Chapter 45 Eighteenth, the Western Wei Dynasty took Jiangling

The strength of the Western Wei Dynasty has grown rapidly in the past few years. Although it is thanks to the Hou Jing Rebellion, the most critical factor is Yu Wentai's military and cultural reforms in full swing in the country.Mr. Lu Simian commented: "Whether Beidi's entry into China can be successful depends on whether he can inform China of the situation. In this way, Er Zhurong is not as good as Gao Huan, and Gao Huan is not as good as Yuwentai... ...(Yuwen) Tai knows how to govern." The military system of the Western Wei Dynasty began to be established after the Battle of Heqiao Mangshan, and by the 16th year of Emperor Wen's Datong (550 A.D.), it had basically taken shape.At this time, the Fubing system formed a complete set of six-pillar kingdom system. The six pillar kingdom generals were: Li Hu, Li Bi, Dugu Xin, Zhao Gui, Yu Jin, and Hou Mo Chen Chong.

There are a total of eight pillar states granted by the Western Wei Dynasty, and the other two are Yuwentai himself and the imperial family of the Western Wei Dynasty, and Yuan Xin, the nephew of Emperor Xiaowen. The most important thing is to appease the clan, which is basically a false position, without much real power, and not qualified to lead the army.The real power of the Six Pillars Kingdom is to directly supervise the two generals.The military exploits and qualifications of the generals are second only to the Zhu Kingdom, including Da Xiwu, Li Yuan, Yang Zhong and other twelve generals who have followed Yu Wentai on expeditions many times. This group of people has quite rich actual combat experience.Each general has two Kaifu under his command, and Kaifu can directly issue orders to the soldiers. The "Fu" of the soldiers originated from Kaifu.

Such a top-down military structure is organized through the recruitment of powerful and powerful soldiers and the expansion of rural soldiers. How can it be effectively maintained?Yuwentai's measures are: first, change the prestige of the county; second, change the surname; third, material rewards. Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital and changed the native place of all the Xianbei clans to Luoyang, Henan; the clans of the Han nationality who originally lived in the north had their own prestige.So Yu Wentai had to face a big problem. Most of the generals and even soldiers under him were not natives of Guanzhong, but a hodgepodge from all corners of the country.The Chinese have always paid attention to returning to their hometown. After living in a foreign country for a long time, it is inevitable that they will have such and such thoughts.Yu Wentai ordered that all meritorious generals included in the Fubing system, with the clan as the unit, uniformly change their hometown and prestige.The general principle is that where you are currently working, you can change your native place to a local.The Xianbei people didn't have much affection for their Luoyang native place, and they wouldn't care too much about changing it to Guanzhong. However, most of the Han people who changed their native place made outstanding achievements, which became a kind of honor.The soldiers became Guanzhong people, and the centripetal force was strengthened.

After changing the prestige of the county, Yu Wentai gradually implemented the policy of changing the surname among the generals of the army to eliminate the differences between people from all sides.Emperor Xiaowen changed the complex surname of Xianbei to a single surname of the Han nationality. Yu Wentai built the army with Xianbei people as the main body, so he had to do the opposite: for the Xianbei people, restore the original compound surname, such as Yu Jin, change it back to the original name, called Wuyu Yujin ; For the generals of the Han nationality, the single surname was changed to a two-character or three-character Xianbei compound surname by giving surnames. For example, Li Hu in Zhuguo was renamed Dayehu, Li Bi was renamed Tuhebi, and Zhao Gui was renamed B Fugui.Unlike Emperor Xiaowen's surname change, Yu Wentai's surname change was for military purposes rather than cultural purposes.The soldiers under the command of the general who gave the surname also changed their surnames.In this way, the soldiers fighting side by side are not only locals, but also a family, and their sense of identity with each other has also increased.

It is not enough to just change the prestige and surname of the county. In the end, it is necessary to rely on material and wealth incentives to consolidate the Fubing system.Yuwentai rewarded the generals for their meritorious service very generously, including farmland, servants, livestock, and property, the most important of which was farmland. The generals who had land were the nobles of Guanzhong.The Guanzhong aristocratic family took root in the local area, and a Guanlong aristocratic group that influenced the Sui and Tang Dynasties for more than a hundred years came into being.Therefore, Yuwentai's military reform is a link between the past and the future in Chinese history and cannot be ignored.

As soon as the Fubing system took shape, twists and turns occurred.Li Hu, the head of the Six Pillars Kingdom, died in the seventeenth year of Datong (AD 551). It stands to reason that someone must fill the position of the Pillar Kingdom in order to maintain the size of the Six Pillar Kingdom.The DPRK and China negotiated that Da Xiwu, the general who pacified Hanzhong, would fill this gap.But Da Xiwu refused to accept it, and recommended another candidate—Yiyang Wang Yuanzixiao.Yu Wentai accepted Da Xiwu's suggestion and awarded Yuan Zixiao the title of General Zhu Guo. Yuan Zixiao, like Yuan Xin, is the clan of the Western Wei Dynasty. As a pillar country, he has a false name.After this personnel change, Yu Wentai had greater direct control over the soldiers, which aroused the hatred of the royal family.

Emperor Wen of the Western Wei Dynasty died in the same year as Li Hu. Emperor Wen willingly delegated power to Yu Wentai, and he died well. He was the only puppet emperor who died of natural causes in the last years of the Wei Dynasty.The succeeding prince Yuanqin was far less obedient than his father, and the conflict between the royal family and the Yuwen clan quickly heated up. In the third year of Yuanqin's succession (AD 553), Shangshu Yuanlie murdered Yuwentai, intending to regain the imperial power, and the plan was revealed. Was killed by Yu Wentai. Yuan Qin became more and more dissatisfied and complained constantly to Yu Wentai.Yu Wentai's eyes and ears placed next to the emperor informed him, and Yu Wentai was unambiguous, and directly abolished Yuan Qin, made his younger brother Yuan Kuo the emperor, and simply changed the royal family's surname back to Tuoba.Tuoba Kuo was the last emperor of the Western Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wei Gong.

