The problem of the territory of ancient dynasties is indeed a very difficult problem to solve today, because in ancient China, at least until 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 is also a topic of endless debate, in fact, for this problem, not only do 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 also have a heart of comparison with the strong Han and Tang Dynasty in history.
The view of the Ming Dynasty scribe Zheng Xiao
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 would definitely 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 of the 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 of various places in the river.
Zheng Xiao very clearly pointed out that the actual control of the Ming Dynasty's territory was superior to 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 scholars after putting forward this view, many people accused him of being young and vigorous and ignorant of the general body, but Zheng Xiao gave 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 surpassed the Song Dynasty and flattened the Tang Dynasty, not as good as the Han Dynasty in our eyes.
The Song Dynasty was the smallest without controversy
The entire Northern Song Dynasty Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures and since the Han Dynasty since the Liaodong region has 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 Chinese cultural influence, 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 it is holding their breath.
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 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.
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
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 territory of the south and the north 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 from the Han Dynasty after the Han Wu Emperor until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty is firmly controlled in the hands, but the Tang Dynasty is different, probably from the Li Shimin era after the Jin acquisition, the Anshi Rebellion completely fell after the occurrence of the Anshi Rebellion.
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 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.