In 418, after Liu Yu quelled the Sun En Rebellion, he defeated Huan Xuan, who had usurped Jin Jianchu, and was made King of Song by Sima Dewen, the emperor of Jingong, who had all the capital to change the world, crowned Twelve Xuan, Jiuxi, and Baxi, and saw another Cao Cao, Sima Zhao, and Huan Xuan.
Liu Yu
However, there were rumors that "there were two emperors after Changming", and Liu Yu felt that the time for him to ascend the throne seemed not very ripe, so he delayed for another 2 years, and it was not until 420 AD that he was ordained in Jiankang, and the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, known in history as Liu Song.
Shortly thereafter, in 439, the Northern Wei Taiwu Emperor Tuoba Tao eliminated Northern Liang, ending the chaos of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms in northern China, and finally forming a north-south confrontation with the Liu and Song regimes.
Cui Hao Zhishu provoked the murder, and Liu Song Northern Expedition tasted the consequences
The political structure of the north and south in this period is obviously different, since the southern crossing, a large number of northern noble families came to Jiangnan, forming a unique gate valve political system in Chinese history during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, "King and horse sharing the world" is a concentrated embodiment of the decline of imperial power in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the strength of the Shi clan.
King and horse share the world
However, under the dual care of the Jiupin zheng system and the clear stream system, the wealthy families of the Shi clan can easily enter the ranks, and the positions are idle, and those disciples of the cold family can often do some specific work, or lead troops to fight, and the Shi clan disdainfully calls these people "laymen" or "generals".
Liu Yu is the so-called "general" here, Liu Yu, who was born as a "Beifu soldier", rose to the peak of power step by step with his military merits, and his success heralded the decline of gate politics, the revival of imperial power and the rise of the Han warriors, and this political structure was always accompanied by the end of the Southern Dynasty.
Beifu Soldiers
In the north, the rulers of the Northern Wei Dynasty were ethnic minorities like the Sixteen Kingdoms period, and their entry into the Central Plains made the northern China region always in the process of "Huhua" and "Sinicization", and this integration often had a bloody taste.
In the early days of the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Cui Hao, who held the position of Situ, was sentenced to death by the Taiwu Emperor Tuoba Tao, which is undoubtedly the best interpretation of the collision between Hu and Han cultures.
Cui Hao was descended from the Qinghe Cui clan, a top clan during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and after the "Yongjia Rebellion", the Cui family did not go south with many wealthy families, but chose to stay in the north.
Cui Hao
It was with the assistance of Cui Hao that Tuoba Tao drove Rouran, lowered Northern Yan, and destroyed Northern Liang to complete the great cause of unifying the north, and Cui Hao was also named the Duke of Dongjun by virtue of his unearthly merits, and could even enjoy the honor of entering and leaving Tuoba Tao's bedroom.
Cui Hao's unique instincts of the wealthy aristocracy were undoubtedly exposed, and he was stubborn and proud of himself, and he first engaged in a "want to rectify the products and distinguish the surname", wanting to reproduce the glory of the former Han family in the land of Northern Wei, which undoubtedly offended the politically dominant Xianbei aristocracy.
Northern Wei army
In 439, Cui Hao was commissioned to edit the Northern Wei "Book of Nations", and he wrote all the ugly things of Tuoba ancestors who did not want to be known to outsiders, without concealment, and also carved them on stone tablets for everyone to "admire".
This move completely angered Tuoba Tao, and Cui Hao forgot that the Xianbei people did not write books and traditions, let alone have a straight mind, especially he also forgot the phrase "a companion is like a tiger".
In 450 AD, Cui Hao was condemned by the clan, and what was even more tragic was that this incident affected the Fan Yang Lu clan, the Taiyuan Guo clan, and the Hedong Liu clan were almost wiped out, and this storm hit the Gaomen clan in northern China very hard, and the history was called the "prison of national history".
The hell of national history
When Tuoba Tao was busy exterminating the Han people, Liu Yu in the south died as early as 422 AD, and the crown prince Liu Yifu succeeded to the throne for the sake of Song Shaodi, who was extravagant and ignorant of imperial politics, and only served as emperor for 2 years before being abolished by auxiliary minister Xu Xianzhi and others.