Yuwentai changed the system of the Zhou Dynasty and canceled the reign title of Emperor Wei, calling it the first year.Referring to the "Zhou Li" which records the official system of the Zhou Dynasty, he changed "pin" to "ming" (one rank means nine lives), and then used the official names of the six ministers of the Zhou Dynasty: Tianguan Zhongzai, Diguan Situ, Chunguan Zongbo, Xia Official Sima, Qiu Official Sikou, and Winter Official Sikong (the powers of the six officials roughly correspond to the six departments of Li, Hu, Li, Bing, Xing, and Gong in the Sui and Tang Dynasties).Yu Wentai asked Su Chuo to prepare for this system for many years. After Su Chuo died of illness, Lu Bian, the right servant of Shangshu, took over to complete it.On the surface, the Zhou system was a change of official names, but in essence it established the unique cultural system of the Western Wei Dynasty.

After rectifying the interior, Yu Wentai ordered Yu Jin, Yu Wenhu, and Yang Zhong to lead 50,000 elite troops to attack Liang Yuan Emperor in Jiangling in October of the first year of Emperor Gong of Wei (554 AD). Yu Jin expected that Emperor Liang Yuan would be more suspicious and less resourceful, so he would definitely sit still and wait for death.He joined Xiao Xi's army in Xiangyang and drove towards Jiangling. The fire was imminent, but Emperor Liang Yuan was still immersed in the happiness of securing the throne.He has always loved Taoism, and he was very interested. He was promoted to the hall and gave a lecture, and the audience gathered.The border battle report came, and the ministers under his command believed that Liang and Wei Xiu were good, and it was impossible to conduct military operations out of thin air.Emperor Liang Yuan felt that it was justified, so he stopped building armaments and continued to preach scriptures.It was too late for Emperor Liang Yuan to realize that the military situation was urgent when Wei's soldiers approached the Hanshui River. It was too late to conscript Wang Sengbian who was far away in Jiankang.

Yu Jin commanded the army to cross the Han River, and assigned Yu Wenhu and Yang Zhong to lead elite cavalry to take a small road to occupy Jiangjin south of Jiangling, blocking the back road for Liang Jun to cross the river.Then, the Wei army built a long siege around Jiangling and attacked the city with hundreds of routes. Liang Jun fought hard to resist, but there were too few guards in Jiangling, and the reinforcements could not get through.Unfortunately, Hu Sengyou, the lord of the city, was killed by an arrow and the outer city was breached.Emperor Liang Yuan had no intention of defending, so he offered hostages to the Wei army and surrendered.

What is infuriating is that before the surrender, Emperor Liang Yuan ordered Gao Shanbao to burn the 140,000 volumes of ancient and modern books that he had collected in his life. (Most of these books were hand-copied rare volumes, many of which were orphans, so Emperor Liang Yuan burned them. He thought he had read tens of thousands of volumes, and even failed. In my opinion, reading like Emperor Liang Yuan really deserves failure. It’s just this The loss caused by the fire to Chinese culture is incalculable to future generations.) Emperor Liang Yuan wanted to set himself on fire, but was held back by the left and right court ladies.Some people persuaded Emperor Liang Yuan to break out of the siege and flee to the south of the Yangtze River. Emperor Liang Yuan was obese and unable to move, so he gave up the opportunity to escape.He put on white clothes, stepped on a white horse, and surrendered at the east gate of Jiangling, sighing all the way: "Xiao Shicheng ended up like this!" (Liang Yuandi's word Shicheng) Yu Jin did not let Emperor Liang Yuan die, he resorted to bad tactics and handed over Emperor Liang Yuan to Xiao Xie.Thinking of the revenge of his elder brother Xiao Yu, Xiao Xi couldn't get angry, and went up to beat and insult him.After venting and tormenting enough, Xiao Cai ordered someone to crush Emperor Liang Yuan to death with a big earth bag (Emperor Liang Yuan died in the same way as Emperor Jian Wen. It is a pity that none of the monarchs of Liang Kingdom died decently). When Emperor Liang Yuan died, Yu Jin placed Xiao Xie in Jiangling and sent someone to "care for him". Xiao Xie's original fief Xiangyang was annexed by the Western Wei Dynasty.Yu Jin did not snatch the books of Emperor Liang Yuan, so he gathered the scribes, treasures, and instruments from Jiangling (such as the armillary sphere in the Liu Song Dynasty, the copper sundial in the Liang Dynasty, etc.) Men and women were rewarded as slaves in the three armies, and all the disabled and weak were killed.The economy and culture of the Northern Dynasties have once again been greatly improved, while the culture of the Southern Dynasties has been severely looted and has never recovered. Seeing that Xiangyang, which has been painstakingly managed for many years, was suddenly replaced by an empty Jiangling City, Xiao Xi regretted that it was useless. Family affairs and state affairs have reached this point, so he had no choice but to be his puppet honestly.Soon, Xiao Xi proclaimed himself emperor, set his capital at Jiangling, regarded himself as the orthodox state of Liang, and his jurisdiction was limited to a state with a radius of 300 miles in Jiangling. Liang or back beam (it should be noted that Xiao Xi's back beam has no connection with the back beam established by Zhu Wen of the Five Dynasties). The Western Wei Dynasty took all Liang, Yi, Yong, and Jing, and its territory almost doubled, from the smallest of the three kingdoms to the largest country in terms of area.