Liu Yu | killed an imperial path with a cold body

The Six Dynasties are like a dream, and success or failure rises and falls, but more than 300 years. The Jiangshan that Liu Yuhe had built with his military exploits was soon destroyed by his descendants. But perhaps because of this, Liu Yu also has an extra layer of ancient Greek tragic heroes, allowing us to have a deeper reflection on the process of historical reincarnation while lamenting his legendary life.

"Lou Chuan Iron Horse Liu Jinu: History of the Opening of the Southern and Northern Dynasties" Li Shuo

"Lou Chuan Iron Horse Liu Jinu: History of the Opening of the Southern and Northern Dynasties" is a wonderful battle record centered on Liu Yu, the founding emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty. "Hermit" is Liu Yu's nickname, because his family was poor when he was young, and he was fostered in a relative's house. Many people may have known this name for the first time from Xin Ren's poem "Yong Yu Le Jingkou Beiguting Huaigu":

Slanting grass trees, ordinary alleys and strange, humane slaves once lived.

Think of that year, Jinge iron horse, swallowed like a tiger.

Jingkou (present-day Zhenjiang) was Liu Yu's hometown, which was once the front line of confrontation with the northern ethnic regime. History seems to be a reincarnation, when Xin wrote this word, 800 years have passed since Liu Yu's era, and the Southern Song Dynasty court was once again terrified under the invasion of foreign iron hooves in the north, just like the situation faced by the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The difference is that in that year, Liu Jinu, who had the courage and strategy, led an army in the Northern Expedition, attacked and destroyed the Southern Yan regime established by Murong Xianbei in one fell swoop, recovered the lost land in the north, and achieved the prestige of the god of war, which attracted Xin Tou's praise from the air and satirized the present with ancient irony. Liu Yu fought for the Eastern Jin Dynasty for many years, and it was not until his later years that he deposed the Jin Emperor and built the Southern Dynasty song, but unfortunately" Yuan Jia Caocao, sealed the wolf Juxu, won the Canghuang Northern Gu", the children did not have a weapon, the state was not long, only four generations, resulting in Liu Yu himself in ancient times countless legendary warriors are not famous. However, looking at the book "Lou Chuan Iron Horse Liu Jinu", Fang Xiexin's abandonment of the disease is not just literary rhetoric, Liu Yuqi and his military talents have really been ignored by history too much, and his southern conquest and northern war can be called a wonderful Chapter. Li Shuo, the author of this book, also wrote in the afterword that the reason why he wrote a war history specifically for Liu Yu was that the priority was the "viewability" of the war. From this point of view, Liu Yu's conquest history is absolutely beautiful, in a chaotic world of fragmentation and ethnic miscellaneous places, his opponents before and after are very diverse, there are usurpers of the shi clan, there are various ethnic regimes in the north, there are religious rebels, as well as former allies and members of the royal family, but the so-called "heroes from the chaotic world", which also gives him the opportunity to show his talents in all directions, and in the door valve society, he is born with a humble body to kill an imperial road, rewriting the development path of history.

