These major events in the first month have changed China's history

The first month is the beginning of the year, the beginning of the unity, and the renewal of vientiane. But in ancient China, the first month was not naturally January.

According to Hu Sansheng's commentary on the Zizhi Tongjian, "In ancient times, there were three righteousnesses: the son is tianzheng, and Zhou Yongzhi is the first year; ugly is the earth, Yin is the first year; Yin is the right; Yin is the right, and Xia is used, with the thirteenth month (that is, January) as the first year; Qin ... Take October as the beginning of the year".

In ancient times, the lunar calendar was used, with the dry branch era, using the direction pointed by the Big Dipper to determine the month, and dividing the year into twelve months, which was for "dou jian" or "month jian". The Calendar of the Xia Dynasty takes January Jianyin as the first month, the Shang Dynasty calendar takes december Jianu as the first month, the Zhou Dynasty calendar takes November Jianzi as the first month, and the Qin Dynasty calendar takes October Jianhai as the first month, which is for the Summer Calendar Jianyin, the Shang Calendar Jianugou, the Zhou Calendar Jianzi, and the Qin Calendar Jianhai.

The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system and continued to use the Qin calendar, with October as the first year. In the first year of the Taichu Dynasty (104 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty , at the suggestion of Sima Qian and others , "corrected Shuo", formulated the "Taichu Calendar", restored the Xia calendar, and re-established "the first month (i.e., January) as the beginning of the year", which is still used by later generations.

Whether it is October, November, December or January, history will always turn a new page and open a new situation at the beginning of the first month.

Courtesy of Visual China

Curse the Tao, destroy the tyrannical Qin

In the winter of 206 BC, in october, when it was the first month, xianyang city, the capital of the Qin Dynasty, was supposed to be filled with the festive atmosphere of the new year as in previous years, but this year was a year of chaos, people's fears, and special slaughter.

Outside Xianyang City, "Pei Gong is supremely hegemonic", and history is cultivating new hope in the slaughter. Liu Bang took advantage of Xiang Yu's opportunity to contain most of the Qin army, and led his army all the way west to the Xianyang Gateway Bashang (in the area of present-day eastern Xi'an, Shaanxi). The infant who had already removed the title of emperor and changed his title to the King of Qin went out of the city and surrendered, and presented the emperor's jade seal and fu jie to Liu Bang.

After Liu Bang was surrendered, his generals, who were dissatisfied with the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty for many years, advised Liu Bang to conform to the will of the six people, kill the children and babies, and export evil for the people of the world. Liu Bang thought about it more long-term, and he understood that countering violence with violence could not bridge the hearts of the people of the world who had been divided by successive years of war at the end of the Warring States period and hurt by the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty for many years, and would only lead to the continued confrontation of the nations and endless struggle. Only by spreading benevolence and righteousness and practicing the way of huairou can the hearts of all the people of the world, including the people of Qindi, be reintegrated.

Liu Bang advised everyone that the reason why king Huai of Chu had tried to defy the public opinion and let me lead my army west into Xianyang was precisely because I was "tolerant" and that the baby had "fallen and was ominous to kill." After Liu Bang stabilized the mood of the generals, he only imprisoned his sons and babies and waited for the law to fall. Subsequently, he summoned qindi "father and elder, Haojie", saying that according to the previous political commitment of king Huai of Chu, he would be crowned the king of Guanzhong and was willing to rule Qindi with the kings. Liu Bang, with the support of his father and elder, agreed with the three chapters of the Law of the People, "The Murderer Dies, Injures People, and Commits Theft", and abolishes all the Cool Laws of the Qin Dynasty. Lest Pei Gong not be the King of Qin."

However, after Xiang Yu entered Xianyang, he killed his children and babies, slaughtered the people of Qindi, lost the hearts of the people of the world, and finally was defeated by Liu Bang in the four-year Chu-Han War, and killed himself in Wujiang.

After Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, the reckless habits of the courtiers did not change for a while, and they often "drank and competed for merit" above the court, "or shouted in vain" when they were drunk, and even "drew their swords and struck pillars". At the suggestion of His holiness Sun Tong, Liu Bang ordered his uncle Sun Tong to work with more than thirty Rusheng people in Ludi to formulate rules of etiquette for the imperial court and let the courtiers undergo strict etiquette training.

In the winter and October of the seventh year of Emperor Han Gao (200 BC), Liu Bang held a grand New Year ceremony in the newly completed Changle Palace, "all the princes and courtiers were congratulated", according to the imperial ceremony formulated by Shusun Tong, "greeting in turn, and do not fear solemn respect". At the banquet after the ceremony, no one dared to make a fuss and be rude. Liu Banglong Yan Dayue said, "I am known today as the emperor's nobles."

Liu Bang, the noble emperor of Fangzhi, issued a unified decree to eliminate the princes with different surnames one by one. In the winter of the twelfth year of Emperor Han Gao (195 BC), Liu Bang quelled the rebellion of King Yingbu of Huainan, and on the way back to his division, he passed through his hometown of Pei County, returned to his hometown, and congratulated his father and elders on the New Year of the New Year. At this time, Liu Bang, whose physical condition had been under the sun, looked back on his life and looked back on his life, "generous and sad, weeping for several lines", dancing and singing "The wind rises and the clouds fly, Wei Jia Hai Returns to his hometown, and Ande The Warrior guards the four directions", which is for "The Song of the Great Wind".

To stabilize the world, what is needed is not only a strong force, but also a talent selection system that selects the world's talents and uses them, and a theory of civil rule that is silent and morally popular.

Discern the selection of talents, Confucianism alone

After Liu Bang, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing conformed to the will of the people, practiced the rule of inaction, rested with the people, healed the wounds of war, and soon presented the "rule of Wenjing". After Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, he began to promote a positive and promising national policy in domestic and foreign affairs and strive to forge ahead, and recruited talents.

In the winter and October of the first year of jianyuan (140 BC), the first new month after Emperor Wu ascended the throne, he issued an edict to the world's talents, issuing an edict to "a person who is a wise man who is a good person who is honest and outspoken". "Virtuous and virtuous" is a moral model with good conduct, and "outspoken and extremely advised" is a management talent who can point out the problems in the imperial court and make suggestions for solving them.

After the talents recommended by various places gathered in Chang'an, Emperor Wu personally asked them about the art of governing the country, and more than a hundred people proposed countermeasures, of which Dong Zhongshu's countermeasures satisfied Emperor Wu the most.

In the countermeasures, Dong Zhongshu pointed out that "the chief officials are mostly from Langzhong, Zhonglang, and the two thousand stone disciples of the officials, and the selection of lang officials is also rich", the local officials are selected from the imperial court Lang officials, and the Lang officials are mostly rich people or the sons of the family, and the moral conduct and administrative ability are "not necessarily virtuous"; he put forward the suggestion of "the two people of the year and the tribute", that is, to ask the princes, the taishou of each county, and the senior officials of the two thousand stones level to recommend two talents to the imperial court every year, and to be rewarded for their meritocracy, and to be severely punished if they fail to do so.

In view of the problem of "different teachers and different ways, different theories of people, a hundred different schools, and different meanings", the theory of governance cannot be fixed on one statue, and the officials and the people "do not know what to keep", Dong Zhongshu prescribed that "those who are not in the six arts and the art of Confucius are all in the same way, do not make progress at the same time", that is, the prescription of promoting Confucianism and respecting Confucianism alone.

After Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty resolved the internal and external constraints of the imperial court and fully grasped the leading power over the government of the dynasty, he implemented Dong Zhongshu's measures for the first month of the first year of the jianyuan dynasty (140 BC) one by one, "deposing hundreds of families and chaptering the Six Classics" to establish the exclusive position of Confucianism in the theory of governing the country; "the initial order of the counties and states to raise one filial piety and one person each", requiring local counties and princely states to recommend to the imperial court every year one model of filial piety and one example of honesty, so as to inject fresh blood into the ranks of officials.

