The question of the size of the territory of ancient dynasties is indeed a very difficult problem to solve today, because in ancient China, at least until the western missionaries entered China at the end of the Ming Dynasty to introduce knowledge of latitude and longitude, we did not have a record of the map of the world. The area of different dynasties and the territory actually controlled are also a topic of endless debate, in fact, for this problem, not only we see it today, but even the Chinese during the Ming Dynasty have seen it, they think that the territory of Daming is very magnificent and magnificent, and they are also angry with the comparison heart with the strong Han and Tang dynasties in history.
The view of the Ming Dynasty scribe Zheng Xiao
Zheng Xiao is a famous historian and writer of the Ming Dynasty, he was born in the 131st year after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, when the Ming Dynasty had not yet begun to decline, it was a period of steady development after the peak stage, at this time the literati began to calculate the territory and actual control area of their own country after enjoying the Taiping society, in order to obtain their own sense of vanity and satisfaction, this kind of thing is not only done by the ancients, but also by us today. But the difference is whether there is a field trip or not.
Zheng Xiao began to immerse himself in hard reading when he had not yet become a high official, he was a long-termist, and many people who were very ambitious and far-reaching were different, he knew that he must have a chance, not like some people who tried once or twice and then began to give up themselves, when he was a petty official, he used the convenience of his official position to read many books in the official palace, which of course was not a dull and useless Confucian classic, but a book about the geography of the Ming Dynasty and the population products of various places.
After reading these books, Zheng Xiao can be regarded as a real China in the Ming Dynasty, China during the Ming Dynasty is not as fast as the information of today's information age, a lot of geographical location and local knowledge you can use for a lifetime as long as the memory is good enough to remember and master, and in the books after the Ming Dynasty geography historian Zheng Xiao wrote his own views on the territory of his dynasty, unlike the group of colleagues who did not have field research after becoming a high official. Shouting with empty teeth without action is the first holy pilgrimage in ancient times.
Zheng Xiao pointed out very clearly that the actual control of the Territory of the Ming Dynasty was greater than that of the Song Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty could become a rival of equal strength, but it was far inferior to the powerful Han Dynasty. Zheng Xiao caused quite a stir among the scholar group after putting forward this point of view, many people accused him of being young and vigorous and ignorant of the general body, but Zheng Xiao did give examples of the actual situation of his geographical knowledge in many aspects, he did field research, and the Longqing Emperor at that time was more in favor of Zheng Xiao's statement, then Zheng Xiao's Daming in his mouth surpassed the Song Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty was not as good as the Han Dynasty in our eyes.
The Song Dynasty was the smallest without controversy
The Song Dynasty came out of almost sixty years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, and what he inherited was completely a country that had been destroyed in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, as the successor state of these generals, the greatest achievement of the Song Dynasty was to unify the main land of China at that time, and it was only when Song Taizong was able to destroy the Northern Han regime, and when facing the Khitan behind, he could not exert any strength at all, and the subsequent emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty after Zhao Kuangyi tried to fail directly chose to lie flat and enjoy Taiping.
The entire Northern Song Dynasty Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures and the Liaodong region since the Han Dynasty have not been recovered at all, the Liaodong region has a long history, from the Zhou Dynasty to the world to let the Yan State be fixed here when it has begun to accept the Cultural Influence of China, after the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty is constantly reclaiming Liaodong, although it borders with ethnic minorities, but here is the Han Land of the Eight Classics, the Song Dynasty can not recover Liaodong is really let people see are holding their breath.
The western region of the western region has been lost for a long time, probably since the Tang Dynasty Anshi Rebellion and the Central Plains Dynasty lost contact, after 50 years of the Anshi Rebellion, the last army of the Anxi Capital Protectorate was destroyed marking the complete fall of this place, and during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the small countries were busy with the infighting in the Central Plains, and no one recovered the Western Regions, so when the Song Dynasty inherited the traditional territory, it did not belong to the Song Dynasty.
The Hexi Corridor was supposed to be the Song Dynasty, but the founding emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty made the Western Xia a climate when they arrived at Song Renzong and Song Zhenzong, and poor Song Dynasty, the economic strength of the first even the Hexi Corridor on the Silk Road fell into the hands of the Western Xia Kingdom. In the southwest, Yunnan and Guizhou, which were once controlled by the Tang Dynasty, were controlled by the later Dali State, and the Song Dynasty did not dare to speak for this place, and the Jiaotong area controlled by the Han and Tang Dynasties in the south has always been The Territory of China, but the Song Dynasty tacitly acquiesced to the situation of the independent establishment of the Jiaotong State, so the song Dynasty's territorial area is not inferior to the Ming Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty was the limit of an agrarian empire
The area controlled by the Han Dynasty from Liu Bang onwards was actually not as great as that of the Qin Dynasty, and this state lasted until the early years of Emperor Wu of han. Because the Lingnan and Northern Hetao regions of the Qin Dynasty were occupied by the Xiongnu, during the era of Emperor Wen, Emperor Jing, and Emperor Hui, the fireworks of the Xiongnu army burning the houses of the people, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty could see directly in the Ganquan Palace in the Guanzhong region, and the history of such humiliation and territory ended from the beginning of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty army not only defeated the Southern Yue State in the south, but also destroyed the Xiongnu, known as the "Hundred Barbarian Powers", successfully recovered Hexi, established Shuofang and Wuyuan County, and began to run in an east-west direction from the new Qin Dynasty established by the Qin Dynasty, the territory of the Han Dynasty was like a general arm, and in the east were Successively Hezhou, Youzhou, Liaodong, Yunzhong County, Taiyuan and other places, while the west was Jiuquan, Zhangye, and the Western Regions Capital Protectorate in the Hexi Corridor.
