In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs monopolized power, and the dispute between friends and parties was constantly intensifying, and the feudal towns in various places were divided and mixed, and the social situation at the end of the Tang Dynasty became more and more chaotic. In 755, Fan Yang Jiedu sent An Lushan to launch a rebellion with his general Shi Siming under the pretext of the appearance of traitors in the imperial court. The An Shi rebels marched south from Hebei, first capturing the eastern capital Luoyang, and then capturing Tongguan and approaching Chang'an. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, who created the prosperous situation of the Tang Dynasty, fled to Sichuan, and the crown prince Li Heng went north to Lingwu and was proclaimed emperor by the minister of culture and martial arts, that is, Emperor Suzong of Tang. The Tang Dynasty transferred the elite troops of zhenshou to the northwest region, and with the assistance of the ethnic minority troops in the north, finally put down the rebellion.
But wave after wave, wave after wave. In 878, a large-scale peasant uprising broke out, and the rebel army, led by Huang Chao, turned to the north and south and invaded Chang'an. Ten days later, Huang Chao took the throne at daming palace in Chang'an City and claimed the title of emperor, with the state name of Daqi. However, Huang Chao only spent four months of peace in Chang'an, and the Tang Emperor mobilized all kinds of soldiers and horses to surround Chang'an, and Huang Chao had to lead his troops to kill Chang'an. In 884, Huang Chao led an army to attack Chen Prefecture (陳州, in modern Huaiyang, Henan), which could not be attacked for a long time, and lost most of his men and horses, and fell into a desperate situation. The Tang Dynasty mobilized a large army to besiege, and Huang Chaojian was unable to break through the siege and drew his sword to commit suicide. Although the Huangchao Rebellion failed, it dealt a fatal blow to Tang rule.
Zhu Wen, who was originally a general of the peasant rebel army, later surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, was given the title of Jiedu Envoy, and jointly suppressed the Huangchao Rebellion with other feudal towns, and was awarded the title of King of Liang by the Tang Dynasty for his merits in suppressing the uprising. Zhu Wen gradually controlled the government and successively annexed the large and small separatist forces in the north. In 907, Zhu Wen established the Later Liang regime, and the Tang Dynasty fell.
The Tang Dynasty collapsed, and China entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, China entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In the short fifty-four years of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Central Plains successively appeared In the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Five Dynasties, fourteen emperors appeared. At the same time, in addition to these five dynasties, more than a dozen regimes appeared in the south, collectively known as the "Ten Kingdoms", and the history is called the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period. The founding kings of the five generations were all warlords of the former dynasty, who developed and grew by military division, so there were frequent wars and regime changes during this period. In five dynasties, even within one dynasty, the struggle for power is extraordinary. For example, after Only five years after Later Liang's taizu Zhu Wen ascended the throne, he was killed by his second son Zhu Yousi. Soon after Zhu Yousi came to power, he was killed by his brother Zhu Youzhen. For example, Li Congrong, the son of Emperor Mingzong of Tang, li Siyuan, also seized power with soldiers, but failed to succeed and lost his life. After Emperor Mingzong's death, his brother's fifth son, Li Conghou, succeeded to the throne for only one year, and his throne was seized by Emperor Mingzong's adopted son Li Congke. Frequent wars of soldiers brought great pain and disaster to the people.
In the first month of 960, Zhao Kuangyin launched the Chen Qiao Mutiny, usurping the Zhou Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, and the Later Zhou dynasty collapsed, and the history of the five dynasties ended. As the founding emperor, Zhao Kuangyin, after the founding of the country, conscientiously summed up the reasons for the fall of the previous dynasties, especially the last years of the Tang Dynasty and the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period, and drew on the advantages of the Qin and Han systems to refer to their failures to improve the political system of the Song Dynasty. Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, believed that the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms emphasized martial arts and light literature, resulting in the growth of the power of the feudal towns, the seizure of power by the military generals, and the frequent change of dynasties; if the Song Dynasty also emphasized martial arts and light literature, then I am afraid that it is another short-lived dynasty, and it will not end the great chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms!
