(Xia Renzong, Li Renxiao)
In September of the sixth year of Yuan De, 1124 AD, according to the Ganzhi Chronology, it was the Year of the Dragon of Jiachen.
This year. Two figures have died in the history of the world, the first being King Alexander I of Scotland.
The fierce foreign king once launched a brutal crackdown on northern Scotland, causing the people to clap their hands when he himself died.
The second was Emperor Huizong of the Jin Dynasty, who was shot by stray arrows in both the capture of Zhongjing and the defense of Xijing, and shot back and forth twice, and was soon killed.
Send away old friends and welcome new ones.
The so-called "spring flowers bloom, winter flowers fail", since some people have left, then there must be someone returning.
In this year, a figure who shocked the world was born, this person was the fifth emperor of the Western Xia Dynasty, Li Renxiao.
The history books record that when the little emperor was just born, the whole room was full of red light, suddenly bright and dark, and then it was windy and rainy, anyway, all kinds of signs were to tell you that this grandfather was different from others.
His father, Li Qianshun, was controlled by foreign relatives for half of his life, supported by the Liao Dynasty regime for half of his life, and lived a depressed life, and in the fifth year of Dade (1139), the dragon rode the guest and died.
(Xia Chongzong, Li Qianshun)
Li Renxiao, who succeeded his father to the throne, was sixteen years old.
Compared with the Western Xia emperors who inherited the throne at the age of three or five, Comrade Li Renxiao's age can be said to be appropriate for becoming an emperor.
Sixteen years old, it is the age of vitality and the sun is like fire.
At this age, very few empresses will run out to the imperial court, because the emperor has grown up, and it is not appropriate for you to pull a curtain behind the emperor and listen to the government.
It is also difficult for the courtiers to appear in the court with one hand to cover the sky, because after all, the emperor is not a three- or four-year-old child, not the kind of puppet who does not understand anything, is at the mercy of others, who wants to abuse power, he has to think in his heart, whether Li Renxiao will take the knife himself.
Therefore, When Li Renxiao ascended the throne, God gave him a perfect start.
But there is no absolute perfection in this world, only relative perfection.
Two days after the emperor ascended the throne, there was a rebellion.
This comrade who committed the crime against the wind was called Xiao Heda, who was the commander of xiadu at that time, and was a foreign military general with heavy troops.
It is reasonable to say that Li Renxiao's means of governing the country are mild, he treats his courtiers quite well, the welfare benefits are also leveraged, five insurances and one gold, four dishes and one soup are arranged quite in place, Xiao Heda really has no reason to rebel.
There was only one reason for his rebellion, and that was that he was a Liao.
(Liao Dynasty established by the Khitans)
Although the Liao Dynasty at that time had been overthrown by the new master of the North, the Jin Dynasty, Xiao Heda, as a Liao, still deeply missed the hot land of his hometown, so he quickly led his soldiers to work alone and wanted to rebuild the Liao.
In essence, Xiao Heda is a patriot, he loves his country deeply, even if he is in a foreign country, he also misses his homeland, such a person deserves respect, because he has an unusually noble character in human society: loyalty.
But from the standpoint of Xixia, Xiao Heda became a treacherous person, Xixia accepted you, tolerated you, trusted you, and granted you official positions, and as a result, you made trouble for half a day or worried about the former boss.
Therefore, xiao Heda was quickly balanced by Li Renxiao and fell into a dead and dead end.
After cleaning up the rebellion of the military generals, natural disasters followed.
In the third year of Daqing, a serious famine occurred in Western Xia, and the people were so hungry that they could not do it, and even the tragedy of changing children and eating.
In the fourth year of Daqing, an earthquake occurred in the capital Xingqing Province (Yinchuan, Ningxia), the sky collapsed, the house collapsed, not to mention the people followed the head rats, and even the pigs in the pigsty ran out.
The natural disasters were really fierce, and the people were miserable, and when they were cornered, they could only choose to rebel.
According to historical records, during this period, the most serious people's uprising in history broke out in Western Xia.
The people of Weizhou, Jingzhou, and Dingzhou took the lead in the uprising, and the rebel ranks of tens of thousands of people grew larger and larger, attacking cities and cities, and the state capitals were in a state of emergency.
Faced with such a severe rebellion situation, Li Renxiao, as emperor, adopted a set of very unexpected coping strategies.
Peasant revolts have occurred in ancient times, and have occurred in all dynasties and dynasties, and most rulers have only one solution in the face of peasant uprisings, that is, suppression.
rebel? Wouldn't it be nice to kill?
This line of thinking seems correct and simple, but it is very problematic.
What did the peasants (the people) rebel for?
Of course, it can't be a rebellion for no reason, no one has nothing to do, and as soon as they slap their heads, they run to rebel.
The risk of rebellion is very large, whether it can succeed or not is not a matter, if it fails, it is very likely to lose its head.
The reason why the people want to gamble their lives to rebel is only one reason, that is, they can't live on.
From the perspective of modern society, there are many forms in which the days pass.
No job, no house, too long to be single, and even a bad night's sleep may not be able to live.
