In 221 BC, for the first time on the Chinese territory, a unified centralized dynasty, the Great Qin Empire, appeared, and since then, the multi-ethnic regime with the Han as the main body has not only always existed, but also unified the territory has become wider and wider, and finally condensed into the current 9.6 million square kilometers of territory, behind which is the arduous efforts of countless people. Today we will discuss which dynasties contributed the most to China's territory.
1. Qin Dynasty
Although the Qin Dynasty only lasted for two generations and 14 years of national rule, under the pioneering of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the ages, he attacked the Xiongnu in the north, conquered the hundred yue in the south, built the Great Wall to ward off foreign enemies, and dug the Lingqu to open the water system, laying the basic plate of China's 2,000-year-old feudal dynasty territory.
The Qin Dynasty's territorial contributions were mainly twofold:
First, Meng Tian recaptured the Loop.
The Hetao area was the traditional grazing land of the Xiongnu before the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. After Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, he ordered the general Meng Tian to lead an army of 100,000 to drive the Xiongnu out of the Hetao and migrate the people of the Central Plains to the border here, and the Later Qin Dynasty set up two counties here, Yunzhong and Jiuyuan, and the Hetao area entered the Central Plains Dynasty for the first time.
The second is to pacify the hundred yue.
Baiyue refers to the indigenous peoples of the southeast coast and Lingnan region of ancient China. According to ethnic division, Baiyue can be divided into six parts: Yuyue, Eastern Vietnam, Minyue, South Vietnam, Western Ou, and Luoyue. Bounded by geography, Baiyue can be divided into three parts, one is the Yue people where the country of Yue is located, that is, Yu Yue; the second is the Yue people who were active in the hills of Wuyi Mountain, concentrated in the southern part of present-day Zhejiang and the whole province of Fujian, called Eastern Vietnam; The third is the Vietnamese people active in Lingnan, mainly in today's Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, including part of northern Vietnam, called South Vietnam.
During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, South Vietnam and Eastern Vietnam had little contact with the Central Plains. After the Warring States period, Wu rebelled, and the political influence of the Chu state began to reach Hunan and Jiangxi. Although Wu Qi has the saying of "Nanping Hundred Yue", it is certain that the political influence of the Chu state has not yet crossed the South Ridge.
In other words, Nanyue, Western Ou, and Luo Yue in the Hundred Yue did not belong to the Central Plains Dynasty before Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms. The process of unifying the six kingdoms by Qin Shi Huang also illustrates this point, and in the twenty-sixth year of the first emperor, the Qin Dynasty gathered an army of 500,000 people, divided into five routes, and went south together, wanting to die in a battle.
The direction of the Qin army's attack was: the first and second combined attack on Western Ou, the third and fourth combined attack on South Vietnam, and the fifth way directly to Minyue. The fifth march went smoothly without encountering many difficulties, and after capturing Minyue, Qin set up Minzhong County here. However, the battles in South Vietnam and Xi Ou were difficult. The Western Ou and South Vietnamese forces, under the fierce attack of the Qin army, had to withdraw from the center and retreat into the mountainous jungle on both sides. However, relying on the favorable terrain, they carried out a stubborn resistance to the Qin army in the form of primitive guerrilla warfare, sparrow warfare, and disturbance warfare, so that the Qin army could not be disarmed for three years.
In the 28th year of the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang began to build the famous Lingqu in order to transport grain and grass to the Qin army that conquered Baiyue, and five years later, the Lingqu was built, and Baiyue Naiping. Qin Shi Huang set up three counties in Guilin, Xiangjun and Nanhai, and immigrated to Shibian, and the south of Nanling ended up in the territory of the Central Plains.
So far, the territory of the Qin Dynasty stretched from Liaodong in the east, the plateau in the west, Lingnan in the south, and Yin Mountain in the north, covering an area of 3.4 million square kilometers.
