Western Xia Character Chronicle - Jingzong Li Yuanhao

One. A young hero who aspires to hegemony

Li Yuanhao's grandfather, named Li Jiqian, was the leader of the Dangxiang clan and was appointed as an envoy during the Northern Song Dynasty. After rebelling against the Song Dynasty, after years of conquest, it occupied a large area of territory, laying the foundation for the establishment of the Xia Kingdom. After Li Jiqian's death, his son Li Deming took the throne, and after years of pioneering, he became the second most powerful force after the Liao and Song dynasties. In order to win over the party, Liao and Song successively made him the king of Bactria. Li Deming married his wife Wei Mushi and later gave birth to a son, Yuan Wu. Yuanhao's birth is more and more mysterious.

Legend has it that once when Li Deming and Wei Mushi went to Helan Mountain to play, Wei Mushi had a dream at night, dreaming of a white dragon circling and flying around him, and the next day he had a big pain in his stomach and was pregnant. Twelve months later, he gave birth to a son, Yuan Hao. According to legend, when he was born, his cries were loud, and his eyes were burning, and there was a faint blue light.

Yuanhao was heroic and distinctive when he was a teenager. Every time, when he traveled on horseback, the left and right tribes embraced, and the majesty was majestic, attracting the attention of passers-by. He was familiar with military books since he was a child, and he was even more in love with the military books such as "Field Song" and "Taiyi Jin Jianjue" that were circulating in the world at that time, and he concentrated on studying them. He was proficient in Chinese and Tibetan scripts, and on his desk, he often placed works such as the laws of the Song and Tubo for him to read at any time and explore strategies for governing the country and ensuring the country. The Song Dynasty general Cao Wei, hearing of Yuanhao's name, the hero cherished each other, and always wanted to see Yuanhao's side, but he was helpless and always had no chance to meet. Later, he sent someone to secretly paint a portrait of Yuan Hao. After Cao Wei saw his appearance, he couldn't help but marvel, "True hero also!" And foresaw that Yuan Wu was destined to be a plague on the border of the Song Dynasty.

During Li Deming's reign, he pursued a foreign policy of good-neighborliness and successively submitted to the Liao and Song dynasties, but Yuan Hao did not agree with his father's approach. He believed that with the rise of the Western Xia, there was no need to be inferior to other countries, especially to the weak Song Dynasty. Li Deming reminded his son: "In the past years of conquest in Western Xia, we have long been short of soldiers and people, and the people are not happy. But in the thirty years since the armistice, our tribe can wear silk silk, which is the favor of the Song Dynasty, and we must not be ungrateful!" Yuan Hao was not impressed, and retorted: "Wearing clothes made of animal skins and herding sheep and horses is originally a custom of our Western Xia." The eldest husband was born to make meritorious achievements and go down in history, so why should he be satisfied with a life of fine clothes and food?" Li Deming was not angry at Yuanhao's argument, but was relieved that his son had such ambitions at a young age.

In the sixth year of Emperor Renzong of Song 's reign ( 1028 ) , Li Deming sent the 26-year-old Li Yuanhao to lead an army to uighurs to capture Ganzhou ( present-day Zhangye , Gansu Province ) . He adopted the tactic of surprise attack, attacking Ganzhou with lightning speed, and then, by attacking the west with a loud east, raiding Xiliang with surprise troops, seizing Guazhou (present-day Anxi, Gansu) and Shazhou (present-day Dunhuang, Gansu), and other places, so that the party's power extended to the Hexi Corridor. In this war, Li Yuanhao showed excellent military talent and won him prestige. Li Deming was very satisfied with his son, so he made him crown prince. In the first year of the Song Dynasty (1032), Li Deming died, and Li Yuanwu succeeded his father's position and became the lord of Western Xia.

