Sentence / Kodama
The key to success is to unify thoughts, in the same way, the main factor affecting the rise and fall of a dynasty must also be the unity of culture and ideology, Qin Shi Huang did not do this, the second Qin died, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did this, and the Han Dynasty was mighty.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Wuhu went south, and the nomadic tribes actually realized the importance of culture after establishing power in the Central Plains: only by fully completing the sinicization and maintaining the military superiority of the tribes, then they could go on for a long time. Fu Jian, Shi Le and others are aware of this problem.
It's just that before they have time to exert their efforts at the cultural level, their regime has already been eliminated in the fierce competition. When the Northern Wei Dynasty initially unified the north, Xianbei Tuoba also had the conditions to implement reforms at the cultural level, so there was the reform of Empress Dowager Feng in Pingcheng, and the comprehensive Sinicization reform of Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong in Luoyang.
Facts have proved that Emperor Xiaowen's reform was successful, and when Xiao Liang's Chen Qingzhi's Northern Expedition to Luoyang later, he couldn't help but praise the reform achievements of the Northern Wei Dynasty: "It turns out that the so-called clothes are still in the north." ”
However, due to the fact that Emperor Xiaowen's Sinicization reform did not cover the six towns on the border, it eventually led to the soldiers of the six towns using the advantage of force to destroy the reform achievements of Emperor Xiaowen when their interests were damaged.
It can be seen that any reform in history will be counterattacked by the old forces, especially the nomadic tribes: not only the attacks of vested interests, but also the counterattack of the old culture.
When Liao and Jin stabilized the Central Plains, they also encountered the predicament before the Northern Wei Dynasty, because they were always obstructed by the old forces, so until the fall of the dynasty, they did not achieve cultural unity. To a certain extent, the death of King Wanyan Liang of Hailing was completely the result of the counterattack of the old forces.
But Liao and Jin have made certain achievements after all, but because the speed of sinicization is too slow, the cultural unification has not been achieved at the end of the dynasty, which affects its lifespan.
The Yuan Dynasty was different, although it also copied the system of the Central Plains on a large scale, and several emperors also made efforts at the cultural level, but they were always repeatedly counterattacked by the old forces, resulting in most of the time walking on the old road, until the Yuan Dynasty could not gain a foothold in the Central Plains, most of them were still purely Mongolian characteristics.
Since the culture of the Yuan Dynasty could not be compatible with the Han Chinese, Mongols, Khitans, Jurchens, Semu people, etc., it could only maintain the pattern of the grassland and could only return to the grassland again.
Therefore, the biggest reason for the fall of the Yuan Dynasty was: the serious antagonism of various ethnic groups at the cultural level.
On May 5, 1260, after Kublai Khan ascended the throne in Kaiping City, in order to show his identity as a representative of Han culture, he implemented a series of policies conducive to sinicization, including taking the name of the Central Plains country and the era, and establishing the Taimiao Temple and the Confucian Temple.
However, in order to take care of the Mongol kings, Kublai Khan adopted the "two capital system": the above are the centers of Mongolian culture, and the majority is the center of Han culture. Moreover, the rulers of the Golden Family ruled the Yuan Empire by rotating shifts in both capitals throughout the year.
In other words, as soon as Kublai Khan got started, he artificially drew a very clear line between the steppe culture and the Han culture. Just like the Northern Qi Dynasty in those years: Jinyang was the base camp of the Xianbei aristocracy and represented the grassland culture, while Yecheng was the gathering place of the Han family and represented the Confucian culture.
As a result, the cultural division of the Northern Qi became more and more serious, until it was overtaken by the Northern Zhou next door and then annexed by the Northern Zhou.
It can be seen that the cultural disunity was the main reason for the demise of the Northern Qi Dynasty.
Northern Qi died in the Hu-Han contradiction Source/Stills
Then, the pit that the Northern Qi Dynasty stepped on back then, the Yuan Dynasty will inevitably step on it. Moreover, Kublai Khan not only introduced a large number of people into the core, but also insisted on not opening a science to learn from scholars, and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty set the tone of a hundred schools of thought at the cultural level. Behind the contention of a hundred schools of thought, the stability of the pattern of great unification has been seriously restricted.
On February 18, 1294, Kublai Khan died and was succeeded by his grandson Timur.
Although Timur showed respect for Confucianism and Confucianism during his reign, and built a new temple of Wenxuan Wang in Dadu to place Guozixue in it, Timur's efforts at the cultural level did not achieve much because Timur had to put an end to the unfinished wars of Kublai Khan's time, as well as the increasingly serious problems of redundant officials, redundant expenses, and corruption.
Moreover, in order to gain the support of the kings, Timur did not hesitate to win them over in the form of large rewards. Therefore, the grassland standard is still the main tone of the Timur Dynasty.