2. Han Dynasty
Since ancient times, Chinese dynasties have had the saying of strong Han and Tang dynasties, and the strength of the Han Dynasty lies in the fact that it issued the issue of "Although those who violate my strong Han will be condemned from afar!" The strongest voice of the era such as "wherever the sun and the moon shine and the rivers go, they are all Han soil", lies in opening up the Silk Road, attacking the Xiongnu in the north, destroying and expanding the land, creating the "rule of cultural scenery", and achieving the "prosperous era of Han Wu"; It annexed Korea in the east, Vietnam in the south, and the Western Regions into China's territory, making it the most advanced and powerful empire in the world at that time.
The Han Dynasty's territorial contributions were mainly twofold:
First, Huo Qubing took back the Hexi corridor.
In the early Western Han Dynasty, the Hexi Corridor was a nomadic place for the Xiongnu, stretching from Wusheng Ridge in the east, Yumen Pass in the west, and between the Qilian Mountains and the North Mountains in the north and south, with a length of 1,000 kilometers and shaped like a corridor.
The Hexi Corridor has been a battleground for the Central Plains Dynasty since ancient times: the Hexi Corridor must be taken to the Western Regions, and Zhang Qian's first envoy to the Western Regions was intercepted by the Xiongnu here and placed under house arrest for 10 years. The "Silk Road" passed through here during the Han and Tang dynasties, and it is now also the main transportation route to Xinjiang Chinese mainland.
Therefore, in 121 BC, Emperor Wudi of Han sent the hussar general Huo Qubing to fight twice against the Hexi Corridor, the first time fighting the Xiongnu at the foot of Gaolan Mountain, annihilating 10,000 enemies and killing the Xiongnu King Luhou and King Zhelan ; The second fierce battle with the Xiongnu in the foothills of the Qilian Mountains, annihilated 30,000 enemies, captured 5 Xiongnu kings, and surrendered with the Xiongnu Hun Evil King and Hutu King. After the war, the Han Dynasty set up four counties in Wuwei, Jiuquan, Zhangye and Dunhuang, and the Hexi Corridor became the territory of the Han Dynasty for the first time.
The second is to include the Western Regions in the territory.
The Western Regions have always been the second battlefield of the Han and Hungarian Dynasties, and before Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, there were many small countries in the Western Regions, which had always been controlled and enslaved by the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu set up servants and servants here to govern the countries of the Western Regions.
After Zhang Qiantong to the Western Regions, Emperor Wu defeated the Xiongnu and destroyed Dawan, the prestige of the Great Han began to shake in the Western Regions, in order to divide the Turkic forces, Han envoys traveled to and from the Western Regions endlessly, and ploughed canals here, and the Han and Hungarian then formed a tug-of-war in the Western Regions.
Subsequently, the Han Dynasty spent more than 20 years pacifying the Western Regions: when Emperor Han Zhao sent Fu Jiezi to behead King Loulan, the influence of the Han Dynasty on the Western Regions was strengthened. In the first year of Emperor Xuan's reign, he sent 10,000 soldiers from the Western Regions and 1,500 Han soldiers from Tuntian to attack the Che Division and break it, although the Xiongnu sent troops to resist, but did not dare to fight. Soon, King Hu Tu of Shache killed the Han envoy, and Feng Fengshi, who was sending an envoy to Dawan, sent more than 15,000 troops from the Western Regions to capture the capital of Shache and teleport the first rank of Hu Tu to Chang'an. In the second year of Emperor Xuan of Han, the Xiongnu led tens of thousands of people to surrender to the Han, in the same year, Zheng Ji broke the chariot division, descended the sun and chased the king, and the prestige shook the Western Regions, and Emperor Xuan worshiped him as the protector of the Western Regions, and Zheng Ji set up a shogunate in the center of the Western Regions, built a fortress, and ruled the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
Since then, all the countries of the Western Regions have been included in the Han Dynasty, and the vast land and majestic land north and south of the Tianshan Mountains have finally belonged to the territory of China and the territory of China. Han Wu's wish, Han Xuan realized.