Zhao Kuangyin Chen Qiao mutinied, and the yellow robe was added
Since the Song Dynasty could not adopt the policy of emphasizing force over literature, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, could only limit the power of military generals and formulate the basic national policy of "emphasizing literature over light force". Although Zhao Kuangyin also came to power from the usurpation of the throne by military generals, he did not intend to let similar tragedies repeat themselves, so that the military generals could not commit rebellion, and the Song Dynasty would not follow the same old path as before.
The Song Dynasty also ended the five dynasties and ten kingdoms because of its own stability, and roughly unified China.
Several years after Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, ascended the throne as emperor, Zhao Pu, the chancellor, repeatedly made remarks, saying that Shi Shouxin, Wang Zhenqi, and several others were highly powerful and still controlled the imperial forbidden army, so sooner or later something would happen, and also asked the emperor to transfer them elsewhere to prevent problems before they happened. At the beginning, Zhao Kuangyin only smiled slightly at Zhao Pu's suggestion, and he completely trusted these two good brothers. However, if you can't stand being indoctrinated for a long time, anyone will change their minds and overturn their original intentions.
On July 15 of the second year of Jianlong, Zhao Kuangyin, the ancestor of the Song Dynasty, left behind those generals who had been born and died with him and fought in the Southern Expedition and the Northern War. When he was happy, Zhao Kuangyin suddenly said: "Don't look at me so happy now, in fact, I can't eat every day, and I can't sleep..." As soon as they heard this, these generals were very strange, and they asked: "Your Majesty is rich in all parts of the world, why did you say this?" Zhao Kuangyin replied, "When you were greedy for wealth and nobility, you put the yellow robe on me and made me emperor, so that you could be the founding fathers." What if one day your subordinates covet wealth and force you to become emperor? ”
Zhao Kuangyin "Cup of wine to release military power"
It is really a saying: who does not want to do it in this position! As soon as the generals heard this, they were immediately frightened and all fell to their knees, didn't the emperor make it clear that he was not at ease with himself? So, they collectively played with their lives and prostrated their heads: "Then what do you say?" Zhao Kuangyin said, "Just like this, aren't we fighting wars just to enjoy happiness?" You go home now, you want the house, I give you the house, you want the land I give you the land, you want the money I give you the money. You marry a few more concubines and have a fuller evening. My princess marries your son, and my son marries your daughter, so that the monarch and the subject will marry Qin and Jin, and there is no suspicion of each other. "What's not to like about that? After the generals returned home, they wrote their resignation letters the next day: "I have broken my feet, broken bones, and can no longer ride horses." "I've got a cold and can't go to work anymore." Within a few days, the ministers were all going home knowingly.
In the end, Zhao Kuangyin was very happy, he resolved the problem peacefully, successfully regained power, and there was no trouble between the monarchs and subjects, and he also left a history of beautiful talks through the ages.
After weakening the power of military generals, the negative impact of the three provinces and six ministries system in the Sui and Tang dynasties also appeared, such as the sui and Tang dynasty prime ministers as the supreme administrator, the power in his hands can not be underestimated, and the two major powers of government affairs and finance are often taken into account, which also leads to the fall of imperial power. Therefore, the Song Dynasty improved a set of its own plan, and Zhao Kuangyin set up the "two governments and three divisions system".
Song Dynasty's "Two Houses and Three Divisions System"
In the Song Dynasty's "two houses and three divisions system", the two houses were the government affairs hall and the privy council, the chief of the government affairs hall was the prime minister and the governor of the government affairs, and the privy councillor was the privy councillor and the privy council deputy envoy. In the Tang Dynasty, "participating in the government affairs" was similar to a temporary official position, and more work similar to "running errands" was done, but Zhao Kuangyin gave it great power; nominally "participating in the governor's affairs" was a deputy post, but in addition to the slightly inferior name, participating in the affairs of the governor was the same as the work of the prime minister, and the power was equal. In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi served as a counselor and governor, but in the Song Dynasty, a relationship of checks and balances was formed, weakening the power of the prime minister and strengthening the centralization of power.