Xu Xianzhi and others bypassed the second elder Liu Yizhen and directly placed the throne on the head of the third elder Liu Yilong, for Emperor Wen of Song.
Liu Yilong, dissatisfied with the four auxiliary ministers in control of the state, soon killed Xu Xianzhi, Fu Liang, and Xie Hui in the name of murdering Emperor Shao of Song, and the remaining Tan Daoji was also killed by Liu Yikang the King of Pengcheng in 435.
Emperor Wen of Song Liu Yilong
After settling these internal matters, the news of the killing of Cui Hao of Northern Wei reached Liu Song, and Liu Yilong thought it was a great opportunity, so he decisively launched an attack, known as the "Yuanjia Northern Expedition".
However, after losing Tan Daoji, the most feared general of Northern Wei, Liu Song's strength was greatly reduced, not to mention that the Northern Wei Taiwu Emperor Tuoba Tao led an army of 600,000 to march against him, and Liu Song's army had no power to fight back at all, and was suddenly retreated to the south bank of the Yangtze River.
Tuoba Tao
After this contest, the strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty became stronger, while the losses suffered by the Liu Song Dynasty were even more serious, the country was full of ruins, and Liu Yilong was also killed by the crown prince Liu Shao in 453 AD, and the Liu Song regime fell into turmoil from then on.
Xiao Qi ruled the Southern Dynasty of the Song Dynasty, and Xiaowen moved the capital south to Luoyang
Liu Yilong reigned for 30 years, just occupying half of the Liu Song Dynasty, and since him, the Liu family has been inferior from generation to generation, Song Yuan Emperor Liu Shao killed his father, the imperial throne naturally restless, only three months later was killed by his third brother Liu Jun the King of Wuling, after which Liu Jun ascended the throne for Emperor Xiaowu.
Song and Wei situation
Then the Liu and Song dynasties were stormy, and by the time the last emperor, the Song Shun Emperor Liu Falcon, succeeded to the throne, the power had been monopolized by the imperial prince Xiao Daocheng, and everything he had was the same as Liu Yu in those years.
In 479 AD, Xiao Daocheng was made the Duke of Qi and added Jiuxi, and the sword went to the palace, praising the name without worship, and everyone knew that the world of the Liu family would change his surname to Xiao sooner or later.
In April of that year, Xiao Daocheng ascended the throne at Jiankang and established the second state of the Southern Dynasty, Daqi, known as Southern Qi, and Liu Falcon was also demoted to the rank of King of Ruyin, and a month later he was killed by the guards watching him.
Xiao Daocheng
Xiao Daocheng's Southern Qi regime has no bright spots in history, and it is also the shortest dynasty in China among the four kingdoms of the Southern Dynasty, which only existed for 24 years.
In 483, Xiao Daocheng died of illness at the age of 56, and before his death, he did not forget to tell the crown prince Xiao Zhao to remember the lessons of the Liu and Song royal families' cannibalism, and Xiao Zhao, the emperor of Southern Qi Wu, did a good job after assuming the throne, and there were no vicious incidents of large-scale slaughter of clans under his rule.
Xiao Zhao
Unfortunately, Xiao Zhao was destined to send a white-haired person to a black-haired person, and in 493 AD, his eldest son Xiao Changmao died of illness, and was known as Prince Wenhui.
The early death of his son was a heavy blow to Xiao Zhao, who was seriously ill and determined to make Xiao Changmao's eldest son Xiao Zhaoye the crown prince, but it was his decision that opened the prelude to the civil strife in Southern Qi.
At this time, the northern land was also experiencing this great change, just 3 years before the death of Xiao Changmao, the crown prince of Southern Qi, Empress Dowager Feng, the real power figure of the Northern Wei dynasty, also died, this woman was not only resourceful and decisive, but she also personally trained the most prestigious emperor of Northern Wei, Xiaowen Emperor Tuobahong.