Since then, Confucianism has become the dominant ideology of the theory of dynastic governance, and the system of inspection as the predecessor and mother of the imperial examination system has also been established. It is precisely by relying on the bottom-up talent selection system and the cultural unity of Confucianism in the theory of governing the country that although China's history has twists and turns, turbulence, and even a period of nearly three hundred years of great division between the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it can finally embark on the right track of long-term unity after the split.

Reinvent the unity of the world

On the first day of the first lunar month in the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui (589), Chinese history coincided with the final stage of the Great Schism between the North and the South. On the same day, Chen Shubao, the lord of southern Chen, was holding a New Year's Day pilgrimage at the imperial palace in the capital Jiankang (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu) to accept the New Year's greetings from the courtiers. Heavy fog in the middle of winter in Jiangnan is a common thing, but today's fog is a bit unusual, smelling of "bitter" and making people doze off. Chen Shubao took a deep breath, immediately "fell asleep", and helped him into the inner temple to rest, until the afternoon slowly woke up.

Chen Shubao, who had been asleep for most of the first day of the first lunar month, did not know that just as he closed his eyes, He Ruobi, the commander-in-chief of the Wuzhou Theater of Operations (around present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu), a general of the Northern Sui Dynasty, had already led an army across the Yangtze River from Guangling. That night, Han Baohu, the commander-in-chief of the Luzhou Theater (in present-day Hefei, Anhui), led 500 special elites to cross from the Hengjiang River in the north of the Jiangsu River (present-day Yangtze River Ferry in Hexian County, Anhui) to the south under the cover of night, and landed at the Jiangnan Quarry Rock (present-day Dangtu Yangtze River Ferry Port in Anhui).

On the second day of the first lunar month, Chen Shubao learned of the fall of Jiangfang, and was frightened to "cry day and night", and all political affairs were handed over to shi Wenqing, a minister. The general Xiao Maha proposed to take advantage of the fact that the Sui army was unstable and could not continue to support, and counterattacked rapidly. Shi Wenqing was afraid that the generals would make meritorious contributions, threaten their own position, and suppress all requests for war.

On the fifth day of the first month, He Ruobi took Jingkou (around present-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu), strictly enforced military discipline, did not commit any crimes against the people, released all 6,000 prisoners, and let them return to their hometown to preach the policy of leniency of the Sui Dynasty. In the sixth year of the first month, Han Captured Hu conquered Guyi (in present-day Dangtu, Anhui), and the people of Southern Chen "came day and night to warn the military gates" day and night. The battlefield situation of the two major armies of He and Han encircled Jiankang from north to south was formed.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, Ren Zhong, the general of the Eastern General of Southern Chen Zhen, rushed from Wuxing (in present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang) to qin wang to rescue him, and rushed ahead of the Sui army to enter the Zhuque Gate of Tunjiankang, barely stabilizing his position. At that time, Chen's army had 100,000 people around Jiankang, and the Sui army had only 30,000 people crossing the river, and if Southern Chen did the right thing, it would be enough to repel the He and Han forward troops. On the twentieth day of the first month, Chen Shubao ordered Xiao Maha and Ren Zhong to lead an army to attack He Ruobi's troops, which had only 8,000 soldiers. Nan Chen fought more and less, but did not set up a commander-in-chief, and the crowd would not be convinced of each other. The armies also put up a long snake array of twenty miles from north to south, and the head and tail could not take care of each other.

As soon as the battle began, Xiao Maha received a report from his family, saying that his wife had been forced to rape by Chen Shubao, so he had no intention of fighting, and was captured in the melee, and Chen Jun was defeated. Ren Zhong, seeing that the general situation was gone, surrendered to Han Hu and guided the Sui army into the city through the Suzaku Gate. The gatekeeper Chen Jun wanted to resist, and was dismissed by Ren Zhong's sentence "The old man is still surrendering, what is the matter with the various armies". Han Hu led his army straight into the palace and captured Chen Shubao, who had jumped into the harem well with his concubines to hide.

