Chapter 34 Mao Dun Shanyu: Hand in hand with Emperor Wen of Han

Finally, it is time to revisit the issue of the Huns. As mentioned above, the Huns invaded Beidi County of the Han Dynasty in the third year of the Yuan Dynasty (177 BC) during the reign of Mao Dun Shanyu, and the leader of the army was King Youxian of the Huns.Later, Liu Heng sent his prime minister Guan Ying to lead 85,000 cavalry to the expedition. King Youxian of the Huns knew that the Han army was powerful, so he retreated outside the Great Wall.Because the rebellion of Liu Xingju, King of Jinbei, broke out soon, and in line with the principle of Han-Hungarian reconciliation, Liu Heng did not let the Han army cross the border to pursue him.

However, the matter is far from over. In the sixth year of Emperor Wen's BC (174 BC), that is, the thirty-sixth year of Maodun Chanyu's reign, after Liu Heng reiterated his wish to restore peace with the Xiongnu, Maodun Shanyu wrote to the Han Dynasty A letter, the content of the letter is as follows: "The Great Shan Yu of the Xiongnu established by heaven respectfully asked the emperor whether he was safe. "Some time ago, Emperor Han, you said that you would come to make peace with me. This idea is really good. Originally, I planned to send someone to contact you and make peace, but your generals of the Han Dynasty rashly led troops to attack our Xiongnu My Youxian King is also a hot-tempered person. He listened to the opinions of Houyi Luhounan and others, and sent troops to take revenge without giving me a report. As a result, both of us were very embarrassed. It has damaged our brotherhood and broken the contract between the two countries.

"Emperor Han, you wrote a letter specifically to blame me, and I replied, but I don't know why, my envoy was detained, and you Han didn't give me an explanation. You people don't seem to be sincere. If you want to make peace with me, then we will not plan to make peace with you. "Last time about Youxian King, he himself was wrong. I have already punished him and punished him to go to the Western Regions to attack the Yuezhi Kingdom. Fortunately, with the blessing of God, and my Xiongnu soldiers are strong, the Yuezhi Kingdom has been defeated. When we were wiped out, the Yuezhi people were either killed or surrendered. I saw that since our Xiongnu army is so powerful, let them occupy Loulan Kingdom, Wusun Kingdom, and Hujie People’s territory by the way. This area Twenty-six countries all belonged to us Xiongnu, and all the brave people who rode horses and arched have become one family since then.

"Since the north of our side has been stabilized, we plan to stop the war, rectify the internal affairs, develop the people's livelihood, renew the old covenant, and protect the country and the people from now on. The Han and Hungarian countries are reconciled as before, so that young people can grow up happily and old people can enjoy their families. The people of the two countries live and work in peace and contentment, and reproduce from generation to generation. "I don't know what you think, so I sent a doctor, Xi Yuqian, to ask you with this letter, and by the way, I will give you a camel, two horses that can be used as mounts, and eight horses that can be used as horses. Horses and chariots. If you want the Huns not to approach the border of the Han Dynasty, then you'd better keep you Han people away from the border between our two countries.

"In addition, don't detain my envoy with you again. Please release him as soon as the letter arrives, and stop playing tricks on me." The words of Mao Dun's letter are very ingenious, with both concessions and persistence. Generally speaking, the attitude is relatively tough.After all, the national power of the Xiongnu was stronger than that of the Han Dynasty, so Maodun inevitably felt a little bit of self-superiority. In his letter, Mao Dun first disclaimed his responsibility for the matter of King Youxian's entry into the Han territory, saying that this matter had nothing to do with him. In addition, Mao Dun did not deliberately accuse Liu Heng of any fault, but only said that the border The above things were done by the generals of the Han Dynasty.

The subtext of these words is nothing more than "conflicts are caused by the ignorance of the subordinates, and our leaders on both sides still want to seek peace."In addition, Mao Dun was simply cold and humorous when he talked about punishing King Youxian.Mao Dun talked about the Xiongnu's military exploits, in fact, implying Liu Heng that the Han Dynasty would never be able to defeat the Huns, and at the same time affirming the attitude of unity among the brothers of the majority of ethnic minorities, the purpose is to tell Liu Heng that there are many hostile forces and let Liu Heng Weigh yourself clearly.

