What are the contributions of yuan qin, the deposed emperor of the Western Wei Dynasty?

Emperor Yuanqin of Western Wei (525-554), the eldest son of Emperor Wen of Western Wei, was empress Dowager Yifu (乙福皇后), the second emperor of Western Wei during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, reigning from 551 to 554.

Born in Fanyang (present-day Beijing) in 525, he ascended the throne in 551, following the name of Emperor Wen and the year of last year in 552, called the first year. Yuan Baoju reigned for 17 years, died of illness in 551, and Yuan Qin took the throne. During the Yuan Qin period, Yuwen Tai monopolized the government and fought fierce battles with Eastern Wei many times. The Western Wei military and government were reformed. In 554, he was deposed by Yuwen Tai and was soon poisoned.

What are Yuan Qin's political initiatives?

politics

The Western Wei Dynasty straightened out its economy, formulated financial plans, and encouraged agricultural production, and the economy of the Guanzhong region was quickly restored and developed, and its fiscal revenue, economic strength, and military strength were greatly strengthened. In the autumn of 537, Gao Huan personally led an army of 200,000 to attack Western Wei in three ways, and Yuwen Tai fought with 10,000 elite soldiers and defeated Gao Huan after a bloody battle at Shayuan. The Eastern Wei army was seriously injured and collapsed. The Western Wei Dynasty flourished after the Shayuan War. Yuwen Tai took advantage of the victory to march east and occupied a large area of Shanxi and Henan. After that, Western Wei took advantage of the internal turmoil in Southern Liang to capture Bashu and Jiangling, expanding The territory of Western Wei to Sichuan and Hubei. Yuwen Tai destroyed Eastern Wei for Western Wei until finally opened the door for the unification of the Sui Dynasty.

During the Western Wei Yuanqin period, it continued to follow the state and county system at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. At that time, due to the war in the north, a large number of northerners moved south to settle in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to avoid chaos, and their settlement areas still followed the old names of the prefectures, counties and counties where the former Western Wei officials were located in the north, so a large number of overseas Chinese states, overseas Chinese counties, and overseas Chinese counties appeared everywhere, causing chaos in the local political system.

During the Western Wei and Yuanqin periods, the unified command and training of the army was conducive to the strengthening of the central government. Continue to implement the equalized field system. According to the Dunhuang document "Thirteen Years of Accounting for the Western Wei Dynasty", although the granting of land under the juntian system has been implemented, the shortage of land grants is a common phenomenon. At that time, one of the most common types of force service was the "Six Ding Soldiers", that is, each Ding man served the government for one month within six months, and served for two months within one year. The chancellor Yuwen Tai attached great importance to these experiences of governance and issued the "Six Edicts" as a governing platform. He also specially organized middle- and lower-level officials to study, stipulating that those who did not understand these six articles and accounting could not become officials. In the sixteenth year, the prefectural military system was formally established in which the Eight Pillars of the State were divided into forbidden brigades. The total strength of the fu army was about 50,000, and in addition to Yuwen Tai and Zongmu Yuanxin, they were commanded by six pillar generals.

After the establishment of the Western Wei regime, the twenty-four new system was promulgated, which was later increased to thirty-six articles, called "Zhongxing Yongshi". Its main contents are: strictly prohibit corruption, reduce officials, and set up a long and righteous leader (正 is Lu Zheng, clan zheng, long finger Bao Chang. Bao, Lu, and ethnic groups are the names of local grass-roots organizations), implement tun tian, and formulate systems such as accounting (the estimated number of expected enlistment in the following year) and household registration. Su Qi, who was from the Guanzhong clan, summed up the experience of Han feudal rule into six points: pure heart, Dun indoctrination, full geographical advantage, promotion of virtuousness, and compassion for prison litigation, all of which were enlisted.

military

In September 546, Gao Huan personally led an army of more than 100,000 people to besiege The Yubi (玉壁, in modern Jishan County, Shanxi) held by Western Wei, in order to remove the nail from Western Wei'an downstream of the Fenshui River. Western Wei and the state of Shi Wei Xiaokuan defended Yubi, stubborn resistance, Gao Huan successively adopted tactics such as cutting waterways, fire attacks, digging tunnels, etc., besieged the city for more than 50 days, killed more than 70,000 soldiers, failed to capture Yubi, and finally Gao Huan fell ill and had to break the siege. In the Battle of Yubi, Gao Huan poured out his strength to attack an isolated city for more than fifty days, and his intelligence was trapped, so that he became angry and became ill, and in the first month of the second year, he fell ill and died. Since then, Western Wei has reversed its past disadvantages and is on an equal footing with Eastern Wei.

After Gao Huan's death, Zi Cheng took the throne, and Gao Cheng was at odds with Hou Jing, who had a heavy army, and feared Jing's weight and wanted to seize his military power, and Hou Jing surrendered to Western Wei with the land of the thirteen prefectures of Henan. Yuwen Tai accepted Hou Jing's surrender, but at the same time was very cautious about Hou Jing's scheming power, and sent a large army to receive the land occupied by Hou Jing, and signaled Jing to surrender his army and enter Chang'an. At the same time, after Hou Jing's rebellion, Gao Cheng also sent a large army to force it, so Hou Jing turned to Xiao Liang, causing a rebellion against Hou Jing. In the process of quelling Hou Jing's rebellion, the Xiao brothers competed for the throne and killed each other, yuwen Tai took the opportunity to take the land slightly, captured Handong, Yizhou, Xiangyang (present-day Xiangfan, Hubei) and other places, and controlled the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Han River.

