What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
"When is the spring flower and autumn moon?" How much do you know about the past. ”
The Southern Tang Dynasty, like a boat that had strayed into the depths of the lotus flower, startled a pool of gulls and herons, but it quickly disappeared into the blue waves, leaving only the shocking photograph of the year, which made future generations remember it.
In the short thirty-nine years of the existence of the Southern Tang Dynasty, what gave it the charm of influencing future generations? Where did it come from, and why did it leave only the legend?
In China's long history of 5,000 years, the Southern Tang dynasty only existed for thirty-nine years, compared with the Great Qin Empire that created the foundation of unification for thousands of years, and the prosperous Han and Tang Dynasties that no one dared to commit, the existence of the Southern Tang seems to be less dazzling, and even it cannot exist as a dynasty.
Many orthodox historians in later generations believe that the Southern Tang Dynasty was by no means an orthodox Central Plains dynasty, but a "thief" who "usurped power" and "stole the country", which was no different from other countries in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and was a thief and rebel who betrayed the old master.
However, the regimes of the same divided side and the other regimes of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms could not overshadow the glory of the Southern Tang.
The founding history of the grassroots emperor
Li Fu was born in the end of The Wei Dynasty, his father Li Rong unfortunately disappeared in the war, and soon lost his mother, Li Fu has been in Haozhou since then, at this time Li Fu was just an ordinary tramp, begging for a living near the Kaiyuan Temple. In the years of war and chaos, the tide is precarious, and it is not certain that one day I will be affected by the war, even if I am not harmed by the war, I have no money and no food, let alone the future.
Just as Li Fu thought, the flames of war soon reached Haozhou, and the city of Haozhou was destroyed. It was at this time that Li Fu met the nobles who changed his life—Li Fu's adoptive father, Wu Taizu, Yang Xingmi, and his subordinate Xu Wen, who changed his name to Xu Zhihao. Li Fu, who did not have to worry about the problem of survival, began to seek his own development, read and rode and shot all of them, made meritorious achievements, and gradually grasped a certain amount of power.
Unlike his descendants, Li Fu was an extremely ambitious man, waiting for an opportunity. Finally, his adoptive fathers Yang Xingmi and Xu Wen died one after another, and his opportunity finally arrived. Finally, in 937 AD, Li Fu was proclaimed emperor, and two years later, after li Tang's descendants called themselves "Tang". Since then, the Southern Tang Dynasty has been established.
Li Fu prides himself on the orthodoxy of the Tang Dynasty, but historians have not thought so. Orthodox historians believe that the Southern Tang Dynasty was a "family" and a "tyranny", but there was much respect for Li Fu in the wild history, which was closely related to the political situation at that time. The controversy over the "orthodoxy" of the Southern Tang Dynasty has continued to this day, and there is no conclusion.
However, whether it is "orthodox" or not is not the reason why the Southern Tang Dynasty was able to gain a foothold and pass it on to future generations. So, what makes the Southern Tang So magnificent?
The puller of the North-South regime
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was a chaotic and divided dynasty in Chinese history, and division was the basic pattern of political power in this period.
Every divided regime aspires to reunification, but it fails. In the divided regimes of this period, there was a contradiction that could not be ignored -- the dispute between the north and the south.
The northern regime wants to cross the Yangtze River in the south and unify Jianghuai, and the southern regime does not want to go north all the time. The Southern Tang Dynasty, inheriting the foundation of Jianghuai wudi, occupying the natural dangers of the Yangtze River, bordering Fujian and Yue in the east, facing off the Central Plains regime on the Yangtze River in the north, Jingchu in the west, and southern Han in the south, can be described as a place of contention for soldiers.
If the Central Plains regime wants to enter the south, it must solve the stumbling block of the Southern Tang. If the Southern Tang regime is annexed, it means that other southern separatist regimes are also in danger.
During Yang Xingmi's reign, the State of Wu fought against Zhu Wen, and the State of Wu won a great victory, and from then on it occupied Jiangnan, and the Central Plains regime could not compete with it.
The Southern Tang inherited the foundation of the State of Wu, recuperated and recuperated, and did not act arbitrarily, but in the relations between the North and the South, it showed its consistent strength, and li Jing, the lord of the middle, carried out several conquests against the north, although the results were minimal and did not cause substantial harm to the northern regime, but it was enough to see that in the current pattern, the Southern Tang occupied a certain degree of initiative and was not always in a passive beating situation.
China's land is vast, mountains and rivers are longitudinal, the early administrative divisions are bounded by mountains and rivers, coupled with the closed nature of China's traditional small-scale peasant economy, it is extremely easy to form a closed production and living environment between various regions, resulting in a lack of exchanges between different regions, and it is difficult to form a unified concept.
From this point of view, the realization of great unification is essentially the use of its own strong military, political, and economic strength by a certain strong region to exercise control over other regions, and to adopt certain means to ease the economic and political contradictions between regions and maintain the balance between different regions. When the regime is not strong enough, there will be a situation of five generations and ten countries.
Obviously, neither the Central Plains regime nor the southern separatist regime at that time had such an overwhelming advantage. Therefore, in order to gain greater power, or to protect themselves, the regimes will choose alliances.
The same is true of the Southern Tang. At that time, the northern regime and Jing Chu vaguely had the potential to unite, in order to prevent the northern power from growing and annexing the Southern Tang, the Southern Tang allied with the northern nomadic people, the Khitan and using the Khitan to contain the northern regime, forming a two-sided attack, in order to take the Central Plains directly in the future.
