In 1208, Emperor Jin died at the age of 38. The king, who had continued Kim Sejong's "reign of Dading", was uneasy. Two years before his death, in 1206, Temujin unified the Mongol tribes, called "Genghis Khan", and looked at the Jin Dynasty. And the Southern Song Dynasty added new hatred after the signing of the "Jiading Peace Agreement" after the Kaixi Northern Expedition, and it can be said that the Jin Dynasty was an enemy on both sides.
Wei Shaowang in the film and television drama
After the death of Jin Zhangzong, there was no heir, and he was succeeded by King Wei Shao, Completed Yan Yongji, who was the younger brother of Jin Zhangzong's father, Completed Yan Yungong, the uncle of Jin Zhangzong, and the seventh son of Emperor Jin Shizong. In the eleventh year of Jin Sejong's reign (1171), he was made the King of Xue, and later the Prince of Wei. Jin Zhangzong passed the throne to Yan Yongji not because this person was capable, but because he was mediocre and cowardly, easy to control, and could inherit the throne after his two sons came out in the future, so King Wei Shao was a temporary emperor.
However, King Wei Shao did not think so, and soon after succeeding to the throne, he attacked his nephew's concubine, killed Concubine Li and Concubine Jia, and forced Fan to shave his head. Emperor Zhangzong felt that King Wei was incompetent, so he passed the throne to him. However, according to historical records, King Wei Shao was "diligent and thrifty, cautious in his past, and more than his deeds, and more than his deeds, those who were inferior to him" ("Biography of Jin Shi Jia Yiqian"). He was a diligent and frugal man, cherished his reputation, and saw that his behavior in the world was not as good as his people, which was in the middle; but he was too unlucky, and during his reign, he encountered very great trouble--the Mongols came.
The Jurchen Mongol feud from the future
Since the beginning of the Jin Dynasty, it has been entangled with the Mongol tribes in the north. The Mongols were descendants of the ancient Murwei people, who were annexed to the Khitan after the rise of the Khitans, and after the fall of the Liao State, the Mongol plateau rule was lost. After the Jin Kingdom and the Southern Song Dynasty signed the "Shaoxing Peace Agreement", they immediately aimed their spearhead at the Mongol tribes, so they sent the famous general Yan Zongbi (Jin Wushu) to invade Mongolia, without winning or losing. In the end, the northern defense line of the Jin Kingdom was moved from the Mongolian plateau to the Daxing'anling area, but the Jin State once used a ruse to crucify the Mongol tribe's Baba Boy Khan on a wooden donkey, which aggravated the hatred between the two sides.
By the time of Emperor Jin Zhangzong, the Jin dynasty had conquered the Mongol tribes and destroyed the Tatar and Hongjira tribes, but the Mongol tribes rose and finally unified the steppe. During the reign of Emperor Jin Zhangzong, once Genghis Khan wanted to pay tribute to the Jin Kingdom, but Jin Zhangzong did not allow Genghis Khan to enter the border area to receive him. King Wei Shao was a cowardly man, and Genghis Khan had heard of him, but King Wei Shao still had to put on a posture of heaven and heaven, and Genghis Khan had a very disdain for Yongji's faction.
When Temujin entered the big tent, King Wei Shao was closing his eyes and recuperating. Temujinichi came in and reported himself to the door first. He put his hand on his chest and bent down slightly to say that Genghis Khan of the Great Mongolia had seen King Jin Guowei. King Wei Shao closed his eyes, didn't even look at it, and said that he would sit flat and sit down. The surrounding officials covered their mouths and secretly enjoyed themselves, and no one knelt down for you, what kind of body was flattened, and what seat was given? King Wei Shao opened his eyes when he heard the laughter, why don't you kneel? Temujin laughed, I am now the lord of the Mongolian steppe, with 400,000 households, why should I kneel for you? After he finished speaking, he walked away, and turned King Wei Shao's beard in a rage. After Yongji returned to the dynasty, he played the role of Jin Zhangzong, and Genghis Khan's wolf ambitions were clearly revealed. But Jin Zhangzong was mainly fighting against the Song Dynasty, so he had no time to take care of it.
After Yan Yongji succeeded to the throne, because he handled Li Fei's affairs, he did not move for the time being. When Genghis Khan heard that Yan Yongji had become emperor, he said even more contemptuously:
"I mean that the Emperor of the Central Plains was a heavenly man, and such a cowardly person is also for it?"
Contemptuous of the Jin Dynasty even more, he decided to send troops to attack and avenge the ancestors of The BaBao.
In July 1211, the Mongol army of 100,000 troops attacked the Jin Kingdom in three ways, Genghis Khan and his son Tuolei all the way down to Changzhou, Shuzhou and Fuzhou; Zhebei Yelü Ahai attacked the Wuyue camp all the way and captured Wusha Fort, and Shuchi, Chagatai, and Wokoutai all the way to capture Dongsheng in Yunnei. In August, Genghis Khan besieged Jinxijing Datong, and the defender Hu Shahu fled without a fight, and Xijing fell, which made the Jin dynasty shake.
