Chapter 4 Section 3 Songmo Dudufu

After the establishment of the Li Tang Dynasty, the country became stronger day by day, and all the ethnic groups in the north surrendered one after another.Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty strengthened his rule over the various ethnic groups in the north. The Tang court established Dudu Mansions in various ethnic areas and appointed local ethnic leaders as Dudu.So who was the leader of the Khitan nation at that time? We say that the Khitan is divided into eight tribes. Below the tribe is the clan, and above the tribe there is a tribal alliance. Therefore, the eight Khitan tribes must elect a tribal alliance leader. This tribal alliance leader is called a khan.So who will be the leader of the tribal alliance in these eight departments?One of the eight tribes is called the He Dahe tribe, and there is a Dahe clan under the He Dahe tribe. The leader of the tribal alliance has always been the Dahe clan and can only be held by members of the Dahe clan.The leader of the tribal alliance is not hereditary, but has a term of office. It is re-elected every three years, which is one year shorter than the term of the US president today. It seems very democratic and can be re-elected.But it can only be selected from the members of the Dahe clan of the He Da He tribe. Other tribes and other clans of the He Da He tribe are not eligible to be selected.

"New History of the Five Dynasties Siyi Appendix No. 1" records: Khitan "The big one of its tribe is called the Dahe clan. It is divided into eight parts... the trombone master of the department. And often recommend a big man, set up flags and drums, to unify Eight". The head of the tribal alliance also served as the governor of the Songmo Dudufu in the Tang Dynasty, and the emperor of the Tang Dynasty was very generous, and often married the governor of the Songmo Dudufu as a clan daughter.The Han Dynasty loves to do this kind of thing very much, making peace with others and marrying princesses. Of course, there are more copycat princesses, not the emperor's daughter, but mostly clan daughters, the prince's daughter, or even court ladies, like Wang Zhaojun.As a result, the Han Dynasty and the local tribes formed a country of nephews and uncles, and they were related from generation to generation.Sometimes they were named county kings and given the country's surname, so the Khitan nobles at that time were all surnamed Li. (Giving the country's surname is a very interesting phenomenon. Today's Chinese surnames, the top few surnames, Zhang Wang, Li Zhao, Liu everywhere, we can see that many of them are national surnames.) In this way, the nobles of Khitan have the surname Li Now, they are all members of Li Tang's royal family. Their relationship with Li Tang was friendly at first, but then something went wrong.

What happened?In the era of Wu Zetian, because she came to the throne improperly, and changed the country's name again, it was Zhou instead of Tang, and the emperor's surname was no longer Wu but not Li.The Khitan nobles felt that they should be loyal to the Li Tang Dynasty, because their current status - the governor of the Songmo Governor's Mansion, the county king, the princess, and the surname Li were all given by the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and have nothing to do with the surname Wu.If she treats herself well, I will treat her well. If she treats herself better than Li Tang's royal family, then there is nothing to say. If she wants to be a little uninteresting, she will definitely do the unmeaning thing.The Khitan are a very down-to-earth and simple nation, and they really did all the uninteresting things later on.

At that time, the Inspector of Youzhou in Wu Zhou had a violent temperament, licentiousness and immorality, and he extorted the Khitan people violently, and he was arrogant and unreasonable.The nobles of Khitan joined together, what about the brothers?Reverse it!We have no obligation to this dynasty, and now we have failed harvests, disasters have occurred on the grassland, our grasslands are threatened, how can we survive if we don’t grab it?Therefore, Li Jinzhong (obviously a Chinese name) and his brother-in-law Sun Wanbao joined forces to rebel.As soon as the two had a confrontation, Wu Zetian became angry. The reason for Wu Zetian's anger was the same as that of Northern Qi mentioned earlier—I, Wu Zhou, just replaced Li Tang, and I was about to find someone to slash twice to show off. The land is delivered to your door, you deserve a beating!Wu Zetian immediately mobilized an army to conquer Khitan.In order to show contempt for the Khitan, without the consent of others, he aggressively changed Li Jinzhong's name to Li Jinmie and Sun Wanbao's name to Sun Wanzhan.The army was dispatched to attack Li Jinmie and Sun Wanzhan.The army of the imperial court was indeed not a vegetarian, and beat the Khitan people to pieces. After all, the Khitan was a nomadic people, and they were still in the primitive tribal stage at that time. Of course, the mob was vulnerable.

That is to say, during the process of the Khitan people raising righteousness this time, two events that had a great influence on Khitan and Li Tang occurred.The first thing is that the leader of Khitan officially called himself Khan.This can be regarded as the embryonic form of the establishment of the Khitan state.Originally called the chief of the tribal alliance, that is still a primitive tribe, and now he officially calls himself Khan, taking over the title of monarch of the northern grassland nation in history. The second incident had a great impact on Li Tang's royal family.This time, the Khitan people acted righteously in Yingzhou (now Liaoning) and saved the royal family of Li and Tang.why?Wu Zetian established the country and proclaimed herself emperor. After destroying Li Tang, she really wanted to pass the country to the nephews of the Wu family, so she named them princes and generals, and asked them to lead troops to fight for Khitan.This fight, in the words of the common people, shows how big the face is and how big the eyes are. These princes of the Wu family usually only know how to spend time and money, and fish and meat the common people. It will be regarded as the pacification of Khitan.Therefore, Wu Zetian realized that his group of Wu's children were really useless, and he could not pass on the country to them, because the Wu family itself was born as a nouveau riche.When the Khitan people rebelled, they also played the banner of demanding restoration to the King of Luling. The King of Luling was Wu Zetian's son and later Zhongzong Li Xian.As we all know, Wu Zetian's method of succeeding to the throne was very cruel. She forced two of her four sons to death—Li Hong and Li Xian. King of Mausoleum (in ancient China, the word wangjue means prince, and the word wang means county king, so the king of Luling is the second-class among wangjue).To what extent is the king of Luling afraid of his mother?He was relegated to Jiangxi, an undeveloped, barren and smoggy area at that time. As long as the imperial court had an official, it meant that his mother had delivered the decree. The first reaction of the King of Luling was to hang himself.It is estimated that the ropes on the beams of their houses have been prepared for a long time, and they have caught up with a piece of furniture.The imperial court has come, don't say it, my mother must have made me die, so I hung up quickly.Every time it was Princess Wei Shi who hugged him and said, Your Highness, please wait for a while, and listen to what's going on before you hang up.As soon as the imperial court came to envoys, they could scare the king of Luling into such a state.Therefore, the Khitan people raised their troops this time and put forward the slogan of "Returning the Luling King".Later, when Wu Zetian passed away, he summoned the king of Luling to succeed him, who was Tang Zhongzong. Zhongzong passed on to his younger brother Ruizong, who was also Wu Zetian's son.Another major event that had a profound impact on the history of Khitan occurred in the Tang Xuanzong era: In northern China, a person appeared who rang the death knell of the Tang Dynasty and made the Tang Dynasty step into the coffin with one foot.Who is he?Anlu Mountain.