530 AD
Rise of Gao Huan: Move the town to Shandong
In 530, the chancellor Erzhu Rong was killed by Emperor Xiaozhuang, and Erzhu Zhao, the nephew of Emperor Erzhuzong, attacked Luoyang, killed Emperor Xiaozhuang, and ruled the government. Gao Huan, a close confidant of Jinzhou Assassin Shi and Erzhu Rong, took the opportunity to deceive the military and moved his troops to Shandong (the area east of the Taihang Mountains), forming his own base area and concubine troops, laying the foundation for the subsequent conquest of the north and the establishment of Northern Qi.
Gao Huan was not originally a thing in the pool. He was originally under the six town guards Duluo Zhou, and after the Six Towns Rebellion was suppressed in 526, he followed Duluo Prefecture to the Hebei region, and then participated in the Hebei Uprising led by Duluo Prefecture and Ge Rong, and after Ge Rong's defeat, he defected to Erzhu Rong's ranks. When Erzhu Rong was alive, he admired Gao Huan very much, and once said, "Those who can represent my masters, only He Liuhun's ears", He Liuhun is Gao Huan's nickname. Therefore, Erzhu Rong has always been both appreciative and defensive of Gao Huan. Gao Huan did not have many soldiers in his hands, and he also held an official position that focused on local administrative affairs such as jinzhou assassin history.
After Erzhu Rong's death, the power of the Erzhu family was controlled by his nephew Erzhu Zhao and his brother Erzhu Shilong. In October of the same year, Erzhu Zhao took the lead in attacking Luoyang, overthrowing and killing Emperor Xiaozhuang's son YuanZiyou. Compared with his uncle Erzhu Rong, Erzhu Zhao's political nerves were even more dull, and he was still good at leading soldiers to fight, but he was indeed a layman in governing the country and fighting with his heart. This gave Gao Huan an opportunity to take advantage.
Most of the soldiers who rebelled in the six towns were Xianbei people, as well as many Han Chinese, Xiongnu people, Gaoche people, Hun people, and Qiang people. After they were relocated to Hebei, because they were violently abused by the Qihu soldiers in the Erzhu clan's concubines, they continued to resist, and they had rebelled twenty-six times, killing more than half of them, and still rebelled.
Erzhu Zhao, who had just hanged Emperor Xiaozhuang to take control of the Northern Wei dynasty, had a headache about this, and Gao Huan suggested to Erzhu Zhao at the banquet: "The troops of the six towns are rebellious and cannot be killed all, and the king should choose his confidants to lead them." If there is a rebellion, it will be blamed on its generals, and it is impossible to kill a large number of soldiers every time. Erzhu Zhao felt that the suggestion was very good, so he asked him who could be the commander-in-chief. At that time, he was also drinking along with another member of Erzhu Rong, Ōkawaji Temple, HeBayun. He Bayan was straightforward and quick-witted, and immediately suggested that Gao Huan be allowed to command the troops of the six towns. Gao Huan pretended to be angry, stood up and punched He Bayun with a fist full of blood, his front teeth fell to the ground, and scolded: "When the King of Taiyuan (Erzhu Rong) was alive, he said how it was, and now that the King of Taiyuan is dead, everything in the world listens to the Great King (referring to Erzhu Zhao), what are you, the Great King did not speak, it is the turn of the Great King to say anything!" ”
Erzhu Zhao was very touched and felt that Gao Huan was loyal, so he took advantage of the wine to announce that Gao Huan was the commander of the troops in the six towns. Gao Huan was overjoyed, what he had been lacking was an army that he could directly command, and now Erzhu Zhao's issuance of such an order was simply in his arms. Gao Huan was afraid that Erzhu Zhao would wake up and regret it, and as soon as he left the camp, he immediately announced the order: "I have been ordered to command the troops in the six towns, and all of them have come to Fendong to be ordered by me." "After the command was completed, he immediately rushed to Yangquchuan and established a unified army battalion." The Liuzhen soldiers, who had originally hated the Erzhu clan and his Qihu soldiers, rushed to Gao Huan's place in a very short time to assemble.
In this way, Gao Huan took the first step in his rise.
With an army, we must also have our own base areas. Soon Gao Huan wrote to Erzhu Zhao, saying that shanxi had suffered many frost and droughts, and the soldiers had no food, and requested to move the division east of Taihang to solve the problem of military food. Gao Huan's intention was to stay away from Erzhu Zhao, to get rid of his threat and control. When Murong Shaozong saw the book, Murong Shaozong immediately persuaded him not to let gao Huan out of the town, "such as borrowing a dragon to use cloud rain, it will be uncontrollable." However, Erzhu Zhao, believing that Murong Shaozong was stirring up dissension, imprisoned Murong Shaozong and ordered Gao Huan to move his army to Shandong.