In the "Second House", the Supreme Governor of the Western Privy Council is the Privy Council, and there are also Privy Councillor Deputy Envoys, so there are "Privy Councillors in charge of military records, tiger charms, three guards in charge of the armies, leading the main military handles, each with its own guard." The military power was grasped by Song Taizu himself, but whenever there was a war, wouldn't it be a child's play? Therefore, Zhao Kuangyin divided his powers under the shadow of his own power. Every time the Three Emperors had to go to the Privy Council to receive the Tiger Charm, this sight was cumbersome in the system, but it was popular in the eyes of the emperor. At the same time, in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Taizu adopted the suggestion of Zhao Pu, the prime minister, to divide the forbidden army into beijing divisions and foreign counties, rotate inside and outside, and regularly return to the beijing division, so it was called the more shu law.
In the early days of the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin selected soldiers who had advantages in height, strength, speed, etc. in the whole army and sent them to various places as "soldier samples", and used this as a criterion to select the most elite soldiers, who were assigned to the central government, named "Forbidden Army", which was the emperor's guard. The old and weak people left behind after the local selection are "van soldiers", local soldiers, and no one trains them in peacetime, that is, they are just doing hard labor. The imperial court brought the elite military strength to the center, and the rulers of the Song Dynasty gradually gained a foothold and solved the hidden dangers of the division of the feudal towns.
The elite troops of the Song Dynasty "Forbidden Army"
The essence of the Song Dynasty's "more shu method" was also to prevent the monopoly of power, but the generals did not move with it, so that "the soldiers were impermanent, and the marshals were impermanent", and the Song Dynasty generals usually sent out the troops in Jingdong, Jingxi, Hebei, Hedong, Shaanxi, Jiangnan, Huainan, Liangzhe, Jinghu, Chuanxia, Guangdong and other places, rotating for a period of three years. Song dynasty generals could directly control and mobilize only a few thousand soldiers, as few as less than a thousand. If you need the mobilization of tens of thousands of people, it is troublesome. Generals do not have this power. And there were not many soldiers under its jurisdiction. There are still some of these that cannot be directly mobilized. The "more disciplined method" is beneficial to preventing the generals from monopolizing power, but it weakens the combat effectiveness of the army. The purpose of the "more shu law" is to separate and separate, and every once in a while, the garrison generals who defend the city will be exchanged with the generals who guard the border passes, and to a certain extent, a situation of "the soldiers will not know the generals, and they will not know the soldiers". This did reduce the prestige of the general in the army, but the situation of mutual ignorance also deepened the situation of appointing idlers. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, Wang Anshi changed the law, abolished the law of shu, and changed it to the art of general war.
After Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, properly handled government affairs and military power, only financial power could influence the government. In the "two provinces and three divisions system", the three divisions are the Hubu Division, the Salt and Iron Division, and the Duzhi Division, and the chief is the Three Divisions, also known as the Counting Phase. Zhao Kuangyin set up three departments of "degree branch, household department, and salt and iron", which were only divided by category and signed by each one. Finance is the gold and silver on the surface, and what the emperor needs to do is not to control how each sum is spent, but to control the total amount and the abnormal problem. Whenever there was a disaster, a battle, or anything like that, as long as the emperor knew how much money he had done, it was enough. The three divisions submitted financial statements on time for the emperor to review, that is, they could contain each other, and they could directly control the emperor's hands, and the strengthening of imperial power was better than the previous three provinces and six ministries system. The separation of the military, the government, and the finances, coupled with the military three-command system, the Privy Council has the right to transfer troops but not the right to command the troops, the three courts have the right to command the troops but not the right to transfer troops, and the institutions help each other to check.
The two-province, three-division system, and the establishment of dual post managers, weakened the power of the powerful ministers and had an excellent effect on curbing Qian Quanbing. Moreover, the money and power are separated, and even if the powerful subjects constitute a certain condition, they will be afraid to deal with things. In the Song Dynasty, Jia Xiangdao was like this, although he was called a powerful subject, but there was no other way but to deceive the emperor and collude with foreign enemies, which had a certain impact on the disaster of the country and chaotic government, but the usurpation of the throne was out of reach.
Southern Song Dynasty minister Jia Xiangdao (Zai Chancellor)
In the Song Dynasty, although there was still a general in name, the military general had already lost power, and it was difficult to control the power, and it was even more difficult to rebel. With the strength of the civilian bureaucracy, the position of the military general was weakened again, and the military general was generally only the executor, not the planner.
