A Complete Map of China in the Northern Wei Dynasty (Historical Atlas of China, Vol. IV, pp. 17-18)
In 383, former Qin emperor Jian Jian was defeated at the Battle of Shuishui. Once strong, the Former Qin Empire, which ruled most of China, collapsed, and the various ethnic groups that made up the Mosaic of the Former Qin nation stood on their own and attacked each other, and northern China was once again plunged into a scuffle. In the spring of 386, Tuoba Jue, the leader of the Xianbei Tuoba clan, restored the state to Wei in the same year, and began to conquer the surrounding ethnic groups, and by the first month of 398, Tuoba Jue, the Emperor of Northern Wei Province, occupied most of northern China. It was in July of that year that Tuoba Jue announced the "relocation of the capital to Pingcheng" and the construction of palaces, the establishment of ceremonial institutions such as the Zongmiao Temple and the Sheji Altar. Before Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyang in 493, Pingcheng had been the capital of Northern Wei, and with the expansion of Northern Wei territory, it became the center of the vast empire that ruled across the desert in the north, Huai Han in the south, Liaoshui in the east, and Yanqi in the west. And this, judging from the long river of history, is the key event that changed the fate of the city and eventually made it a border defense town of the Western Beijing and Ming and Qing dynasties in the second generation of liao and Jin.
So, why did the Northern Wei Dynasty choose Pingcheng as its capital?
Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, although Pingcheng is more famous because of the siege of Baideng of Han Gaozu, in terms of its status, it is only a county under the jurisdiction of Yanmen County, and the counties of the Han Dynasty have a Taishou and a lieutenant, and the military situation in the border areas is grim, often setting up a number of lieutenants, stationed in Key Chong, with the location as the other, Pingcheng is where the eastern lieutenant of Yanmen County is located, and the military status is more important than that of the general county, but that's all. According to today's archaeological excavations, Hanpingcheng County is in the playground city of present-day Datong City, with a length of 1,000 meters from east to west and a width of 600 meters from north to south, which is similar to the scale of ordinary city sites in the frontier area.
In 398, the capital of Dingdu Pingcheng, within the rule of Northern Wei, there was no shortage of famous capitals, Dayi, the most famous of which was the famous city of Hebei - Yicheng, which was the hegemony of Cao Cao, and also the capital of many regimes such as Later Zhao and Former Yan since the end of the Western Jin Dynasty. Moreover, in the first month of this year, Tuoba Jue specially went to Yecheng to tour the palace, with the meaning of fixing the capital. But a few days later, he suddenly left Yecheng in a hurry and returned to Daibei. A few months later, Pingcheng was identified as the capital.
Compared with the Daibei where the Peace City is located, Yecheng has a great advantage. The Zhanghe River Valley, where it is located, has fertile land and abundant water, and as early as the Warring States period, the local official Ximen Leopard of the State of Wei excavated channels and built a developed irrigation system, which was a famous grain producing area at that time. Moreover, In the middle of the North China Plain, Yicheng was the hub of the Taihang Mountain Foothills Road and the center of the caoyun system established by Cao Cao. In this way, Yecheng was able to gather a large amount of grain to support the increasingly large royal family, nobles, officials, troops, slaves, and hundred workers as the necessary consumer population of the capital.
The Daibei region where Pingcheng is located, with a cold and arid climate, scarce precipitation, and relatively poor soil, was not an important agricultural area in the Han Dynasty. The wars at the end of the Han Dynasty forced the local Han people to flee their hometowns, the agricultural tradition was interrupted, and the economic foundation was weak. Moreover, Pingcheng is located in the northern part of the Shanxi Plateau, and the North China Plain, which is the main grain producing area, is separated by the high Taihang Mountains, and the terrain is rugged, and when Tuoba Jue returned to Daibei from Yicheng, he specially sent tens of thousands of soldiers to dig mountain roads, which showed the inconvenience of transportation, so that it became very difficult to transport materials from the Central Plains to the capital. Moreover, after the successive generations of construction by Cao Cao, Shi Hu, Murong Juan and others, the city and palace of Yecheng were very complete and luxurious, and it is no wonder that Tuoba Jue had the intention of fixing the capital.