The territory and actual control area of the Han Dynasty once subjugated the Xiongnu, and after the Han Xuan Emperor killed the Xiongnu single in the head, the new successor of the Xiongnu was only a vassal of the Han Emperor to guard the grassland area, and the southern region successively recovered the two Guangdong and Fujian areas occupied by South Vietnam, opened the road to Southeast Asia, and found in the South China Sea the "Zhuya" that had been written in the Qin era. And here there is a county administration, cross toe and Nichinan appear in the southernmost part, literally taking the southernmost sun of the Great Han Sun.
Liaodong had been retaken by Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, considering that Korea at that time was the land of the descendants of Prince Bigan of the Zhou Dynasty, which also belonged to the cultural circle of China, and the Korean monarchs at that time were rude to the envoys of the Han Dynasty, so the Han army re-incorporated this place into the wanghua and set up xuanyi, Lelang, Lintun, Zhenfan and other counties to manage, during the era of Emperor Xuan of Han, the actual control of the Han Dynasty was maximized, and this state lasted for decades, until Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty.
The ups and downs of the ming dynasty and the tang dynasty
In fact, in our view today, the territory of the Han Dynasty is indeed very large, but compared with the Tang Dynasty, it is actually very different, but the scribe Zheng Xiao of the Ming Dynasty should not be unaware of this situation, after all, he is familiar with history and geographical changes in the world, the previous views even in our modern times, it is difficult to find out the problem, why is An only on the tang Dynasty problem, produced a different view from today's people?
This is actually Zheng Xiao's belief that compared with the Tang Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, the enemies faced by the two countries are similar, the size of the southern and northern territories is the same, it is meaningless to be careful, the gap between the Tang Dynasty is that the Problem of the Eastern Frontier and the Western Frontier is not as good as the Han Dynasty, the Hexi Corridor area is beyond doubt, the Han Dynasty was firmly controlled in its hands from the han wudi emperor until the end of the eastern han dynasty, but the tang dynasty is different, probably after the Jin acquisition in the li shimin era, the Anshi rebellion completely fell after the occurrence of the Anshi rebellion.
The Tang Dynasty's Anxi Capital Protectorate and the Anbei Capital Protectorate, which are comparable to the Western Regions Of the Han Dynasty, did not control much time in the hands of the Tang Dynasty, and the setting of these two capital protectorates was from the time of Wu Zetian to Li Longji's later years, which was lost for no more than a hundred years, and most of the management was not recognized by the Tang Dynasty's official revision history "Old Book of Tang", "New Book of Tang", and "Tang Six Classics", while the Western Regions Protectorate of the Han Dynasty was firmly controlled by the Hands of the Central Plains Dynasty from the time of Emperor Wu of Han to the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Therefore, Zheng Xiao believes that from this point on, the western territory of the Tang Dynasty is inferior to that of the Han Dynasty.
Moreover, from the perspective of the southwest territory, the literati of the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty were extremely easy to mention a country called "Nanzhao" when exploring the reasons for the demise of the Tang Dynasty, the reason why the Southwest Frontier of the Song Dynasty was so small was that it did not dare to provoke this country, for fear of being dragged down and destroyed like the Tang Dynasty, the scribes of the Song and Ming Dynasties believed that the Nanzhao State delayed the conquest of hundreds of thousands of troops in the middle and late Tang Dynasty on the Yunnan Plateau, and finally dragged down the Tang Dynasty, and on the same southwest frontier problem, after Emperor Wu of Han recovered the Yungui region, The entire Han Dynasty was rock solid.
epilogue
Ming Dynasty scholar, crown prince Taibao Zheng Xiao believes that the ming dynasty's territory is not as large as the strong han, but far beyond the weak Song, can be equal to the Sheng Tang, this is mainly from a dynamic balance of the process to see the problem, in the toe issue after all, Zhu Di also controlled for almost fifty years, in the northern issue, seven conquests of Mongolia, the battle of Yu'erhai was victorious, the Mongol Khan needed to report to the Ming Emperor to request canonization, these glorious histories have made Zheng Xiao feel that the Ming Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty are equal in the northern and southern territories, As for the issue of the territory of the east and west, it was a state of contraction and ups and downs, the Tang Dynasty was slightly stronger than the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was not much weaker than the Nuer Gandusi.