Xiaowen Emperor Tuobahong
Tuoba Hong was the sixth emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and at the age of 5 he was allowed to become a treasure by his father Tuoba Hong, but lived in the shadow of his powerful grandmother, Empress Dowager Feng, until the death of Empress Dowager Feng in 490.
Deeply influenced by his grandmother, Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong admired Confucian culture and devoted his life to sinicization, and he felt that it was not enough to emulate the Central Plains dynasty in terms of official system, so he decided to move the capital to Luoyang.
For a long time, the capital of Northern Wei was in Pingcheng, which is today's Datong, but this place was located in northern Xinjiang, the climate was harsh, Hu wind was prevalent, and it was adjacent to the powerful Rouran in the north, and it was extremely difficult to defend, so Tuoba Hong intended to move south.
The capital was moved to Luoyang
He set his sights on Luoyang, where the former capital of the Eastern Zhou, Eastern Han, Cao Wei, and Western Jin Dynasties, located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, the spirit of the emperor, and more importantly, it was the center of Han culture, where he could show his determination to sinicize, and even more to declare to the world that he was the right shuo of the Chinese regime.
In 493 AD, Tuoba Hong directed and acted in a good play, he raised troops to the south to march south to Southern Qi, but stopped in Luoyang, he knew that many people did not agree with the southern march, just at this time the sky rained heavily and the road was difficult, Tuoba Hong announced that he would obey the will of heaven and no longer march south, but in exchange, the capital must be moved to Luoyang.
At this time, people understood Emperor Xiaowen's true intentions, but it was too late, so they could only move their family to Luoyang.
After the capital Luoyang was established, Tuoba Hong issued a number of sinicization measures, such as ordering all Xianbei people to wear Han clothes, officials under the age of 30 who could not speak Chinese, all Xianbei aristocratic surnames were changed to Han surnames, and the imperial Tuoba clan was also the first to change the surname Yuan.
In addition, Emperor Xiaowen encouraged the Xianbei nobles to marry with the Han clan Gaomen, and the Fan Yang Lu clan, the Qinghe Cui clan, and the Taiyuan Wang clan all sent their daughters to the imperial palace under Tuobahong's strict orders.
Emperor Xiaowen reformed
Moreover, Tuoba Hong also stipulated that after the death of officials who moved from Pingcheng to Luoyang, they were all buried in Luoyang, and they were not allowed to move back to Pingcheng, and if their wives had already died in their hometown, their husbands could not be moved to be buried after death.
These measures greatly accelerated the process of sinicization of the Xianbei people, but they were also greatly resisted by the Xianbei nobles, and in 496 AD, there was an incident in which the crown prince Yuan Wei fled back to Pingcheng, for which Emperor Xiaowen abolished Yuan Xun as crown prince and gave Yuan Xun death the following year.
Emperor Xiaowen's southern expedition
After the reform of moving the capital, the national strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty increased greatly, and Tuoba Hong also accelerated the pace of unifying China.
In 499 AD, Xiaowen Emperor Tuoba Hong died of illness in Gutangyuan on the way to Southern Qi at the age of 33, and in the third year after his death, Southern Dynasty Qi also perished, and another 22 years later, an epoch-making "Six Towns Uprising" sounded the death knell of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The treasure scroll was not benevolent to the world, and Xiao Yan raised troops to build Southern Liang
When Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei died Tuoba Hong, the reigning emperor of Southern Qi was Xiao Baoxuan, the emperor of Qi, and the end of this emperor can be seen from the nickname.
Xiao Bao Roll
Xiao Baoxuan's father, Emperor Xiao Luan of Qiming, was the nephew of Xiao Daocheng, the founding emperor of Southern Qi, and assisted the crown prince Xiao Zhaoye after ascending the throne.
In 494 AD, Xiao Luan killed Xiao Zhaoye, after which he began to slaughter the royal family members who Xiao Daocheng had become a lineage, and after clearing the obstacles, he made Xiao Zhaowen emperor, a puppet emperor who was like a fake bag, and only 4 months later, Xiao Luan deposed Xiao Zhaowen as the king of Hailing, and himself ascended the throne as the emperor of Southern Qi, known as the Emperor of Qi Ming.
