Liu Yu led a large army to capture Guanzhong Chang'an and destroy Later Qin, which was the greatest achievement of the Northern Expedition since the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Before Liu Yu, the rulers of the Eastern Jin dynasty had many experiences in the Northern Expedition, but all of them ended in failure. They do not want to say that the occupation of Chang'an, a politically symbolic city, even the number of times the army was driven to the vicinity of the old capital Luoyang was countless. It can be said that Liu Yu's occupation of Chang'an was the peak moment of his life, and it was also the moment when the Southern Dynasty had the most strategic advantage over the Northern Dynasty militarily. However, this advantage did not last long, as Liu Yu led a large army back to Jiankang, the Hu Xia lord Helian Bobo invaded Guanzhong from the south, and the Eastern Jin army was defeated in a major battle with Helian Bobo, so that the important land of Guanzhong Chang'an was regained.
Losing such an important strategic place, the Southern Dynasty once again lost its strategic advantage, and Liu Yu also missed the opportunity to unify the world. Even if Liu Yu later took the place of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and created Liu Song's Jiangshan Sheji, he could not launch such a powerful offensive again. The reason for the gain and loss of Guanzhong Chang'an has been discussed by many people in history. Some people believe that Liu Yu's mind is not in Guanzhong, so he does not pay attention to the defense and development of Guanzhong. It is also believed that Liu Yu let his twelve-year-old son Liu Yizhen guard Guanzhong, but his son Liu Yizhen could not suppress the arrogant generals under him, resulting in infighting in the Eastern Jin army, giving Helian Bobo an opportunity to take advantage. Others believe that the Eastern Jin army did not want to stay in Guanzhong, and the ideological and emotional mood caused low morale, so it was not an opponent of Helian Bobo's army.
These reasons are all reasonable, but from the history books, they are not the real reasons. The above statement only describes the situation in all aspects of the Eastern Jin Dynasty when Helian Bobo went south, and does not explain its core problems. According to the analysis of historical records at that time, the fundamental reason for the Eastern Jin army's defeat in front of Helian Bobo was Liu Yu's second son Liu Yizhen. However, it is not that many people think that Liu Yizhen cannot control the arrogant generals left by Liu Yu, but that Liu Yizhen provoked the internal struggle of the Eastern Jin army for his own ambitions, resulting in the great weakening of the army's combat effectiveness. When faced with helian Bobo's army, the Eastern Jin army was actually too busy with infighting to unite against the enemy, and eventually the entire army was destroyed in the war.
Many history books believe that the defeat of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in this war was due to liu Yizhen's infighting because he was only twelve years old and unable to control the arrogant generals under his command. This statement seems to have some truth, but in fact it does not match historical facts. Liu Yizhen is twelve years old, but in ancient society, such people basically used it as half an adult. In the family of official eunuchs, the children who focused on training had already tried to contact government affairs at the age of twelve, and learned in practice. Liu Yizhen was Liu Yu's favorite son, and he was specially brought with him when he went to the Northern Expedition, and arranged for many famous scholars to teach, indicating that he was trained in a key way. Since this was the case, with Liu Yu's great talent, it was impossible to imagine whether Liu Yi's true ability could control the question of the arrogant generals under his command.
In fact, before Liu Yu left Guanzhong, he had already made relatively complete arrangements for this. On the one hand, Wang Xiu, Wang Zhenxi, Fu Hongzhi and others from Guanzhong were allowed to dominate the power of the Eastern Jin army in Guanzhong, and on the other hand, Shen Tianzi, Zhu Lingshi, and others from Jiangnan were used as grippers to clamp down on the northern generals. He even compared Wang Zhen evil to Zhong Hui in front of Shen Tianzi and To Wei Wan. This is actually a hint at the power of the southern army to dispose of it if the northern army is self-reliant. It can be seen from this that he is deliberate on how to arrange the affairs of Guanzhong, and balances power with the balance of power between the armies of the north and the south. With such a balance of power, Liu Yizhen's difficulty in controlling these arrogant generals will be much smaller.
Some history lovers of half a bucket of water believe that Liu Yi is really a doll and cannot make the right decision, so he cannot control the arrogant generals who disobey each other. In fact, this statement is completely taken for granted, and it is a subjective speculation that ignores the historical background. Liu Yizhen was only twelve years old, but he was not the only one who made the decision, and Liu Yu equipped him with a complete staff team. The most important of these were Liu Yu's chief strategist Wang Xiu, plus some eunuchs from various gate valves in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Such a team was enough to support Liu Yizhen's power in Guanzhong and also to control the Eastern Jin Dynasty army in Guanzhong. Although Wang Xiu was a Guanzhong man, he became famous in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and was loyal to Liu Yu, so Liu Yu was very relieved about Wang Xiu.
