In the mid-70s of the 12th century, Temujin (Genghis Khan's original name) followed his father to other tribes to ask for his fiancée, but was stopped when passing through the Turkic tribe Hongjibu in the steppe of Eastern Mongolia.
The tribal leader De Xuechan looked at Temujin, who was only eight or nine years old, his eyes lit up, and said to Temujin's father:
"This son of yours has fire in his eyes and light in his face!"
At that time, Temujin's father, Er'er Jin Ye Speed, should not have been impressed, and he never imagined that this young son, who seemed ordinary to him, would later become the overlord of Mongolia.
After a half-century of power struggle, Temujin defeated his eldest half-brother and swept across Mongolia, reaching the peak of his power, but he was not satisfied.
In 1211, Temujin led the Mongol army to invade North China, and the iron cavalry was huge, opening the curtain of the Mongol War to destroy gold.
This war, later described in After the Mongol Conquest: Changes in the Local Social Order in North China from the 13th to the 17th Centuries, is described as follows:
"In Chinese history, northern peoples have traveled south many times, causing devastating damage, but none of them was as catastrophic as the Mongol conquest of northern China in the early 13th century. ...... The Mongol invasion led to the collapse of the old social order. ”
The war, which lasted more than two decades, wreaked havoc on northern China, with nearly half of the population lost, vast amounts of farmland destroyed, and entire social foundations falling apart.
After the Mongol conquest of North China, what changes took place in North China? How has society undergone? Today, let's go back to the 13th century and see what secrets lie behind that dusty history.
After the Mongol conquest, the monastic path entered the stage of history
When the Mongol iron horse broke through the rivers and mountains of the Jin Dynasty, the Sinicization rule of the Jin Dynasty was only 40 years later.
In the early days of the founding of the Jin Dynasty, Wanyan Ah Bone Da led the Jurchen generals to fight bravely and unstoppably, and quickly occupied a large area of the Outer Xing'an Ridge bordering Mongolia in the west, Qinhuai in the south, and the Outer Xing'an Ridge in the north, establishing a glorious Jin Dynasty ruling regime.
However, after the sword and gun were put into storage and the horse was released to Nanshan, the Jurchens, who were good at "palace fighting", did not have good experience in governing the country, and in the process of blind sinicization, they gradually shook the national foundation.
Before the Mongol invasion, Jin Taizu issued an edict after Yan Ah Bone Fighting:
Ruoke Zhongjing, obtained the books and books of etiquette and ceremonial battles, and sent them to Que first.
Zhongjing is another name for the ancient capital Luoyang. This means that after capturing Luoyang, the captured maps, documents, articles, classics and other reading materials such as ceremonial guards were presented to the emperor by water in batches.
Before unification, he decided to learn Han culture, and Jin Taizu's abacus hit a big and far future. But the Jurchens, who had to wear shoes before learning to walk, were not adapted to this rhythm.
On the road to the implementation of sinicization, the grandson of Yan Ah Bone beating, Finish Yan Liang, plays a crucial role.
In the early days of the stable reign of the Jin Dynasty, Wanyan Liang abolished the use of poetry and scripture for sub-subject examinations, directly followed the Han imperial examination system, and used the method of sub-subject examinations for talent selection, and it was held uniformly in the capital Yanjing.
In terms of official positions, all the original old official posts were abolished, the three-province and six-ministry system of the Song Dynasty was fully implemented, and a privy council was set up to check and balance power while firmly grasping power in the hands of the emperor.
At this time, in the Jin Dynasty, Confucian culture was prevalent, literati and scholars were superior, and generals and generals were selected by the imperial examination.
For a time, domestic literature was prevalent, with the prevalence of "everything is inferior, but reading is high", when Kim Sejong took the throne, a minister suggested that he abolish the imperial examination system and emphasize military force over literature, and he directly cursed:
Since ancient emperors, did they use literature? How can I be the first king!
The reason why I say this is that Jin Shizong once asked the imperial master Zhang Hao, who has not used Confucianism since ancient emperors? Zhang Hao said that only Qin Shi Huang. After Kim Sejong replied to the officials who persuaded him to emphasize military force and light civilization, no one dared to mention the abolition of the imperial examination.
