Since the popularization of the Internet around 2000, many historical figures who were originally well-known have become Internet celebrities, and Ran Min during the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms period can also be regarded as a relatively different one. Some people praised him as a national hero for his "killing of Hu Ling", and even said that Ran Min saved the Northern Han Yunyun.
So some people further asked: Why can't such a heroic and great Ran Min go to a history textbook? This article will briefly talk about this problem.
First of all, the most important answer to the frequent question "why xxx can't get into history textbooks" is that history textbooks are limited in space and Chinese history is too long.
In the history of five thousand years of civilization, there are dozens of great dynasties alone, and it is impossible for everyone to learn textbooks in just one or two hundred hours in one or two years.
Ran Min himself lived in a period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In the framework of ancient Chinese history, there is a trend of "heavy unification era, light division era", the Eastern Jin Dynasty as a weak dynasty in the period of division, the original status is far inferior to the Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing and other unified or quasi-unified dynasties, the Eastern Jin Dynasty during the hundred years did not have too many scientific, cultural, political achievements worth mentioning, so the proportion in textbooks was originally low.
Now the history textbooks do not understand, we were at that time (about 90 years) of the ancient history textbooks, the entire two Jin Dynasty period talked about the Eight Kings Rebellion (more than a hundred words, mainly to list the names of the Eight Kings), a Five Hu Sixteen Kingdoms (more than a hundred words, mainly to list the names of the Sixteen Kingdoms), a Battle of Shuishui (this long point, taught a lesson). That is to say, the political and military textbooks of the entire two Jin Dynasties focused on the Battle of Shuishui, a war case of "winning more with less", and they were all brushed over other histories in more than a hundred years.
The Sixteen Kingdoms themselves are an extremely chaotic and gorgeous era, with heroes and all kinds of talented and individual characters emerging in an endless stream. The excessive number of talents also creates obstacles to the selection of history textbooks. In the history textbooks of our time, Shi Le, Murong Ke, Murong Chui, and other figures who were much better than Ran Min and who were much more important in history were not mentioned. The only monarch of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms whose name appears is former Qin Tianwang Jian. Originally, he could indeed rank first among the Wuhu monarchs, but he was able to enter the history textbook not because of his advanced policy of ethnic integration or excessive benevolence and generosity, but as a villain in the Battle of Shuishui.
Since the overall status of many people in the history textbooks during the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms period was so unbearable, it was unrealistic to expect Ran Min, who had only been a monarch for a few years (and the country Ran Wei was still a copycat country with no seat in the Sixteen Kingdoms) to appear.
Secondly, Ran Min was highly regarded, in large part because he was a famous Han general in the Wuhu state, and won many victories in the final war against the Hu people. However, even if he had to choose a good general representative on the Han side, Ran Min could not be regarded as the most outstanding Han general in the Wuhu Chaohua period.
In terms of military level alone, Wang Meng, Huan Wen, Xie Xuan, and so on are definitely above him. Ran Min's tactical ability and bravery are beyond doubt, but in the Three Kingdoms, it is only Lü Bu who is a brave man. The Han chinese who were really elected as official representatives were Xie An, Xie Shi, and Xie Xuan. A few people in the old Xie family defeated Former Qin in the battle of Shuishui, and that was the real achievement (although the process was also full of dog blood). Even the ancient historical commentary also believes that Xie An defended the Chinese orthodoxy at the Battle of Shuishui, as for Ran Min, who mentioned him?
Third, now some online articles regard Ran Min as a hero of the Han nationality, saying that he saved the Northern Han people, which is an exaggeration.
During his reign, Ran Min did implement the policy of contacting Han people to kill Hu people, and the Qiang people who Ran Min rebelled against were indeed the more barbaric of the Five Hus, and the Han people were more bullying and discriminating. However, Ran Min's move was mainly to oppose other powerful people of the Qi clan who were vying for power with him. Before that, Ran Min himself was the adopted grandson of the later Zhao Emperor Shi Hu, whose name was also called Shi Min, and according to current standards, he was a traitor who recognized a thief as his father. Later, because of his involvement in the infighting in the imperial court of the Qi, Ran Min issued an order to kill Hu. But it wasn't just the Qiang people who lost their lives in Ran Min's massacre. In addition to the Hou Zhao people, a large number of other ethnic minorities, as well as Han Chinese who are not from Hebei, have been severely damaged during the migration. At the same time, the "tens of thousands of Yecheng maidens who were eaten by the Xianbei people" that were rumored on the Internet were actually not eaten by the Xianbei people, but were eaten by Ran Min's subordinates during the famine during the siege of the xianbei city. Of course, at that time, Ran Min had already been captured by Murong Kesheng.
Objectively, Ran Min's joint killing of Hu did change the balance of power between Hu and Han in Hebei to a certain extent, but this change was not enough to affect the course of history. Looking ahead, Ran Min seized power on the basis of the Later Zhao of the Qiang, and although the Later Zhao of the Qiang clan discriminated against the Han people, he did not exterminate the Han people, and Ran Min himself became the adopted grandson of Shi Hu as a Han, and the subordinates under his command were also Han people under the rule of the Han people. Looking back, after the demise of Ran Min, the successor to the Hebei region was the Former Yan of the Murong clan of the Xianbei people, and the Xianbei Former Yan belonged to a country with a high degree of Sinicization, and as early as when it was a vassal state of the Jin Dynasty, it actively carried out reforms in China, and I personally basically attributed it to Chinese civilization. Therefore, even if there is no ran min in the world, the greatest possibility of history is that after Shi Hu's death, the Shi family competed for power and seized the throne, and then was taken advantage of by Former Yan. In this process, the Han people in Hebei may not suffer more tragic losses than the historical plane (after all, Ran Min himself has also made Hebei ten rooms and nine empty). Of course, the Karmic people should not have died so tragically.
To sum up, Ran Min's historical status to both China and the Han nationality is not enough to reach a height that must be mentioned, and his achievements are very limited, plus he is located in the Two Jin Dynasty, a period in which history textbooks are relatively rare. It is not surprising that it will not be included in history textbooks for various reasons. In fact, I don't want to see him, let alone the current history textbook. During the Southern Song Dynasty, because of the partial anning of the Jiangnan, a group of literati led by Xin Zhiyi were heartbroken, and one by one sang praises to the heroes who defended China or the south in history, what Xie An Huanwen, Zhuge Zhouyu, and even the 100,000 emperor Sun Quan ate a lot of. Do you think anyone is singing the praises of Ran Min?