Chapter 17 Three Grabbing Water Virtue

In the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the first person in the north to play with virtue was the emperor of the Han Dynasty——Da Shanyu Liu Yuan. Why did the emperor add Shan Yu's number?It turned out that this Liu Yuan was not a Han, but a nobleman of the Huns. His father's name was Liu Bao, the Zuoxian King of the Southern Huns, and the surname Liu was given by the Han Dynasty.In 304 AD, the "Eight Kings' Rebellion" was raging here in the Western Jin Dynasty. Liu Yuan raised an army in the name of helping one of the kings—Chengdu King Sima Ying—seize power, calling himself the Great Chanyu.Shan is the title of the leader of the Xiongnu. Originally, the Central Plains was equivalent to the emperor, but since the Huns were defeated by the Han army, some moved westward, and some were attached to the interior, Shan Yu was downgraded to the vassal king of the Central Plains Dynasty. , You have to set up a country name.

What kind of country name should we establish?Liu Yuan thought about it, the Han and Huns began to marry the great ancestor Liu Bang from time to time. Many princesses of the Han Dynasty married to the north to be the Huns Shanyu's Yan family. It has been passed down from generation to generation to this day. It is estimated that most of the Huns nobles His veins are all mixed with Han blood.In addition, I am a member of the Xiongnu royal family of Hongmiaozheng, and my surname is Liu, so I must be regarded as a relative of the Han family.So he talked about the matter with his relatives who could not be beaten by eight poles, and declared the country to be Han, and himself, the title of the Huns was the Great Chanyu, and the title of the Central Plains was the King of Han.

Liu Yuan, king of the Han Dynasty, got involved in the "Eight Kings Rebellion" just like that, but not long after, his titular master Sima Ying died.Liu Yuan immediately turned his face away, no longer recognized the central government of the Western Jin Dynasty, and publicly raised the flag of rebellion, saying that we want to revive the Han Dynasty, just like our nephew wants to avenge his uncle.Liu Yuan ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, and with a sense of humor, he respected Liu Chan, the descendant of the Shu Han, as Emperor Xiaohuai.It's a pity that he came from an ethnic minority after all, the core of the regime is all Huns, and the hat of the Great Chanyu is reluctant to take off his head, so the slogan of revitalizing the Han Dynasty has completely become a cold joke, and no one cares about it.

Later, Liu Yuan died, and his son Liu Cong succeeded to the throne. He sent his cousin Liu Yao to attack Chang'an City, captured Jin Mindi Sima Ye, and destroyed the Western Jin Dynasty.Soon after, Liu Cong also died, and his son Liu Can was killed by general Jin Zhun. Liu Yao took the opportunity to proclaim himself emperor with the support of Sikong Huyanyan and others, and then sent troops to destroy Jin Zhun.Hu Yanyan reminded Liu Yao: "The Jin Dynasty was Jinde, and we replaced the Jin Dynasty. According to the saying that the five virtues are born together, Jin begets water, which should be the virtue of water. But the Han Dynasty is originally the virtue of fire, which cannot be matched. It is better to put the country Let’s change the name to Zhao, the Zhao family comes from Tianshui, which fits the virtue of Shui.”

Liu Yao nodded repeatedly when he heard the words. He thought that his uncle and cousin Bai had fought under the banner of the Han family for so many years, but the scholars in the Central Plains didn't say that they came to welcome the king, but they resisted and escaped. It can be seen that this lie is lying. It's too big to fool people at all.Forget it, let's stop pretending, what revival is not revived, this is the first rise of ours, a new dynasty, not a continuation of the previous dynasty.So Liu Yao issued an edict to change the name of the country to Zhao, and set it to Shui De, which was still black, so the clothes and flags were all changed to black.Of course, he abandoned Liu Bang and other fake ancestors along the way, and formally enshrined the Xiongnu Dadan Yu Maodun who was at the same time as Liu Bang as his ancestor.

It's okay for Liu Yao to set his virtue as water virtue, but changing the country's name to Zhao is a bit too hasty.why?Because the word "Zhao" has already been used by someone, and they are his subordinates.In addition, Liu Yuan once personally selected a general named Shi Le, a member of the Jie tribe. He has fought for many years and has a good reputation and strong troops.When Liu Yao beat Jin Zhun, he also wrote a letter asking Shi Le to send troops, and for this reason he was given the title of Duke Zhao.You said that throughout the ages, how can there be any reason for a dynasty and its subordinate vassals to use the same name?

Of course, the courtiers should offer the words the emperor wants with both hands. Liu Yao became the emperor of Zhao, so he could just change Shi Le's title.But Liu Yao ignored this at all, and when Shi Le sent someone to present Jin Zhun's head for a reward, he simply made Shi Le the king of Zhao, and the etiquette and treatment he gave were exactly the same as when Cao Cao assisted Han Xiandi.You say it's not good to learn from anyone, but to learn from Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, the end is destined to be bad.Sure enough, the two of them broke up not long after, and Shi Le pursed his lips and said harshly: "What Zhao Wang, Zhao Emperor, I will get it myself, I don't need you to seal it!" .

