Sentence / Kodama
Zhao Kuangyin's success is first of all to eat the dividends of the times, with the efforts of Zhou Shizong, the local feudal towns are no longer the opponent of the imperial forbidden army, Zhao Kuangyin has already controlled the world with the forbidden army. However, being able to use the peaceful means of internal reform to end the chaotic times of feudal towns is definitely the result of Zhao Kuangyin's personal ability.
First of all, Zhao Kuangyin's success is the help of the times. The five dynasties are the world of soldiers, and the farce of the strong feudal clan attacking the imperial court and replacing it is almost normalized, because, whether it is the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin or the Later Han, it has not changed the pattern of external emphasis and internal lightness.
However, after Zhou Shizong ascended the throne, after many rounds of reshuffle, the imperial forbidden army has surpassed the local feudal towns in strength, coupled with the military reforms implemented by Sejong, the local feudal towns have lost the strength of the imperial court. In this way, the power struggle will only focus on Bianjing, and whoever controls the forbidden army will have the strength to change the dynasty.
That is to say, the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty ate the dividends of the times, and Zhao Kuangyin's personal ability has little to do with it.
What truly reflects Zhao Kuangyin's level is that he ended the turbulent times of frequent changes of five dynasties with a set of combination punches, pressed the pause button on military politics, established a new order, and finally formed the inertia of domination, and ruled the world.
Because Zhao Kuangyin founded the Northern Song Dynasty through Chan Rang, he had to inherit the political resources of the Later Zhou Dynasty, because the bureaucratic system of the Later Zhou Dynasty and the power center of the Northern Song Dynasty lacked cohesion, coupled with the historical inertia of frequent changes of dynasties in troubled times, so whether the Northern Song Dynasty could sit firmly in the country still faced great challenges.
Why did Zhao Kuangyin send Han Lingkun, the marquis of Yu, the marquis of the guards, to Chengde, Hebei, and the deputy capital of the palace to check Murong Yanzhao's trip to Zhending before the Chenqiao Mutiny, in order to clamp down on the Hebei princes and prevent them from attacking the newly built Great Song Dynasty by force.
This is also the core reason why Zhao Kuangyin crossed the steps of the ministers and ascended the throne directly, and the variables were too great to give the local feudal town the opportunity to King Qin.
Therefore, when Zhao Kuangyin sent envoys from all walks of life to announce the news of the establishment of the Great Song Dynasty to the locality, everyone could only admit the fait accompli in the face of the reality of the huge disparity in strength.
But Zhao Kuangyin also had to face the impact of the old forces, because this is the law of history, and all dynasties established through the Zen concession procedure will face the opposition of the old forces: the Sima clan suffered the three rebellions of Huainan, and Yang Jian suffered the rebellion of the three governors...
The difference is only that these people solved the old forces before becoming emperor, while Zhao Kuangyin only set out to solve this problem after becoming emperor.
In April of the first year of Jianlong (960), the Zhaoyi Army made Li Yun issue a document to fight against thieves, officially firing the first shot of armed opposition to Zhao Kuangyin, but there was no movement at all, and Zhao Kuangyin only took two months to pacify it.
Then it was the Huainan Jiedu that made Li Chongjin launch a rebellion. However, it was easier for the Song army to quell its rebellion than it was to quell Li Yun's rebellion, and it was easy to take Yangzhou City, and Li Chongjin committed suicide with his family in the face of the reality of defeat.
This shows that under the reform of Zhou Shizong's strong cadres and weak branches, the local forces no longer have the strength to call the imperial court at all, and can only obey the new order established by Zhao Kuangyin. As for Li Chongjin, because he was the nephew of Zhou Taizu Guo Wei, and he once served as the commander of the guard's pro-army Ma Bujun, his identity was relatively sensitive, and he could not be compatible with the system of the Song Dynasty, so he could only take risks.
Zhao Yi said that Sui Wen, who has won the world since ancient times, is the easiest, but in fact, the easiest person is Song Zu. Because, Sui Wen not only had to face a strong feudal clan like Chi Yuan, the governor of Xiangzhou, but also had to deal with the political offensive of the Yuwen clan. And Zhao Kuangyin has very little pressure at these two levels, and he belongs to running to become the emperor.
However, the two have an obvious thing in common: Sui Wen won the world because he controlled the elite government soldiers of Guanlong, and Song Zu established the Great Song Dynasty because he controlled the forbidden army in Bianjing.
They all realized the will to win in the face of absolute military superiority.