It can be said that in the chaotic era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Southern Tang Dynasty was a key player in maintaining the balance between the north and the south.
However, due to the struggle and conflict between the various regimes in the south and the different interest groups within the Southern Tang, the strength of the southern countries was depleted, and eventually the northern regime took advantage of the void and disintegrated the southern political group.
The promoter of Gangnam's economy
Splitting up and dividing up territory will undoubtedly affect economic development. In the final analysis, the division of regions is caused by the imbalance of development between regions. Various localities were dissatisfied with the suppression of local economy and politics by the imperial court, so they broke the original pattern and established a new pattern. The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms are a critical period for the formation of a new economic pattern.
After experiencing several wars in previous generations, the people of the north fled south, and with the southward migration of the population, advanced production tools and a large number of laborers poured into Jiangnan, and the economy of the south was developed, gradually narrowing the development gap with the northern economy.
By the time of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the southward shift of the economic center had become a major trend, and the existence of the Southern Tang Dynasty accelerated the final formation of this pattern.
Li Fu was born in a humble background and experienced a period of poverty in his early years, so he had a very profound understanding of the harm caused by the war to the people's livelihood economy. Therefore, after he established the Southern Tang Dynasty, he adopted a policy of recuperation and recuperation, to protect the border and the people, and to develop the economy.
Li Fu did not act rashly, focused on the development of the country, persuaded peasants to teach sang, rewarded production, and lightly dispensed with thin endowments, a series of measures that enabled the people of the Southern Tang Dynasty to gain a short period of tranquility in the chaotic world. The people who had been spared the pain of war began to be busy with their livelihood, and for a while, the Southern Tang Dynasty regained its vitality.
The Southern Tang Dynasty already occupied the Jianghuai region, Jianghuai is rich, whether it is farming or handicraft industry has a strong potential for development, Li Fu's policy is undoubtedly to maximize the potential of this land.
In ancient times, important indicators of economic development were population and food. Due to the lack of historical data, we cannot accurately know the accurate data of population growth during the reign of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and it is certain that there was a substantial increase in population during this period. At the same time as the population grew, the grain of the Southern Tang Also achieved a great harvest, and with the mastery of water transportation, the Southern Tang was "more abundant than the year".
As a result, the economic strength of the south has vaguely surpassed the north, laying a solid foundation for the southward shift of the economic center of the Song Dynasty.
Developer of educational culture
The steady development of the economy and politics of the Southern Tang Dynasty brought about the prosperity of the education and culture of the Southern Tang. Coupled with the rulers' emphasis on education, the large-scale establishment of academies and the establishment of Taixue, a good atmosphere of attaching importance to culture has been formed throughout society. In addition to education, poetry, dance and other artistic cultures have also flourished.
The most outstanding contribution of the Southern Tang to Chinese culture is to push the word to a new height of development. Mentioning this, I have to mention one person- Li Yu.
The word, originally produced between the city and the well, is the expression of the development of civic culture, it is easy to understand, close to life, full of fireworks. Because of this, the early words often focused on pouring out the love of men and women, which was also to fit the aesthetics of the civic class.
For example, in "Bodhisattva Man", "Make a thousand wishes before the pillow, and rest and wait for the green mountains to rot." The scales on the water surface floated, and the Yellow River was completely dry. The sun is shining, and the north bucket is back to the south. Hugh is not able to take a break, and to wait for three more to see the sun. ”
After a period of development, due to the participation of the literati, the slang sayings in the words have become a more elegant language, but the content of the words has not changed much.
Qinglou Geji, leaning on red and green, is full of fragrant and lingering breath, so it has always been considered a beautiful word, not treated as orthodox, until the appearance of Li Yu made the word out of the erotic color, with richer content and deeper artistic conception. At that time, people said that "the word to Li Hou Lord and the vision began to be big, the feelings were deep, and then the words of the linggong became the words of the scholar", and even more the lord Li Yu was enshrined as "the emperor of the words".
From ancient times to the present, people's judgment of literary works has a bit of a political color. The Song people evaluated Li Yu's words as "the sound of the subjugation of the country" and criticized his poetry for misleading the country, and people at that time were saying that if Li Yu used the kung fu of lyrics to govern the country, the Southern Tang Would not die, but this just proved the high achievement of Li Yu's poetry.
The charm of art is always infinite, although the scholars at that time put Li Yu's poetry into the last stream from a political point of view, but they were infected by Li Yuci's artistic charm. Before the Song Dynasty lyricists fill in the words, they must read the main word after it, feel its "poignant and humorous" homeland sentiments, and emulate the creation method of the post-main word.
Li Yu's words really went to the altar and became the emperor of ancient words from the Ming Dynasty. Without political considerations, coupled with the continuous development of the art of poetry, people after the Ming Dynasty judged Li Yu's words with less prejudice and more appreciation of his artistic value.
The Ming people even called it the "Kaishan Ancestor" of the word, and enshrined Li Yu as "authentic". In the Qing Dynasty, lexicographers even referred to Li Yu and Li Bai together, which shows the far-reaching influence of the later main word.
Although the life of the Southern Tang Dynasty was short, the splendid civilization it created was enough to call it a "magnificent era". It is an important maintainer of the balance between the north and the south, a promoter of economic development, and a creator of a splendid civilization.
The value of the existence of any dynasty cannot be judged by the length of its existence, or by its merits in one aspect. From the perspective of today's people, we should be grateful for the fact that they have come and created such a brilliant and splendid civilization.