In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, ten of the five dynasties and ten kingdoms were still scattered, and Zhao Kuangyin had to lead troops to recover those scattered lands.
When Zhao Kuangyin led his troops to the capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu, the singing emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, wanted to surrender and only asked the Song Dynasty not to destroy the Southern Tang regime.
However, Zhao Kuangyin said a word to Li Yu, which has now become a well-known saying.
What did Zhao Kuangyin say to Li Yu? What is the final ending of Li Yu?
The Northern Song Dynasty followed the five dynasties
Even the Tang Dynasty, which was the most prosperous in ancient times, will definitely usher in the day of collapse.
After the Tang Dynasty shattered, a chaotic era called the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was formed, waiting for a hero to appear.
Finally, after decades of turmoil, Zhao Kuangyin took over the throne from the Later Zhou Emperor and established the Northern Song Dynasty, announcing the end of the Five Dynasties.
The last emperor of the Tang Dynasty was the Tang Emperor Li Ji, who "voluntarily" ceded his throne to Zhu Wen, the king of Liang, announcing the end of the Tang Dynasty and the beginning of the Liang Dynasty. Liang Dynasty, known as the "Later Liang" in history.
In such chaotic times, the change of dynasty is very fast. Houliang soon had problems and was finally destroyed by Li Cunmao.
After destroying the Later Liang, Li Cunmao naturally wanted to establish another Li Shi dynasty, so he used "Tang" as the national name, known as "Later Tang" in history. But Hou Tang didn't have a good life for a few days before something went wrong.
Shi Jingjiao received reinforcements from the Khitans at the cost of the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun", and then he established the "Later Jin" with the help of the Khitans.
After Shi Jingjiao gave the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun" to the Khitans, he recognized the Khitan Emperor Yelu Deguang as his father.
However, the influence of the "Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures" ceded by Shi Jingjiao to the Khitans was too great, and even the Great Wall was surrendered, which led to the later Northern Song Dynasty always being under the threat of the Khitans.
It stands to reason that with the support of the Khitans, it is unlikely that the Later Jin will be wiped out by other countries, and the only possibility is that the Khitan will go south to deal with the Later Jin.
And this is indeed the case, after Shi Jingjiao's death, he passed the throne to his nephew Shi Chonggui.
However, Shi Chonggui did not support his uncle in ceding land to the Khitan at the beginning, so he began to deliberately alienate the Khitan after becoming emperor.
But the Khitans were not easy to mess with, they quickly sent troops to eliminate the Later Jin, and Shi Chonggui's family was captured by the Khitans.
After the fall of the Later Jin Dynasty, the most powerful festival made Liu Zhiyuan stand up and claim the emperor. And because his surname is Liu, he set the country name as "Han", and the history is called "Later Han".
The Later Han Dynasty only existed for two years before the general Guo Wei rebelled and established the "Later Zhou", which was also the last of the five dynasties.
When the Later Zhou Dynasty passed to the third emperor, Zhao Kuangyin, who was still a general of the forbidden army at that time, launched the "Chenqiao Mutiny", put the "yellow robe" on his body, and returned to the palace to let the seven-year-old young emperor Zen throne and establish the Song Dynasty.
So far, after the five dynasties of the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han, and the Later Zhou, Zhao Kuangyin established the Song Dynasty through the "Chenqiao Mutiny, Yellow Robe", known as the "Northern Song Dynasty" in history.
However, the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty was so large at the beginning, and the Khitans in the north could not be touched, so Zhao Kuangyin could only deal with the ten kingdoms in the south first. Because these ten countries are all small countries, Zhao Kuangyin can easily deal with them.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin took advantage of the high morale of the soldiers and immediately sent troops to recover the three small states of Nanping, Houshu and Southern Han. After that, Zhao Kuangyin stopped the pace of the battle, he thought that he could no longer fight at this time, so Zhao Kuangyin did not immediately cross the Yangtze River.
The Southern Tang Dynasty in the Ten Kingdoms
We all know that when Zhao Kuangyin seized the throne from the little emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty, he did not abolish a single soldier, but relied on the "yellow robes" of the soldiers to become the emperor.
After ascending the throne, he only owned the territory of Hou Zhou, so he took advantage of the enthusiasm of the soldiers to support the new emperor, and led the soldiers to attack several small countries among the ten countries.
Under the leadership of Zhao Kuangyin, the Northern Song army quickly wiped out three of the Ten Kingdoms, but the next one to recover was the strongest of the Ten Kingdoms, the Southern Tang Dynasty.
The Southern Tang Dynasty was the largest of the Ten Kingdoms, and before Zhao Kuangyin ascended the throne, the second emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty had already sent troops to attack the Southern Tang Dynasty.
However, at that time, he did not get much success, but only gave the name of the emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, so that the emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty was no longer allowed to call himself the emperor, and could only be called the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty.
In the fourth year of the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Southern Tang Dynasty was trembling in the south at this time, because the Northern Song Dynasty had just swept three small countries at this time. Just when Nantang thought that Zhao Kuangyin would come to attack them, Zhao Kuangyin withdrew his troops.
But at this time, Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was still worried, because he didn't know when the Northern Song Dynasty would send troops to eliminate them.
Therefore, at the suggestion of the ministers of the DPRK and China, Li Yu ordered someone to submit a letter of state to Zhao Kuangyin, which read: Southern Tang voluntarily gave up his country name "Tang". Since then, Li Yu has called himself the "lord of Jiangnan", and he is no longer the person who is the lord of the country.
Compared with those dynasties that only lasted one year or two, the history of the Southern Tang Dynasty was still relatively long, with a total of three generations and thirty-eight years.