Before Liu Yu left Guanzhong, he "took Liu Yizhen's hand to grant Wang Xiu, and Ling Xiu held the hand of his son Xiaosun to grant Gaozu." From this, we can see his trust in Wang Xiu. It can be said that under his arrangement of Guanzhong Chang'an, Wang Xiu is the most core role, and Liu Yizhen is the future of Guanzhong Chang'an, and Wang Zhenji and Shen Tianzi are not his expectations. It can be seen that the actual ruler of Chang'an in Guanzhong was not Liu Yizhen, but Wang Xiu, and Liu Yizhen only studied government affairs under Wang Xiu's teaching. Therefore, there is no problem of Liu Yizhen making decisions on military and political affairs in Guanzhong, because these problems will be decided by the team headed by Wang Xiu. The infighting in Guanzhong did not begin with Wang Xiu's team, but with Wang Zhenxi and Shen Tianzi.
In the face of Helian Bobo's invasion of the army from the south, Shen Tianzi collapsed in the front, and fearing that Wang Zhen evil, who had a contradiction with him, would take the opportunity to deal with it with military law, so he designed to assassinate Wang Zhen evil and reported it to Wang Zhen evil for plotting rebellion. Wang Xiu then executed Shen Tianzi on this charge, causing the Eastern Jin army to lose two generals in infighting before a major battle. Liu Yizhen then executed Wang Xiu on the charge of treason, leaving the Eastern Jin army leaderless, and in the face of Helian Bobo's army, he could only fight on his own, and finally had to withdraw from Chang'an City. In the process of retreating south, the Eastern Jin army was defeated by Helian Bobo's army, and eventually the entire army was destroyed, and only Liu Yizhen fled back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty with the help of Duan Hong, a chinese soldier who joined the army. At this point, Guanzhong Chang'an was occupied by Helian Bobo, and the strategic situation was reversed.
From the above historical facts, it can be seen that the infighting in the Eastern Jin Dynasty army began with the two generals Shen Tianzi and Wang Zhenxi. Many people blame their internal strength on Liu Yizhen's inability to suppress the position at a young age, which is completely self-righteous speculation, and there is no description of such historical facts in the history books. The contradiction between Shen Tianzi and Wang Zhenxian was caused by the struggle for merit in the Qin War after the eastern Jin Dynasty was destroyed. The deeper reason for this is the contradiction between the Northern Army and the Southern Army in the Eastern Jin Dynasty Army, and Wang Zhenxian and Shen Tianzi are the spokesmen of these two factions. Originally, most of the eastern Jin dynasty's army was the southern army, mainly the Jingzhou and Yangzhou armies. They were all from the areas under the administration of the various gatekeeper clans of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and they were incompatible with the Beifu soldiers who came from the north and south.
Since the Battle of Shuishui, the Beifu army has risen and become the most elite part of the Eastern Jin army. Under the leadership of Liu Gaozhi, Liu Yu and other famous generals, the Beifu soldiers conquered the Northern War in the south, and made great achievements, not only winning the Victory in the Battle of Shuishui, but also successively quelling the rebellion of Sun En, the rebellion of Huan Xuan, and the rebellion of Lu Xun, and participated in the war to pacify southern Yan, becoming the cornerstone force of the Eastern Jin army. The Southern Army, on the other hand, was defeated again and again in these wars, and even in the civil unrest, the Northern Fu soldiers fought badly, so the two armies accumulated a large number of contradictions. In Liu Yu's Army after the Northern Expedition, the Beifu soldiers and the Southern Army existed at the same time, and the Beifu soldiers performed better than the Southern Army in the war, so they were superior in military merit.
Therefore, the southern generals led by Shen Tianzi disobeyed Wang Zhenxi and other northern generals, and provoked and rubbed in various aspects, which eventually led to infighting. From the perspective of the army, the infighting between Wang Zhenxian and Shen Tianzi was not an accidental phenomenon, but a manifestation of the inevitable outbreak of contradictions between the southern and northern armies of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It only happened to erupt when Helian Bobo led his army south, causing great damage to the Eastern Jin army.
Wang Xiu resolutely executed Shen Tianzi for the sake of firmly enforcing the law, and also for stabilizing the situation in Guanzhong and uniting the army, which was no problem. Because the Eastern Jin Dynasty army in Guanzhong was at a disadvantage at that time, it had to rely on the Beifu soldiers, mainly northerners, and the support of the common people in Guanzhong. If Shen Tianzi was not executed in accordance with military law, it would inevitably cause the Soldiers of Beifu and the people of Guanzhong to deviate from Germany, and in this case, it would be impossible to fight against the large army of Helian Bo.