A late military genius

Liu Yu became famous late, only in his 30s, joined the Beifu soldiers (which were also the main force of the Eastern Jin Dynasty) commanded by the famous general Liu Gaozhi (which was also a strong main force in the Eastern Jin Dynasty), and came to prominence in the battle against the Tianshi Dao Army, before he was just an ordinary peasant with a poor family and illiterate characters. In the decades before his official appearance, the author spent nearly a third of the time laying out the background of the times, including the change of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the northern ethnic regime controlled by the family clan. Interestingly, the author chooses the starting point of the narrative in 369 AD when the Eastern Jin Dynasty Grand Sima Huan Wen Northern Expedition Murong Xianbei established the Defeat of Former Yan (at this time Liu Yunian was seven years old), just at the intersection of the two swords, and intentionally or unintentionally buried the grass snake gray line: more than 30 years later, Huan Wen's son Huan Xuan usurped the Jin Dynasty, Liu Yu led the people to become famous in a war, restored the Jin Dynasty, and soon after attacked Murong Shi's new regime of Southern Yan and crowned the God of War. These were two battles of great significance to Liu Yu, and from then on he rose from an ordinary officer to the peak of his power step by step. The book has a fairly detailed description of the process of Liu Yu's several battles, from personnel deployment to organization and implementation, and the tense atmosphere is full of details that can be repeatedly "watched". The attack on the Southern Yan is particularly wonderful, fully demonstrating the advantages and disadvantages of the Central Plains regime when confronting the minority regime. The southern army of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was mainly infantry, and transportation, grain and grass had always relied on the advantages of boats and ships, and huanwen had paid attention to repairing and opening up waterways all the way during the Northern Expedition. This time Liu Yu's Northern Expedition ordered the whole army to abandon the boat and land on the shore and enter the Yimeng Mountains to march. Seemingly confused, it was actually a dangerous move by Liu Yu: for the slow boats traveling on the plains, the speed and impact of the northern cavalry were far above it, which could be called a dimensionality reduction strike, but in the mountains, it was difficult for the cavalry troops to launch a large-scale offensive. During the decisive battle, in order to prevent the cavalry from breaking through the deployment, Liu Yu connected the heavy vehicles end to end and built an iron wall, and finally broke the Yan army, and the surrendered Yan army also greatly expanded Liu Yu's cavalry team, adding wings to Qin after he later captured another northern regime. Under the great natural disadvantage, the victory of infantry over cavalry was entirely dependent on Liu Yu's outstanding mind as a general. For the Heavenly Master Dao, Liu Yu was another method of warfare. Tianshi Dao borrowed religious rebellion, lived on the sea for many years, was good at water warfare, easy to escape, difficult to completely eliminate, and left behind for many years. In 410 AD, Tianshi Dao saw Liu Yu's northern expedition to Southern Yan, and Jiankang City was secretly attacked from the southern coast when the garrison was empty, and Liu Yu, who was still in the northern battlefield, was urgently recalled and could calmly command the battle. At the same time as the land battle, attention was paid to stepping up the manufacture of tall building ships, and naval battles with the enemy army were launched, and finally a complete victory was won. In such a short period of time, different enemies and different tactics, Liu Yu can flexibly and maneuver to choose between them, in addition to the accumulation of experience in the army, it can only be said that it is due to military genius.

End door valve politics.

The author mentions in the afterword that Liu Yu has an introverted personality and a simple life, and the history books record too little of his deeds outside the military and government, so it is difficult to write a complete and all-round biography of him. But in fact, only from several wars and their gaps, we can already glimpse Liu Yu's typical personality. Liu Yu has all the advantages needed as a military commander, such as being good at judging the hour and sizing up the situation, strict military discipline, fighting bravely, being good at employing people, being bold and confident, and so on. This is reflected in many small details, such as when Xuan Huan Xuanke restored Kangcheng, he first sent people into the palace to collect archival books and guard the inventory, which was really rare for a civilian warrior with a low level of education. There was also the fact that before the enemy general Huang Fushi was beheaded by Liu Yu, he had asked him to take care of his family, and Liu Yu completely complied with it after entering the city, which can be described as trustworthy and generous. These are only a passing thing in the battle record, but it is quite obvious that Liu Yu is a person. However, the power struggle is cruel after all. As the Jin Room became more and more dim-witted and headed for an irreparable decline, Liu Yu, whose power was expanding, took the place of him and began to systematically exterminate dissidents, even if many of them were colleagues who had acted with him in righteousness, even if the other party did not have any different intentions, they were cut down and eradicated for the sake of absolute suffering. From the Cao Wei Dynasty, the Sima Dynasty, the Brief Huan Dynasty, to the Liu Yu Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, the regime iterations in the chaotic world seem to follow the same set of unjust procedures, but carefully distinguished, Liu Yu and them actually have a huge difference: the first three positions all rely on the bribery of the scholar class and recognize their hereditary privileges. Liu Yu relied on civilian warriors, pushing the Gate Valve Clan to the edge of the political stage, restricting the privileges of the Clan, and naturally unable to gain their support. Behind this distinction will be the diversion of history. On the stage of the opening of the Southern Dynasty, if Liu Yu's Xiao Yong conquest is his prospect, then the aftermath is the change of the century-old door valve politics. The Eastern Jin Dynasty clan Gaomen monopolized the government for many years, becoming increasingly extravagant and corrupt, keen on talking about Xuan, and looking down on military and civil administration. After Liu Yu came to power, those officers who started with his battles and made meritorious achievements became the dominant in the political arena, the shi clan door valve gradually receded to the margins, and the century-old door valve politics was finally replaced by a military group, which was the political foundation laid by Liu Yu's victory for the subsequent Southern Dynasty and even the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Regarding the wei and Jin gate valve politics, there have been many classic research works such as Tian Yuqing's "The Politics of The Door Valves of the Eastern Jin Dynasty", but most of them are presented from the perspective of Gaomen, while this book is from Liu Yu's standpoint, viewing and writing this history from the perspective of rare civilians, making a footnote for door valve politics, especially its decline. We see in the book that those officers who made meritorious contributions in the battlefield were often immediately named by Liu Yu as local governors with heavy powers, even if they were previously unknown, which can be said to subvert the Jiupin Zhongzheng selection system that was monopolized by Gaomen at that time and had been reduced to a formal form. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Hanwei commoners also had to ascend to power (until the Sui and Tang dynasties, the imperial examination system became the main path), bringing vitality to politics and a new historical outlook in China. The transitional role of this military bloc's ruling structure between the gate valve and the imperial examination should also be given full attention.