But in ancient times, most ordinary people did not have so many demands, and the biggest, perhaps only, wish in their lives was to be able to eat enough.
Because only by eating enough can you survive.
It is precisely because there is not enough to eat and life cannot be guaranteed that the peasants will rebel.
According to this line of thinking, as long as these rebels are allowed to eat enough, the rebellion will naturally stop.
But the vast majority of rulers in the feudal era, they pursued a principle that is very popular on the Internet today:
If you can't solve the problem, first solve the person who made the problem.
But the behavior of the emperors is somewhat different from this sentence, the emperor can obviously solve the problem of the people's food, but it is not solved, but directly to solve these people who rebel because they cannot eat.
Angry, pathetic, hateful.
However, Li Renxiao represented more than 400 chinese emperors in this matter to win back a city.
(Restoration map of Xingqing Province, the capital of Western Xia)
In the face of the people's rebellion, he did not take a cruel crackdown, did not use a soldier to deal with the people, but adopted the methods of tax reduction and exemption, disaster relief and famine relief, and compassion for the disaster victims, and quickly solved the problem of the people's food.
Li Renxiao told the people of the world a truth with his actions: force can rule the country, but benevolence can also rule the country.
And, in the vast majority of cases, the power of love is unmatched by all other forces in the world.
By this time, the external troubles had been solved, the internal worries had been almost packed, and the emperor could finally free up some time to do something he liked.
The emperor did not smoke, did not drink alcohol, did not like to burn his head, and his greatest hobby in life was to go out hunting on horseback.
According to historical records, Li Renxiao once rode a horse to hunt in Helan Mountain, a mountain in the northwest of today's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, with undulating peaks and majestic mountains.
Today's still steep mountain road is certainly not very good to walk in ancient times, the emperor galloped on horseback, sharp stones scratched the horse's foot, the emperor was very angry, wanted to kill the person responsible for repairing the road.
But soon, the idea was abandoned.
Because he listened to the advice of the accompanying minister, the minister believed that if you killed people for a horse, then the Western Xia would henceforth become an environment of animals and nobles, and there was no explicit stipulation in the law of this dynasty, if you do this, it is tantamount to indiscriminate killing, if you kill the people of Li, no one can obey you.
Sincere and simple.
When the emperor heard this, he not only deeply repented of his thoughts, but also realized a problem, that is, there was no perfect legal document in Western Xia at this time.
How should the people deal with illegal crimes?
How are ministers punished for breaking the law?
How should the emperor and nobles be prosecuted for violating the law and discipline?
The state could not stand without standing, and Li Renxiao waved a big hand and formulated a complete set of legal systems- the "New Laws and Regulations for the Reform of Tiansheng Nian".
Compared with those books that are world-famous in Chinese history, such as the Yongle Dadian and the Siku Quanshu, this book is very unknown, and even some unknown, but if you look through the historical materials, you will find that this book is also a huge book.
The book is divided into twenty chapters and 1,460 articles, including administrative regulations, economic taxation, civil litigation, criminal rulings, and even the very advanced content of the marriage law.
This is a legal masterpiece unique to the Middle Ages.
(Cover of "TianshengNian Revised New Law")
For Li Renxiao personally, the improvement of the law can maintain the development of the country, but in the face of the environment outside the Western Xia, he must adopt new policies.
The emperor's reign coincided with the fall of the Liao Dynasty, the prosperity of the Jin Dynasty, and the southern crossing of the Song Dynasty.
Many years ago, the Northern Song Dynasty was a heavenly kingdom above the plains in the north, the Liao Dynasty was a fierce general on the grasslands in the north, and the Western Xia was sandwiched in the middle, and the belly and back were attacked.
Nowadays, the Great Liao Iron Horse that runs across the world has fallen, and the north has a new owner.
The Northern Song Dynasty, which was rich in products and strong in national strength, was also knocked out of the country by the Jin Dynasty and was tragically overthrown, but fortunately, there were successors to the Northern Song Emperor, and Emperor Gaozong Zhao Zhuo led his subjects to cross the south and established a new regime in the south.
Western Xia was once again sandwiched between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty.
Everything seems to have changed, and everything seems not to have changed.
Faced with such a situation, Li Renxiao quickly formulated a development policy and attached gold to Heliao.
Li Renxiao understood that in such a situation of being attacked from the belly and back, the exhausted soldiers could only kill themselves, and if they wanted to survive, they must engage in peace diplomacy.
(Western Xia's "peace diplomacy" strategy)
This emperor reigned for fifty-five years, died of illness in the twenty-fourth year of Qianyou, roughly speaking, he was the longest reigning emperor of the Western Xia, and also the longest living time among these emperors, under his rule in the Western Xia, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, the country was rich and stable, this was the strongest day of the Western Xia Dynasty, but also the happiest time of the people of the Western Xia, Xia Renzong's temple number, he deserved it.
Now, Li Renxiao, the lord of a generation of Zhongxing, has been ridden by the dragon and the guests, and the new emperor is on the throne, and a new era is coming.
What kind of future will the Western Xia, which survived tenaciously between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, face?
Maybe step on the peak, maybe fall into the deep valley, maybe go to a dynasty, the bright eternal presence.