Luoyang, is the center of the geographical location of ancient China, this is both the advantage and its disadvantage, who occupies Luoyang can control the whole country, then who loses Luoyang will lose the whole country, so there is such a sentence "those who win the Central Plains will win the world." Because of this, Luoyang has always been the target of contention between the forces of the East and the West, and every time the dynasty changes Luoyang is the main battlefield, and every time it is subject to military burning, so the ancient city of Luoyang is built and destroyed, destroyed, built and destroyed, which leaves many ruins of the capital city.
Luoyang Basin
Before the Tang Dynasty, the main political forces on the mainland were the struggle between the East and the West, the Western forces were the northwest loess plateau forces represented by the Guanzhong Plain, and the eastern forces were the North China Plain forces represented by Shandong, Hebei Province. The Central Plains forces represented by Luoyang are precisely sandwiched between the two major forces, and they are the object of contention between the two major forces in the east and the west. At that time, the Jiangnan forces did not have the strength to compete with the northern forces.
The Heluo Basin, where Luoyang is located, is the edge of the second ladder of the mainland, running through the Taihang Mountains in northern China and the Funiu Mountains in the Remnants of the Qinling Mountains, forming a Chi Chi Pass here, and the Heluo Basin is at the bottom of the Tu Di Pass. At the eastern mouth of the Heluo Basin, there are the Songshan Mountains, and the north is the Yellow River and the Yaoshan Mountains, although it is not very high or very dangerous, but it is also a barrier for Luoyang to block the eastern forces.
Under such geographical conditions, the guanzhong forces must occupy Luoyang when they go east, while the eastern forces must also occupy Luoyang when they move west, and whoever occupies Luoyang first occupies the absolute advantage, and whoever can suppress the other side and then control the whole country.
Luoyang's location in the country
Xia and Shang were the two political forces in the east and the west, and Xia Yu occupied the Heluo Basin, so the Xia tribal alliance became the largest political force, and then established the Xia Dynasty and controlled the whole country. The Shang were an eastern tribal state that began to challenge the Xia Dynasty after the rise of the East, and finally occupied the Heluo Basin and destroyed the Xia Dynasty. After the shang tang dynasty was destroyed, the Western Tang Dynasty was established in Luoyang Yanshi, which flourished for two hundred years. Later, it began to gradually move the capital east to the north, and once it was moved, it declined once.
Xia Shang confrontation diagram
By the time Pan Geng moved the capital to Yin Shang, the Shang Dynasty had gradually lost control of the Heluo Basin and retreated to the east, leaving room for the rise of the Zhou people. The Zhou people, through three generations of Nu scissor merchants, had already occupied Guanzhong by the time of King Huan's father, Emperor Yi, and King Wen of Zhou moved the capital to Yufeng, and then went east to occupy the Heluo Basin. It was precisely because of this that King Wu of Zhou was able to conduct military exercises in the Mengjin Alliance with eight hundred princes and make adequate preparations for the annihilation of the Shang. Finally, based on the Heluo Basin, Mengjin crossed the Yellow River and defeated the army of the King of Shang at Makino in one fell swoop, destroying the Shang Dynasty. Imagine if the Shang Dynasty had been in Luoyang for a long time, would it still allow the Zhou people to rise rapidly in Guanzhong?
Shang Zhou to Qi schematic diagram
After King Wu of Zhou destroyed the Shang, he decided to establish a new capital in Luoyang, and after King Wu's death, the Duke of Zhou was responsible for implementing the construction, and during the Rebellion of the Three Prisons, the Duke of Zhou used The Chengzhou of Luoyang as the base to quell the rebellion in the east, which was essentially the battle of the Zhou Dynasty to unify the world. After the success of the counter-rebellion, the Duke of Zhou welcomed King Cheng of Zhou to the new capital of Luoyang, accepted the courtesy of the princes, and enfeoffed more than seventy princes on a large scale, and later created the rule of Chengkang in Luo, laying the foundation of the Zhou Dynasty for 800 years. The Zhou Dynasty placed the Eighth Division in Luoyang and controlled the East, which was the basis for its prosperity.
King You of Zhou lost power and was killed by Marquis Shen in collusion with Xi Rong to enter HoJing, and Guanzhong was robbed and Zong Zhou perished. King Ping of Zhou was forced to move east to Luoyang, although the Zhou royal family declined, and the princes did not listen, but in Luoyang it continued for five hundred years, the world still belonged to Zhou, and the princes of Tianzi Weiyi did not dare to arbitrarily trespass.
The Qin people rose in Guanzhong and fought against the forces of the Six Kingdoms in the East, and the Qin state held the Hangu Pass, and Luoyang became the forefront of the confrontation. When Qin soldiers went out of Hangu to Luoyang, the six eastern kingdoms suffered, so the six eastern kingdoms desperately blocked the qin state in The Hangu Pass. By the time of King Zhaoxiang of Qin, eastern Zhou had been destroyed and Luoyang had been taken, the situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse, and it was only a matter of time before the six kingdoms were unified.
Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms
Qin Shi Huang's destruction of the Six Kingdoms began with Korea, and the destruction of Korea began with the dispatch of troops from Luoyang, and then in one fell swoop Han Wei divided the Six Kingdoms and finally destroyed them one by one. Although there were many reasons such as tyranny after the fall of the Qin state, it was also a big mistake not to establish a second political center in Luoyang. If Qin Shi Huang could set up the Eighth Qin Division in Luoyang, send heavy ministers to sit in Luoyang, and exercise military and political affairs independently, as the Zhou Dynasty did, then it would be as easy as the Zhou Gongdong Crusade to quell the revolt of the nobles of the Six Kingdoms in the Kwantung Region.