Xiao Luan
Xiao Luan, who has a ghost in his heart, lives in the shadows all day, and after 5 years of succession, the 47-year-old Xiao Luan died in the sky, and before he died, he specially instructed the heir Xiao Baoxuan to do things one step ahead, otherwise it was himself who suffered losses.
After Xiao Baoxuan took the throne, he went on a killing spree, and his personality was withdrawn and cruel, and in less than a year, he slaughtered the six auxiliary ministers left by his father, which caused great panic and dissatisfaction among Xiao Yan, the assassin of Yongzhou.
Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu
In 500, Xiao Baoxuan, fearing that Xiao Yan, who had a heavy army, would rebel, sent assassins to assassinate Xiao Yan and killed Xiao Yan's brother Xiao Yi, which directly forced Xiao Yan to rebel, and in this year, Xiao Yan officially raised troops against Xiao Baoxuan in Xiangyang in the name of supporting Xiao Baorong, the king of Nankang.
In the second year, Xiao Yan led his army to besiege Jiankang City, and Xiao Baoxuan, who was hiding in the palace, seemed to be full of care, still the same as singing and dancing, and the meat forest wine pool, while the close ministers around him had already been ape-minded.
Qi and Wei situation
One night, the general Wang Guozhen, together with the eunuchs Huang Taiping, Zhang Qi and others, took advantage of Xiao Baoxuan's sleep, raised troops to rebel, cut off Xiao Baoxuan's head, and sacrificed it to Xiao Yan outside the city, who was just 19 years old this year.
After breaking the city, Xiao Yan still respected Xiao Bao as Qi and Emperor, and deposed Xiao Baozhuan as the Marquis of Eastern Dusk, and the Southern Qi regime at this time was completely controlled by Xiao Yan.
Dongduhou
Xiao Yan claimed to be a distant relative of the Southern Qi royal family with the same surname and the same surname, and he always lacked confidence in usurping the imperial throne, but could not withstand the operation of his subordinates, and under the persuasion of Shen Yao, Xiahouxiang, Fan Yun and other close associates, Xiao Yan accepted the edict of the throne of Emperor Qi and Emperor in 502 AD, and officially ascended the throne as emperor, with the state name Daliang and the history called Southern Liang.
Xiao Yan reigned for 48 years, the longest reigning of all the emperors of the Southern Dynasty, and he lived to be 86 years old, second only to the Qianlong Emperor, the second oldest of all the emperors in China.
Liang and Wei situation
Xiao Yan is also a famous emperor who believes in Buddhism, during his reign he became a monk 4 times, under his leadership, the Southern Dynasty became a popular practice, which greatly promoted the development of Buddhism in southern China, "480 temples in the Southern Dynasty, how many buildings in the smoke and rain" is the portrayal of Xiao Liang's Buddhism.
In his later years, Xiao Yan was so obsessed with the study of Buddhist doctrine that he abandoned the imperial government, and objectively increased the kinetic energy of the "change of Houjing", which completely turned the pattern of confrontation between the north and the south to the north.
The change of Hou Jing
The national policy of sinicization provoked dissatisfaction, and the uprising of the six towns moved the country
During this period of alternation between Qi and Liang, the emperor of Northern Wei was Emperor Xuanwu Yuanke, who was the second son of Emperor Xiaowen Tuobahong, and after becoming pro-government at the age of 18, he continued the national policy of Sinicization of Emperor Xiaowen, but he appointed foreign Qi Gao Zhao, and the entire Northern Wei dynasty was made into a miasma, and the situation feared by the ancestral system of "the death of the son and noble mother" of Northern Wei still appeared.
Emperor Xuanwu Yuanke
What's more, Yuan Ke also personally abolished the rule of "death of the son and mother", and did not execute his mother Concubine Hu after establishing Yuan Xu as the crown prince, which also laid the groundwork for the dictatorship of Empress Dowager Hu later.
