In the third year of the Later Jin Dynasty, that is, in 938, the son-in-law Emperor Shi Jingyao fulfilled his promise and honored the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to his father Emperor Taizong of Liao, Yelü Deguang, and the Khitan forces have since taken root and survived steadily. Since then, after more than 300 years of the Later Han Dynasty, the Later Zhou Dynasty, and the Two Song Dynasties, a large area of Youyan has never returned to the hands of the Han people.
In order to retake the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, there were several Northern Expeditions during the Later Zhou and Northern Song Dynasties, but with the early death of Emperor Shizong of Zhou, Emperor Taizong of Song failed and gave up, and then the Song Huizong period directly caused the Jing kang rebellion in order to retake the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, which led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Even during the Two Song Dynasties, a large number of people dreamed of restoring their homeland from beginning to end, but each Northern Expedition was defeated for various reasons, and even paid the price of destruction. However, after the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang's Northern Expedition at the end of the Yuan Dynasty took only a year or so to drive the Yuan Shun Emperor away.
Looking at the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty alone, such brilliant results in such a short period of time seem to be very smooth, compared with the countless Northern Expeditions of the Two Song Dynasties, it can be said that it is described by destroying the decay, many people will unconsciously have a question, they are all Han, almost, why can the Ming Dynasty succeed, and the Two Song Dynasties can not cross the thunder pool one step?
Perhaps, many people think that this is Zhu Yuanzhang's heroic Shenwu, Xu Da, Chang Yuchun and others who can command the battle properly, the Ming army has strong combat ability, and the Song army is inferior to the Ming Dynasty in all aspects, so the task that the Song Dynasty cannot complete cannot be completed, and the Ming Dynasty easily completes it. From this, a simple conclusion can be deduced: the Song Dynasty is too weak, and the monarchs are too soft!
It seems very reasonable, but whether it is the determination to recover the lost land, the strategists who give advice, or the generals and soldiers who lead the army to fight, there is no shortage of enthusiastic thoughts about reclaiming the rivers and mountains, and they are not the same unable to achieve results, which cannot be simply attributed to the problem that the Song Dynasty is too weak.
The reason for this, the distorted history, is that we have to start from the policy of the Yuan Dynasty, which unexpectedly strengthened the strength of the Ming Army. This policy is the biggest difference between the two dynasties of the Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty.
Both ethnically and culturally, the Ming and Song dynasties were the same; the opponents they encountered were similar, whether they were Jurchens, Khitans, or Mongols.
During the Song Dynasty, the improvement and popularization of the imperial examination system cultivated a large number of professional readers, and the job of these people was to read, from the small three characters to the four books and five classics, the back of the melon was ripe, the purpose was to hope that once the golden list was titled, the name was all over the world, and the weak scholar was born, and the weak wind could not help but be the norm.
After the complete unification of the Yuan Dynasty, the implementation of a strict four-class system, in which the Song and Jin people became the bottom of the human race, the status is slightly higher than the donkey horse, in the system, the Yuan Dynasty completely abandoned the Song Dynasty system, but with its own characteristics supplemented by the cultural softness of the people of the various colors into a policy.
The Han belong to the lowest level, basically belonging to the machines that can pay taxes, and their responsibility for living is to serve in force and pay taxes, so simple. As for Han culture, the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty had great contempt for Han culture, especially the readers, who were divided into the lower nine streams, not as good as the drama Qinglou women.
Under such a despised link, readers not only can't see the golden beauty, BMW car carving, even mixed food is a problem, directly can not survive, the reading atmosphere cultivated by the two Song Dynasties, the dream of the title of the golden list has become a daydream, the Yuan Dynasty did not hold several imperial examinations, and reading became a matter with no future.
Ordinary people have no future in reading, people are seeking benefits and avoiding harm, they will not do things that are hopeless, and the atmosphere of natural reading for the whole people has slowly weakened, and these people naturally return to nature, ploughing the fields and digging up land to plant rice and seedlings, and relying on their own strength to maintain their livelihood. For the Han chinese, this is undoubtedly a fatal blow.
Of course, Sai Weng lost his horse and knew that it was not a blessing, although it seemed that the loss was great, but the long-term labor increased his personal physique, and a weak scholar who read from a young age and a cropper who dug the ground from a young age had greater strength. In terms of individual combat ability, it is clear that a student will not be stronger than a cropper.
The difference between the long-term cropper and other horse herders in terms of endurance and physical strength will not be very big, but the difference between the scholar and the horse herder is not generally large, this is the biggest difference between the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the general physical difference of the whole people, not to mention the fight against others, is better than running, endurance can not win, let alone desperate.
However, because of the inadvertent actions of the Yuan Dynasty, the gap between the two sides was greatly shortened, which was equivalent to improving the combat effectiveness of the Han people in disguise, which was the main reason why the Ming Army was able to quickly destroy the Yuan Dynasty army during the Northern Expedition. The Song Dynasty could not fight because the physical strength was inferior to others.