In the final analysis, most of Maodu's words are naked provocations. Liu Heng got the letter from Modu and immediately held a political consultation meeting.During the period, the Sangong and Jiuqing spoke enthusiastically, but most of them had the same meaning, that is, they felt that the Xiongnu was in full swing at this time, and the Xiongnu area was full of saline-alkali land. .Simply reconcile "hand in hand" with Mao Dun, it's pointless to argue. Here we are going to criticize the Han Dynasty government.In fact, the ancient Chinese Han dynasties all had a common problem, that is, they lacked territorial awareness. As long as the local climate was not good or it was not suitable for the development of farming civilization, whether it was other people’s land or its own land, the Han regime seldom tried its best. fight for or defend.Especially going north to the Mongolian Plateau and Siberia, and going south across the sea, they often give up voluntarily.Therefore, in many cases, territories are not lost in wars. The government does not pay much attention to an area and leaves that area deserted all day long.

The regime established by the nomads has a strong sense of territory. Please don’t think that all the northern minorities in history went south for the fertile land of the Central Plains. This theory is a bit absurd. The climate in the north is dry, while the climate in the south is humid. Northerners are often unaccustomed to the water and soil when they go to the south. Minority regimes in the north go south to seek abuse from themselves.It's not that the Han regime is so powerful, but that there is no way for ethnic minorities to live in places where Han people live. In this world, political civilizations between countries and regions can learn from each other, but it is impossible for cultures and civilizations with a regional nature to blend completely. People eat rice every day, which will definitely drive people crazy.

People today often talk about the "sinicization" of ethnic minorities, but in fact "sinicization" has a very important premise - ethnic minorities must "enter the Central Plains".You let him stay on the Mongolian plateau, and then let him "sinicize", which is clearly to starve to death.Moreover, all Sinicization in history was accompanied by intermarriage. For example, the reforms of Emperor Xiaowen in the Northern Wei Dynasty allowed Xianbei people to widely intermarry with Han people with a large population. Slowly, the original living habits of Xianbei people were diluted.If the physique of the race cannot be changed, there will still be some people who go to the Central Plains or the south of the Yangtze River on horseback. Only "genetic improvement" can ensure that all people can adapt to the new environment and life in the new climate for a long time.But as long as the ethnic minorities "submit", they are no different from the Han people. This is actually a rather contradictory thing.So in a sense, the Han people are often successfully invaded by foreign "Han people".

In history, there are many examples of ethnic minorities being "unacceptable" to the Han land. For example, Yelu Deguang, Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty, originally planned to occupy the Central Plains after the Jin Dynasty was destroyed, but because he and other Khitan people were not acclimatized, in the Central Plains this ghost The place couldn't stay any longer, and finally returned to Khitan helplessly.On the way home, due to the unfavorable weather, Yelu Deguang contracted a serious disease, and finally died of illness in Han. Therefore, many historical facts tell people today that the brothers of ethnic minorities are really not places where rare Han people live.Especially in the south of the Yangtze River, where there are no horses, no cattle, no yogurt and no dried meat.The reason why people want to develop to the south is caused by a sense of territorial expansion.If you let the ethnic minorities go north, the people who are getting closer to the Arctic Circle and the cold weather will of course not go; if you go west, the forces of all parties there are complicated, and you have to climb mountains to reach Europe, far less than the Han people who went south. area is more convenient.We are all descendants of Yan and Huang, so it is reasonable to rob your Han people's territory.