Map of the Northern Wei Dynasty (based on the Tang Dynasty Traffic Map)
So, why did Tuoba Jue still set the capital at Pingcheng? First of all, this was determined by the political situation and the war situation at that time.
The core strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty is a political group formed by uniting many tribes led by tuobabu, although they are united and brave, their combat effectiveness is strong, but after all, the number is sparse, and the central plains have a large population, and the local Han people and other ethnic groups are also suspicious of the Northern Wei government, if the capital is fixed here, it is bound to expose the demographic disadvantages of the Tuoba group. In 415, after years of frost and drought in northern Daibei, many residents starved to death, and some officials suggested moving the capital to Yecheng, but the ministers Cui Hao and Zhou Tang believed that this would make the Central Plains people see the hypocrisy of the Xianbei people, affect the Northern Wei state, and thus prevent the relocation of the capital.
The more important reason was the stage of development of the Northern Wei ruling clique at that time. Emperor Tuoba Jue of Daowu was migrated to the interior by Former Qin at an early age, and the level of Han culture was relatively high, but as far as the entire Tuoba Department was concerned, its level of social and cultural development was still in a stage of underdevelopment, and the color of tribal alliances was strong, until the death of Emperor Daowu, there was still a law of succession between brothers and brothers, and imperial power still needed to be strengthened. In terms of economic form, livestock and hunting are its main production methods. In the early years of the Northern Wei Dynasty, state finances and aristocratic property were often calculated by livestock, such as when Emperor Daowu was emperor, Wang Jian was given "dozens of slaves and thousands of miscellaneous animals" for his military merits, which can explain the problem. Emperor Taiwu himself even regarded himself as a herdsman, and once said in public: "The people of the country are in the form of sheepskin hakama, why use cotton drapery?" ”
The same is true of the hunting economy, Tuoba Xianbei was originally a hunting nation, and when the Wei Shu Shu Ji traced its ancestral deeds, it said: "The north of the capital of Tongyou, the wilderness of the vast desert, animal husbandry migration, shooting and hunting as an industry." "Hunting, at the same time, is an important complement to the nomadic economy. Moreover, hunting activities have both the color of military exercises and have a great entertainment function, so after the Northern Wei capital Pingcheng, the hunting economy and activities are still active, from the monarchs, nobles, down to the commoners of the history of field hunting activities.
Under such circumstances, as herders and hunters, members of the Tuoba Xianbei ruling clique, who owned a large amount of livestock property, naturally did not adapt to the climate and environment of the Central Plains (in fact, when Tuoba Jue attacked Houyan in the Hebei Plain, more than half of the soldiers and livestock fell ill and died), in order to unite the strength of the Tuoba people and rule the Central Plains with a population far beyond their own, Tuoba Jue could only choose the Daibei region, which was close to the conditions of the Tuoba people's hometown.
Second, the advantages of Pingcheng.
Geography talks about the location advantages of the city, divided into different location scales, and chooses the Daibei region as the kifu, which is the large location condition of the Dingdu of Pingcheng. However, when the Tuoba tribe entered the Daibei region and operated it as a "Kiuchi Field", it was faced with the ancient cities of dozens of counties and counties in the two Han Dynasties and Dai County, so why did they choose Pingcheng alone? From the perspective of strategic significance and urban foundation, Mayi City (present-day Shuozhou) was the capital of Korea in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the surrounding land was relatively fertile, and its wealth caused the Xiongnu to covet it, and it was the bait of the "Mayi Conspiracy" of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. DaijunCheng (代郡城, in present-day Wei County, Hebei) was the capital of DaiRong during the Warring States period, and the capital of the Western Han Dynasty was also built here, and its location was close to the Flying Fox Road, which was a transportation hub connecting the Datong Basin and the North China Plain. Shanwucheng (present-day Youyu Ancient City) was successively the seat of government of Yanmen County and Dingxiang County of the Two Han Dynasties, with a large scale. [Editor's note: The author once wrote an article titled "How did a border fortress and trade town become a decaying ancient city?"] " introduces the ancient city of Right Jade. Gaoliu City (present-day Yanggao) was once the seat of the warlord Lu Fang during the Two Han Dynasties, and the seat of government of the Eastern Han Dynasty, these four cities were larger than Pingcheng, and the circumference of DaijunCheng was even about three times that of Pingcheng, and it is difficult to imagine that an ordinary county town like Pingcheng would eventually stand out.
