Guan Long Group is an interest group that has influenced a history of 300 years.
Where did this interest group come about? How influential was he?
Rise quickly in a troubled world
In the last years of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the world was in chaos.
He Bayue set out with only a thousand men, defeated the rebels in the Guanlong area, and pacified Guanlong.
However, by this time, another fierce man, Gao Huan, had successfully seized power and taken control of the Northern Wei regime.
Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, in order to balance Gao Huan, cut through the skin in front of his heart, dripped blood, and handed it over to He Bayue to integrate the power of the Guanlong region.
How can Gao Huan let you succeed easily? Using the law of division, Hou Mochen Yue assassinated He Bayue.
The general of HeBayue's army, elected Yuwen Tai, and continued to confront Gao Huan.
At this time, Yuwen Taijun had just entered Guanlong, had no foundation, and its strength was far from Gao Huan's opponent.
If he could not find a suitable way to quickly establish a rule, Yuwen Tai could not even gain a foothold.
To stabilize the situation, of course, the first thing is to stabilize the army!
Yuwen Tai integrated the army brought into Guanzhong, the army collected during the counter-rebellion period, and the Liufang Xianbei people who later entered the customs with Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, totaling 70,000 to 80,000 people, under the command of the old generals of HeBayue.
The specific approach is to adopt the eight-part system of the xianbei old times and establish an eight-pillar state.
In the Eight Pillar Kingdom, except for Yuwen Tai himself who led the overall situation and Yuan Xin "hung up his post" with the respect of the royal family, the remaining six people were divided into six armies. Under each army, there are two great generals, and under each general, there are two kaifu.
In this way, the military nobles represented by the "Eight Pillar State" completely controlled the army for Yuwen Tai.
At the same time, the prefectural soldiers were all granted land, but they were not incorporated into civilian households, did not need to bear rent and conciliation, and also obtained a special social status, so as to be at ease with their effectiveness.
Subsequently, they imitated the old tribal system and let the soldiers follow the surnames of the generals who led them to strengthen the bondage.
In this way, Yuwen Tai consolidated his rule, and the "Eight Pillar Kingdoms" became military aristocrats who held some military power. (Father of Yang Jian, the founder of the Sui Dynasty, and grandfather of Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang Dynasty, were both members of the "Eight Pillars State")
Since the prefectural soldiers not only had to fight, but also had to produce, the "Eight Pillar State" not only mastered military privileges, but also mastered key economic resources.
As the core members of the ruling clique, they not only went in and out of the court themselves, but in the era when the imperial examination was not in full swing, other officials were also selected and elected by them, so they actually shared the imperial court power.
An aristocratic collective with great political, economic, and military power was formed.
After that, in order to expand the source of troops and grain, they recruited local heroes and appointed them as the leaders of the military government to expand the base of their rule.
These nobles were not only powerful themselves, but also intermarried with each other and united into a community of interests.
In this way, a Guanlong military clique with Yuwen Tai as the leader, the "Eight Pillar State" as the core, and the local strength of Guanlong as a supplement was formed.
This is a military bloc with far-reaching historical influence.
World
In the beginning, the Guanlong clique only ruled the Guanlong region.
However, their "Western Wei" regime became Northern Zhou and sui.
Northern Zhou destroyed Northern Qi and unified the North; Sui destroyed Chen and unified the world.
In this way, the Guanlong clique has become a clique that affects the political trend of the whole country.
After that, Li Yuan of the Tang Dynasty also came from the Guanlong Group and unified the world with the support of the Guanlong Group, so in the early Tang Dynasty, the Guanlong Group also had great influence.
During this period, the Guanlong clique repeatedly influenced the direction of the situation in the world.
Change of dynasty
In order to ensure the interests of the group, guanlong group did not hesitate to change the dynasty and replace the agent.
In the late Northern Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou fainted, increased labor, and built a large number of civil engineering, which seriously affected the interests of the Guanlong nobles.
At the same time, he formulated the cruel "Sacred System of Punishment", "from the gongqing to the chancellor, and the concubines of the empress, all of whom were whipped by his whip", which aroused the anger of the Guanlong nobles.
After Yang Jian assisted the government, the "Great Chonghui Zheng" was supported by the Guan Long Group.
In the end, with the support of the Guan Long Group, Yang Jian easily replaced Zhou.
When Yang Jian became a zhou dynasty, only the Yuwen imperial family launched a resolute resistance, and Yang Jian, with the support of guanlong nobles, easily managed it.
Subsequently, the Sui Emperor's move caused dissatisfaction among the Guanlong nobles.
For example, as soon as Yang Jian first ascended the throne, he was estranged and even killed many of the founders of the Guanlong clique.
For example, the implementation of the imperial examination system, the selection of talents through the imperial examination, and the breaking of the monopoly of the Guanlong Group on the career.