The founding emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty was Li Yu. This Li Yu's original name was Xu Zhihe, but he was indeed from the Li family, and he changed his name to Xu Zhihe only because of his stepfather.
At that time, the Tang Dynasty was destroyed, and the people of the world were hostile to the people surnamed Li, and there were even cases of beating the children of the Li family.
Li Yu's father once served as a general in the Tang Dynasty, so he was also plotted, and Li Yu's mother could only run away with her son.
In the end, Li Yu's mother did not survive, and Li Yu was given by his uncle to a family surnamed Xu for adoption.
Although Li Yu grew up in the Xu family, he has not forgotten his identity. After growing up, Li Yu joined Southern Wu and became a great hero of Southern Wu, and was also named King of Qi by the emperor of Southern Wu.
But he will not be satisfied when he is the king of Qi, his goal is very big, and soon he broke away from Southern Wu and established his own "Xu Qi".
At this time, Li Yu was still not satisfied, and finally he claimed to be a descendant of the Tang Dynasty royal family, and according to his identity and status, he changed the country name to "Tang", which is the Southern Tang Dynasty that we are familiar with.
The reason why the land area of the Southern Tang Dynasty is so large is that it is actually the territory of several countries put together.
Soon after the establishment of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Zhang Zaijun, the general of the Zhenguo State of Fujian, died. There was a civil strife in Fujian, and the army of the Southern Tang Dynasty took the opportunity to enter the capital of Fujian.
Originally, the generals of the Southern Tang Dynasty ordered the slaughter of the city, and Mrs. Lian stood up to protect the people of the city, but she failed to prevent the Min State from being annexed by the Southern Tang Dynasty.
Subsequently, the Southern Tang Dynasty took advantage of the civil strife in Southern Chu and forcibly occupied the territory of Southern Chu.
But it was not only Nantang who was staring at this place, and in the end, Nantang could only get a part of Nanchu's territory. In fact, this is enough, part of the land of Southern Wu and Fujian is enough to make Southern Tang the largest country south of the Yangtze River.
The Northern Zhou north of the Yangtze River is also paying attention to the situation here, and they think that the Southern Tang Dynasty may grow up, and then rely on the Yangtze River to fight against them.
Northern Zhou naturally didn't want this kind of thing to happen, so they held Nantang down while Nantang hadn't grown up yet.
Zhao Kuangyin also participated in this battle, and the result of the battle was that the Southern Tang was forced to declare himself a vassal to the Northern Zhou, which can be regarded as the completion of the original goal.
But the problem has not been solved, and Nantang is still a country with a large area of land. If the Southern Tang Dynasty and Wu Yueguo, as well as other local forces, unite, maybe they can really touch the Northern Song Dynasty.
The Northern Song Dynasty destroyed the Southern Tang Dynasty
The reason why Zhao Kuangyin did not deal with the Southern Tang after getting rid of those three small countries was because he had already participated in the previous war against the Southern Tang.
If you look at it according to the previous strength, the Northern Song Dynasty will have to pay a lot of price to win this battle. The enemies of the Northern Song Dynasty were not these countries in the south, and the Khitans in the north were also staring at the Northern Song Dynasty.
After the Later Jin Dynasty, the Khitans supported another regime in the north, the Northern Han.
This Northern Han Dynasty is also somewhat related to the previous Later Han Dynasty. Before Guo Wei established the Later Zhou, he was only a general of the Later Han Dynasty.
The emperor of the Later Han Dynasty believed that Guo Wei's power was too strong and would definitely rebel in the future, so the Emperor of the Later Han Dynasty sent assassins to assassinate Guo Wei in advance.
However, the assassin sent by the Later Han Emperor was a good friend of Guo Wei, and he told Guo Wei all about the Later Han Emperor's plans.
Guo Wei had no choice but to rebel and kill the Emperor of the Later Han Dynasty. And this emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty was the younger brother of the Later Han Emperor, who fled to the territory of the Khitans in the north and established the Later Han with the help of the Khitans.
In order to be vigilant against the Northern Han Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin did not rashly use all his strength.
After the army recuperated for four years, Zhao Kuangyin sent troops to the Southern Tang Dynasty. At this time, the lord of Jiangnan was Li Yu, who could only write words, and the Southern Tang Dynasty that he succeeded to the throne had lost its former glory, so Zhao Kuangyin did not have much effort to hit the capital.
At this time, Li Yu was still thinking about how to keep his position. He is still using the previous set of showing weakness to the Northern Song Dynasty, hoping that the Northern Song Dynasty can keep him in this position.
But now Zhao Kuangyin is not so kind, when Li Yu admitted his mistake and made amends and asked Zhao Kuangyin to let him go, Zhao Kuangyin calmly said to him: "What is the crime of the Southern Tang Dynasty? But the only person in the world can be called the emperor, and on the side of the couch, how can he allow others to snore? ”
In the end, the Northern Song Dynasty took the Southern Tang Dynasty, and those small countries and local governments that relied on the Southern Tang Dynasty to resist the Northern Song Dynasty also defected to the Northern Song Dynasty, and almost all the land in the south was recovered by the Song Dynasty.
However, the land in the north was still in the hands of the Khitans, although the Northern Song Dynasty later sent troops to eliminate the Northern Han, but the "Sixteen Cities of Yanyun" was not recaptured until the Ming Dynasty.
Although Zhao Kuangyin obtained the throne through the Chenqiao Mutiny, which can be regarded as an improper means, he made a significant contribution to the recovery of the country. Especially his sentence "On the side of the couch, how can you allow others to snore"! It has been passed down through the ages, which makes people amazed!