The Sinicization of Chengye, the Sinicization of defeat, and the comprehensive sinicization of the Jin Dynasty seriously damaged the fundamental interests of the old hereditary bureaucracy and made it difficult for the originally nomadic Jurchens to adapt.
Sinicization ignited the fuse of internal struggle, and the blind implementation of the central Sinicization system intensified this struggle, with partisan fighting in the imperial court, local corruption and corruption, and social misery.
At this time, the Jin Dynasty urgently needed a change to change this situation, but the change had not yet arrived, but waited for the iron horse of Mongolian Genghis Khan.
After the Mongol conquest of the Jin Dynasty, it overthrew the elite lifestyle centered on the scholars, and the relationship between the state and the elite with the imperial examination as the core, and the monastic path entered the historical stage. The so-called "scholar" means "reader".
During the Mongol rule, the special skills of the non-scholarly people in northern China were reused, and this group became an important political and social elite, especially the military and mainly monastic religious figures, and Quanzhen religion flourished.
At the end of the Jin Dynasty, Confucian Yuanhaowen was still eager to enter the imperial examination system, but Mongolia's southward march completely shattered his dream.
The imperial examination system was abolished, and the social status of Quanzhen monks and Taoists soared, and the best way to realize their dream of becoming a scholar was to join the Quanzhen Sect.
Frustrated, Yuan Hao asked not only to look up to the heavens: whether the Mandate of Heaven was such that Quanzhen Sect and its Taoist female crown replaced Confucianism and scholars, to save countless living beings from violence, ignorance, and turmoil.
Of course, Yuanhao's question has not been answered, but today, 9 centuries later, we can see it in the "Monument of Liang Gong Xiaoxing".
The inscription records the deeds of a monk who was identified in later studies as a member of the ruling class, that is, held an official position.
The inscription of steles for monks is rare in previous historical dynasties, which precisely shows that the monks of the Yuan Dynasty had a superior political and social status, and also indirectly shows that after Meng Yuan ruled North China, it had a great influence on the selection of officials.
Professor Wang Jinping, author of "After the Mongol Conquest", also pointed out that the 1300 inscription "The Monument of Liang Gong Xiaoxing" has unprecedentedly respected the concept of Buddhism and monks.
Before the Mongol conquest, the Confucian elite had a major advantage in both northern and southern societies, but the Mongol invasion greatly disrupted this order, especially in northern China, where the size and activity of the Shi groups were almost negligible.
At the same time, the African elite group rose strongly during the Mongol rule era and maintained a strong presence and influence in northern society, and the social mechanisms based on religion, including temples of local beliefs and temples that once flourished, formed a new social formation in northern China.
After the Mongol conquest, the "root foot" operation flourished
The rise of monastic religion during Mongol rule soon intensified new social contradictions, and the monk selection system soon became a replica of the imperial examination system, seriously hindering the interests of the ruling clan.
In order to alleviate this contradiction and give higher political status to the monks who had many relationships with the Mongol princes, the "root-foot" culture began to prevail.
"Rootfoot" means family background, and "rootfoot" is like what we call the second and third generations.
Rootfoot culture says that if a person has several generations of roots and feet with a Mongol prince, his political status and the possibility of obtaining official positions are higher than others.
In the Yuan Dynasty decree document "Yuan Dianzhang", it was recorded as follows:
Zhu Zhi Shi, the deceased official and the descendants of the deceased officials sued, fitting the father's ancestors, the roots and feet, the official position, and the reasons for the respective years, months, and days of the departure, the service, and the death,......, there is no fraud in between, and the guarantee is applied to the superior in charge. When the officials interrogated again, the test was the same.
The meaning is that when entering the army, the official resume of the father's ancestors needs to be provided, and the family background needs to be compiled into a book and submitted to the regulatory department and become a credential for the size of the official rank.
The root-foot culture is not a product of the Mongol conquest, as early as during the Mongol chaos, there was already a germination, and its four-class system within Mongolia is the ancestor of the root-foot.
The four-class system is divided into four surnames: "Nayan", "Nakeer", "Hara" and "Xiao Zhengle", of which 孛斡樂 means in Chinese - a tool that can speak. Na Yan, Na Ke'er, and even Hara can dispose of their own guilt at will, including gratuitous destruction and killing.