The eastern walls of the Daiwang City
A story in the Book of Wei gives us clues:
During the reign of Emperor Daowu, Chongchen and Bao were sentenced to death, and before their execution, he said to his brothers who had come to the others: "The north is barren, but it can live in the south, cultivate good land, widely carry out industries, and encourage each other to usurp their own cultivation." The water is today's Sangan River, flowing through the center of the Daibei region. He Bao was actually suggesting that his brothers were fleeing, and sure enough, they fled the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, since he was talking to the supervisor in front of him, it was naturally impossible to talk nonsense. It can be seen that in the eyes of the people of the time, the agricultural conditions in the area north of the Sanggan River should be inferior to that in the south.
The problem is that, as far as the entire Sangan River basin is concerned, the overall hydrothermal conditions are not far behind. With the exception of a few areas, the average annual temperature difference between the valleys on both sides of the Sanggan River is less than 1, and in some areas of the Sanggan River, precipitation and illumination even exceed those in Henan. Overall, the geographical environment of the north and south of the Sanggan River is not enough to cause an important difference in the degree of agricultural development.
The reason for this difference is the ethnic and economic distribution pattern in the core area of the Northern Wei Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Western Jin Dynasty, although the border counties were in ruins and a large number of Han people fled, the area south of the Sangan River still retained the county system and a certain number of Han population, and the agricultural foundation was relatively good. In the early days of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Zhaocheng Emperor ShiYiqian and the Daowu Emperor Tuoba Jue both planned to build capitals in this area, and Tuoba Jue was called the King of Wei, which was a ceremony held in Fanqi south of the Sangan River.
However, before and after Tuoba Jue determined the Kidian area, there were a series of supporting measures, one was to take Pingcheng as the capital, and the other was to move a large number of residents from all over the world into Daidi, including tuoba and the many nomadic tribes under its command, and then moved in, as well as a large number of livestock and wild animals they drove. Because there is still a certain degree of agricultural foundation south of the Sanggan River, the migrating Han people, Tuhe and other farming populations are resettled here; and the area north of the Sanggan River is open, the water and grass are abundant, and the Northern Wei Dynasty has built a vast number of gardens and pastures with Pingcheng as the center to meet the needs of the animal husbandry and hunting population, forming an animal husbandry and hunting economic zone, and most of the occupants in this area are "nationals" of the Tuoba Department, who live around Pingcheng to form the core area of Qidian, which is to ensure the combat effectiveness of the Chinese people. The security of the royal family is of great significance. This kind of economic division, bounded by the Sangan River, was another important reason why the Northern Wei Dynasty built its capital in the North.
Look at several important cities north of the Sangan River: Shanwu, Pingcheng and Gaoliu each guard a passage to the Inner Mongolian Plateau, and their status is very important, but in the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains were the core, and the transportation routes of bianjun were vertical; while in the Northern Wei, Daibei was the core, so Pingcheng's centering position advantage was highlighted.
Therefore, from a comprehensive point of view, the Northern Wei Dynasty chose the Sanggan River Basin, which is backed by the desert and overlooked the Central Plains, as a base area, and in the interior of the Sanggan River Basin, it chose Pingcheng, which is located in the middle of the animal husbandry and hunting economic zone, which is the result of the comprehensive action of its political, economic, cultural, military and traditional factors, and indeed belongs to the optimal choice. In the long years that followed, despite major changes in the ethnic, political and economic landscape, Datong was able to maintain its status as a regional central city, and this location advantage was obviously one of the reasons.
Source: NetEase News, Yungang Grottoes Official Micro, Shi Zhi Shanxi
Original title: Why did the Northern Wei Dynasty set the capital Pingcheng?