Two. Reformed Western Xia and became known as Emperor Tu

After Li Yuanhao succeeded to the throne of Xia, the Liao and Song dynasties pursued a policy of co-optation with the party. When Emperor Xingzong of Liao learned of Li Deming's death, he sent yuan hao as the king of Xia and gave him a generous reward. Emperor Renzong of Song even held a solemn ceremony to mourn Li Deming, and at the same time nominally crowned Yuan Hao as the King of Pingxi. But Li Yuanhao did not take these seals seriously. He was not willing to be subordinated, and he already had the heart to establish himself as an emperor. In order to achieve the goal of "emperor for the emperor", he carried out a series of reforms in the country, in preparation for the establishment of the country and the title of emperor.

First of all, strengthen the national consciousness of Western Xia. He abolished the surnames of Li and Zhao given by the Tang and Song dynasties, and replaced them with the surname of Dangxiang. He also called himself "Wu Pawn", which is equivalent to Tianzi or Khan in Dangxiang, which translates to "Qingtianzi" in Chinese, which means "Son of Qingtian". This is obviously to echo the Tianzi of the Central Plains Dynasty. He also promulgated his own era name in the territory, in the past, the Western Xia used the era name of the suzerainty Song Dynasty, but Yuan Hao used the song "Ming Dao" era name to violate the name of his father Li Deming, so he announced the abolition of the "Ming Dao" era name and changed it to "Kaiyun", but it was not long before it was found that Kaiyun was the era name used before the fall of the late Jin Dynasty, so he changed the era name to "Guangyun", and the third year of Song Mingdao (1034), that is, the first year of Guangyun.

Soon, Yuan Hao issued a "balding order", ordering all Dangxiang clans to shave off the hair on the top of their heads and leave the hair in front of their foreheads. He took the lead in shaving the top of his head and wearing earrings through his ears to show the difference, and then strictly ordered all party members to carry out their execution within three days, and those who disobeyed were executed. In terms of clothing, he also made changes, and the color and style of clothes worn by people with different statuses were also different, and suburban civil officials had to wear purple and red; Military attachés are required to wear crowns: the unofficial people can only wear green or green clothes. He himself wore a self-shirt and a crown. Yuan Wu used this to distinguish the ranks of officials and people and strengthen the majesty of the monarchy.

He also created the Western Xia script. He ordered the Dangxiang scholar Norihito to collect and organize the Western Xia scripts based on the physical structure of the six books of Chinese characters (i.e., pictograms, finger things, shape sounds, huiyi, transliteration, and false borrowing), and finally compiled them into 12 volumes of the "Book of Bo". Yuan Wu used the arithmetic chamber as a "national character" and used it to chronicle and translate the classic works of The Han and Tibetans. A few months later, he set up the "Ziyuan" and the "Chinese Character Academy", selecting literati and scholars to translate the past documents of the Western Xia and Tubo and northern Song Dynasties.

Finally, Yuan Hao also improved the military system to improve the western Xia's production ability. He stipulated that all men of the Party clan, at the age of 15, should be admitted to the military. When going out on the expedition, each household was drawn according to the size of the population. The army is divided into "regular army" and "copy", "regular army" specializes in combat, "copy" is responsible for miscellaneous investment with the army, and each army is equipped with two miscellaneous servants. In addition, Yuan Hao also added extra-tribal soldiers, the so-called extra-tribal soldiers are actually elite soldiers selected from the captured Han people and organized into soldiers. These were the men who served as stormtroopers in wartime. Yuan Hao also imitated the military structure of the Song Dynasty, dividing the country into left and right compartments, and set up twelve supervision departments, each stipulating the station and military name, such as the Wei Chengjun, which was specially responsible for the su wei, and the capture army, which was specially responsible for plundering the population. He also selected 5,000 elite warriors from among the sons of the nobility as his forbidden army. In the six years before and after, Li Yuanhao completed the preparation for the western Xia to become emperor in politics, economy, culture and other aspects.

Li Yuanhao also ordered people to build an altar on the southern outskirts of Xingqing Province, pay homage to heaven and earth, declare that he was enthroned as emperor, establish the country under the name of Bactria, and change the yuan to "Heavenly Gift Law Yanzuo", which is the first year of the Heavenly Gift law Yanzuo.