And this culture still had a profound impact in the Yuan Dynasty.
Soon after the unification of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan divided the national population into four classes according to the ethnic composition, namely the Mongols, the Semu people, the Han people, and the Nan people, and the hierarchy between the classes was strict, and the Mongols and the Semu people were high and belonged to the ruling class.
Both the root culture and the population hierarchy further consolidated the stability of northern China, and the people were keen to seek refuge from the Mongol princes in order to obtain higher political status, and had long forgotten the fact of being invaded.
As in an ancient parable:
A group of robbers robbed a group of passing merchants, and the leader of the robbers asked the merchants to line up to pay money, the first one to pay one or two pieces of silver, the second to pay two taels of silver, and so on. As a result, the merchants all rushed to line up to pay the money, completely forgetting to resist.
The Buddhist temples and Taoist temples brought by the Mongol conquest also strife under the influence of the Genjiao culture, in which Buddhist monks forced Taoist priests to convert and removed all Taoist temple names, and called them Buddhist temples.
Under the oppression, a Taoist priest fled to Dadu to pray for the support of the Quanzhen Sect, and when the Mongol prince heard this, he waved his pen and played the emperor's request for the next holy decree to protect the Quanzhen Taoist.
This incident was recorded in the "Xingguo Temple Stele" unearthed later:
"Stay abiding in good hands. The emperor's holy decree, the Gaotang king's decree, the immortals wish for the extension of the holy life, and the Taishang gods will also bless the Yuan Kingdom in the sky. ”
Patronage means that the emperor will give protection. This means that the emperor has decreed that the Quanzhen Sect has always been protected in order to help in times of need. In addition, the emperor and the king of the Gaotang Dynasty begged the gods in the heavens to bless the fortune of the Yuan Kingdom.
In fact, many inscriptions in the Yuan Dynasty show that at that time, regardless of the size of the Buddhist temple, they would look for opportunities to obtain the support of the princes, and the princes also actively protected the rights and interests of the temple, and even the roots of every monk and Taoist priest would affect and even determine the fate of the temple.
The root-foot culture, which entered northern China from Mongolia and continued to grow under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, is also clearly visible today.
In today's North China, especially in the Shanxi generation, the predecessor of the Genzu culture is the princely clan formed by the Genzu culture, and the source of the kneeling worship in Shandong is also closely related to the Genjiao culture.
After the Mongol conquest, women's rights rose
In Chinese history, the status of women has not remained static, from slash and burn to the unification of the Qin Dynasty, and then to the late Yuan and Ming and Qing dynasties, women's social status has fluctuated like a roller coaster.
In the primitive matrilineal clan society, people only knew their mothers, not their fathers, women controlled the means of production and dominated the tribe, their social status was extremely high, and there was a flourishing goddess worship.
The female nude statues unearthed at the Hongshan Cultural Site confirm that the worship of female gods was prevalent in the Neolithic period on the mainland, grand ceremonies were held to worship female gods, and there was a social life dominated by women.
However, with the progress and development of the means of production, the state class began to emerge, from the patrilineal stereotype to the establishment of patriarchy, and the concept of male superiority and female inferiority was gradually established.
Since then, although the recognition of women's status varies from dynasty to dynasty, women's social status is generally low, and they are even completely reduced to men's vassals, unable to enjoy independent property rights and inheritance rights.
During the Jinmeng War, under the influence of Confucian culture, the Jin Dynasty encouraged abandoned or widowed women to remain widows or even commit suicide in order to maintain their chastity with men, and women had no social status and became lambs to be slaughtered.
After the Mongol conquest, Quanzhen Christianity flourished and expanded to recruit believers, attracting a large influx of social groups in northern China, especially women.
Quanzhen not only absorbs a large number of women, but also encourages them to actively participate in social activities and makes great contributions to local reconstruction.
Since then, women's social status has been further improved, they have been encouraged to go out of the family to survive on their own, and they are allowed to participate in social production, have the right to do business, medical treatment, etc., and have independent property rights even after marriage.
After the Mongol conquest, the female group was further divided, and daughters, wives, daughters-in-law, mothers, mothers-in-law, and concubines were treated differently, but during this period, women enjoyed greater control over the right to inherit property.