And we observe China's topography, which is basically high in the north and low in the south, so it is more convenient for ethnic minorities to dive down from north to south, but it is always difficult to fight from south to north.Although this statement cannot be established from a professional academic point of view, it does have a certain degree of universality in history. Most of the large-scale wars fought from north to south in history basically ended in victory.The Sui Dynasty destroyed Chen, the Jin people went south to attack the Song Dynasty, Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign, and the Qing people pacified Nanming. These are all living examples.In the history of China, there was no Northern Expedition that was completely successful. Whether it was Liu Yu, Yue Fei, or Wu Sangui who rebelled against the Manchu Qing and said that they fought north, but none of them finally unified China, and even failed to occupy half of the country. Today, the area within the Great Wall is basically the subduction zone where the northern minorities went south to Han. As for Zhu Hongwu driving the Yuan Dynasty people away, it was caused by many factors, not just military. Ethnic minorities have a particularly strong sense of territory and do not allow others to invade. As long as it belongs to their own land, they will defend every penny.The key is that people have military strength. Even in places that are not suitable for people to live in, they must support puppet regimes that obey their own orders to maintain their local dominance.For example, Liu Yu's Qi regime during the confrontation between Song and Jin is a good example. However, it needs to be explained that supporting the Liu Yu regime is actually a way for the people of Jin to govern the Han land in disguise.No aggression in this world is aimed at massacre. Violence is just a way, and the real purpose is governance.There are two methods of governance: one is direct governance, such as the Qing Dynasty. It governed while sinicizing its culture. The Qing government finally sinicized it very thoroughly; the other is to establish a secondary regime, which is what Jin people used. way.Because the Jin people cannot and are unwilling to quickly Sinicize in a short period of time, they cannot directly govern the Han land, but can only establish a secondary regime. Speaking of which, this is a manifestation of the Jin people's responsibility to the Han people.However, at the end of the historical development, the people of the Kingdom of Jin were still severely Sinicized, and Sinicization brought corruption, and the entire Jin Kingdom regime was eventually wiped out. Ethnic minorities have tried every means to strengthen their rule in their newly acquired territories, this is because they have a strong sense of territory.However, the Han government lacked the territorial awareness of the Huns. Although the civilization of the Han people seemed more advanced, the civilization of the Huns was slightly barbaric. It is true that it is an unfortunate thing for the people on this land to allow barbaric civilization to occupy more land.But at that time, it was right to compete for territory. In other words, advanced civilizations had an obligation to support barbaric civilizations. Good students should take the initiative to help bad students with their studies, so that bad students can also experience the pride and benefits of progress. It is a pity that the Han Dynasty government, as a reluctant "good student", did not realize their responsibilities at all, and they were unable to fulfill their responsibilities. They were too lazy to manage the territory of the Huns. The front of the soldiers also seemed too soft. So Liu Heng wrote back to Maodun, saying earnestly: "I very much agree with Shan Yu's idea. Your idea is the idea of ​​a true sage king. Han and Hungary have always been brothers and countries, sharing weal and woe. , so I decided to give Shan Yu a special gift for you. "But Shan Yu, it is often the Huns who violate the contract and damage the brotherhood. However, the matter of King Youxian happened before the promulgation of the amnesty decree, so it is also within the scope of the amnesty, so there is no need for Shan Yu to delve into it. "If Shanyu really wants to make peace, let the brothers of the Huns take care of themselves, don't stir up troubles, abide by the contract, and don't do anything that breaks the contract. I heard from the envoy that Shanyu fought hard, so I will give it to Shanyu to embroider." One Qiyi garment, one embroidered long skirt, one brocade robe, one more than the rest, one gold ornament belt, one gold braid, ten pieces of embroidery, thirty pieces of brocade, four each of red silk and green silk Ten horses will be delivered to you by the Chinese doctor Yi and the visitor Ling Ling.” It is impossible for people to make judgments on the topic of who is right between the Han and the Hungarians today, because we have not been able to witness history with our own eyes.The historical facts are entangled, and it is unfair to accuse the other side of nonsense from the standpoint of either side. We cannot prove that the generals of the Han Dynasty really provoked the Huns, let alone prove that the people of the Han Dynasty did not and would not provoke Huns.Sima Qian always speaks from the standpoint of the Han people, but today's scholars need to abandon the fair attitude of nationalism when dealing with history. At the same time, political struggle itself is dark and cruel. If accountability is to be pursued, both the Han and the Hungarian sides must have done a lot of despicable things, especially the Han Dynasty, whose military weakness prompted them to invest more. They don't need to spend too much energy on intrigues and tricks. After all, ethnic minorities are relatively simple.The author's conclusion here is not a subjective assumption, but a relatively objective description obtained after reading the diplomatic history of minority regimes and central Han regimes in Chinese history. Although the relationship between the Han and the Hungarians has temporarily eased, the situation that the Hungarians are strong and the Han is weak has not changed at all.For example, the bamboo slips that Liu Heng wrote to Maodun Shanyu were one foot and one inch in size, beginning with the words "The emperor respectfully asks the Xiongnu Shanyu to be safe", while the Xiongnu's reply letters used one foot two inch bamboo slips At the beginning, it says "Born by heaven and earth, set by the sun and moon, the Xiongnu Da Shanyu asked the emperor of Han to be safe", it is self-evident who is strong and who is weak. In the sixth year of Emperor Wen's BC (174 BC), that is, in the thirty-sixth year of Maodun, Maodun Shanyu died of illness. At this time, the relationship between Han and Hungary had just calmed down. However, this peaceful relationship did not last long. With the accession of the new Shanyu of the Xiongnu to the throne, new disputes were quietly brewing.

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