The significance of quelling the rebellion of Li Yun and Li Chongjin is not only to suppress the opposition forces, but also to deter those feudal towns that have a wait-and-see attitude.
In other words, regardless of whether there was a rebellion in the feudal town, Zhao Kuangyin had to find one or two typical examples to carry out military strikes, and achieve the effect of deterring the heroes in the form of bright muscles.
After the feudal towns expressed their positions, Zhao Kuangyin transferred these strong feudal domains out of their base camps, rearranged their work, and temporarily suppressed the internal unstable forces.
It's just that this is only the surface of peace, if Zhao Kuangyin wants to ensure that the Great Song Dynasty will not repeat the mistakes of the previous dynasty and become the post-Song dynasty in history, he must implement comprehensive reforms and completely end military politics before he can start a new situation.
Therefore, cutting the feudal domain has become a card that Zhao Kuangyin must play, and only by returning the power of the feudal town to the hands of the imperial court can the Great Song Dynasty be guaranteed.
Cutting the feudal domain is a must for Song Taizu Source/stills
The first to bear the brunt must be the forbidden army of the imperial court, because the forbidden army is essentially a feudal town, but it is only stationed in Bianjing, Zhao Kuangyin subverted the Hou Zhou as the commander of the forbidden army, so others can completely copy his script and subvert the Great Song Dynasty.
In the leap March of the second year of Jianlong (961), Zhao Kuangyin first issued an edict to dismiss Murong Yanzhao from the palace and appointed him as the envoy of Shannan West Dao.
In July, Zhao Kuangyin dismissed all the generals of the forbidden army such as Shi Shouxin, Gao Huaide, Wang Xianqi, and Zhang Lingduo by releasing military power with a glass of wine, and transferred them to local festival envoys.
People like Shi Shouxin and Gao Huaide can be called the military merit faction of the Great Song Dynasty, who made great contributions to the founding of Taizu, and can also be defined as a strong vassal in the forbidden army system, holding heavy troops.
The two layers of identity attributes have already doomed them to be the biggest threat to imperial power, that is, the Great Song Dynasty did not inherit the troubled times of the Five Dynasties, and such people will encounter political impact.
And Zhao Kuangyin's approach was also relatively soft, and he did not completely strip their power to the end, but changed from the generals of the forbidden army to local feudal towns that had declined. not only gave them the identity of a local feudal town, but also gave them a certain amount of wealth, ensuring that this group had a sense of belonging to the Great Song Dynasty.
For these people, the power and wealth are there, and the interests in their hands have also achieved positive growth, so they also recognized Taizu's approach, and the reduction of military power can alleviate the contradictions between them and the imperial court.
From this, it can be seen that Taizu's political level, as an emperor, the most important task is to distribute power and interests, although he deprived the generals of the forbidden army of military power, but increased the proportion of their interests, did not break the balance, will not cause a political earthquake.
Some people say that Song Zu does not kill heroes, he is a person who talks about martial virtues, in fact, he can only be like this, he did not rely on force to open the country, his prestige is not enough, and he still needs the support of these people.
What does it mean to hit and pull, this is.
After the strength of the game, Taizu has initially sat firmly in the country.
In fact, it's not that Zhao Kuangyin doesn't trust Shi Shouxin and these people, but the game of the five generations of yellow robes has been normalized, and it is difficult for Shi Shouxin and others to guarantee whether their subordinates will copy the plot of the yellow robe for the sake of wealth. Besides, if Taizu can control these people, the heir will be more dangerous, just like Taizu himself bullied the young lord Chai Zongxun after the death of Emperor Sejong.
So, in order to solve the problem once and for all, this group can only be cleaned out of the core of power.
In this world, there is no such thing as a loyal minister, and the problem of the bureaucracy taking sides is determined by whether the distribution of interests is reasonable.
After solving the problem of the power of the military merit faction, Taizu continued to exert his efforts in the system, splitting the guard division and dividing it into two independent systems: the guard pro-army horse military division and the infantry military division, and since then, the "three ya" of the military system of the Song Dynasty has been formally formed.
Between the "three yas", they do not lead each other, and it is difficult to repeat such a thing as the Chenqiao mutiny.
At the same time, Taizu further split the power to transfer troops and the right to command: the Privy Council carried out the transfer of troops; The generals of the forbidden army were only responsible for training troops and temporary command.
At the same time, the generals of the forbidden army must be rotated every three years to prevent them from becoming big.
For the position of checking in front of the palace, the Song court will no longer set it up thereafter, so as not to form a monopoly on military power by individuals. Just like the Tang Dynasty, in order to suppress the power of the prime minister, did not set up the post of "Shangshu Ling" after Taizong ascended the throne.