In this way, two regimes under the banner of "Zhao" appeared in the north at the same time. In order to distinguish them, the history called Liu Yao's Zhao "Former Zhao", and Shi Le's Zhao as "Later Zhao". During the scuffle between the "two Zhaos", such a thing happened.Shi Huan, the county magistrate of Epping, killed a black rabbit and dedicated it to Shi Le.A sycophant named Cheng Xia beside Shi Le immediately began to praise the saint, saying that the rabbit is black, and black is the image of water virtue, which indicates that you will replace Jin Dynasty's Jin De and prosper.Shi Le was very happy when he heard this, and immediately announced the change of Yuan to "Taihe" to commemorate this event.

In 328 A.D., Shi Le won a complete victory on the battlefield and captured Liu Yao. In the second year, he captured the former Zhao prince Liu Xi, officially destroying the former Zhao.Liu Yao still wanted Shi Le to be Cao Cao, but it turned out that Shi Le was the two in one of Cao Cao and Cao Pi. After playing with the King of Zhao for a transition, he directly ascended the throne of the emperor.At this time, Shi Le suddenly remembered the matter of the black rabbit again, and it happened that Ren Bo, the waiter, also wrote a letter saying: "That Liu Yao's 'Zhao' came from a wrong way and should not be counted in the five virtues. Our 'Shi Zhao' 'It should be the inheritance of the orthodox water virtue of the Jin Dynasty." The two things were connected together, so the later Zhao also accepted the water virtue and favored black—this is the same as when Liu Bang pointed out that Han was the water virtue, and Zhang Cang immediately seconded it. The story is really a brother who came from the same line.

The days of Hou Zhao were not long, and there was a super perverted Shi Hu as the king, and soon fell into court struggles. First, Ran Min killed the Shi family, and then the last emperor, Shi Zhi, failed to attack. , was killed by his own generals, and Shuide's queen Zhao was finished.At this time, there were three major forces standing side by side in the Yellow River Basin, one was the Ran Wei founded by Ran Min, the other was the Fu clan of the Di clan, and the third was the Murong clan of the Xianbei clan.Sichuan originally had the Chenghan regime of Li Te and Li Xiong during Liu Yuan's period, but they had no "virtue" and were later wiped out by Huan Wen, a power minister in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, so let's not mention it.

In 352 A.D., Murong Ke, the general of Xianbei, destroyed Ran Wei. Murong Jun, the Lord of Yan, felt that he was too great, so he proclaimed himself emperor and established the State of Yan, known as Qianyan in history. Since you are proclaiming yourself emperor, you have to find out what your own virtue is.Even though the former Yan family was a Xianbei regime, they really looked down on other ethnic minorities. Many ministers felt that the former Zhao and later Zhao were barbarians and could not be counted in the cycle of five virtues.Back then, Zhang Cang kicked the Qin Dynasty away, allowing the Han Dynasty to directly overcome the virtue of Zhou, and designated it as the virtue of water. Later, Liu Xin also kicked the Qin Dynasty away, allowing the Han Dynasty to be born directly from Zhou's virtue, and designated it as the virtue of water. Huo De, the former Yan ministers also planned to do the same.So they researched and researched, and finally decided to let Qianyan directly inherit the orthodoxy of the Jin Dynasty, Jin became Jinde, then Qianyan should be Shuide——after a round, it still copied the former and later Zhao. Can it convince people?The voices of opposition are getting higher and higher. Scholars are chatty, and they are very stubborn. After a long time of discussion, there is no agreement.Murong Jun himself was not very educated and couldn't figure it out, so he summoned a sensible person from Longcheng, Han Heng, to make up his mind.Han Heng's name is Jingshan, he was a great Confucian at that time, and he overthrew Shui De honestly, saying: "The former and the latter two Zhao countries occupy the Central Plains. Yes. God bestowed them with virtue, but now we artificially deprive them of virtue, which is definitely inappropriate. I think about it, our Yan made his fortune in the east, and according to the gossip, it is the direction of the Zhen hexagram, and the four images are Dongqinglong , West White Tiger, South Suzaku, and North Xuanwu, so the Zhenfang is also Qinglong—it just so happens that Qinglong appeared in the capital shortly after our Dayan took the throne. Cyan is the color of Mude, so Dayan should be Mude .” After thinking about it, the others felt that what he said made sense, and that Hou Zhao was the virtue of water, and the five elements produced water and wood, and Yan was not disadvantaged by the virtue of wood.At first Murong Jun was not very happy, probably because he felt that Mude was not as good as Shui De, but later all the officials agreed, Murong Jun knew that his level was not high, and it was not easy to screw with those learned people, so he had no choice but to issue an edict announcement.Since then, Yan has determined that it is Mude, Shang Qingse. ——The big guys have finally jumped out of the vicious circle of competing for water virtue.