Another example: through the operation of Luoyang and Jiangdu, the construction of canals weakened the "Guanzhong standard" and fundamentally weakened the influence of the Guanlong nobility.
Another example: the large-scale construction and years of conquest have seriously damaged the economic interests of the Guanlong Group.
These measures aroused the antipathy of the Guan Long clique.
Therefore, when Li Yuan, who was also a member of the Guanlong clique, raised an army, he quickly received the support of the Guanlong clique.
While Li Yuan was marching in Shanxi, which was under his jurisdiction, he still encountered some fierce resistance. However, after entering Guanzhong, Haoqiang came to support, and the Jinyang army met with almost no decent resistance and quickly established The Tang Dynasty.
In the end, the Sui Emperor himself, who was also killed by the noble sons of the GuanLong clique, tried to return to Guanzhong Xiaoguo.
Slowly weaken
To ascend to the throne, it needs the support of the Guanlong clique, but sitting firmly on the throne, it is natural to weaken the influence of the Guanlong clique as much as possible.
Therefore, not only Yang Guang, but also successive Tianzi tried to gradually weaken the rule of the Guan Long clique.
However, these can only be slowly plotted, not rushed.
After Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou ascended the throne, he changed the name of the soldier to a sergeant.
Changing this name is a clear concept: although the fu soldiers are under the command of the generals, they are not the private arms of the nobles, but the private arms directly subordinate to the Son of Heaven. (However, the main generals of the prefectural army at that time were still controlled by the Guanlong nobles, so their interests were not lost in the short term.)
At the same time, he also changed the previous practice of exclusively using Xianbei and Guanlonghao's strong sons as prefectural soldiers, "recruiting the people to fill them up, except for their county membership", expanding the source of prefectural soldiers, thereby weakening the proportion of military power of the Guanlong nobles.
These are adjustments based on the interests of the offender without direct contact.
Emperor Wen of Sui, who claimed the title of empress, on the one hand, weakened the monopoly of the Guanlong nobles on the career path by directly conducting talent inspections and elections by the imperial court through "raising the virtuous"; on the other hand, changing the "Twelve Generals" to "Twelve Wei Mansions", and the "Twelve Wei Mansions" were located in the central government and were generally subordinate to the emperor. It abolished the level of the "Six Armies" without completely violating the interests of guanlong's nobility.
This was the case during the Reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang.
He walked on two legs, on the one hand, through the imperial examination and other means, to absorb the world's talents, on the other hand, he maintained the "door shade" of the Guanlong nobility and maintained his political privileges.
Therefore, by the late tang dynasty, whether it was zaifu or a general in the army, the proportion of people in the Guanlong clique was greatly reduced, and its foundation had been shaken.
Of course, Tang Taizong always treated the Guan Long clique with a gentle attitude to avoid triggering "anti-eyes".
Before Tang Taizong's death, he chose Changsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang, the representatives of the Guanlong clique, as his assistants, but designed Li Zhi to be benevolent to Li Ji, a powerful man in Shandong, in order to maintain this balance.
Decline
It is generally believed that the final decline of the Guanlong clique occurred during the Wu Zetian period.
Wu Zetian was not a Guanlong aristocrat, and in the process of becoming empress, he was opposed by the Guanlong nobility.
In order to weaken the Guanlong nobles, Wu Zetian first broke through and crushed Chu Suiliang, Changsun Wuji and other leaders of the Guanlong nobles.
Institutionally, she vigorously developed the imperial examination and even opened martial arts to weaken the influence of the Guanlong nobility in the regime and army.
Immediately, she set the capital Luoyang, destroyed the "Guanzhong standard", and caused the ruling center to leave the root of the Guanlong nobility.
After Wu Zetian's blows, the power of the Guanlong nobles quickly declined.
Of course, what led to the eventual decline of the Guanlong nobility was the development of society.
The Guanlong clique is essentially a military merit clique.
With the collapse of the prefectural military system, the imperial court gradually adopted the conscription system, which caused the foundation of the Guanlong nobility to disintegrate.
At the same time, since Wu Zetian, Tang rulers liked to appoint fan generals, further weakening the influence of the Guanlong nobles in the army.
Therefore, it is generally believed that in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, although the influence of the Guanlong nobility still existed, it was no longer decisive.
The emergence of the Guanlong Group itself is a process of combining Xianbei and Guanlong Han people.
In this process, the Wenzhi of the Han people and the martial arts of the Xianbei people combined to form a new, more vital military group.
Therefore, they defeated the strong with the weak, destroyed Qi Pingchen, and finally completed the mission of unifying the world.
However, the dominance of the Guanlong clique naturally means "Guanzhong localism", and the suppression of people in other regions by the Guanlong aristocracy naturally means the monopoly of official positions and the squeeze of other talents with the shade of the door.
Therefore, its eventual decline is a historical necessity.