On February 2, 1307, Timur died, and then Haishan ascended to the throne with the advantage of Mobei's military force. Since Haishan is the emperor who came out of Mobei, then he must represent the interests of the grassland forces, so the grassland culture has become the main tone of the Yuan Dynasty, and Haishan even has a negative attitude towards Kublai Khan and Timur's efforts at the level of sinicization.
In other words, whether the Yuan Dynasty took a step and retreated, which is equivalent to not leaving, it is still a barbaric culture.
After Renzong Aiyuli Bali Bada ascended the throne, he completely denied the route of Haishan, not only stopped the large-scale construction of Haishan started, abolished a series of wealth accumulation policies issued by Haishan, but also vigorously promoted the Sinicization reform of the Yuan Dynasty. The specific performance is as follows:
He appointed his teacher Li Meng and the Han Confucian marshal Zhang Qi as the political affairs of Zhongshu Pingzhang, summoned 16 old ministers from the Kublai Khan period to Dadu, such as the famous scholars Li Qian, Hao Tianting, Cheng Jufu and Liu Minzhong, and selected a group of literary scholars to enter the Hanlin Academy and the Jixian Academy...
Every action is aimed at promoting further Sinicization and Confucianization reforms.
The representative action of Renzong's implementation of the Sinicization reform is that the Yuan Dynasty launched the imperial examination in 1315. At the same time, Renzong also organized the compilation of a unified law, the "Great Yuan General System".
However, due to the large number of kings in the Yuan Dynasty, Renzong's reform efforts were met with widespread opposition, such as fierce protests against the deprivation of their judicial powers. In 1317, Renzong had to compromise with the kings and allow them to appoint Daru Huachi on their own.
In addition, Renzong's mother promised to use the Huizheng Yuan and the Xuanhui Yuan to fight against Zhongshu Province and trained the powerful minister Tiemu Dieer to contradict Renzong, so, Renzong's Sinicization reform is actually difficult step by step, and it was constrained by the king and the heroine and the ministers at the same time.
The heroine's involvement in politics is also a feature of the Yuan Dynasty Source/stills
Although historians have given Renzong's reform of "Yanyou Confucianism" an endorsement, his Sinicization reform was basically a failure and did not take substantial steps in terms of overall structure.
After his accession to the throne, Yingzong Shuode Ba Ra also prepared to implement Confucian governance, and appointed a Confucian minister from a Mongolian aristocracy to worship as the prime minister of Zuo, but Yingzong was eventually killed by a coup d'état by the old forces on September 4, 1323.
When Emperor Taiding and Sun Temur came to Dadu with his Mobei team, it already meant the return of the grassland forces. Subsequently, the Han elite represented by Zhang Jue, Yang Tingyu, Xu Shijing, and Shi Weiliang was gradually marginalized.
Yes, the Yuan Dynasty returned to square one at the cultural level.
Although Emperor Taiding also revered Confucianism to a considerable extent, for example, by sending officials to Qufu to worship Confucius and restoring the system of sutra and feasts, it was impossible for the Han elite to come to the fore in the context of the Mongol aristocracy and the Semu elite playing the leading role.
Wenzong not only encouraged the Mongol aristocracy and the Semu elite to accept the customs of the Han people, but even personally participated in the ritual of worshipping the heavens in 1330, but in the era when the powerful ministers Yan Temur and Boyan were in power, Wenzong could only carry out a small cultural promotion in the court. Most typically, although Wenzong established the Kyujanggak Academy to vigorously promote Han culture, his influence was limited to the inner court.
When Emperor Shun became emperor, the Yuan Dynasty had completely returned to the original point under the control of the powerful minister Boyan, and the typical event was: in 1335, Boyan canceled the imperial examination. The reason why Boyan canceled the imperial examination was to protect the interests of the Mongolian aristocracy and the Semu elite.
Although the Yuan Dynasty later resumed the imperial examination, due to the frequent infighting in the empire and the repeated games at the cultural level, which brought out many new contradictions, the Yuan Dynasty was powerless in the era of Emperor Shun.
It is hard to imagine that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the culture was still in the barbaric era, which was even worse than that of the Liao and Jin in those years.
Since the Yuan Dynasty could not be unified at the cultural level, it was simply unable to concentrate resources and implement centralized power, and the demise of the Yuan Dynasty was already doomed after the gradual loss of the military superiority of the Mongol cavalry.
In short, the Yuan Dynasty also fell because it did not achieve cultural unity, just like the reasons for the demise of the Liao and Jin. The only difference is that the Liao and Jin Sinicization went further than the Yuan Dynasty, so they also lived a little longer than the Yuan Dynasty.
But to be honest, due to the definition of the Yuan Dynasty's cosmopolitan empire, its insistence on hereditary and feudal systems, and the complexity of its ethnic composition, it is destined to be difficult to achieve cultural unity.
In addition, the grassland forces and the Han forces fought frequently because of power struggles, and the Yuan Dynasty had no time and energy to operate this matter, so they could only watch this giant ship sink little by little.
Yes, the reason for the demise of all nomadic empires is roughly the same.
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