III. Tang Dynasty
The prosperity of the Tang Dynasty lies in a series of cultural rule: the rule of Zhenguan, the rule of Yonghui, the prosperity of Kaiyuan, the rule of Yuan and Zhongxing, the rule of Huichang Zhongxing and the rule of Dazhong, and the rule of the world is unparalleled; In the prosperity of martial arts second only to the Han Dynasty, Li Shimin was revered by Siyi as the Heavenly Khan, destroyed the Turks, according to Annan, all countries came to the dynasty; In the prosperity of culture, the development of poetry beyond any previous era, cultural influence to 1000 years later, today, the Chinese character "Tang" can also represent China, such as Tang costume, Tang people, Chinatown.
The Tang Dynasty's contribution to the territory was mainly to suppress Goguryeo and reclaim the northeast.
Northeast China, known as Yingzhou, Guandong, Guanwai, and Manchuria in ancient times, is the collective name of the territory of northeast China. In the pre-Qin period, the northeast was already recorded in the classics as a region, "The northeast is known as Youzhou, and its town is known as the medical witch." ”
"Shangshu Yugong" records that after Yuzhishui set up "Kyushu", Shun analyzed "Kyushu" as "twelve prefectures", of which the northeast of Jizhou was Youzhou, that is, west of present-day Beizhen in Liaoning, referred to as Liaoxi; The "northeast" of Qingzhou was divided into Yingzhou, that is, east of present-day Beizhen, called Liaodong.
In other words, the northeast before the pre-Qin period was as far as the eastern and western Liaoning generations. For example, during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the Yan Kingdom, its territory at its peak was only east of the present-day Daling River and south of Kaiyuan City.
The bitter cold north of eastern Liaoning and western Liaoning has never been valued by the Central Plains Dynasty. It was not until around 300 AD, when Goguryeo, founded by the Buyeo people, began to attack eastern Liaoning, and the north of Liaoning first entered the view of the Central Plains Dynasty. However, at this time, during the Three Kingdoms War, the Central Plains could not take care of this area, so Goguryeo took the opportunity to annex the northern Buyeo kingdom and the Jingju tribe, and through the war to bring Silla and Baekje to the knees, thus controlling the north of Liaoning and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
Goguryeo reached its peak in the 6th century, and its territory was bordered by the Sea of Japan in the east, the Han River basin in the south, the Liao River in the northwest, and the Huifa River and the Second Songhua River basin in the north.
From 612 to 615, the Sui Emperor conquered Goguryeo three times, and although the Sui army once broke more than 50 cities, due to the intensification of civil unrest, the Sui Dynasty died before Goguryeo.
During the Jungguan period, Li Shimin personally conquered Goguryeo, but due to the treacherous road and the freezing weather, Pyongyang was eventually besieged.
In 668, Emperor Gaozong of Tang took Li Wei as the commander-in-chief of the march of Liaodong Province, and commanded Xue Rengui and others to reconquer Goguryeo, and Goguryeo perished under the attack of the Tang army and Silla, and the 27th king Treasure King Gozang was captured by the Tang army. Most of the population of Goguryeo was moved to the Central Plains by the Tang Dynasty and merged back into Middle-earth, and the rest were integrated into the Bohai Kingdom.
After the fall of Goguryeo, the Tang Dynasty set up Andong Dufu in Liaodong, which included all of the Liaodong Peninsula, the Baekje homeland in the north and southwest of the Korean Peninsula, and northwest of present-day Jilin, including the east of the present-day Ussuri River, the west bank of the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, and Sakhalin Island to the sea.
4. Yuan Dynasty
The Mongol Empire established by Genghis Khan was so powerful that there were no ancients before and no one after. As one of the four Golden Hordes of Mongolia, the Yuan Dynasty did not have much martial arts, and its territory surpassed that of previous Chinese dynasties.
The main contributions of the Yuan Dynasty to the territory were twofold:
First, Tibet was included in the Central Plains Dynasty for the first time.
