Datong, Shanxi, the ancient city was like a silver plate last month.
When it comes to the city of Datong, many people often think of a popular word in ancient China - "the world is the same". This is the highest political ideal pursued by Confucian intellectuals, and its symbol is: people give full play to their talents, make full use of their materials, social fairness, national harmony, and the world is just. Throughout the ages, this ideal has always inspired countless people with lofty ideals to pursue unremittingly.
In the urban history of Datong, Emperor Xiaowen's reform is a typical case.
Datong ancient name Pingcheng, Yunzhou, Yunzhong, its history can be traced back to the Xujiayao culture period 100,000 years ago. Datong Basin, where Datong is located, is a combination of the Inner Mongolian Plateau and the Loess Plateau in Shanxi, because there are many mountain passes around the basin, forming a natural pass, which has become a passage for ancient nomads to enter the Central Plains.
Gu Zuyu, a geographer in the early Qing Dynasty, introduced Datong in his book "Minutes of Reading Historical Opinions": "It is connected to the upper valley in the east, to the south and Heng, to the west is the Yellow River, to the north is controlled by the desert, and to live in the key point of the frontier." "Datong is connected to the east by Shanggu (Hebei), which can reach the northern part of the North China Plain; the south can be directly connected to Taiyuan (Hezhou, Hengzhou) and south to the Central Plains; the west is bounded by the Yellow River, and to the north can control the desert area. Therefore, Datong is at the key point of China's northern frontier, and its strategic position is extremely important, often becoming the focus of competition between the nomadic peoples in the north and the farming peoples in the central plains.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Central Plains were in a scuffle, and there was no time or ability to look north, and the Xianbei took the opportunity to occupy the Datong Basin and use it as a springboard and bridgehead for marching into the Central Plains. The Xianbei Tuoba tribe originally belonged to the Donghu clan, living near the Daxing'an Mountains, and came to the Hulunbuir Grassland in order to seek greater development.
In the first year of Jianxing (313), the Xianbei Tuoba clan established a political power, with Shengle (present-day Inner Mongolia and Linger) as the northern capital and Pingcheng as the southern capital; in the first year of Tianxing (398), Tuoba Jue was called emperor, the name of the country was Wei, and the history was called Northern Wei, and in July, the capital was officially moved from Shengle to Pingcheng (that is, Datong). Later, Tuoba Jue and his descendants took advantage of Pingcheng's unique strategic position to conquer many surrounding nomadic tribes such as Gaoche, Ruoran, Western Yan, and Murong Bu of the Xianbei Province; then, based on Pingcheng, they sent a large army south to the Central Plains, occupying a vast area of the Yellow River Valley and basically unifying the north. Pingcheng also became the political, military and cultural center of northern China, serving as the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty for 96 years.
However, in the eighteenth year of the Northern Wei Dynasty (494), when Emperor Xiaowen was on the throne, he made a decision to move the capital to Luoyang in the Central Plains.
First of all, Pingcheng is located in the north of Shanxi, surrounded by high mountains and rivers, the land is barren and the transportation is inconvenient. During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen, the population of Pingcheng was nearly one million, and the supply of food and materials was very difficult; secondly, Pingcheng's location was too far north, which was not conducive to the rule of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, nor to the implementation of the Northern Wei Han policy.
Historically, the nomadic peoples in the north of our country have always regarded the development of the south and even the domination of the agricultural civilization areas as their highest goal. In the process of advancing south, three moves are generally taken: the first step, when the strength is not strong enough, the south invades the cyprus and plunders the property and population of the farming area; the second step, as the strength becomes stronger, seizes and rules the land and people in the farming area; the third step, when the strength is strong enough, overthrows the Central Plains Dynasty and enters the Central Plains.
The Xianbei Tuoba Bu had successfully completed these three moves and achieved the goal of entering the Central Plains. However, after all, Pingcheng is far from the core area of agricultural civilization, and in the long run, it is not conducive to absorbing the essence of farming culture nearby, and it is not conducive to lasting rule over the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.