Gao Huan led his army from Jinyang, and met Erzhu Rong's wife, Princess Beixiang, from Luoyang to Shanxi with a large cart and a small cart. Gao Huan saw that she had three hundred good horses in her entourage, so he exchanged his inferior horses for good horses on the grounds of military supplies. Erzhu Zhao, furious when he heard his aunt's return crying, personally led his loyal troops to Xiangyuan (襄垣, in modern Changzhi, Shanxi) just in time for the Zhangshui flood to burst the bridge, and Gao Huan explained to Erzhu Zhao that borrowing horses was to prepare for Shandong bandits. Erzhu Zhao threw his knife to the ground, allied with Gao Huan to kill the white horse, became a brother, and crossed the river to stay overnight in Gao Huan's camp for a night drink.
At night, Gao Huan's subordinates ambushed the brave men to kill Erzhu Zhao, but Gao Huan thought that his strength was insufficient and immediately stopped him. The next morning, Erzhu Zhao returned to the camp and summoned Gao Huan to cross the water to his camp, saying that he wanted to continue drinking together. Gao Huan hesitated, and he sent Sun Teng out to stop him: Erzhu Zhao was violent and uncertain, and he would be poisoned when he went. Gao Huan then used the excuse that "his men and women should not delay the trip, and he will meet again in a day" and hurriedly led the army to pull out. Erzhu Zhao scolded across the water, and there was nothing he could do, so he had to return to Jinyang.
In February of the following year, Gao Huan arrived in Xindu and greeted him with the guards Gao Qian and Feng Longzhi, and since then Gao Huan has been entrenched in the Shandong region of Hebei And developed his own power.
Conclusion: Moving the town of Shandong is an important step in the process of Gao Huan's rise, reflecting Gao Huan's power and political wisdom. After this, he was able to get rid of Erzhu Zhao's control, hold JiZhou, establish his own base area, and even start to fight against the Erzhu family.
The founder of Northern Qi - Gao Huan
531 AD
Gao Huanxin raised an army: Northern Qi rose
In 531, Gao Huan proclaimed The Northern Wei Emperor Anding Wang Yuen Long as emperor in Xindu and rebelled against the Erzhu family's military rule over Northern Wei.
Gao Huan was a hero who emerged from the chaotic world of the late Northern Wei Dynasty. After the Outbreak of the Six Towns Rebellion in the Northern Wei Dynasty, much of the northern region fell into chaos. Gao Huan's family was in Hebei, and his grandfather was originally a servant of the Northern Wei Dynasty, but because he violated the laws of the imperial court, he was demoted to the border of Hebei, and gradually settled here, becoming a military household specializing in military service for the country. Gao Huan inherited his ancestral inheritance, joined the army as a teenager, and developed a flamboyant and open-minded personality, and when the Six Towns Rebellion broke out in Hebei, Gao Huan joined the team of Du Luozhou, the leader of the Hebei rebel army. After Du Luozhou was killed, Gao Huan defected to Erzhu Rong, who helped the imperial court put down the rebellion, and became a member of his generals. After Erzhu Rong's death, his nephew Erzhu Zhao succeeded to the main military forces and became a vassal of the party that swayed the situation.
But Gao Huan and Erzhu Zhao had different ideas, and Erzhu Zhao wanted to continue to use the imperial court as a puppet, or even replace it when the time was ripe. Gao Huan wanted to develop and grow alone, and was unwilling to follow Erzhu Zhao to become the target of everyone. When Erzhu Zhao led his army to Luoyang, he wanted to take Gao Huan with him. Gao Huan said that the rear is not peaceful now, and I have to help you guard it. After that, Gao Huan had been fooling Erzhu Zhao, looking for opportunities to stand on his own, and with Erzhu Zhao's consent, Gao Huan, under the banner of appeasing the rear, finally arrived in Xindu in February of that year and became a figure on the divided side.
Rebelling against Erzhu Zhao is not a simple matter, it requires both manpower and material resources and cohesion of people's hearts. Therefore, after Gao Huan arrived in Xindu, he began to recruit troops, but if he wanted the crowd to rebel against the powerful Erzhu Zhao, he needed to work the mobilization of the war.
So Gao Huan deceived everyone and said that Erzhu Zhao's military order came, and soon everyone would be assigned to be slaves, and I couldn't do anything about it. On the appointed day, Gao Huan personally went to the suburbs to send off the soldiers, and also took the hands of many soldiers and cried incessantly, and everyone thought that they were going to become slaves, and the future was uncertain and they could not help but cry bitterly.