Three. The soldiers stood on three feet

Li Yuanhao claimed to be empress dowager, and the above table asked the Song court to recognize the legitimacy of his title as emperor and recognize his title of emperor, but the Song Dynasty strictly refused. Emperor Renzong of Song issued a resolute edict, stripping the officials and knights of the bestowal surname, stopping mutual markets, and posting notices at border passes to arrest Yuanhao.

In order to force the Song Dynasty to recognize the fact that the Western Xia was founded, Yuan Hao stepped up the reorganization of the armament war and prepared to launch a war against the Song Dynasty.

In March 1040, Li Yuanwu personally led an army of 100,000 to attack the northern Song Dynasty's northwestern stronghold of Yanzhou (present-day Yan'an, Shaanxi). The Xia and Song armies met at Sanchuankou (三川口; south of present-day Zhidan County, Shaanxi Province), and the Song army was caught off guard and was killed in a big defeat. Li Yuanhao took advantage of the victory and planned to conquer Yanzhou in one fell swoop, but the weather turned cold, and the Western Xia army lacked cold clothing, so they had to return to the dynasty. In February of the following year, Li Yuanhao led an attack on Weizhou (渭州, in modern Pingliang County, Gansu). The Song army's morale was high, and Li Yuanhao could not take it for a while, so he set up a plan to lure the snake out of the hole and wait for the opportunity to annihilate the Song army. He first sent a small group of Xia soldiers to Kou, and after encountering the Song army, he pretended to be defeated and retreated in a hurry. The Song general was eager to win, did not know the plan, led the army to pursue, and as a result, at Haoshuichuan (present-day northern Longde County, Ningxia Province) was surrounded by a 100,000 main army of Western Xia, and the entire army was destroyed. After this battle, Li Yuanhao commanded the Western Xia and the Northern Song Dynasty to fight at Dingchuan, and then won a complete victory, and then took advantage of the victory to lead his troops south, directly attacked Weizhou, broke the fence and the two cities of Pingquan (in present-day Pingliang County, Gansu Province), burned and plundered in the city, and then withdrew his troops back to China.

Although these wars were won by the Western Xia, the successive years of conquest consumed a large amount of national strength and financial resources of the Western Xia, and the severance of trade with the Song Dynasty caused the prices of urgently needed daily necessities such as tea, cloth, and grain in the Western Xia to soar, and the people's resentment boiled over. At this time, the relationship between the Liao state and the Western Xia turned cold, and Emperor Xingzong of Liao had great intentions of invading the south, and in this situation, Li Yuanhao had to negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty. After a year of bargaining, in October of the seventh year (1044) of the Heavenly Conferral Ceremony, the two sides reached an agreement: the Western Xia submitted to the Song Dynasty; The Song recognized the existing rulers of Western Xia and crowned Yuan Hao as the lord of the Xia kingdom, and the two sides returned to their original tributary and mutual market relations.

After the end of the Song-Xia War, the war with the Liao State was on the verge of breaking out. Before the founding of the State, Western Xia had been implementing the strategy of attacking the Song Dynasty in conjunction with the Liao. Yuanhao also asked for "Princess Shang" many times, and Emperor Xingzong of Liao married his sister Princess Xingping to Yuanhao. However, Yuanhao and Princess Liao were not harmonious after marriage, and Princess Liao eventually became depressed. After the founding of the Yuan Wu State, the Dangxiang people in the Liao State rebelled against the Liao and returned to Xia, and once sent troops to plunder into the Liao Territory and kill the Liao generals. All this made Emperor Xingzong of Liao angry. Li Yuanhao also felt more and more intolerant of Liao Xingzong's use of the Xia and Song wars to blackmail benefits from them, and the fact that the Liao state detained the Envoys of western Xia during the Xia-Song peace talks made Yuanhao even more angry. As the contradictions between the two sides escalate, war is also on the verge of breaking out.