The brilliance of humanity beyond the record

The author of this book, Li Shuo, graduated from the Department of Chinese of Peking University and the Department of History of Tsinghua University, and has both historical evidence and narrative writing, on the one hand, to ensure professionalism, on the other hand, he is also widely recruited, good at telling stories, and the text is smooth and good-looking. In addition to Liu Yu's main line, other historical figures in the background of the great era, no matter how long they are, have also been shaped to be flesh and blood, and they are quite the gods of the novels of the Six Dynasties. For example, the former Qin Emperor Jian Jian, although he was a Qi person, he had been reading the Han family scriptures since he was a child, and had a saint dream of influencing his opponents with benevolence and the unity of the world. Unfortunately, most of his opponents are barbarians with nomadic genes, who emphasize the success of kings and defeats, and there is no Confucian high moral bottom line, when Zhijian was seriously injured in the Battle of Shuishui, they took the opportunity to betray and take revenge. The process and aftermath of the dramatic collapse of the once-powerful Former Qin Empire is easily overlooked in the contrast of several great unified regimes in the Central Plains Empire, and the general history books are told from the perspective of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (Han National History), ending with the victory at the Battle of Shuishui, but this book carefully portrays its ins and outs and characters, reversing people's stereotypical cognition of The Jian jian and minority regimes. Looking back now, when the Han regime in the south was weakening and corrupt, and the scholars admired the learning of Lao Zhuang, Jian Jian seemed to have carried out a cultural and political experiment inheriting the Confucian tradition in the north, which was amazing and could not help but be admired. What is commendable is the breadth of literature cited by the author, which is by no means limited to the scope of war history. Or related to the author's literary origins, literary materials such as prose and folk songs of this era have also been adopted. For example, according to the fragments of the letters of the literati who followed Liu Yuzheng and later Qin, the author, according to their descriptions, carefully reconstructed the ancient capital of the Western Jin Dynasty, Luoyang, which had become an abandoned city in the war, from the spatial orientation, showing a mottled and mutilated painting of the ancient city. Exactly 100 years have passed since the fall of Luoyang and the southern crossing of the Jin Dynasty, and these Yuqing people are in a trance when they revisit, half mourning and half sighing, and even our readers today are empathetic and lamenting because of their immersion. These literary passages seem to be outside the war record, but they make a mark on the love and death of those nameless and nameless people who have run over the wheel of history, and in addition to the glorious achievements, there is more human color, which also makes this book a sentient history. "The old things of the Six Dynasties flow with the water, but the cold smoke and the fading grass are green." The whole book ends with Wang Anshi's "Guizhixiang Jinling Huaigu", which is deeply meaningful. In ancient poems, there are not a few people who lament the dreamers of the Six Dynasties, and the successes and failures rise and fall, but more than 300 years. The Jiangshan laid down by Liu Yuhehe's military achievements were soon overthrown by his descendants, and the power was rotated, and it was not until the Sui Dynasty in the north that the unification was completed. But perhaps because of this, Liu Yu also has an extra layer of ancient Greek tragic heroes, allowing us to have a deeper reflection on the process of historical reincarnation while lamenting his legendary life.

This article was first published in Wenhui Reading Weekly

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