When the subordinate strategists saw it, they said according to the prior agreement whether the general could give everyone a few days of grace. Gao Huan replied, "Although we are all homeless and homeless people, we are all together as a family. But now that Erzhu Zhao has a life, delaying his life is a capital offense, but if he goes to be a slave to someone, he is still a death. Now what to do, you decide. So the crowd decided to oppose and embrace Gao Huan as the Lord. Gao Huan saw that the generals were full of momentum, and after repeatedly strictly enforcing military discipline, they officially raised troops.
After Gao Huan raised an army in Xindu, he did not make a big publicity to the outside world to declare that he was crusading against Erzhu Zhao, and he hoped to continue to make some preparations. Li Yuanzhong, who pushed Gao Huan directly to Erzhu Zhao's opposite.
Li Yuanzhong was a local tyrant in Hebei, and came to defect when Gao Huan raised an army. At that time, Gao Huan wanted to occupy Yin Prefecture to expand his strength, so he sent Li Yuanzhong to attack, and then sent his general Gao Qian to pretend to rescue, so that he could take Yin Prefecture in response to the outside world. However, after Li Yuanzhong captured Yin Prefecture, he deliberately killed Erzhu Yusheng of the Erzhu family. Gao Huan was pushed by Li Yuanzhong, and the contradiction with Erzhu Zhao was irreconcilable. Looking at Erzhu Yusheng's human head, Gao Huan knew that he had to turn around. In order to make his division famous, he supported the Northern Wei clan and Thera King Yuen Long ascended to the emperor's throne, and righteously led an army against the Erzhu family.
At that time, the power of the Erzhu family was still very strong, in addition to Erzhu Zhao's occupation of Taiyuan, there were also Erzhu Tianguang who occupied Guanzhong, Erzhu Zhongyuan who occupied Puyang, Henan, and Erzhu Shilong, who controlled the government at any time in Luoyang.
These people were not easy to deal with with heavy troops, but they were not harmonious, and after Erzhu Rong's death, they had been competing for the position of the number one power minister, and there was constant suspicion between them. Gao Huan firmly seized the opportunity and constantly released rumors, and the joint army of the Erzhu family that came to eliminate Gao Huan was soon disintegrated, and Gao Huan defeated the Erzhu family's army of more than 200,000 with less than 30,000 people.
After that, the rulers of the Erzhu family were eliminated one after another, and Gao Huan was stationed in Taiyuan, the former home of the Erzhu family, and used this as a base to remotely command the Luoyang imperial court and establish his own military hegemony. The hegemony of the Erzhu family lasted for six years, but Gao Huan was obviously more talented, and with the southern conquest of his road, most of the hebei territory of Shandong fell into Gao Huan's grasp, and the rudiments of a new country of Northern Qi had been basically laid.
Conclusion: Gao Huanxin raised an army and defeated the Erzhu clan, laying the foundation for the founding of Northern Qi.
Letters are all raised
534 AD
Emperor Xiaowu moved west to Chang'an: the emperor in exile
In 534, Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, fearing that the chancellor Gao Huan would usurp the throne, led the clan and ministers of Luoyang to relocate to Chang'an and defect to Yuwen Tai, who was guarding The Guanxi.
Two years earlier, Gao Huan had defeated the Erzhu clan, deposed Emperor Min of erzhu's establishment, and established Emperor Xiaowu Yuanxiu. Emperor Xiaowu created Gao Huan the Grand Chancellor and the King of Bohai, and Gao Huan embarked on the path of power and almost became the second Erzhu Rong.
Holding tianzi hostage to make the princes comfortable, Gao Huan spent two years, he was not in a hurry to usurp the throne, but Emperor Xiaowu, who sat on the throne, was like a needle felt. Emperor Xiaowu had a courtier named Hu Sichun by his side. This man was loyal to the Erzhu clan at both ends, and later saw the fall of the Erzhu clan, and actually killed the Erzhu family's clan in Luoyang, so as to invite credit to Emperor Xiaowu. Now that he saw gao huan's great power, he was jealous in his heart, so he joined forces with Yuan Baoju, the king of Nanyang, and Wang Sizheng, the general of the Chinese army, to persuade Emperor Xiaowu Yuanxiu to get rid of Gao Huan. Emperor Xiaowu had a heart, but after some encouragement, he could not hold back, so he ordered Hu Sichun to increase the number of guards and select hundreds of brave warriors as guards. Emperor Xiaowu repeatedly lined up his troops in the name of hunting and secretly trained these warriors. On the other hand, Emperor Xiaowu sent people to secretly contact the brothers of Taifu He Puyue and the hussar general He Basheng, who were supporting troops outside, and agreed to respond internally and externally. The Heba brothers were originally subordinates of the Erzhu clan, and later Gao Huan defeated Erzhu Zhao, and only then led his people to defect to Emperor Xiaowu, but from then on they formed a vendetta against Gao Huan.
