introduction
The phrase "the people may make it unknowable" in the Analects has been debated for two thousand years and has not yet been conclusive. But whether this sentence reflects the idea of ignorance or the idea of the people, it reflects the deep-rooted influence of the ruling class on the local people. Therefore, in order to completely conquer a territory, it is necessary to eliminate the residual influence of the original ruler from the root.
01
Yunnan, known as "Dian" in ancient times, has always been inseparable from the Central Plains Dynasty regime. The Chu state, which dates back to the Warring States period, sent an army to establish state power here. Yunnan is remote and miasma-ridden, and in the early days when the Central Plains only occupied the Yellow River Valley, this was the southern barbarian land in the Xirong Eastern Di Southern Barbarian Northern Yi, even since the Qin unified the world, it still failed to have absolute control over this place, so Yunnan had the opportunity for long-term autonomous development.
▲Yunnan landscape photos
The yunnan people believe in witchcraft and are extremely devout to nature, so this regime has always been a half-human, half-god ruling structure. Similar to this is Tibet, where Bon and Buddhism have successively ruled the minds of the people in these regions, providing convenience to the rulers on the one hand, but also making their ruling power extremely fragile on the other hand. The Dali Duan clan in Mr. Jin Yonglao's book "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon" is the ruler of Yunnan, and they rely on Buddhism to consolidate their rule, but their combat strength is therefore vulnerable.
▲Location of the Southern Zhao State of the Tang Dynasty (red circle)
During the Tang Dynasty, one of the Six Edicts of Yunnan requested the Tang Dynasty to expand its territory, and the Tang Dynasty agreed to this request out of the consideration of weakening Tubo, so the new Nanzhao state regime was established. It was just that they were too overwhelmed and openly rebelled against the leadership of the Tang, so they were attacked by the 200,000 troops dispatched by Tang Xuanzong. However, Yunnan's unique geographical environment was a natural barrier, and with the local climate and geographical conditions, the Nanzhao state repelled this attack, and then the Tang Dynasty was unable to continue to attack Nanzhao.
02
After the Chen Qiao Mutiny and the reunification of the Central Plains Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin drew a boundary with a jade axe for various considerations, indicating that the Fallen Jiangshan ended here! Not to mention the impact of this oath on the Song Dynasty, in short, the Dali State has since become a vassal of the Great Song Dynasty, and has advanced and retreated with the Great Song, and there has been no war since then. Even Dali repeatedly asked the Great Song to incorporate it into the rule, but the Great Song repeatedly refused. In the end, the two countries were wiped out by the Mongols, which can be described as solidarity.
▲Zhao Kuangyin stills
Although the Yuan Dynasty was invincible, its local rule was quite low. For Attila, Temujin, Timur, these war madmen with Mongolian blood, their journey is the sea of stars, the meaning of their life is to constantly conquer the world, as for the big stall left behind, who cares who cares! And unlike the cooked food in the Central Plains, Yunnan is not a place where grassland people can stay at all, so it is simply thrown there and allowed to govern itself.
▲Recent photos of Yunnan people
But Yunnan's autonomy also came to an end, because there was a cattle man who was even more ruthless than Temujin, the Cloth Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, also known as Zhu Zhongba. Although he was not as crazy as the Mongols in the war, he identified a truth - all on the table was mine. It is conceivable that the boundaries of today's Chinese territory are: the sea is on the southeast side, the Himalayas in the southwest, the Tianshan Mountains, kunlun mountains and altai mountains in the north, and the deserts and grasslands that are difficult to cross in the north, so the whole of China has formed a natural closed environment. For Zhu Yuanzhang, everyone in this circle is his own.
03
At that time, Yunnan still had the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, the King of Liang, which gave Zhu Yuanzhang a good excuse to attack. Zhu Yuanzhang first sent his envoy Wang Fu (王褘) to persuade him to surrender to the Liang King, but this was refused, and the envoys were also killed by the Liang King. This completely annoyed Daming, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who had never taken advantage of the situation and did not suffer losses, immediately became angry and sent a large army to attack Yunnan, leading the troops by fu youde, a famous general who had won hundreds of battles, and the last famous general in the Hongwu period, completely destroying the blue jade of the Northern Yuan.
▲ Zhu Yuanzhang stills
The Ming army marched all the way and drove away the Liang King's army all the way. King Liang showed the courage to fight a battle, and tens of thousands of soldiers prepared to fight a general battle. At this time, the deputy general Mu Ying offered advice to Fu Youde, and through the rapid march, the enemy army mistakenly thought that the Ming army was tired, and could take advantage of its unpreparedness to go down in one fell swoop. The plan worked. This is also the first time that the famous general Mu Ying has emerged as a new star of Daming. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang let Mu Yingzhen guard the southwest, where Mu Ying invented the "three-stage" tactic, hundreds of years before Napoleon. The Mu Wangfu in "Deer Ding" is Mu Ying's vein.
▲Qin Shi Huang stills
However, after the victory of the war, how to manage Yunnan and make it forever subject to the Central Plains became a question on the table. It is often said that "if you want to destroy your country, first destroy its history", this measure was taken by Qin Shi Huang. Qin Shi Huang's burning of books was not aimed at readers, what he wanted to do was to eliminate the influence of the Six Kingdoms on the world and win the hearts of the people of the world. Therefore, the books on planting trees and fortune telling were not burned, and all the documents related to the history of the Six Kingdoms were burned.
Zhu Yuanzhang also understood this truth. Therefore, after conquering Yunnan, following and learning from the tricks of Yingzheng, he not only dispatched a large number of officials to manage Yunnan and migrate the people inland to fill Yunnan, but also ordered the burning of all historical archives and ethnic books, so that the Yunnan people had no history and ruled much simpler. In this way, Yunnan, which has been entrenched in a corner for hundreds of years, has since permanently belonged to China and become the territory of China.
epilogue
The butterfly effect is well known to everyone that the seemingly inconspicuous decision of the Ming Dynasty to pacify Yunnan actually greatly affected the course of history. For example, Zhu Yuanzhang had a soldier named Qi Xiang who died in this battle, posthumously awarded the title of General Mingwei, the Qi family has since inherited the military position, many years later there is a descendant named Qi Jiguang, Mao Taihua, who fell to Yunnan, also joined the army in this battle, and later built the city and was awarded the title of General of Wude... In short, history is so magical, and the small battle to pacify Yunnan involves a series of big causes and effects.
Resources:
The Analects