One day, Song Taizu and Zhao Pu, the prime minister, were chatting in the palace, and Zhao Kuangyin said to zhao pu, the prime minister: "The five generations of Fang Town are cruel, and the people are suffering from it." Now he uses Confucian subjects to divide and rule the great domains, and even if they are greedy, they are not as good as the ten martial ministers." This shows that Song Taizu believed that the disasters of the five dynasties of Fangzhen were mainly caused by the military ministers, and in order to strengthen the centralization of power, it was necessary to suppress the military ministers; he wanted to use civilian officials to govern the localities, and these people were all corrupt or something, and they were not as good as one-tenth of the scourge caused by the military generals. However, if a military attaché is corrupt or has a problem, it is not a matter of arresting if you want to and killing if you want to, and in order to keep your head or not lose your precious freedom, it is a matter of every second and every second to support the army and rebel. Later, Zhao Kuangyin also put "do not kill ministers and officials" as an ancestral precept in the Taimiao Temple, requiring future generations to abide by the ancestral precepts. Even when Emperor Huizong of Song was captured in the Jin Dynasty, he sent someone to tell Zhao Shuo that he must abide by this ancestral precept.
The second emperor of the Song Dynasty "Song Taizong"
In 976, after the death of Song Taizu, Zhao Guangyi ascended the throne as emperor, that is, Song Taizong, the second emperor of the Song Dynasty. Zhao Guangyi's real name was Zhao Kuangyi, but he later changed his name to Zhao Guangyi to avoid his brother Taizu. After Emperor Taizong of Song sat on the emperor's throne, he wanted to consolidate his rule and maintain political stability. To this end, Emperor Taizong of Song strengthened the investigation and selection of officials, further restricted the power of moderation, and tried to change the situation in which the warriors were in power and establish civilian politics. These measures conformed to the trend of history and made an important contribution to the stability of the Song Dynasty. At the same time, after Emperor Taizong of Song came to power, he greatly improved the treatment of literati and suppressed the warriors, and the Song Dynasty was much more generous than other dynasties in dealing with literati and civilian officials.
In the year of the founding of the Song Dynasty, in 960 AD, Zhao Kuangyin held the first imperial examination of the Song Dynasty and admitted 19 people. Why admit 19 people? Since the Tang Dynasty and the Fifth Dynasty, each section of jinshi has been mastered by twenty or thirty people, and it is better to be lacking than indiscriminate. The first branch of the Song Dynasty, of course, needs to set an example for the future, so it is picked and picked, and 19 outstanding people are selected. The exam was held again the following year, and only 11 people were admitted. In the following years, each rank of jinshi was about ten people, and the least Qiande four years (966) only admitted six people, which can be described as rare.
However, in order to consolidate his rule and win over the scholars, in the third year of Kaibao (970), Zhao Kuangyin issued a holy decree to the ceremonial departments who presided over the imperial examination, ordering them to sort out the files of the children of the past ten years and the Later Zhou and even the Later Han Dynasty, and to count how many people had not yet passed the final examination after 15 examinations. After careful verification, the Rebbe listed the names of a total of 106 people, led by Sima Pu. Zhao Kuangyin waved a big stroke: These people are really not easy, and they have all been given to undergraduate scholars. In the Song Dynasty, this kind of jinshi had a special name, called "Enke Jinshi", that is, the jinshi given by the emperor Kai en specially. Zhao Kuangyin played "Enke" a little bigger this time, but it was not unreasonable, at least he could see how flexible this great politician was in governing the country and how generous it was to attract talents. Later "Enko" generally involved only a very small number of people, which was not uncommon in the entire Song Dynasty.
Song Dynasty "Enko" figure
In the Song Dynasty, the literati and civil servants were highly powerful and well-paid, while the military generals were squeezed into a group that followed the rules, withered, and did nothing in the political environment that had long been despised and guarded. The literati of the Song Dynasty generally had the concept of "being ashamed to join the army", excellent talents were reluctant to enter the military camp, and civilians were even more reluctant to change their military positions. In the court, military attaches have basically no access to the center of power, let alone real power; once a military attaché ascends to a high position, the civilian class will suppress it and will rise up and attack it.
