(The Tang Empire in Crisis)
Thirteen years of Tang Xiantong, 872 AD.
According to the Chronology of the Stem Branch, it is the Year of the Dragon.
In this year, Youzhou Jiedu caused Zhang Yunshen to die of illness, and his son Zhang Gongsu took over his father's office and became another feudal power that divided the side.
The emperor was no longer surprised by this kind of thing.
The festival made the dominant, the feudal town independent, and the emperor became a decoration in front of these powerful warlord forces.
Sheng Tang is gone, never to return to the past.
The once glorious Tang Empire only had four words left to fragment.
The Tang Dynasty river is declining, and the fate that awaits it can only be gradually withered away.
In the northern grasslands, in the eastern part of Tianshan Town, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia today, a baby was also quietly born.
The baby's name was Jeroboam.
(Portrait of Jeroboam)
When Jeroboam was born, he was very different from others.
But that makes sense.
In the past, when emperors are born, there must be visions in the sky, the small ones are windy and rainy, the middle ones are thunder and lightning, and the big ones are full of red light.
Anyway, all unusual phenomena are meant to tell you that this person's birth is very unusual.
When Yelü Abaoji was born, the house was full of light and smells, and as soon as the baby landed, the body developed like a three-year-old child, just left the womb, it could crawl on the ground, in three months, it could walk, a hundred days, it could talk as usual, and opening its mouth was a major national event.
According to today's modern science, this is necessarily impossible.
Even if it is a child prodigy, there is no god who can reach such a point.
March can do, can speak, know what is not. - "History of Liao"
Therefore, although this matter is impressively recorded in the history, it really has no credibility.
At this time in the northern steppe, the Khitan tribes were fighting each other, which was extremely dangerous.
His grandfather Jeroboam died in battle, and his father, Jeroboam, fled to the steppes and had no place to live.
In this way, the life faced by The Advent Ofesha is described in four words:
Unaccompanied.
(Treacherous Khitan steppe)
But fortunately, the grassland gave birth to the tenacious physique of Yelü Abaoji, he did not starve to death, did not get involved in the war, and did not flee to the grassland, but grew up safely and healthily.
"Nine feet long, plump and sharp, eyes shooting, three hundred pounds of bows" - "History of Liao"
The history books say that when he grew up, Yelü Abao's fuselage was nine feet long, his physique was thick, and his bow and arrow of three hundred pounds could be pulled apart effortlessly.
Nine feet long, converted into a modern unit of measurement, that is, three meters tall.
To be honest, I think this data given by the history books is still debatable.
However, Comrade Yelü Abaoji's superior force should not be doubted, the Khitan people are brave and good at war, especially good at riding and shooting, and three hundred pounds of bows and arrows, but it is just a normal level.
Regarding the childhood and even adolescence of Yelü Apaoji, the history books have not left much record.
Our story begins at the moment he grows up.
Of course, this is not a complicated story.
We cannot preconceived that Jeroboam was a man who wanted to accomplish something, or that he was born a hero.
In the cruel northern steppe, the Khitan tribes fought endlessly, and Yelü Abao had only two choices of paths, either going into exile in the grassland like his father and hiding for the rest of his life, or holding up weapons, joining the battle, and defending his homeland.
Jeroboam chose the latter.
It's been a long journey.
He once led the guards left to him by his ancestors to fight against the hostile Khitan tribes that had insulted him, such as Liuxi, Ugu, Bisha, and Xiaohuangshiwei
Attack the Jurchens in the north, and go south to the east of the river, and sweep away the external forces around the Khitan steppe.
He even formed a team with Li Keyong at the time of the decline of the Tang Dynasty, and together they fought against Li Keyong's sworn enemy Zhu Wen the Prince of Liang.
(Li Keyong image)
But in the end, Jeroboam did not attend the appointment.
Yes, he put Li Keyi together and wrote him a blank check.
For Jeroboam, the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was really not something he could participate in.
His dream was not big, the unification of China was too far away, and it was enough to surrender the entire Khitan steppe.
During this time, like all those emperors in history who had achieved great achievements, he conquered the south and the north, and the east and the west. To use an Internet buzzword, it would be:
Won, lost, not served.
Fast forward to the second year of Zhenming, 916 AD.
Datang has long since turned into powder and disappeared into the long river of history.
The Central Plains were torn apart and fought endlessly with each other.
The Jin dynasty king Li Cunxun and the late Liang emperor Zhu Youzhen fought fiercely in Hebei, and the former Shu state sent troops to take Baoji and Longzhou.
These warlords and emissaries who came from the end of the Tang Dynasty robbed people, robbed money, robbed territory, and were engaged in a miasma of black smoke and miasma by them.
On the other hand, the northern grasslands are a thriving scene.
Yelü Abaoji unified the Khitan tribes, in today's Inner Mongolia Bahrain Left Banner, called the founding of the emperor, historically known as the Khitan state.
(Liaoshangjing Ruins of the Left Banner of Bahrain)
With the regime, the construction of the imperial palace became the first priority.
Building a royal palace was simple, recruiting migrant workers, digging foundations, carrying materials, and the industriousness and wisdom of the working people allowed them to erect a magnificent new temple in a matter of months.
