In the eighth year of the Ming Dynasty (464 AD, the fifth year of northern Wei peace), on the 23rd day of the leap month of Gengshen, Liu Jun died at the Jiankang Jade Candle Hall at the age of thirty-five. The temple name Shizu, the courtesy name Officiation Emperor Xiaowu, was buried in the Jingning Mausoleum. As a highly controversial emperor in history, how should we objectively evaluate him?
Is Liu Jun an emperor who has done nothing? Obviously not, Liu Jun was an emperor who was keen on reform, which I have mentioned in previous articles. Among them, the most far-reaching is that the situation of the cold people holding the secret was formed in liu jun's dynasty, and in fact, Liu Jun's reforms were basically centered on this goal and consolidated and strengthened imperial power.
As we all know, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was the weakest dynasty in Chinese history, and the emperor was more of a puppet of the Mengmen clan, so there was a spectacle of the Wang, Yu, Huan, Xie and other families taking turns to govern. Liu Yu, a Han men and scholars who started from the bottom with military merit, naturally did not want this scene to appear in the dynasty he established, so Liu Song was constantly strengthening the imperial power and weakening the influence of the warrior clan from the beginning of its establishment, and through the efforts of Liu Yu, Liu Yilong, and Liu Jun, the situation of "the main authority is alone, the officials are placed in a hundred divisions, and the power is not fake", and the political pattern of the Han people in charge has been fully formed.
Liu Jun's contribution to this cannot be ignored. At the beginning of Liu Jun's reign, he issued an edict to remove the title of Lu Shangshu (which was reset after Liu Jun's death), and then stripped Shangshu Ling and Shangshu of most of their powers, while elevating the power of low-level officials in Shangshu Province. In this case, the positions of Shangshu Ling and Shangshu Servants are taken on by your door valve clan, and they only need to be responsible for signing and signing. As for the government, it was entrusted to Dai Faxing, Chao Shangzhi and other low-ranking officials, and all the results were also decided after consultation with Liu Jun, and Liu Jun's authority was also strengthened.
Another major reason for the decline of imperial power during the Eastern Jin Dynasty was that the Mengmen clan held military power. After Liu Yu ascended the throne, a series of regulations had been made on this, and when Liu Jun arrived, Shen Qingzhi, Liu Yuanjing, and others were successively promoted to the rank of Three Dukes by virtue of their military merits, creating a precedent of the Southern Dynasty's Hanmen and the Han people being promoted to the Three Dukes with military merit, and raising the status of these Hanmen generals, so that the Door Valve clan and military power that were originally despised by martial affairs were getting farther and farther away, and the Hanmen generals used this as a way of promotion, and the Door Valve Clan was further suppressed.
But that raises another question? Will these people threaten the imperial power in turn with military power? In the imperial court, there is naturally no problem under the eyes of the emperor, what about those who sit in the strong domain? Liu Jun also had a way to do this, he played with the pawn signature system to the fullest, and many places even reached the point where they only knew the pawn signature and did not know the history of the assassination, and the possibility of the local troops rebelling against the imperial court in the prefecture and town was greatly weakened. At the same time, Liu Jun also issued an edict to change the term of office of county officials from six years to three years, so that the possibility of cultivating power in the local area was greatly reduced.
During Liu Jun's reign, he also defused the situation in which Jingzhou had repeatedly threatened Jiankang since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and he first formally and stably established Xiangzhou, which had been abandoned since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and then divided it into eight counties in Jingzhou, Xiangzhou, Jiangzhou, and Yuzhou, and then set up an effective constraint on Jingzhou, Yongzhou. On the basis of Liu Yilong's policy, Liu Jun further divided Jingzhou counties and counties to enrich the counties of Yongzhou without solid soil, so that yongzhou important towns were formed.
However, simply strengthening the imperial power from a political and military point of view was obviously not enough, and Liu Jun made another move. Liu Jun reiterated the official selection mechanism set up by Liu Yu, and the channels for the promotion of Han Menshi were further expanded. He also attached great importance to the selection of talents, paying more attention to talent than reputation, and Yuan Cang, Yan Shibo, Bu Tiansheng, Bao Zhao, Zong Yue, Xu Ai and others began to be reused. In order to suppress the Door Valve Scholar Clan in an all-round way, Liu Jun also made a full fuss about education, began to further advocate Confucianism, establish education, vigorously promoted the policy and activity of reviving lilly, and recruited Confucian scribes from among the Han Men scribes, while the metaphysical style loved by the Door Valve Clan was suppressed, and the last position of the Door Valve Clan was gradually lost.
The impact of the situation in which the Han people were in charge of the secret was far-reaching, and the southern dynasties after Liu Jun also continued this situation, and even the sworn enemy of the Northern Dynasty also learned from it. More importantly, the Hanmen Shu people began to grow and enter the political stage, changing the historical pattern after that, and even laying the foundation for the establishment of the Sui and Tang Dynasty examination system. In this regard alone, Liu Jun is a great credit.
In fact, Liu Jun has also made a lot of contributions to the construction of the rule of law. During Liu Jun's reign, he personally listened to the proceedings many times, and stipulated that in all cases where the death penalty was imposed, the county taishou must personally participate in the trial, and if the county taishou could not be judged, it was further prosecuted, demanding that the deceased should not complain, and the living should not hate. At the same time, it is stipulated that it is not a battlefield battle, and it is no longer possible to kill people without authorization. If the crime is extremely evil and deserves to be executed, it should also be reported in accordance with the provisions of the state's laws, and the relevant yamen should be strictly supervised. Further offenders are punished as homicide. Just looking at these two, do you think that Liu Jun's credit is not small?
As Emperor Xiaowu, Liu Jun's performance in foreign military affairs was also remarkable, and the victory at the Battle of Qingzhou swept away the decline of Yuan Jia against Northern Wei since the end of the year, recovered the lost land on the north bank of Jishui, which was occupied by Northern Wei during the Yuanjia period, and was Liu Song's first major victory over Northern Wei since yuanjia's three northern expeditions failed, and then there was also the Northern Yin Ping Taishou Yang Guizi who led his army to defeat Northern Wei at Kong Di in Northern Yin ping county, which was simply a luxury in Liu Yilong's time, so Liu Jun also deserved his title of filial piety.
According to the above point of view, Liu Jun is definitely a Ming Jun, what is the controversy? Don't worry, we'll talk about his past in the next article.