Di Qing was a famous general during the Northern Song Dynasty, with outstanding military achievements and strong martial arts, and was deeply loved by the people. In 1052, Di Qing was appointed by Emperor Renzong of Song as privy councillor for his outstanding military achievements. The emperor appointed meritorious ministers to important posts, which was beyond reproach. But the civilian officials were angry, because in their minds, military attachés could not hold important positions. However, Song Renzong trusted and appreciated Di Qing, and in May of the following year, because of Di Qing's merits in Pingling, Song Renzong was ready to be promoted to another level and served as a privy councillor. As soon as the news came out, the voice of the courtiers, led by the chancellor Pang Yuan, was higher than a wave, but this time Song Renzong did not give in.
The famous General of the Northern Song Dynasty Di Qing
The civil servant class of the Song Dynasty saw that the opposition was ineffective, so they used conspiracy tactics. Rumors about Di Qing were circulating, saying that Di Qing "had a strange family number, and his surname was Hezhi Shu" and "The Family Dog Had Horns", and the city said that the general Di Qing was a monster. Finally, in 1056 AD, Di Qing was expelled from the Privy Council by these "false accusations". In March of the following year, at the age of 49, Di Qing died in fear.
The Song Dynasty has always practiced the national policy of "emphasizing literature over military force", and there was a concept of "being ashamed to join the army" in the upper class; and among the lower-class Li people, most of the people were reluctant to join the army, resulting in a situation in which "Ermo is the army, iron is the needle", especially in peacetime, it is more difficult to recruit troops. If the Song Dynasty had a war, it would have been more difficult to recruit troops, and sometimes there would even be forced recruitment.
According to historical records, during the Xuanhe period, Zhu Jin, a citizen of Xiangfu County in Kaifeng Province, was asked to join the army, but did not want to join the army because Zhu Jin's family had a stable source of income; at the same time, the country was facing war, and the lives of the people in the war would also be in danger. As a result, Zhu Jin disobeyed the official government's arrangement, and at this time, in order to let Zhu Jin join the army, the government arrested him, and then put the stolen goods in his home, forcibly slandered Zhu Jin and caused Zhu Jin to be imprisoned as a criminal, and then successfully sent Zhu Jin to the army through the way of distributing criminals. There are even ordinary people who, in order not to be forced into the army at this time, will even cut off their fingers to get pardon, which is enough to reflect the difficulty of recruiting in ordinary years.
In the Song Dynasty, the compulsory recruitment of soldiers was not a long-term solution, so in order to encourage the people to actively enlist in the army, the Song Dynasty also adopted the strategy of having brave men under heavy rewards, and encouraged the people to join the army through material rewards. However, there were still not many active and voluntary soldiers, and the reserve army was insufficient, which also led to the weak combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty army.
Throughout the history of the Song Dynasty, the main territories in the early days of the Song Dynasty were in the Central Plains and Jiangnan regions, and the northwest and northwest sides have always had the Liao State and the Western Xia, when the Northern Song Dynasty and both sides had occasional battles, but in fact, the Northern Song Dynasty has always been in a weak position in the battle. The court of the Northern Song Dynasty was also divided into two factions, the main war and the main and the main faction, the main and the faction were generally literati, the power of the Song Dynasty literati was generally greater than that of the military attaches, and the military generals were always the side that was excluded, so the main and the faction often occupied the dominant position. By the time of the Southern Song Dynasty, the main territory of the Song Dynasty could only hold the southern region south of the Huai River.
Map of the situation around the Northern Song Dynasty
A country without strong combat effectiveness will be at a disadvantage in military competition with neighboring countries. The Song Dynasty, on the other hand, rarely won victories in its rivalry with the surrounding ethnic minorities, the Liao, Western Xia, Mongols, and Jin. A country deliberately weakening its military strength will be invaded by foreign forces, and the policy of emphasizing literature over military force has indeed played a certain role in the prosperity and stability of the Song Dynasty, but the final result of an overly extreme policy will only be a fiasco.
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