Before the Tang Dynasty, Tibet had been in a state of tribal warfare, and more than 40 small states had emerged one after another. Because Tibet is too high in altitude and sparsely populated, the Central Plains dynasty is generally unwilling to spend great efforts to occupy it.
In the Tang Dynasty, Songtsen Gampo unified all of Tibet, then called Tubo. After the unification, Tubo was extremely strong in battle, and fought with the Tang Dynasty many times, winning and losing each other. Even the fierce Emperor Taizong of Tang had to marry Princess Wencheng into Tibet to ensure the peace of the two families.
After the Anshi Rebellion, Tubo took advantage of the great damage to the vitality of the Tang Dynasty and occupied the Western Regions and the Hexi Corridor, reaching its peak, but after the decline of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo also fell into civil strife for more than 400 years due to frequent slave uprisings, but the Song Dynasty was weak in force and did not seize this golden opportunity to occupy Tubo.
At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongol Empire's great khan Wokutai sent his second son Kuduan to conquer the Southern Song Dynasty, and in 1236, the Mongolian army captured Chengdu, and Kuoduan took the opportunity to send his troops to lead his army into Tibet, and Dalda went deep into Tubo and as far as Nepal. Under the deterrence of the Mongol army, the Tubo ministries expressed their submission to the Mongols.
After that, Kuduan recruited Sakya Panjida, the most powerful monastic in later Tibet, and appointed him as the chief administrator of Tibetan affairs in the Great Mongolia, taking overall responsibility for the management of Tubo, and in 1246, Sakya Panzhida came to Liangzhou to join the alliance with Kuduan, marking the official incorporation of Tibet into the territory of Mongolia.
In the time of Kublai Khan, the Yuan Dynasty established the General Institute of Interpretation in Tibet, and appointed Basiba as a national teacher, responsible for military and political affairs. Later, Kublai Khan inventoried households, set up post stations, collected taxes, stationed troops, appointed officials, and promulgated the Criminal Law and Calendar of the Yuan Dynasty in Tibet. At this point, Tibet became an administrative region directly under the central government of the Yuan Dynasty.
The second is to bring a rich dowry - Mongolia
In history, the Qin and Han dynasties had to deal with the Xiongnu, the two Jin dynasties had to deal with Xianbei and Rouran, and the Sui and Tang dynasties had to deal with the Turks and Uighurs, although the Han Dynasty destroyed the Xiongnu, the Tang Dynasty destroyed the Turks, and today's Inner Mongolia is often included in the territory of the Central Plains, but Outer Mongolia is basically outside the control of the Central Plains Dynasty, and the Central Plains Dynasty and the northern grasslands, fishing and hunting peoples, have basically been in a state of hostility. It was not until the Yuan Dynasty entered the Central Plains that the situation became different, and Outer Mongolia was truly included in Chinese territory for the first time.
Although Mongolia was the dowry brought by the Yuan Dynasty, it is undeniable that it is the credit of the Yuan Dynasty that can now regard Inner and Outer Mongolia as the homeland of China.
V. Qing Dynasty
Putting aside national feelings, without considering the Qing Dynasty's isolation from the country, the prison of letters, and the inevitable defeat of every battle in the late Qing Dynasty, land cession and reparations, in fact, the Qing Dynasty made great contributions to China's territory, which laid the foundation for today's Chinese territory.
The Qing Dynasty's contribution to the territory was mainly threefold:
First, regain Xinjiang.
Xinjiang has been an inseparable part of China's territory since the Han Dynasty's Zhang Qian Tong Western Regions. The Han and Tang dynasties both established capital protectorates in the Western Regions, and in the early Yuan Dynasty, the Western Regions belonged to the Ili Khanate and the Chagatai Khanate, and later became the jurisdiction of the Yuan Dynasty. However, these were all under the control of the Imperial Regions, and it was not until the Qianlong Emperor completely quelled the Dzungar rebellion and named the land "Xinjiang" that he completely captured the Western Regions.
Therefore, the Qing Dynasty contributed greatly to the actual control of Xinjiang. What's more, there was also Zuo Zongtang's glorious deeds of carrying the coffin to the west and recovering Xinjiang.