After Xiang Yu divided the world, he neither guarded Guanzhong nor Luoyang, and actually ran back to his hometown of Pengcheng in Jiangsu to become the king of Western Chu. As a result, Liu Bang destroyed the Three Qins in one battle, and then went east to take Luoyang, where he mourned the King of Chuhuai, and led the princes of the world to fight against Xiang Yu. As a result, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu fought in Xingyang for three years, and Xiang Yu, the king of Chu, was dragged to death by Liu Bang, who could not fight. During the xingyang confrontation, Liu Bang used Luoyang as a gas station in the city, and from time to time he returned to Luoyang to stay and gather strength to fight again.
Chu-Han War
After the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, although the world was also divided, it could only be sealed to the east of Luoyang, and the "Sanhe County" headed by Luoyang was never sealed, and the Sanhe County was placed under the jurisdiction of the Division of the Land of Gyeonggi, and Liu Bangdong often lived in Luoyang to quell the rebellion of the princes. Later, when the Han Jing Emperor quelled the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, he took Luoyang as the forward command, sent The Marquis dou infant of Wei to sit in command, and dispatched various large armies in the center to keep Liu Yi's rebels out of Luoyang and eventually destroy them. At this time, if Luoyang is lost, the Han Dynasty is also in danger.
Early Western Han Dynasty
Wang Mang's new dynasty was destroyed by two rebel armies, Lulin and Chimei, one in Nanyang and one in Shandong. The Green Forest Army soon occupied Luoyang, while the Chimei Army entered Guanzhong and finally jointly destroyed Wang Mang.
Later, the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu rose in Hebei, in essence, he represented the political forces of the East, and after occupying Luoyang, he annihilated the separatist forces one by one, and finally unified the world. The demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty was that Dong Zhuo forced emperor Xian of Han to abandon Luoyang, and then the eastern herds began to chase deer, and the world was in chaos. If Dong Zhuo had stubbornly defended Luoyang, Yuan Shao's Eastern Coalition army might not have been able to capture Luoyang, and the situation would not have taken a sharp turn. Because from the rear point of view, Yuan Shao's Eastern Coalition Army is a group of selfish rabble-rousers, there is not much combat effectiveness at all, if Dong Zhuo chooses Luoyang, Yuan Shao's coalition army will not be able to attack for a long time, there will be internal contradictions, and then it is not difficult to break through one by one.
By the time of Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, and Northern Qi, Luoyang was the focus of contention between the two sides, and several major battles were in Luoyang. Eastern Wei did not lose Luoyang, Eastern Wei did not perish, and Northern Qi lost Luoyang, then it was lost and destroyed by Northern Zhou.
Northern Zhou and Northern Qi
During the Sui Dynasty, the struggle between the political forces in the East and the West was still fierce, and the foundation of the Sui was the Guanlong clique, but there was always a rebellious political force in Shandong, Hebei, which was also a reason why Yang Guang wanted to move the capital. However, the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang was a typical gongzi brother, who was very happy and successful, and the situation was full of vigor when the situation was smooth, but when the situation was bad, it was in a slump. The Sui Wei peasant revolt was completely controllable at the beginning, the Wagang army had not yet taken shape, and was defeated by Zhang Xutuo, and the Shandong Wang Bo uprising did not turn over any waves, as long as the Sui Emperor took half of the determination to fight Goguryeo, sat in Luoyang, and actively organized the army to suppress it, he could extinguish the peasant revolt in the beginning. As a result, Yang Guang was frightened by the peasant uprising and abandoned Luoyang and ran to Jiangdu, making the situation unmanageable.
The same was true of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin and Wang Shichong's Battle of Yaoshan was the most difficult battle for the Tang Dynasty to unify the country, and the capture of Luoyang could be passed on, and it was impossible to win the full plate and lose. The fate of the Tang Dynasty and the Han Dynasty was very similar, luoyang was its second political center, so from Tang Gaozu began to implement the two capital system, the eastern capital, pushing the national strength to a climax. Until the kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, the emperors of the Tang Dynasty lived back and forth between Chang'an and Luoyang as usual. In the Tianbao period, Tang Xuanzong was tired, stopped running, and hugged Yang Guifei to Huaqingchi to enjoy it, which led to the Anshi rebellion. After the Anshi Rebellion, the imperial court soon lost Luoyang, and as a result, Chang'an was quickly breached.
Anshi Rebellion
After the Anshi Rebellion, the rise of the Hebei fanzhen frequently challenged the central government of the imperial court, the Tang Dynasty no longer had time to concentrate its forces on resisting Tubo and the rise of Hui, infighting became the focus, Guanzhong was invaded by Tubo several times, the emperor began nine escapes, and the country gradually declined. In the end, as in the Tang Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty, the peasant revolts began in Shandong, and the last to invade Chang'an was the Shandong people, one was Fan Chong's Chimei Army, and the other was Huang Chao's rebel army.
After the Song Dynasty, the country's economic center shifted eastward to south, the political power in the south was increasing, the confrontation between the north and the south became the mainstream, the two Gemini capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang quickly withdrew from the stage of the political center, and Beijing and Nanjing began to become the political centers of the north and the south.
Therefore, although Luoyang occupies the world and has a very good geographical location, it is not as good as Chang'an with its back to the northwest and defended it, in peacetime Luoyang can reach all directions and become the center of political economy, but when the war is chaotic, it becomes the frontier of the struggle between the East and the West, and the war is frequent, Luoyang City was burned seven times in history, which left the ruins of the five capitals.