The Mongols are coming
Therefore, King Wei Shao heeded the advice of the chancellor Shan Yi and gathered 400,000 troops to fight the Mongol army at Wild Fox Ridge. Jin Tingling summoned Yan Jiujin and others to lead the army, claiming that 400,000 people were guarding yehuling (野狐岭; present-day Wanquanbei, Hebei) in a natural danger, and Yan Chengyu, who presided over military affairs on behalf of Du Ji Sizhong, commanded the army as a rear army. Some people suggested that they should take advantage of the lack of preparation of the Mongolian army that was directly engaged in horse herding, but the timid and mediocre Completed Yan Chengyu and Completed Yan Jiujin, in order to protect the "perfection", ordered the horses to march in unison and choose at the same time. The Jin Dynasty sent Shi Mo Ming'an (Khitan tribe) to negotiate with Genghis Khan, who bribed Shi Mo Ming'an to surrender, and Shi Mo Ming'an defected to Genghis Khan, providing information on Genghis Khan's Jin army deployment.
First Mongol invasion
When Genghis Khan learned of this, he gathered his soldiers and horses, divided into two wings, and attacked the badger's mouth in front of the Wild Fox Ridge. The Jin army could not take care of each other, and the people and horses were ravaged, and they collapsed in a battle. After Yan Chengyu fled south to Xuanping County (southwest of present-day Zhangjiakou in the north) and was chased by the Mongolian army at Xunhe Fort (present-day Huai'andong, Hebei), the two armies launched a decisive battle and three days after the great battle, Genghis Khan chose three thousand elite horsemen to break into the Golden Front, attacking inside and outside, the Jin army was defeated for a hundred miles, all the elite were annihilated, and Yan Chengyu fled alone to Xuande Prefecture (present-day Xuanhua, Hebei), a major town north of the Jin Dynasty.
Mongol army on the move
In September, the Mongol army captured Dexing Province (southwest of Zhuolu, Hebei), and the forwards broke through Juyong Pass and besieged Jinzhongdu. King Wei Shao was horrified by the news and ordered martial law in the capital. However, the Mongol army was a long field soldier, completely layman in the battle of attacking strong points, and failed to get a bargain from the Jin people, so they plundered everywhere. At the beginning of the first month of 1212, the Mongols saw that they could not capture Zhongdu, and the approaching Jin reinforcements would cut off their own retreat, so they had to agree to the Jin Dynasty's request for peace, but asked the Jin Dynasty to stop the reinforcements from coming.
Gao Qinian objected:
"This is not possible. When Sticky Han and Hui Li did not besiege Song Jing Kaifeng, they used this tactic to mislead the Song people, and today they can't make the same mistakes!"
The Mongols had no choice but to retreat north with the 10,000 sheep sent by the Jin, and their rear army was defeated by the Jin reinforcements. Jin Zhongdu temporarily lifted the siege. On the fifteenth day, the Jin reinforcements arrived at the Zhongdu City, and King Wei Shao, who had survived the disaster of the fall of the country, and the reinforcement generals gathered together to cry, but as the Mongolian army moved away, King Wei Shao's sense of crisis also faded. When Zhongdu was besieged, Jin Shangjing left the disciples Shan Yi to send 20,000 soldiers into Wei Zhongdu, and The Jin Emperor promoted the apprentice Shan Yi as the right chancellor to encourage the Qinwang army in various places to quickly reinforce.
Tu Shan yi suggested that Liaodong, thousands of miles away, was the foundation of the Jin Dynasty, and that a chancellor should be sent to guard Tokyo (present-day Liaoyang, Liaoning) as a precaution. Unexpectedly, King Wei Shao did not accept it: "Sending ministers for no reason shakes people's hearts." As expected, Genghis Khan immediately sent the general Tetsubetsu to Liaodong, attacked Tokyo, plundered a large amount of property, and left.
Mongol cavalry
In the autumn of 1213, Genghis Khan once again came to the foot of the Yin Mountains, met the soldiers and horses of the east and west, followed the old road to the south, and then entered the Wild Fox Ridge, and went out to Huailai (present-day Hebei) Where the Jin Dynasty stationed a heavy army with the Wei army as the core, commanded by Marshal Quan's right capital, Hu Gaoqi. Gao Qicheng shouzhen prefecture (present-day Yanqing, Beijing), recruited men and horses from Shandong and Hebei, and claimed to have 300,000 soldiers and horses. At this time, Shang Shu Zuo finished Yan Gang's general Yan Gang and set up a province in Zhenzhou.
Before leaving, the right minister Shan Yi thought
"Gao Qi is very popular with the people, and the soil is full of hard work, and it is better to go personally with the province than to benefit the soldiers", persuading "Gao Qi's painting has been determined, and his merit is the merit of the province".
