In China's territory, the Western Regions have always been a mysterious place.
During the Western Han Dynasty, the emperor set up the capital protection palace here, and since then, this area of one million square kilometers of the Western Regions, including Gansu, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places, began to become Chinese territory, with the great chaos in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Western Regions once broke away from the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Dynasty and fell into a situation of competing for power.
A few years later, a man completely conquered this place and established a country here, this man, named Lü Guang, established a country called "Later Liang".
Lü Guang, the name sounds like a Han people, but in fact he is a Di ethnic group. When we talked about the Sixteen Kingdoms, we mentioned that the first country in the Sixteen Kingdoms, Cheng Han, was established by Li Xiong, a member of the Di ethnic group! The most famous in the Di tribe is Fu Jian, who established a powerful Former Qin Dynasty, at that time, Former Qin, there was an emperor Fu Jian like the God of War, that was really seeing God kill God, seeing Buddha killing Buddha, beating the surrounding countries to lose their armor and armor, bowing down, just among those brave and good generals under Fu Jian, there was a "young hero" named Lv Guang!
Lü Guang is a famous family, he has a very famous ancestor, that is, the empress of the Han ancestor Liu Bang, Lü He, after the death of Lü He, the Lü family was retaliated against and slaughtered, Lü Guang's ancestor Lü Wen fled in the chaos, all the way to Luoyang, that is, today's Gansu Tianshui generation, incognito, intermarried with the Di people, and gradually became a large local family, Lü Guang's father was named Lü Polou, was the former Qin emperor Fu Jian ascended the throne, so he was named a lieutenant, and the Lü family was more famous.
Lu Guang has practiced a good martial art since he was a child, and his appearance is very characteristic, and he has two pupils in his eyes! This phenomenon has a noun called "heavy pupil". In Chinese history, there are several famous people who are "heavy pupils", such as Shun in the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, Zhong'er the Duke of Jin Wen in the Spring and Autumn Period, Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and Lü Guang. Ancient people believed that those with "heavy pupils" were generally "great people", but modern medicine has studied that this is actually a symptom of early cataracts.
Lü Guang is a person who practices martial arts, with a resolute personality, and is not in the mood of anger. Someone recommended him to Fu Jian, and when he arrived on the battlefield, Lü Guang was like a fish in water, made a lot of battle merits, became more and more famous, and Fu Jian also valued him more and more, and before the Battle of Shuishui, he had become a general of the Xiao Cavalry. Under the auspices of Fu Jian, Former Qin successively destroyed the regimes of Former Yan, Daiguo, Qiu Chi, and Former Liang, unifying the northern region, and the next target of the strategy was the "big fat" Western Regions region!
In 383, Fu Jian made Lü Guang commander and led 100,000 men to conquer the Western Regions. There are more than 30 countries in the Western Regions, large and small, of which the largest "head snake" is called the Guzi Kingdom, Lv Guang believes that the key to pacifying the Western Regions lies in conquering the Guzi, as long as it is crippled or even eliminated, other countries will naturally be convinced! Lu Gang did what he said, after some hard work, defeated the Guzi country, other countries look at it, so powerful? Well, we all surrendered.
In March 385, Lü Guang triumphantly walked back with the surrender of more than 30 countries, preparing to return to the emperor. After walking for more than half a year, I came to Liangzhou, at this time, bad news came from heaven, the country was over, and the emperor died!
It turned out that when Lü Guang conquered the Western Regions, Fu Jian fought a famous battle of Shuishui, suffered a crushing defeat, the country was over, and Fu Jian was also killed by the former general and Later Qin emperor Yao Yuan, not only that, at this time, Liangzhou assassin Liang Xi, not only did not save the emperor, but wanted to be independent! I don't plan to let Lu Guang enter the Kanto.
Lu Guangqi is broken, what kind of person are you?! Liang Xi was naturally not his opponent, and without a few strokes, he was destroyed by Lu Gang's group. After Lü Guang occupied Liangzhou, he wanted to continue to go east to help the country, but everyone persuaded him that now Guanzhong is chaotic, and several countries such as Later Qin, Western Yan, and Later Yan are very strong, so is it not for nothing to go back? It is better to run Liangzhou and the Western Regions area first, and it is not too late to go east after the strength is strong enough.
Lu Guang thought about it again and again, and felt that everyone's suggestion was very reasonable, so he decided to suspend the eastward advance. In 386, Lü Guang ordered all the Former Qin generals to mourn Fu Jian together, and then proclaimed himself a general, Liangzhou Mu, and the Duke of Jiuquan, and later changed his name to emperor, and established a state called Hou Liang.
The entire Western Regions still listened to Lü Guang's words at that time, because they had just been beaten up not long ago, so there was no room for rebuttal, so Houliang in its heyday, occupying today's western Gansu, most of Xinjiang, northern Qinghai and Ningxia, covering an area of more than 2.1 million square kilometers, is also a relatively large country.
Unfortunately, Lu Guang has been fighting wars all his life, and the days of stability have not passed for a few days. Three years after becoming emperor, in 399, Lü Guang fell ill with a serious illness, and he felt that he might not live long and did not have so much energy to deal with imperial politics, so he made a prudent decision: pass the throne to the crown prince Lü Shao, and become "emperor Taishang" himself.
The inventor of "Taishang Huang" is Qin Shi Huang, when he unified the country, he first invented the word "emperor", felt that it was not too enjoyable, and posthumously recognized his father Zhuang Xiang Wang as "Taishang Emperor", by the time Liu Bang became emperor, his father Liu Taigong was still alive, a minister suggested that Liu Taigong be named "Taishang Emperor", Liu Bang followed his advice, just like that, Liu Taigong became the first person to be honored as Taishang Huang when he was alive, but Liu Taigong had no power, it was a very simple "emperor's father".
When the emperor is alive, he is generally reluctant to be the emperor, how cool is it to be the emperor, why should he be a mascot? But Lu Guang thought about it, he felt that his son Lu Shao's character was very weak, so he passed the throne in advance, helped the horse, and sent him a ride. He took the initiative to pass on the throne while he was alive, and also participated in the imperial government, that is to say, he was the first true emperor in Chinese history, who still had the power to pass on the power and presided over the imperial government.
Lü Guang, the emperor, died within a few days. Lu Shao really had a weak personality, and he couldn't get a few of his brothers and brothers at all, everyone called themselves kings, and each of them did things on their own territory, and within a few days, Lu Guang used his life's hard work to unify the Western Regions, and soon fell apart. The country has taken a turn for the worse. Under these circumstances, separatist forces within the territory sprang up one after another, and regimes such as Northern Liang, Western Liang, and Southern Liang appeared.
If you are not united, then other countries will have to fight your idea, in 403, the emperor of Later Liang at that time was called Lü Long, he was too miserable, he was attacked back and forth by several countries of Northern Liang, Western Liang, Southern Liang, and Later Qin, and was beaten in turn, and finally, he could only surrender to the relatively strong Later Qin.
At this point, the flourishing Northern Liang perished, and it only lasted for 17 years. According to research, most of the Di people have integrated into the Han nationality, some have gone to Tibet, integrated with the Tibetans, and some have gone to Myanmar, developing into the largest ethnic minority in Myanmar today - the Karen people.
And the story of the Sixteen Kingdoms continues to fight.