It's easy to build, but where to build the palace is a big problem.
The Khitan is divided into eight parts, although they have been unified by Yelü Abaoji, after all, they have just shook hands and made peace, there are still gaps between them, and each department also has its own words and people.
At the meeting to build the new capital, Emperor Yelü Abaoji expressed his desire to build the palace in Xilouyi (present-day Lindong Town, Zuoqi, Bahrain).
Xilouyi is a good place, the trees are luxuriant, surrounded by mountains and water, the site is open, placed in the present, it must be an excellent land, as long as it is willing to develop, it must be the level of urban CBD.
Of course, the emperor also had his own careful thoughts.
Because in addition to the good environment and good feng shui, this is also the ancestral habitat of the Yelü family for generations, and it is also its own hereditary territory.
In this way, Xilouyi is also the emperor's base area and the emperor's base camp.
As long as the imperial palace is built here, it can firmly control the political lifeblood of the entire Khitan Dynasty.
But apparently, the leaders of the other seven ministries had the same idea.
(Khitan Eight Parts)
Your territory is a feng shui treasure land, then our territory is not a feng shui treasure land?
Although you are an emperor, you really can't let you decide alone in building the imperial palace.
Supposedly, the leaders of this gang are a little less sensible.
In the era of feudal imperialism, the emperor was the master of the world, and the emperor's order was even more golden, and there was absolutely no possibility of change.
Whoever dares to call the emperor a board, the light drags down to beat the board, the heavy is not secured, the head moves.
However, Yelü Apaochi seemed to be a very easy-going person, and in the face of the dissatisfaction of the head of the department, the emperor decided to use a fair and just way to decide the location of the palace.
What about a fair and just law?
With the golden dragon arrow. - "History of Liao"
The emperor said that he could ride a war horse and run wild on the grassland, then pull up his longbow and shoot an arrow, and the place where the arrow landed was where the palace was.
We know that a horse is a fast animal, a normal horse, running at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
And the emperor's horse, fat and strong, is naturally much stronger than the mortal horse.
Roughly translated, the horse ridden by the Jeroboam should be able to reach a speed of at least 450 meters per minute.
At such a speed, the emperor wanted to shoot an arrow to land on the West Louyi, to be honest, a bit hanging.
Not only did I feel a little hanging, but the leaders of the Khitan tribes also felt very dangling.
They felt that even if Jeroboam was born with divine power, it would be difficult for him to directly hit the destination he wanted under such circumstances.
Since you can't directly hit the destination, then follow the fate, can't you make Sure that as soon as Yelü Abaoji's arm is crooked, the arrow falls on his own turf?
If that's the case, it's really beautiful.
So the emperor put on his wartime armor, mounted a fast horse, bent his bow and arrow, and began to gallop across the steppe.
It was an afternoon, an afternoon when the sun was about to set.
The spring breeze gently blows the green grass, and the sunset sprinkles the grassland.
That scene, very beautiful, very beautiful.
The sun was like blood, bursting out from the horizon.
Jeroboam rode on his horse and galloped in the light.
Now, he is no longer the lonely teenager he was born with, he is already a generation of emperors.
Displaced, killed and conquered, he finally became a generation of tyrants.
Yes, the name of Yerushalayim will remain in the annals of history forever in the hearts of the Khitans for generations to come.
In a trance, people only saw a figure reflecting the earth, the figure was so huge that the mountains and rivers were all shrouded by it, and Yerushalayim shouted loudly, and the arrow was off the string.
The long arrow feathered, tore through the air, and then landed firmly on the land of Xilouyi.
Everything is already known.
(One arrow set on Beijing)
As a result, the story of "one arrow to Beijing" has been circulating in the grassland ever since.
"One arrow in the golden dragon, two hundred years of foundation, magnificent!" - "History of Liao"
The big thing has been decided, and the emperor has embarked on a new journey.
Facts have proved that Comrade Jeroboam is by no means a reckless man who wins by force alone.
He created the Khitan script, appointed a large number of Han officials, set up a picket system for officials, compiled the first code of the Khitan state, the "Prison Execution Law", and even adopted a political system of divide and rule in order to solve the past contradiction between the Han and Khitan patriarchs in the Khitan state, with the people in the south governed by Khitan law and the people in the north governed by Han law.
This is undoubtedly a policy that transcends that era.
And so on, and so on, but I think probably readers and friends probably don't like this kind of long and boring historical endorsement, so I won't enumerate it.
We just need to know.
In the chaotic era of the late Tang Dynasty, in the chaotic era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Yelü Abaoji used his political wisdom and iron blood to unify the equally cruel northern grasslands and create a new Liao Empire.
This empire is not as closed and backward as people think, but beyond the existence of any current regime.
Rich, prosperous, vigorous and powerful.
Yes, this plain-looking Khitan man started a new dynasty.
(Liao Dynasty)
In the future, the descendants of Jeroboam will uphold his will and create one prosperous world after another, creating one legend after another.
The wonderful historical stage has added a new face who is brave and good at war.
It will become the true ruler of the steppe and the sworn enemy of the future Central Plains Dynasty.
Although this article has ended here, it does not prevent the beginning of a new era.