Gao Huan naturally also installed cronies around Emperor Xiaowu, and this person was Sikong Gaoqian. When Gao Huan moved to Shandong, it was Gao Qian who opened the city gate to greet Gao Huan, which made Gao Huan have his first base area.
Emperor Xiaowu secretly plotted and feared defeat, so he wanted to bribe Gao Qian, and took the opportunity of a banquet to suddenly form a brotherhood with Gao Qian. When the incident happened suddenly, Gao Qian did not have time to think much about it, so he had to prevaricate on the grounds that he "promised the country with his body and did not dare to have two hearts." Afterwards, he saw emperor Xiaowu increase his guards, and repeatedly befriended foreign ministers Such as He Shuyue and others, and secretly knew that Emperor Xiaowu was preparing for trouble, so he secretly persuaded Gao Huan to prepare, and also persuaded Gao Huan to establish himself as emperor. Gao Huan felt that the time was not yet ripe and rejected Gao Qian's proposal.
Gao Qian was caught between the two factions in the imperial court of the capital city, so he secretly asked Gao Huan to be sent abroad to serve as the assassin of Xuzhou. When Emperor Xiaowu Yuanxiu learned that Gao Qian wanted to be an official, he was afraid that he would leak his secret plan gao huan, so he preemptively accused Gao Huan that Gao Qian had made an alliance with him and should not leave Beijing. Gao Huan was also very angry when he found out, and in order to test it, he revealed Gao Qian's persuasion to claim the title of emperor to Emperor Xiaowu. This move caused Gao Qian to be miserable, and Emperor Xiaowu soon killed Gao Qian and cursed his people. Gao Qian's brothers Gao And Gao Shen desperately led more than a dozen people to break through and went to Jinyang to join Gao Huan. Gao Huan learned that Gao Qian was dead, and was full of remorse, and from then on he also killed Emperor Xiaowu.
In 534, Emperor Xiaowu Yuanxiu was finally ready to take action against Gao Huan. Under the pretext of rebelling against southern Liang, he and Hu Sichun sent soldiers and horses from henan to conduct a military parade on the outskirts of Luoyang. In order to paralyze Gao Huan, he secretly told Gao Huan that the crusade against Liang was a cover, but in fact he wanted to lead troops to attack Yuwen Tai and He Basheng in Kansai.
Gao Huan was not easy to puncture, but immediately wrote back that his 220,000 soldiers had set off in five ways to luoyang to help the conquest, and by the way, Qingjun's side. Emperor Xiaowu had to have a showdown with Gao Huan at this time, and he asked Wen Zisheng, a zhongshu sherman, to write a letter to Gao Huan, in which he was again a sign of weakness to Gao Huan, and he was also righteous and advised him to stop the army. Gao Huan was not moved, and the reply was only extremely evil to Huo Sichun and others, but they still continued to advance.
This time it was Emperor Xiaowu's turn to panic, and at this time, he had to avoid Gao Huan's troops, and the only way to leave the capital Luoyang was to leave. But at the moment, there was the courage to take him in, and the only one who could compete with Gao Huan was Yuwen Tai in the Long region. Emperor Xiaowu hurriedly issued an edict to Yuwen Tai, making him the Grand Duke of Kansai and promising to take the princess as his wife in exchange for Yuwen Tai's support in denouncing Gao Huan.
The two sides agreed to please everything, and in July of that year, Emperor Xiaowu personally led 100,000 troops to the river bridge, with Hu Sichun as the vanguard to line up north of the Mountain. As a result, the two armies had not yet clashed, and Emperor Xiaowu's side had already secretly surrendered to Jia Zhi, Tian Yi and others, and Gao Huan's army soon crossed the Yellow River. Emperor Xiaowu hurriedly summoned his ministers to discuss countermeasures, but there was no general available. Wang Yuanbinzhi of Yingchuan Commandery (颍川郡王元斌之) fought for power with Hu Sichun and deceived the emperor that Gao Huan's army was approaching, but Hu Sichun was afraid of the battle. Emperor Xiaowu was terrified, and while sending people to summon Hu Sichun to return the army, he fled with several emperors and five thousand soldiers and horses.
Gao was eager to avenge his brother Gao Qian, and led him to ride after Emperor Xiaowu all the way to Guanzhong. Emperor Xiaowu was hungry and thirsty all the way, and finally met Yuwen Tai, who was leading his troops to meet him, at Dongyangyi in Chang'an, and only then escaped the robbery. On the other hand, Gao Huan established the eleven-year-old Yuan Shanmi as emperor, the prince of Qinghe, as emperor, and was the Emperor Xiaojing.
Conclusion: After Xiaowu moved west, Gao Huan felt that Luoyang was too close to Western Wei and Southern Liang, so he ordered the capital to be moved to Yicheng, and Northern Wei has since split into Eastern and Western Wei.
What areas were actually controlled by Emperor Xiaowu at the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty?