577 AD
Northern Zhou annihilates Northern Qi: The north is reunified
In 577, Emperor Yuwen of the Northern Zhou Dynasty rebelled against Northern Qi, capturing Northern Qi alive and then dominating Gao Wei, and Northern Qi perished.
At that time, there were two regimes in northern China, northern Zhou and Northern Qi, facing off. Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty carried out reforms and banned Buddhism. The confiscation of temple property and land increased financial resources, the return of monks to laymen increased the military service population, and the Northern Zhou Dynasty gradually increased its national strength. On the other hand, Gao Wei, the lord of Northern Qi, favored Feng Shufei, indulged in pleasures, ignored the government, and Northern Qi gradually declined. This gave Emperor Wu of Zhou the confidence to annex Northern Qi.
In 575, Emperor Wu of Zhou made his first expedition. This time, Emperor Wu of Zhou mobilized an army of 180,000 men, with the goal of capturing Luoyang. The Northern Zhou army was overwhelming and continuously captured more than thirty cities in Northern Qi, but the main force led by Emperor Wu of Zhou himself was blocked at Heyin City. Emperor Wu of Zhou was unfavorable in attacking the city, so he simply abandoned Heyin and directly attacked Luoyang. The Northern Qi army stubbornly resisted at various strongholds on the outskirts of Luoyang, and the Zhou army attacked for twenty consecutive days, failing to advance a step. At this time, Emperor Wu of Zhou suddenly fell ill, and Northern Qi reinforcements arrived in Luoyang, and the Zhou army had to retreat.
Northern Zhou's first failure to cut down Qi was only due to a strategic error, and luoyang, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, was mistakenly chosen as the main direction of attack. This did not change the gap in strength between the two countries, nor did it change Emperor Zhouwu's determination to destroy Qi.
A year later, Emperor Wu of Zhou attacked Again and drew up a new battle plan: abandon Luoyang and choose pingyang city between Jinyang and Luoyang as a breakthrough point. Pingyang is on the fenhe river, located on the main road of transportation, attacking here will inevitably attract the rescue of the Northern Qi army, so that it can eliminate its main force, and then take advantage of the victory to attack the Northern Qi capital Yecheng to the east.
After determining the strategy, Emperor Wu of Zhou personally led more than 100,000 troops and went straight to Pingyang City. This time, the Qi dynasty went more smoothly than Emperor Wu of Zhou imagined, and Northern Qi Jinzhou's assassin Shi Cui Jingxuan saw that the momentum of the Zhou army's siege was extremely fierce, and immediately surrendered the city. When the Northern Zhou army besieged Pingyang, Gao Wei, the lord of Northern Qi, was taking Feng Shufei to hunt near Jinyang. From morning to noon, a total of three letters of help were received from Pingyang, and the right minister Gao Anaqiu also said that the emperor was having fun, and it was normal to fight small battles at the border pass, so don't report it. In the evening, the news of the fall of Pingyang was received, and the emperor could no longer be hidden. Lord Qi Hou listened to the report and prepared to return to Jinyang, but Feng Shufei begged him to hunt again, and Lord Qi Hou was reluctant to refuse, so he agreed.
When Lord Qi Hou personally led 100,000 people to Pingyang, the Zhou army retreated while fighting, leaving only the general Liang Shangyan to lead 10,000 elite troops to defend the city and drag the Qi army. The Qi army besieged the city of Pingyang day and night, breaking through the city wall. Liang Shangyan personally went to the city to fight back, and even his wives and concubines and children went to build the destroyed city wall. The Qi army dug tunnels to attack the city, opening a gap more than ten steps wide, but the Qi Hou lord asked to wait until Feng Shufei had seen the front line before attacking, the Qi army could only stand by, and the Zhou army took the opportunity to block the gap.
The garrison led by Liang Shiyan was very tenacious, held out for more than a month, and completed the strategic goal of dragging the Qi army. During this period, Emperor Wu of Zhou even returned to Chang'an for a few days, and then issued an edict expressing his determination to eliminate Northern Qi and return to the Pingyang front again.
The two armies of Qi Zhou confronted each other, and Qi Hou asked Gao Anaqiu if he wanted to fight a decisive battle. Gao Ana humerus said that the decisive battle was not certain and should be held. A bunch of favored courtiers around Lord Qi Hou all encouraged him to go to war, saying that the opposite side was the Son of Heaven, and our side was also the Son of Heaven, how could we show weakness? Originally, the Qi army was on guard against the Zhou army and suddenly returned, digging trenches to cut off the road. Qi Hou lord ordered the trenches to be filled and took the initiative to attack.
At this time, the happiest person was Emperor Zhouwu, whose plan was to annihilate the main force of the Qi army, and the Qi army took the initiative to attack him. The Qi army besieged Pingyang for more than a month, and was already extremely tired, and when it encountered the Zhou army that was waiting for work, some of them could not resist, and the right wing retreated slightly. Feng Shufei saw the right wing retreat and shouted, "Defeated! Mutiba, the favorite minister of lord Qi Hou, shouted, "Your Majesty run!" Qi Hou really fled with Feng Shufei. As soon as the commander ran, the Qi army immediately collapsed. Emperor Wu of Zhou took advantage of the victory to pursue and killed all the way to jinyang city.
Qi Hou fled to Jinyang and ran back to the capital Yecheng. The ministers around him advised him to reorganize his army and fight the Zhou army again. The attendant HuLu Xiaoqing wrote a speech for Lord Qi Hou and asked him to speak to the soldiers, and to tears, so as to boost morale. When Lord Qi Hou arrived at the barracks, he forgot his words without saying a few words, and couldn't help but start laughing, and the retinue around him also laughed. When the soldiers looked at such a monarch, morale could not really be high.
Emperor Wu of Zhou captured Jinyang and only rested for a dozen days before marching into Yecheng, and at the same time released the news: all those who surrendered in Northern Qi were added to the rank of knight. Northern Qi officials began to surrender to Northern Zhou in batches, and Qi Hou, seeing that he was powerless to return to heaven, passed the throne to his 8-year-old son, who himself became Emperor Taishang and prepared to defect to the Chen Dynasty in the south. On the way to Qingzhou, he was captured by Northern Zhou pursuers. Emperor Wu of Zhou made him the Duke of Wen after qi, and later killed him on charges of treason. At this point, Northern Qi perished.
Conclusion: Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou destroyed Northern Qi and unified the north. Four years later, Yang Jian usurped the Zhou Dynasty and established the Sui Dynasty, unifying the country on the basis of The Northern Zhou.
588 AD
Sui Annihilation of Chen: The End of Three Hundred Years of Chinese Turmoil
In October 588, the Sui Emperor Yang Jian ordered the cutting of Chen, and it took only four months to completely conquer the Chen Dynasty.
First of all, Yang Jian ordered his men to build the Great Wall three times, and then spent seven years gradually disintegrating the Eastern and Western Turkic departments to ensure that there was no worries when cutting Chen. The Chen Dynasty was south of the Yangtze River, and the first difficulty in attacking Southern Chen was the natural danger of the Yangtze River, so it was necessary to establish a strong water division. To this end, Yang Jian made Yang Su the governor of Xinzhou, built the "Five Teeth" at Yong'an (present-day Fengjie, Sichuan) to accommodate 800 warriors per ship, as well as the slightly smaller "Huanglong" and "Pingcheng" ships, and at the same time ordered the Sui general Li Yan to Xiangzhou (present-day Xiangyang, Hubei) and Yuan Shou to supervise the repair of ships at Huaipu (present-day Lianshui, Jiangsu), ordered He Ruobi to train the water army, and actively prepared for the crossing of the Yangtze River throughout the Yangtze River.
At the same time, Yang Jian also carried out a long-term "attack on the heart" strategy for the south. He repeatedly sent people down to Jiangnan to burn the granaries of the Chen Dynasty, and constantly pretended to assemble troops to create the illusion of crossing the river to attack. In this way, it paralyzed the military spirit of the Chen Dynasty and prepared for future large-scale attacks.
Finally, in 588, when everything was ready, Emperor Wen of Sui officially sent an army to attack Chen.
Given that the Chen Dynasty was in the Jiangnan region, the control of the Yangtze River and the battle for the Chen capital Jiankang City became the key to the war. To this end, Yang Jian divided the Yangtze River into two theaters, the upper and lower theaters, with Jiangxia (present-day Wuchang District, Wuhan, Hubei) as the boundary, and successively attacked the Chen Dynasty with the Eighth Route: Yang Guang was the commander of the lower route, and led the main force from Liuhe (present-day Liuhe District, Nanjing, Jiangsu) to plan to cross the Yangtze River and approach the Chen Dynasty capital Jiankang from the front. On the way, Yang Jun, the King of Qin, led a water army down the Han River from Xiangyang, and Yang Su led the water army from Yong'an (永安, in present-day Yong'an, Chengdu, Sichuan) and went down the Three Gorges to join it in the east.
In December of the same year, Yang Su's water and army held back Chen's forces in the battlefield of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River west of Jiangxia, and Yang Juntun gathered in Hankou to attract Chen Shuijun's governor Zhou Luoyan to confront him. As a result, Chen Jun was restrained and could not rush to the aid of the downwards. Yang Guang, the king of Jin, occupied Liuhe, opposite Jiankang across the river, waiting for an opportunity. In the same month, Yang Su led his fleet down the river, defeated the Chen general Qi Xin at Wolf's Tail Beach (present-day Yichangxi, Hubei), and went down the river to the east.
Faced with a hair-trigger war, the Chen Dynasty hardly had any decent resistance. Lord Chen Hou was originally an absurd and unscrupulous king. He prided himself on the natural danger of the Yangtze River, not only did not fortify the Sui army, but killed the general of the main battle and played with his beloved concubine Zhang Lihua in the harem all day. Secondly, Chen Hou lord also won the psychological tactics of the Sui Dynasty, believing that this time the Sui Dynasty was just setting fire to it, and did not think that Yang Jian would really attack it. Therefore, only the Chen general Lü Zhongsu struggled to defend, set up three barricades, and once severely damaged more than 5,000 Sui troops. However, because the emperor himself did not resist in any way, Lü Zhongsu naturally did not receive any support. In the face of the Sui Dynasty army, he was eventually defeated by the Sui Dynasty's combined land and water forces, and defeated Yanzhou (延州, in modern Zhijiang, Hubei). Soon the Sui army approached Jiankang and destroyed Chen in one fell swoop.
On this day, the fire fog near Jiankang was shrouded, and the vanguard troops of the Sui Dynasty took the opportunity to cross the Yangtze River in two ways. One force, commanded by the Sui general He Ruobi, crossed the river from Guangling (廣陵, in present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu) in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River; the other, led by the Sui general Han Huhu, crossed the river from upstream Jiankang and near Zhou. Both wanted to take the credit for being the first to enter the city, so they scrambled to move forward. Twelve days later, He Ruobi's troops attacked jiankang city from the east and Han Hu's troops from the southwest at the same time. Only one step away, in the end, Han Huhu captured Chen Shubao, the lord of Chen Hou, the Chen Dynasty fell, and the Sui Dynasty completed its unification, ending the Southern and Northern Dynasties period.
Conclusion: The Battle of Sui and Chen was a war of unification between the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which had lasted for 400 years since the end of the Han Dynasty, came to an end, and the land of China was once again unified.
The end of three hundred years of Chinese turmoil