However, the conscientious Yan Gang did not comply, and stayed in Zhenzhou, which really caused confusion in the command of the generals on the front line, and was defeated in the first battle, retreating to Juyongguan, and the Mongolian army was like a broken bamboo, laying down Juyongguan in one breath and approaching Zhongdu again.
However, in the face of the oppression of the Mongol army, the Jin Dynasty fell into a political struggle. When Xijing left Hu Shahu and fled back to Zhongdu, King Wei Shao pardoned him regardless of his previous suspicions. Fleeing back to the capital, King Wei Shao, instead of being punished, was appointed as the Right Deputy Marshal and Quan Shangshu Zuo Cheng. This time the Mongols came again, Hu Shahu asked to lead an army of 20,000 to garrison Xuande Province, the Jin Dynasty only gave 3,000 people, Hu Shahu was greatly dissatisfied, and he was dismissed from his post. Soon after, he was appointed deputy marshal of the right, leading three thousand people of the Armed Guard to guard the gate of the Pass.
Soon, Hu Shahu led his army to defeat the battle and collapsed into Zhongdu. At this time, someone reported to King Wei Shao that Hu Shahu had accepted bribes from the Mongols and deliberately retreated. Fearing that he would be killed, Hu Shahu falsely claimed to have been ordered by the Son of Heaven to rebel on the twenty-fourth day, and led his armed guards to launch a mutiny. The guards guarding the palace gate closed the gate to refuse the battle, but the su wei troops who heard the news were afraid of Hu Shahu's "prestige, no one who dared to move." So Hu Shahu's army invaded the palace, and did his best to guard the guards, replacing them with his own soldiers.
Hu Shahu came to the front of the Great An Hall, and when King Wei Shao saw it, he asked from a distance, "Where do you want me to go?" Zhizhong replied, "Return to the old days of the royal palace." King Wei Shao transferred to the harem and asked the empress to leave the palace with him, but the empress kept him and said, "If you leave the palace, you will be killed." But this was the reason for them, Hu Shahu waited for them for a long time, sent soldiers into the palace to arrest them, and sent them to their old residence in a car to be imprisoned. Hu Shahu claimed to be the marshal of the capital of Jianguo, and designed a booby-trap to kill Shang Shuzuo, who commanded the army, and completed Yan Yuannu, and seized the military and political power in the DPRK.
Hu Shahu wanted to establish himself as emperor, but hesitated for fear of not succeeding. The well-anticipated right-hand man Shan Yi just fell off his horse and injured his foot to recuperate at home, so Hu Shahu came to Tu Shan Yi's home under the pretext of visiting a sick person, and Tu Shan Yi saw through his thoughts and calmly advised him to welcome King Feng to finish Yan Xun as emperor:
"King Feng, the grandson of Sejong, the brother of Emperor Zhangzong, the people are all to belong, the marshal decided to establish it, and the merits of the world are also."
Hu Shahu went silently, and after much deliberation, on the 26th he instructed the eunuch to kill King Wei Shao and send his envoys to Zhangde Province (present-day Anyang, Henan) to welcome Yan Xun. On September 9, Yan Xun went to Yanjing to succeed the emperor as Emperor Xuanzong of Jin.
Kim Seon-jong in the film and television drama
Emperor Xuanzong of Jin made his own meritorious contribution with Hu Shahu, worshiped Taishi, Shang Shuling and Marshal of the Capital, and Washu King of Fengze; With the right chancellor, Shan Yi entered the left cheng xiang and was crowned the king of Guangping County. Hu Shahu asked King Wei Shao to be deposed as a Shuren, and more than 300 officials were appointed to the court. Crown Prince Fu Aotun Zhongxiao and his attendant Pu Chasizhong supported Hu Shahu, but Hubu Shangshu Wudu, Shiyi Tian Tingfang and thirty others asked King Wei Shao to be demoted to the position of prince. Hu Shahu stubbornly insisted on the previous proposal, and Jin Xuanzong had no choice but to demote Yunji to the title of Marquis of Donghai County.
Marshal Gao Qi, the Right Supervisor of the Army, repeatedly fought unfavorably, and Hu Shahu warned him: "Today's military dispatch has been fruitless, and it should be done with military law." "Gao Qi, the shuhu, was defeated in battle, fearing guilt, and in October led his army into Zhongdu, surrounded Hu Shahu's mansion, and killed Hu Shahu. Gao Qi, the shuhu, took the first rank of Hu Shahu and asked Jin Xuanzong for his guilt, and Jin Xuanzong pardoned him and made him the left deputy marshal. Emperor Xuanzong also issued an edict announcing Hu Shahu's past crimes and cutting him off his official title.
In the fourth year of Zhenyou (1216), Emperor Xuanzong of Jin posthumously restored Yan Yongji as the King of Wei, and later generations called him the King of Wei Shao.
This article was originally published