In addition to the above factors, Pingcheng also left some bitter memories for Emperor Xiaowen. At Emperor Xiaowen's side, there was an iron-fisted woman, Empress Feng. She was not Emperor Xiaowen's maternal grandmother, she had forced Emperor Xiaowen's father to abdicate, and the death of Emperor Xiaowen's favorite concubine Lin Shi was also related to her. For Emperor Xiaowen, Pingcheng nurtured him and raised him to adulthood, but Pingcheng was a place where he was sad, which may have been an important factor that outsiders could not understand to promote Emperor Xiaowen's move to the capital.
In the fourteenth year of Taihe (490), Empress Feng died of illness, and in this year, Emperor Xiaowen was 24 years old. Although Empress Feng was gone, she actually held the power of Northern Wei for nearly 30 years and cultivated a strong strength among the Xianbei nobles. As a foreign relative, the Feng family still held great power, intertwined, and actually grasped the power of Northern Wei. Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital, and also intended to avoid The Feng's sphere of influence, Pingcheng, and create a new pattern of the Northern Wei regime that truly belonged to him.
In the eighteenth year of Taihe (494), Emperor Xiaowen officially moved the capital of Northern Wei from Pingcheng to Luoyang, and then issued a series of reform decrees, the main content of which was "Sinicization", known in history as "Xiaowen Emperor Reform". The intensity of the reform, the far-reaching impact, and unprecedented, have changed not only the fate of the Xianbei people, but also the fate of the city of Datong.
The Northern Wei Dynasty, centered on Datong and Luoyang, ruled the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the areas north of the Yellow River in China for a century and a half, promoting the exchange of food, clothing, customs, religion and other cultures in this region. For example, the Northern Wei imperial family believed in Buddhism, and during the reign of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Buddhism in the northern region of China was widely spread, leaving a large number of Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist grottoes. Famous Buddhist monasteries such as the Wutaishan Temple Group in Shanxi and the Shaolin Temple in Songshan were all founded in the Northern Wei Dynasty; the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, the Maijishan Grottoes in Tianshui, and the four major Buddhist grottoes in China were also chiseled or flourished in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The northern Wei capital of Datong lasted for a hundred years, and later, the Liao and Jurchen jin established by the Khitan tribes were accompanied by Datong for hundreds of years. The advantages of the capital Datong are obvious: the situation is dangerous, it is the forward position of attacking the Central Plains, and it is leaning on the rear of the Mongolian steppe, which can be attacked and defended; but the disadvantages are also obvious, the mountains here are rugged, the transportation is inconvenient, the land is poor, and the supply of food and materials is insufficient.
Just over 30 years after Emperor Xiaowen's death (534 AD), Northern Wei split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei and died short-lived. This means that jiandu is in the hinterland of agricultural civilization, far from the rear of nomadic peoples, and will inevitably lose the traditions and advantages of nomadic peoples. In a sense, Datong used its own success or failure to do a century-long experiment for Beijing, providing a model for Beijing to build a capital.
For the nomadic people, the capital city of Beijing has the dual advantages of Datong and Luoyang, and avoids the shortcomings of the two cities. First, Beijing is backed by the vast Mongolian steppe and the northeast region, and there is plenty of room for maneuver; second, Beijing is located in the throat of the North China Great Plain and the northern region, and the transportation is very convenient; second, through the Grand Canal, it is very convenient to transport grain and materials from the Central Plains and the south to Beijing to meet the needs of the capital. Therefore, Beijing became the only choice for the capitals of the Jin, Yuan and Qing dynasties, and became the political, economic and cultural center of China's feudal society in the later period.
But in any case, Emperor Xiaowen was born and grew up in Datong, and his reform ideas were also fixed in Datong, and the goal of Emperor Xiaowen's reform was also for the sake of the world's Datong. Therefore, in the history of China, Datong has always been a city that overlooks the Central Plains, embraces the world, pursues national harmony and is a family under the world, and its name will be forever remembered in the history of Chinese civilization.