A daughter of a childless family can inherit the family business, and even if she marries, the daughter can inherit the property of her mother's family according to law, and in a family with no family, the married daughter can receive one-half of the property.
In terms of marriage, women are more free to remarry, no longer completely allowed to break the marriage contract by men's leave, women also have the right to choose divorce, and their autonomy in marriage is further strengthened.
In Chinese history, the status of women has experienced three climax - the Qin and Han periods, the Sui and Tang periods, and the Song and Yuan periods, and in the Yuan Dynasty after the Mongol conquest, from the families of scholars to the families of ordinary people, women had high autonomy and right to speak, and many historians believe that the social status of women in the Yuan Dynasty reached an unprecedented height.
After the Mongol conquest, population migration was frequent
In China's history, because of wars and natural disasters, there have been many migrations. According to the mainstream theory, there have been six large-scale waves of population migration from ancient to modern Chinese history.
The first time: from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties, the nomads of the north moved into the interior;
The second time, during the Anshi Rebellion in the 8th century AD, a large number of northern residents went south to escape the war;
The third time, from the end of the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of people moved to the south of the Jiang'an River;
the fourth time, the Great Migration of Shanxi in the early Ming Dynasty;
For the fifth time, Huguang filled Sichuan, "filling in the prosperous era of Kangqian";
The sixth time, break into the Guandong, take the west exit, and go down to Nanyang.
After the Mongol conquest of North China, the most closely related population migration was the fourth great migration from Shanxi in the early Ming Dynasty.
During the Jinmeng War, the killings and the Han joining Mongolia led the population of the Song Dynasty to plummet from more than 100 million to less than 60 million in just half a century.
After the Mongol conquest, the Mongols migrated skilled craftsmen to other regions to work for the government, thus expanding the scale of Han migration and drastically reducing the population density of northern China.
In the 60s of the 12th century, the Mongols tightened their control over Tubo from Dali, because of Yunnan's important strategic location, a large number of Mongols and captured Han people entered Yunnan.
In 1368, when the Yuan Dynasty was defeated, Emperor Yuanshun fled north, bringing only more than 200,000 people back to Mongolia, and during the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols went south in large numbers, and after more than a hundred years of breeding, the population was conservatively estimated to be more than one million.
When Mongolia went south, the Mongols who followed with them may never have imagined that it would be the last time he would see his hometown, and he would never step into the steppe again.
Because of the continuous war and killing, the people in northern China have gone south to escape the war, and the fertile land in the north has once again dropped sharply.
Northern China's economy is in decline, while Jiangnan is overcrowded, such as Yangzhou, once the most prosperous city on the north bank of the Yangtze River, with only 18 families left when Zhu Yuanzhang's troops took it.
To this end, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang launched a large-scale population migration.
According to the "Concise History of Chinese Migration", 7 million migrants migrated from the Yangtze River basin, 4.9 million from northern China, and 1.5 million in the northwestern, northeastern, and southwestern frontiers, totaling 13.4 million, accounting for almost 20% of the country's total population at that time.
Mongolia went south, bringing with it the unique culture of nomads, and in the process of sinicization, the two cultures continued to merge to create more colorful social activities.
After the Mongol conquest, the population migrated frequently, and in the process of the migration of the people, it also accelerated the spread of culture, ideas and commerce, and made great contributions to "books with text, cars on the same track".
Epilogue:
After the Mongol conquest, it brought war and chaos to North China, but also brought new life, and the collapse of the old social order completed the reconstruction and rise of the new social form.
After the Mongol conquest, the rise of monks and Buddhist monasteries, the prevalence of root-foot culture, the rise of women, and the migration of people took turns in this land, and earth-shaking changes took place in North China and even the entire Central Plains.
The unique culture introduced from Mongolia to the Central Plains has gradually become a part of traditional Chinese culture after hundreds of years of inheritance and evolution, with a long history and enduring.
Perhaps more than 850 years ago, De Xuechan, the leader of the Hongji tribe of the Turkic tribe, never imagined that a joke about wanting to recruit Temujin as his daughter's colt turned out to be true, and Temujin's fire of domination and the light of the world left a strong mark in the history of China and even the world.
-END-
Author: Xiaoyu
Editor: Qian Jongsu
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