu" respectively. Soon after, Emperor Huizong of Song died of illness, and after his death, the body was thrown into a stone pit by the Jin people to make lamp oil, and Song Qinzong also died tragically in torture.
It is recorded that as many as 10,000 people were captured by the Jin Dynasty at that time, most of whom were women. Some were distributed to officials, some were assigned to the imperial palace for hard labor, and some were sold to brothels.
Because this political change occurred during the Jing kang years of Song Qinzong, it became the "Jing Kang Change", also known as the "Shame of Jing Kang". It is also the greatest humiliation suffered by the Song Dynasty in the past hundred years since its establishment, and even became a catastrophe for the Chinese.
Even Yue Fei shouted out in sorrow, "Jing Kang is ashamed, Yu Weixue." The courtiers hate. When to extinguish". After the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, it has been in direct confrontation with Dajin, mostly because of this humiliating history.