In the seventeenth year of the reign (552), Hou Jing was defeated, and Xiao Xuan, the seventh son of Emperor Wu of Liang, declared himself emperor at Jiangling (江陵, in present-day Jiangling County, Hubei) as Emperor Yuan of Liang. Before Hou Jingwei was at peace, Xiao Xuan declared himself a vassal of Western Wei and made a covenant with Western Wei; Western Wei bounded him by Jingling (present-day southwest of Qianjiang, Hubei) and Liang with Anlu (安陸, in present-day Anlu, Hubei), and sent protons to them. After claiming to be emperor, Yuwen Tai sent the envoy Yuwen Renshu to Jiangling to inquire, and Emperor Liangyuan told Yuwen Renshu that Liang had been unified and that Western Wei should return the occupied Liang, Yi, and Xiangyang to Liang.

After Yuwen Renshu also informed Yuwen Tai, Tai believed that since liang and Yi had been obtained, he should further take Jiang Han, and it happened that at this time Xiao Xuan's nephew Xiao Xuan entered the Western Wei Dynasty and requested that troops be sent to attack. Therefore, in September of the first year (554) of the Western Wei Gong Emperor, Yuwen Tai ordered Yu Jing and Yuwen Hu to lead 50,000 troops to attack Jiangling. In November, the city was destroyed, Emperor Yuan of Liang was executed, and the Wei army selected more than 100,000 men and women from Jiangling and drove them back to Guanzhong, leaving only an empty city for Xiao Qi, and at the same time taking the yongzhou counties originally controlled by the Liang Dynasty into Western Wei Zuo County, so that the territory of Western Wei was extended to the area of present-day Sichuan and Hubei.

economy

During the reign of the Western Wei Emperor, the handicraft industry was developed to a certain extent, and under the "Winter Official", there were more than 50 departments of work, craftsmen, Sijin, Sishui, Siyu, Sipi, Sise, and Si weaving, and the division of labor was more detailed than that of the Northern Wei. Some official handicraft farms, with huge scales, such as the iron smelting of the Xiayang Mountains, build military weapons, and have 8,000 craftsmen; Some handicrafts have also reached a fairly high level. The "Immortals" and "Water Zhi" two-fold instruments made by Emperor Wen of Western Wei are exquisite and breathtaking. In addition, the salt industry in the Northern Zhou Dynasty was very prosperous, including sea salt, pond salt, well salt, as well as "shaped salt" made into tiger shapes for sacrifice and reception of guests, and "rao salt" for medicinal purposes. The government monopolized the salt industry, and all the people had to collect taxes when they had access to it.

During the Yuanqin period of the Western Wei Emperor, due to the frequent wars, the impact on the production of the whole society was greater, and the civil engineering projects such as repairing the palace and building the Great Wall were still quite deep and heavy for the people; The accumulation of officials and corruption also occurred from time to time; After Emperor Wu of Zhou destroyed Qi, there were signs of poor soldiers and martial arts. However, in any case, from a broad perspective, the Western Wei and Northern Zhou Dynasty firmly grasped the key to the economic development of northern China for a long time, that is, the powerful and the monks secretly occupied land and hukou, and competed with the state for labor; The three major problems of the fugitive and scattered households and the existence of slaves and miscellaneous households.

The Juntian system during the Yuanqin period of the Western Wei Emperor, which referred to the Northern Wei system, also had some innovations. Its main contents are: 120 acres of land granted to those who have a room (married Ding male), and 100 mu of unmarried Ding male land; The rent adjustment is 5 yuan per year for those who have a room, 10 horses of silk, 8 pairs of cotton, and half of the unmarried people; All people aged 18-64 are given, and the specific levy each year depends on the annual growth: 4 pots (fǔ, sound axe, container) per acre. One pot with 6.4 buckets, one said with 10 buckets) for the previous year, full endowment; Mu harvest 3 kettles for middle age, half endowment; Harvest 2 kettles per acre for the next year, levy 1/10; The proportion of official salaries is the same as that of levy. The service age of the people is 18-59 years old, and the service is 1 month in the year of abundance, 20 days in middle age, and 10 days in the next year; Whoever is conscripted into servitude shall not exceed 1 person from the family. In addition, specific provisions have been made for exemptions and exemptions from military service in various cases.

Due to the implementation of the above series of reform measures and the promulgation of the equalization system, the economic development of the Western Wei and Northern Zhou Dynasties was relatively fast. In agriculture, in addition to the relatively rapid recovery of the Guanzhong region, with the successive incorporation of the grain-producing areas of Yizhou, Jingzhou, and the Kanto region into the Territory of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the eradication of the monastic economy, the sharp increase in the agricultural labor force and the area of cultivated land, and the agricultural foundation was even stronger. The scale of Tuntian has also expanded. At the beginning of the reign (535-551 CE), Western Wei, in order to meet the needs of the war, "wanted to set up a large amount of TunTian", and appointed Xue Shan as the Shaoqing of Sinong to administer the twenty tuns of Xiayang County (present-day south of Hancheng, Shaanxi).