In 503 AD, Emperor Xuanwu raised troops to cut down Liang, opening a tug-of-war between the north and the south that spanned more than ten years, at this stage, the two sides came and went, won and lost each other, until Yuan Gong's death in 515 AD, the north-south border was also steadily fixed in the Huai River Valley, and the two sides basically belonged to the balance of power.
In particular, in the defense of Zhongli in 507 AD, Southern Liang broke through the siege of hundreds of thousands of horses of Northern Wei with 3,000 defenders under the command of the champion general Chang Yizhi and Yuzhou Shi Weirui, creating a miracle of winning more with less, and seriously demoralizing Northern Wei.
Battle of Zhongli
After Yuan Ke's death, the 6-year-old Yuan Xu succeeded to the throne, and for Emperor Xiaoming, many Yuan clans intimately plotted to trap and kill Gao Zhao, a foreign minister of the Yuan Dynasty, and welcomed Empress Dowager Hu to listen to the government, and Northern Wei entered the era of Empress Dowager Hu.
At this time, the Northern Wei Dynasty was about to usher in a huge storm, a storm that was enough to change the political situation of the Northern Wei Dynasty and even the course of Chinese history, and the famous "Six Towns Uprising" broke out in the north of the empire.
The so-called six towns are the six important military towns established in the early Northern Wei Dynasty in order to prevent Rouran in the north and defend the Pingcheng of Kyoto, namely Woye Town, Huaishuo Town, Wuchuan Town, Fulu Town, Rouxuan Town and Huaihuang Town.
Schematic map of six towns
Before the capital was moved to Luoyang, the officers and soldiers of the six towns were extremely valued, and their generals must be Xianbei nobles, even members of the royal family, but with the reform of Emperor Xiaowen, Pingcheng was no longer the capital, and the importance of the six towns also decreased sharply, and the officers and soldiers of the six towns also began to usher in a decline.
At this time, the six towns became forgotten corners, and even became a place for state prisoners and prisoners, but because they were located in border passes, local battles were frequent, the combat effectiveness of officers and soldiers did not weaken, and they were located in the north, far from the political center, and the Han people in the area were more seriously Huhua, and they were dissatisfied with their marginalized state.
The six towns were dissatisfied with the move of the capital to Luoyang
In 523, an official named Yu Jing, because he was implicated in the rebellion of his brother Wuwei general Yu Zhong, was transferred to the border of Huaihuang Town, and he was dissatisfied and spread all his evil qi on the officers and soldiers of Huaihuang Town.
Yu Jing used the power in his hands to refuse to distribute supplies to the soldiers, committing public anger, and was immediately hacked to death by the angry soldiers, and the officers and soldiers of Huaihuang Town turned against him.
The rebellion of the officers and soldiers of Huaihuang Town suddenly ignited the anger buried deep in the hearts of the officers and soldiers of all six towns, and soon after that, the other five military towns rose up one after another, and in a few months, they burned all over the northern part of the empire.
Six Towns Uprising
The strongest non-Xiongnu among the rebels, Bao Liuhan Baling, established himself as king and led his army south to attack Luoyang, but in Wuchuan Town, he was bravely resisted by the Ole tribe He Ba Duba and the Xianbei Yuwen Qiu, who was the father of Yuwen Tai, the founder of the later Northern Zhou Dynasty.
Due to the large number of rebel troops, He Ba Duba and Yuwen Qiu fled one after another, and at this time, the Northern Wei rebel army commander Guangyang Wang Yuanyuan took the initiative to contact the Rouran lord Ana Gui in order to reverse the decline, and the two sides formed an alliance to jointly eliminate the rebel army, which was originally to prevent Rouran's six towns, but was in turn strangled by Northern Wei and Rouran, which is also a great irony.
Six town officers and soldiers
In 525, under the north-south attack of Northern Wei and Rouran, the Liuhan Baling was defeated, and the lost territory of the six towns was recaptured by Northern Wei.
In order to prevent a resurgence, Yuanyuan decided to move hundreds of thousands of people from six towns to the mainland, but this move caused even greater chaos.
To be continued