The Song Dynasty was the most prosperous and culturally developed era in ancient China. However, the Song Dynasty failed to achieve true unification. Although the Northern Song Dynasty ended the division of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, it failed to recover Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, Liaodong in Western Liaoning, Hexi Corridor, Hetao Plain, Jiaotong, Yunnan and other places, and its northern Frontier had not yet reached the front line of the Great Wall. The Liao, Jin, Xia and other countries stood side by side with the Song Dynasty and directly called the emperor, which was also the first time in history. Why did the Song Dynasty, which was so economically and culturally developed, fail to achieve great unification? This must start with Song Taizong.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >, going with the flow and formally unifying the ten kingdoms</h1>
Throughout the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, there were two signs of reunification. The first time was after the establishment of the Later Tang Dynasty, the Former Shu was destroyed, and Nanping and Southern Chu were annexed. The southern kingdoms, except for southern Wu and southern Han, all worshiped Later Tang Zhengshuo, "in the realm of five generations, there is no one who flourishes here." The second time was in the Later Zhou Dynasty, when the emperors Taizu and Sejong made great efforts to govern and implement reforms, so that the national strength of later Zhou continued to rise. Zhou Shizong then defeated Hou Shu in the west and took the four prefectures of Qin, Feng, Cheng, and Jie; the three conquests of southern Tang and the fourteen prefectures of Huainan; and the northern breaking of the Liao state, Lianke Sanguan three prefectures. Historians praised him as "a heroic hero of a generation" as "the hero of a generation". It is a pity that he died young, which is a pity.
In 960, Zhao Kuangyin launched the "Chen Qiao Mutiny", which replaced Later Zhou and established the Song Dynasty. After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, on the basis of the Later Zhou, it continued to launch a unified war. However, Zhao Kuangyin was not as good as Zhou Shizong militarily, and he deliberately avoided the powerful Liao state, adopted the policy of "first the south and then the north, first easy and then difficult", and successively eliminated Nanping, Later Shu, Southern Han, and Southern Tang, laying the foundation for the unification of the Northern Song Dynasty. However, at the critical time of reunification, Zhao Kuangyin fell.
In 976, Zhao Kuangyin's younger brother Zhao Kuangyi staged a coup d'état, killing Zhao Kuangyin and seizing the throne, also known as "Emperor Taizong of Song". As mentioned earlier, Zhao Kuangyin's military ability is not as good as That of Zhou Shizong, but after all, he is born as a thrifty envoy, and he is also a generation of British lords, while Zhao Kuangyi is a literati and knows nothing about military affairs. After arbitrarily claiming the title of empress, he expelled Zhao Pu, Xiang Gong, Gao Huaide, Feng Jiye, and Zhang Mei from the imperial court, and reused his own group of literati secretaries, such as Cheng Yu, Jia Yan, Chen Congxin, and Zhang Pingping. After this adjustment, the entire upper echelons of the Song Dynasty almost lost their military capabilities.
Song Taizong
In the early days of Emperor Taizong's reign, he was able to continue the general trend of the unification of the Song Dynasty. In 978, the Wuyue Qian clan, which had divided the southeast corner, saw that the general trend had gone, so they surrendered to the Song Dynasty, and the south was basically unified. In 979, Zhao Kuangyi ordered a large army to march north, repelling the Liao state and eliminating the Northern Han Dynasty, so that the division of the ten kingdoms was basically over, and the formal unification was completed.
The reason why the formal unification was completed is because there were still many divisions at that time. For example, the Dingnan Army made the northwest divide, the Ding clan divided the toes, the Dali Duan clan divided Yunnan, and the Liao state occupied the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun. At this time, reunification has entered a difficult stage. After Song Taizong had eaten the benefits left by his brother, he finally could not continue to move forward.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" > two, repeated defeats in external battles, and internal wars again</h1>
In 979, the year of the elimination of the Northern Han Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Song, despite opposition, immediately ordered the army to continue north, trying to take Yanjing in one fell swoop and launching a war against the Liao state. At the beginning of the war, the Song army easily took Yizhou and Zhuozhou, and then besieged Yanjing City. In the Battle of Yanjing, the Song army could not be attacked for a long time, and Song Taizong was still on the battlefield. However, the Song army paid too much attention to the siege of the city and ignored the arrival of the main force of the Liao state. Soon, the main force of the Liao state was killed, the two sides fought fiercely at the Sorghum River, Song Taizong was wounded and shot, Cangchao withdrew, and the first Northern Expedition was declared a failure.
In 980, there was a coup d'état and the Lês came to power. Hou Renbao, the doctor of Yongzhou Taichang, requested to take advantage of the civil strife in Jiaotong to go south to fight and restore the ancient territory of the Han and Tang Dynasties. Song Taizong immediately organized a large army to march south. However, the Song Dynasty army won first and then lost at the Battle of Bai Teng River in 981, which frustrated the plan to unify Jiaotong (Vietnam). It is very coincidental that the Southern Han Dynasty was also defeated by the separatist forces in the Bai Teng River. After this war, Vietnam officially embarked on the road to independence.
In 982, the Xia prefecture was in civil strife, and the Xia lord Li Jifeng lost power in the infighting and defected to the Song Dynasty, which attracted an excellent opportunity to unify the Hexi region. However, Emperor Taizong's policy was too hasty, and he relocated all the Li clans of Xia Prefecture to the capital, and then granted the post of Jiedushi (who had been reduced to a false position) in other prefectures, which caused dissatisfaction among the Li clan of Xia Prefecture. So Li Jipeng's younger brother Li Jiqian took refuge in the desert north and contacted the Dangxiang nobles and the Liao state, and there was a war with the Song Dynasty. The war lasted until the death of Emperor Taizong of Song, and the Song army was repeatedly defeated, and finally missed the opportunity to recover Hexi. After that, the Li clan of Xia Prefecture established the Western Xia Kingdom.
In 986, Emperor Taizong of Song was not reconciled with the defeat in the Liao War and launched the Second Northern Expedition. In this war, the number of soldiers will be wide and the momentum will be huge. However, the generals used by Emperor Taizong of Song, such as Fu Qian, Wang Chao, Chai Yuxi, Zhao Rong, Zhang Xun, Yang Shouyi, and Yi Dechao, were mostly mediocre, and they were afraid of the battle, and finally buried a good start, and finally lost it. The failure of this Northern Expedition also declared that the Northern Song Dynasty had failed the opportunity to recover Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, after which the Song army was no longer able to carry out the Northern Expedition.
Since then, there have also been riots within the Song Dynasty. At that time, the Bashu region was one of the few stable areas in the country. Former Shu and Later Shu were successively cut off from this land. During the Unification War, Zhao Kuangyin, the ancestor of the Song Dynasty, allowed soldiers to plunder the Bashu region, which caused the Bashu people to lack a sense of identification with the Song Dynasty. After the pacification of Bashu, in order to eliminate this basis of division, Song Taizu ordered all the officials and troops here to go to the central government to listen to the arrangements, which triggered the Mutiny of the Quanxiong Division. It was not until the year of Song Taizu's death that the Quanxiong Division mutiny was put down.
After the Pingding Quanxiong Division Mutiny, Emperor Taizong of Song re-sent new officials to Bashu. However, these officials were violent and corrupt, and they regarded the Bashu people as conquered, fishing the people and killing people, which led to further intensification of contradictions. In 993, Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun of Bashu rose up and launched a peasant uprising, which was the largest peasant uprising in the history of the Northern Song Dynasty, and actually occurred in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which was rare in previous dynasties. The uprising of Bashu forced Song Taizong to abandon foreign wars and focus mainly on the interior. In 995, the revolt was extinguished, but then the Wang Jun Mutiny broke out. It was not until the death of Emperor Taizong of Song and the rise of Emperor Zhenzong of Song that the Bashu region stabilized.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="45" > three, heavy literature and light martial arts, the Northern Song Emperor lost his blood</h1>
The basic system of the Song Dynasty was established during the two dynasties of Emperor Taizu and Emperor Taizong. The basic national policy established by Song Taizu was to "strengthen the branches of the weak branches" and "guard the inside and the outside", that is, to weaken the local military and financial powers and strengthen the centralization of power. Militarily, he used the method of "releasing the military power by a cup of wine" to lift the military power of the envoys of Jiedushi, set up a forbidden army, which directly belonged to the central authorities; separated the right to transfer troops from the right to command the troops, resulting in the soldiers not knowing the general and not knowing the soldiers. However, there were more people around Song Taizu who could fight good battles, which made the military strength of the early Song Dynasty strong.
The basic national policy established by Emperor Taizong of Song was to "emphasize literature over force." Song Taizong himself had a high level of education, and the "Jade Sea" recorded: "The total number of imperial books of Emperor Taizong is 5,115 scrolls, and there are dozens of royal books", which shows the large number of his works. He can write calligraphy and is proficient in 6 fonts: cursive, lishu, xingshu, eight points, seal, and fly white. In terms of music, there is also a certain achievement. After he ascended the throne, he ordered the compilation of the world's books and the compilation of the Taiping Imperial Records. The famous allusion "opening the book is beneficial" comes from Song Taizong.
An important cultural measure of Emperor Taizong of Song was to expand the scale of admission to the imperial examination, and the number of admissions for his first opening was twice that of the Song Taizu period. During the reign of Song Taizong, a total of 6692 people were admitted, basically replacing the entire bureaucratic system. Emperor Taizong of Song also greatly improved the status of the imperial examination talents and completely reversed the situation of the military attaché's monopoly since the late Tang Dynasty. The scale of admission was expanded, providing a talent reserve for civilian officials to govern the country, and also promoting the rise of the reading trend in the Song Dynasty. In addition, the expansion of the scale of admission to the imperial examination led to the complete decline of the former scholar clan, and the commoners had more room for growth, changing the class structure of China.
There are pros and cons to everything. Song Taizong strongly advocated "ruling the country with culture", which was an important factor in the economic and cultural prosperity of the Song Dynasty, but it led to the Song Dynasty gradually falling into the quagmire of "poverty and weakness". First, the bureaucracy is expanding day by day, and the salaries of scholars and doctors are also very high, making the state's financial income insufficient; second, the size of the army is huge, but the combat effectiveness is declining; third, the state is unable to cultivate large-scale military talents, so that foreign wars have been repeatedly defeated.
Song Taizong's "rule by culture" formed a tradition. Subsequent Emperors of the Song Dynasty were fascinated by culture, but they were all ignorant of the military. Whenever war came, the emperors of the Song Dynasty wanted to solve problems with money and negotiation, and the idea of war cowardice shrouded the entire upper echelons. Therefore, the Northern Song Dynasty eventually signed humiliating treaties with the Liao and Western Xia, buying peace with money. But this is not a long-term security measure. In 1127, the Jin dynasty marched straight in, captured Kaifeng, captured Hui Qin Erzong, and the Northern Song Dynasty fell, known in history as the "Jing kang change". After that, the Southern Song Dynasty, which was partial to the southeast of An' also inherited the policy of "emphasizing literature over military force", and was finally destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty in 1276.