Second, for the first time, it had actual control over Tibet.
Tibet, known as "Tubo" during the Tang and Song Dynasties, "Wusi Tibet" during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and "Tibet" during the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty.
Although Tibet was officially incorporated into Chinese territory during Kublai Khan's time, it was not until the Qing Dynasty that Tibet began to come under the direct jurisdiction of the central government.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, it inherited state sovereignty over Tibet. However, most of Tibet's affairs were controlled by the Tibetan religious elite, the Mongol princes who practiced Tibetan Buddhism, and the great aristocracy of Tibet, and the emperor of the Central Plains had very little control over Tibet.
During the Shunzhi and Kangxi dynasties of the Qing Dynasty, control over Tibet was strengthened by canonizing the names of the Fifth Dalai Lama and the Fifth Panchen Lama, during which time the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama in Tibet had to be canonized by the Qing government to confirm their political and religious status.
During the Yongzheng period, the central government selected the chief executive and sent him to Tibet as minister stationed in Tibet, and jointly administered Tibet with the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama.
During the Qianlong period, the "Golden Urn" system was set up to strengthen jurisdiction over Tibet. Since then, the living Buddha of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, and the reincarnated soul children of the Panchen Lama have been subject to the supervision of representatives of the Qing government and confirmed by the Golden Urn. The "Golden Urn" system further emphasizes the authority of the central authorities on the issue of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and other great living Buddhas.
In the 56th year of Qianlong, the Gurkha kingdom (present-day Nepal) was instigated by the 10th living Buddha Chozhu Gyatso, who had fled from abroad, to invade Tibet. Fukang'an led his troops to drive the Gurkhas out of Tibet and swept all the way to the Gurkha capital, Kathmandu. The Gurkha king surrendered and sent the bones of Chozhu Gyatso and his wife and children to the Fukang An army, saying that he would never violate the border, and promised to pay tribute to the fifth year of the Qing dynasty.
In accordance with Qianlong's will, he rectified Tibet's affairs and formulated the "29-Article Statute of the King James Rule", which made the Qing Dynasty's governance of Tibet more direct and standardized.
During the Opium War, Minister Zhao Erfeng in Tibet quelled the rebellion of the upper aristocracy of Tibet, carried out land conversion and return to the river in Sichuan, and also moved the Sichuan people to southern Tibet to implement the policy of "emigrating to the real border".
The third is to completely control the northeast.
The northeast was first included in the territory of the Central Plains during the Tang Dynasty, but the Khitan and Jurchens in this area rose successively, and in the late Tang Dynasty and the fifth dynasty, the Khitan people established the famous Daliao. During the Two Song Dynasty, the Jurchens established Dajin. During the Yuan Dynasty, the northeast was again included in the Central Plains Dynasty, but in a state of autonomy.
During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di submitted to the northeast and established the Nuer Gandu Division here, but it was still highly autonomous. It was not until the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains that the northeast was officially included in the actual rule of the Central Plains Dynasty.
Xiaobian believes that the most fierce frontier in Chinese history is still ethnic minorities, and the Qin Dynasty recaptured the Hetao and pacified the Baiyue; The Han Dynasty recovered Hexi and incorporated the Western Regions into its territory; The Tang Dynasty's reconquest of the northeast was inferior to the Yuan and Qing dynasties, and the Yuan Dynasty's rule over Tibet and Mongolia was groundbreaking. None of the major dynasties had incorporated these places into their territories. Moreover, the Yuan Dynasty also had the right to rule the Western Regions and Northeast China. The Qing Dynasty's rule over Xinjiang and Northeast China had great merits, in addition, during the Kang and Qian period, Ping San Fan, taking Taiwan, rejecting Tsarist Russia, conquering Gardan, and quelling the Tibetan rebellion also contributed greatly to preserving the territory of China. However, compared with the territory opened up by the Yuan Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty was still slightly weaker.