It was precisely this timely disposition that stabilized the situation in Guanzhong, enabling Fu Hongzhi to defeat Helian Bobo's son Helian Xuan with all his might, and to make Chang'an proud to be temporarily saved. In fact, after the deaths of Wang Zhenxi and Shen Tianzi, the strength of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Guanzhong was not greatly damaged, and the relatively complete military strength was basically guaranteed. In this case, relying on the favorable terrain and city defense advantages of Chang'an Dacheng, coupled with the military strength of the Eastern Jin Army, it was possible to engage in a war of attrition with Helian Bobo in Guanzhong and near Chang'an. However, at this critical moment, Liu Yizhen killed Wang Xiu, leaving the Eastern Jin army leaderless. Wang Xiu's death caused a complete split between the northern and southern armies, and the two sides went their own way, causing the war situation to take a sharp turn for the worse.
Analyzing the causes and development process of infighting in the Eastern Jin Dynasty army, Wang Zhenxi and Shen Tianzi were only the fuse, and Liu Yizhen's killing of Wang Xiu was the root cause of the complete erosion of the situation. So the question is, why did Liu Yizhen kill Wang Xiu? The history books say that Liu Yizhen listened to the rumors of his subordinates, so he killed Wang Xiu on the charge of treason. A closer look reveals that this is clearly a throwing pot. When Helian Bobo's army was close at hand, Liu Yizhen killed his own commander with two rumors from his subordinates, which was a ridiculous thing. If Liu Yizhen was really a doll, he wouldn't be able to kill Wang Xiu at all, because he wouldn't have any actual power. If it wasn't a doll, then he would definitely have a reason to kill Wang Xiu.
Combined with the analysis of the historical data of Liu Yizhen's life, it can be seen that Liu Yizhen's killing of Wang Xiu was a continuation of the dispute between the north and the south within the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Although Liu Yizhen was Liu Yu's second son, and Liu Yu was also a northerner who went south, Liu Yizhen did not like the northerners, and was surrounded by famous people from the southern shi clan. He was a man of great ambition, and even in the context of Liu Yu's death and Liu Yifu's ascension to the throne, he united with the gatekeeper officials to seek the throne.
The team around Liu Yizhen was carefully configured by Liu Yu, including both northern celebrities such as Wang Xiu and celebrities of the southern warrior clan. Although Wang Xiu held a lot of power, the officials of the Southern Shi Clan Gate Valve were trusted by Liu Yizhen. Wang Xiu's death was actually the choice of Liu Yizhen to obey the southern Gate Valve clan, and it was also the beginning of his exclusion of northern armies and officials, causing infighting and division in the Eastern Jin army.
Judging from the whole process of the incident, the infighting between Wang Zhen evil and Shen Tianzi did not cause too much damage to the Eastern Jin army, but liu Yizhen killed Wang Xiu and caused the Eastern Jin army to completely collapse. After Wang Xiu's death, the Eastern Jin army was completely out of control. Liu Yizhen only had the southern army shrink to the defense of Chang'an, while the northern army either withdrew south on its own or surrendered to Helian's army. In the course of its operation, the Southern Army also plundered the people in Chang'an, causing the people's hearts to be alienated from Germany, and a large number of people took the initiative to defect to Helian Bobo, when the Huxia army went south to lead the way. In such a situation where the hearts and minds of the army and the people were lost, why did the Eastern Jin army fight against Helian Bobo. Judging from historical facts, Liu Yizhen was able to escape back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty by luck, and all of this was a completely death-defying operation.
To sum up, the fundamental reason why Guanzhong Chang'an was gained and lost, and Liu Yizhen's army was completely destroyed, was not that Liu Yizhen could not suppress the arrogant generals, but that he only trusted the southern army and rejected and suppressed the northern generals. In the early days when the contradictions between the northern and southern armies were fierce and infighting appeared, he not only did not support Wang Xiu in calming down the internal contradictions, but also used the internal contradictions to kill Wang Xiu. This was actually for the sake of being able to fully control the power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty army, out of the consideration of excluding dissidents.
As Liu Yu's second son, he was not eligible to be crown prince, but in order to compete with his brother Liu Yifu for power, he had to have his own army. In order to gain the support of the Southern Shi Clan Gate Valve, he leaned toward the Southern Army, so he suppressed and squeezed out the Northern Army, which triggered infighting among the Eastern Jin Army. Because of the separation from the Northern Army and the northern people, the Eastern Jin Army rebelled in Guanzhong, and the defeat of the war was natural.