On the twenty-second day of the first month, Yang Guang, the marshal of Pingchen, entered Jiankang and asked Chen Shubao to write a letter of surrender, and the armies of southern Chen gave up resistance one after another, and the thirty prefectures, one hundred counties, and four hundred counties under their command became an inseparable part of the unified Sui Dynasty. Beginning with the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty in 316 AD, China, which had been divided for 273 years, finally completed the great cause of reunification again.

After the completion of the internal unification of the Central Plains Dynasty, the first task was to stabilize the northern defense line, reorganize the chaotic and disorderly grassland order due to the division of China, and then reconstruct the new pattern of international relations in the "Central Plains-Grassland". The Han Dynasty, which followed the Qin Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty, which flourished in the Sui Dynasty, were no different.

Reorganize the international order

At the end of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu rose and became an important threat to the north of the Han Dynasty. After Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne, he launched an offensive posture against the Xiongnu, and after three large-scale initiatives by Wei Qing and Huo Quyi, he won a decisive victory in the war against the Xiongnu.

After being hit hard by the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu split into two parts, the north and the south, and the southern Xiongnu were reconciled with the Han Dynasty. In the first month of the third year (51 BC) of the Han Xuan Emperor Ganlu, the Southern Xiongnu Hu Han Xiandan went to Chang'an to meet Emperor Xuan, and the Han Dynasty held a grand welcoming ceremony on both sides of the Weishui River. Emperor Xuan's car departed from Ganquan Palace (located in Chunhua County, Shaanxi), and tens of thousands of Xiongnu monarchs, leaders of ethnic minorities in the four directions, and officials and civilians of the Han Dynasty were greeted at Weiqiao. Emperor Xuan walked up to the Wei Bridge, "Long live Xian". After the welcoming ceremony, Hu Han entered Chang'an via Weiqiao to meet Emperor Xuan.

Prior to this, "those who lived from the west of Wusun to the countries of rest near the Xiongnu", that is, from the western region to Iran, all the countries that had contacts with the Xiongnu were afraid of the Xiongnu and despised the Han Dynasty; the Huhan evil was only in "after the Han Dynasty, the Xianzun Han Dynasty was respected", and the Western countries respected the Han Dynasty one after another, and the western Han Dynasty reached its peak.

In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Turks gradually unified the various departments of the steppe and became the most powerful force in the north. The Northern Expedition of the Sui Dynasty defeated the Turks, and used the divisive meter to divide them into east and west. At the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the Eastern Turks revived, and when Tang Gaozu Jinyang rebelled against the Sui, he had to submit to him. As soon as Emperor Taizong of Tang ascended the throne, the Eastern Turk Jieli Khan led 100,000 iron horses to fight under Chang'an City, and Emperor Taizong was forced to give away the gold and silver cloth in Chang'an City in exchange for Jieli's retreat.

At the end of the third year of Zhenguan (629), Emperor Taizong, after a long period of preparation, ordered a war against the entire Eastern Turks. In the first month of the fourth year of Zhenguan (630), Li Jing led 3,000 elite soldiers from Mayi (in present-day Shuozhou, Shanxi) and attacked Dingxiang (定襄, in present-day Dingxiang, Shanxi), where Jieli's big tent was located, and caught Jieli by surprise. Subsequently, the Tang army won successive battles and victories, and finally captured Jieli.

The leaders of the various ethnic groups in the north collectively presented the title of "Heavenly Khan" to Emperor Taizong, and from then on the Tang Emperor became the common leader of all ethnic groups. After the defeat of the Eastern Turks, the Tang Dynasty defeated Tuguhun and recovered Gaochang, Yanqi and Guizi, deterred the Western Turks, resumed governance of the Western Regions, and finally re-established a new international order in East and Central Asia dominated by them.

The first lunar month that changed Chinese history is not only ancient, but also contemporary. At the beginning of the first month of 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong issued a New Year's message entitled "Carry the Revolution through to the End", looking forward to the future, "The feudal oppression of thousands of years and the imperialist oppression of the past hundred years will be completely overthrown in our struggle." Since then, the world has been turned upside down, and the five-thousand-year-old Chinese state has opened a new historical era of its life restoration.

(The author is a Ph.D. in History, Chinese Min University)

Source: China Youth Daily client