In October of that year, Emperor Xingzong of Liao led an army of 100,000 to attack Western Xia. The Liao army divided into three routes, crossed the Yellow River, and went deep into the summer realm for more than 400 miles. Li Yuanhao hastily led his army to meet the battle, but was killed and defeated, so he had to lead the remnants of his troops to retreat to the Helan Mountains. The Liao army was high and approaching. Li Yuanhao knew that it was difficult for the enemy to win, so he falsely claimed to apologize for his sins and asked for peace, but when he negotiated peace with the Liao, he retreated for more than a hundred miles in a row, and every time he retreated, he would firmly clear the field and cut off the supply of grain and grass for the Liao army. The Liao army went deep into the summer realm, lacking clothing and food, and hungry and hungry, Li Yuanhao took this opportunity to raid the Liao army, the Liao army was defeated, and Liao Xingzong fled with only a few horses.

After Li Yuanhao won the victory, he immediately made peace with Liao again, indicating that he would return the captives, and Liao Xingzong agreed to make peace.

Through several wars, Yuan Hao achieved political equality with the Song and Liao. Although the Western Xia formally required submissions to the Liao and Song dynasties, it was actually an independent state, forming a three-legged situation with the Song and Liao dynasties.

Four. In his later years, he fainted and was drunk, and his life was ridiculed in the palace

In his later years, Li Yuanhao indulged in wine and neglected the government. His harem concubines were numerous, and he liked to take his wife. After the death of the general Noritoshi, his wife Muzo fled to the nunnery as a nun. Li Yuanhao coveted beauty, had an affair with her, and repeatedly used the excuse of hunting to secretly have an affair with her. In February of the tenth year (1047) of the Heavenly Gift of Rites, the Wuzang clan gave birth to a son, Ning LingLiang, for Yuan Hao, which was later Emperor Yizong Li Yuzuo. The Wuzang clan gave birth to a dragon breed, which was even more favored by Yuan Hao, and his brother Wuzang Pang also ascended to heaven because of this, and was named minister of state in March of that year. In May of the same year, Yuan Hao saw his daughter-in-law at the marriage ceremony of Prince Ning Lingge, who was young and beautiful, and chuchu was so moving that he could not hold back, and even forcibly took his daughter-in-law for himself and accepted her as a concubine. Empress YeLi could not help but give advice, and Yuan Hao was furious, deposed Empress Yeli, claustrophobic Beigong, and canonized the new favorite Wushi as the new empress of the Western Xia Kingdom. Crown Prince Ning Lingge was first stripped of his wife, and then his mother was deposed, and he was even more full of anger and hated Yuan Hao very much.

At this time, the Minister of State did not hide Pang Hao's drunkenness and neglected political affairs, so he secretly plotted with his sister Wuzang clan in an attempt to depose The Crown Prince Ning Lingge and make Him the Crown Prince. Pang knew that Ning Lingge hated Yuan Hao at this time, so he instigated the crown prince to commit rebellion to assassinate Yuan Hao, and expressed his willingness to assist the crown prince in obtaining the throne. This is actually a poisonous plan that did not hide Pang to borrow a knife to kill people, killing two birds with one stone.

If the prince attempts to assassinate, he will inevitably die; If the assassination is successful, he will kill the prince for the crime of killing the king. Whatever the outcome, the prince will undoubtedly die. However, Prince Ning Lingge believed his lies and decided to take a desperate risk and assassinate Yuan Hao.

On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year (1048) of the Heavenly Gift, Yuan Hao was drunk and drunk, and was helped into the palace by the guards. Crown Prince Ning Lingge took the opportunity to enter the palace and assassinate him. Ning Lingge slashed at Yuan Hao head-on, but Yuan Hao couldn't dodge it and was cut off his nose. Ning LingGecang hurriedly fled the palace and hid in the residence of Wu Pang. Without hiding and blackmailing Pang to achieve his goal, he killed Prince Ning Lingge and his mother Norishi for the crime of killing the king. The next day, Yuan Hao died of excessive bleeding at the age of 46, known as "Emperor Wulie", temple name "Jingzong", and was buried in Tailing.

Yuanhao's life came to an end.