As for the middle- and lower-level generals in charge of specific affairs, the Song court used some roles with average ability and prestige, and they could not pose a threat to the imperial power at all.
In other words, the real leader of the Great Song Forbidden Army was the emperor himself. Only when imperial power is highly bound to military power can it maintain its succession order.
Of course, Zhao Kuangyin did not solve this thorny problem by simply drinking a drink, but spent more than four months doing a lot of foreshadowing work to play with this group.
After a long time of gambling with a glass of wine to release the military power, Source/Stills
With the main threat solved, Taizu's next slash slashed into the place. For the feudal towns, Taizu's plan was: to strengthen the cadres and weak branches, that is, to continuously supplement the elites of the Jiedu envoy army into the imperial forbidden army, continue to weaken the local forces, and strengthen the forbidden army.
However, don't think that this is Zhao Kuangyin's "invention", he is just taking the plan of Chai Rong of Zhou Shizong and continuing to copy.
In other words, to strengthen the centralization of power with military reform, Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty was the leader, and Zhao Kuangyin was just the successor. If you have to say that there is any "innovation" in it, the reform of the imperial court forbidden army can be regarded as his "originality".
Further, the cutting of the feudal domain was also an inevitable action at the end of the cycle of the five generations of troubled times, and both Sejong and Taejo just took advantage of the trend. Don't exaggerate your personal ability, if you put them in Li Cunqiao's position, you will definitely not be able to achieve such results.
Any historical bull is essentially nothing more than a product of the times.
At the same time, Zhao Kuangyin also further collected the financial power of the local festival envoys into the ownership of the imperial court. In this way, the political power, military power, personnel power, and supervision power owned by the Jiedu envoy were transferred to the hands of the transfer envoy, general judge, and magistrate of the prefecture and county appointed by the imperial court, and it became a pattern in which the emperor and the scholars ruled the world together.
After completing these prefectures and counties, the imperial court also rotated and transferred them every three years, so as not to form influence in the local area and become bigger.
In October of the second year of Kaibao (969), Zhao Kuangyin set up a wine bureau again, and dismissed Wang Yanchao from Fengxiang Jiedu, Wu Xingde from Anyuan Jiedu, Guo Congyi from Huguo Jiedu, Bai Chongzan from Dingguo Jiedu, and Yang Tingzhang from Baoda Jiedu, and awarded them fictitious titles such as "Taifu" and "General", and forced these people to stay in Beijing for retirement.
The problem of the local feudal towns was also largely resolved.
It can be seen that Taizu's cutting of the feudal domain went through a long period of time and the result was obtained after several games, so if you only one-sidedly believe that Zhao Kuangyin solved the historical disease with just one drink, it can only be a lack of deep understanding of politics.
To a certain extent, Song Zu was just conforming to history to put an end to the work of cutting the feudal domain of Later Zhou Shizong.
But in any case, Taizu can be regarded as having completed his historical mission brilliantly. From this point of view, the Chenqiao Mutiny has its positive significance, because Chai Zongxun is simply not capable of handling such a difficult political task, and it will only make the chaos of military-led politics continue to evolve.
If any emperor wants to cut down the feudal domain, he must not only have strong ability and prestige, but also have the blessing of military merits in order to complete such a difficult political task. It was by virtue of the military exploits accumulated in the Later Zhou Dynasty that Taizu was able to solve the problem of feudal towns in one fell swoop, so that the world cut from the troubled times to the virtuous circle of governing the world.
Moreover, this matter must be done in the Taizu era, otherwise the historical farce will be staged.
However, there must be disadvantages in everything, and Taizu's action of cutting the feudal domain not only weakened the force gene of the Great Song Dynasty, but also caused the negative results of redundant officials, redundant soldiers, and redundant expenses in the Great Song Dynasty. Because the later monarchs did not further upgrade the law of their ancestors, and after forming the inertia of domination, they elevated the status of the soldiers, which eventually caused the Northern Song Dynasty to always be in a weak and passive position when dealing with the nomadic forces in the frontier.
Jingkang's difficulties have become inevitable.
Due to the excessive concentration of resources, after Bianjing was breached, the Northern Song Dynasty also declared its demise.
In short, we can't blindly deny Taizu's action of cutting the feudal domain, he just completed his historical mission in accordance with historical needs, but a set of systems cannot support a dynasty to go through a complete cycle.
It is the right thing to do if we continue to evolve to meet the needs of the times.
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