Chapter 38 17. ZTE of Tuoba Jun

Tuoba Jun, the emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty who was at the same time as the bad guy Liu Jun, although not well-known, was a very important emperor in the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty.In my opinion, it was during Tuoba Jun's period that the situation where the north and the south were strong and the south was weak was finally formed.Interestingly, during his reign, he used very few foreign troops. There were barely three small-scale border contact battles against the Southern Song Dynasty, and he used soldiers against Rouran once. The rest were small-scale anti-insurgency activities. .The comparison of military power ultimately reflects the comparison of comprehensive strength, and Tuoba Jun's role in the first dynasty was to accumulate strength.

When Tuoba Jun came to the throne, the situation of the Northern Wei Empire in front of him was very difficult.At the end of Tuoba Tao's period, he used troops year after year, the national treasury was seriously short, and there were also great contradictions among the various ethnic groups in the local area.Tuoba Jun is the grandson of the former emperor, and the throne should not be controversial, but because he came to power through a coup, it is not as stable as imagined.As soon as the young Tuoba Jun came to power, the hussar general Tuoba Shoule and Shang Shuling's eldest grandson Kehou fought for power, making the court a mess.Tuoba Jun decisively bestowed death on these two men, stabilizing the government.Soon, he secretly killed two uncles, Tuoba Tan and Tuoba Jian.Regarding this point, the "Book of Wei" is not detailed, it only says that the two princes died on the same day.However, there are clues that these two people may also be involved in the abolition of the establishment. In order to prevent problems before they happen, Tuoba Jun took action first, and his whereabouts are still confidential, and no other personnel have been affected. (Palace coups often lead to large-scale killings. In the worst case, they fought again and again like Liu Song did. The Northern Wei Dynasty barely survived the crisis under Tuoba Jun's handling.)

Sporadic rebellions in the territory of the Northern Wei Dynasty continued.In the second year, Chang'an's General Zhengxi, Yongchang Wang Tuobaren and others rebelled again, and committed suicide after failing.Tuoba Jun was single and weak, and the most urgent task was to promote a group of officials he could fully trust. Needless to say, Yuan He, Lu Li and others who supported him were all promoted to kings.This is not enough. After all, these Xianbei people fought fiercely, made political decisions, and lacked the ability to rule North China. He chose many Han Confucian scholars to supplement his decision-making cadres.The most famous of them is the honest and loyal Gao Yun.

Gao Yun has always been a counselor for Tuoba Jun's father, Tuoba Huang, and he is a veteran of several generations. He also has credit for supporting Tuoba Jun.But Tuoba Jun didn't promote him for some reason, and Gao Yun also kept silent and continued to be his author.As mentioned earlier, Tuoba Tao killed the historian headed by Cui Hao, but Gao Yun survived by luck.Wei's history writing organization was greatly damaged. Tuoba Jun asked Gao Yun to take the lead, and restored the historian in the first year of Heping (460 AD). Some people with good deeds persuaded Tuoba Jun to overhaul the palace. Gao Yun said: "I heard that Emperor Taizu (that is, Tuoba Gui) pacified the world, so I built the palace in the capital. At that time, all the construction work was carried out during the slack season. Now that our country has been established for a long time, the palaces are complete, the front hall of Yong'an (i.e. the main hall) is enough to meet the ministers of the world, the greenhouse of the west hall (i.e. the inner palace) is enough to house the emperor, and the high towers and pavilions are enough to watch the distance. If you want to build a more magnificent palace, The speed should be slowed down, and the work should not be done in a hurry. It takes 20,000 handymen to collect materials and move earth and rocks. In addition to the old and young pay, it will take 40,000 people to complete the construction in half a year. The ancients said it well: "One man does not farm. If a woman does not weave, she may suffer from the cold.' Besides mobilizing tens of thousands of people, the loss can be described as huge. I hope His Majesty will think carefully about it." Tuoba Jun respected this old minister very much, heeded his opinion, and no longer Big construction.

Gao Yun speaks straight, sometimes without considering the position and mood of the listener, and even Tuoba Jun often can't stand him.Tuoba Jun didn't punish him, he couldn't stand it anymore, so he asked the left and right to help him out.Gao Yun persevered, and ran back to ask Tuoba Jun to see him again.Tuoba Jun couldn't resist, and knew that he had good intentions, so he retreated to the left and right, had a private interview with him, and confessed his heart to him. Once, Tuoba Jun said emotionally to the officials: "The monarch is the same as his father. If the father made a mistake, how can the son not point it out in person? You should learn from Gao Yun, he is the real Loyal minister! I have made mistakes, and he can always speak up. Even if it is something I don’t like to hear, he dares to talk about it and never avoids it. You people have been around me for many years, and you have never heard a serious word. Praise me according to my wishes, and ask for official positions when I am happy. To put it bluntly, your daily work is just to stand by my side, so you can be a prince, and Gao Yun, he Don't you feel ashamed of yourself if you use the brush of history to help the country, you are just a writer?" So he ordered Gao Yun to be promoted to Zhongshu Ling.

At this time, Situ Luli said: "Although Gao Yun is deeply favored by His Majesty, his family is poor, and his wife and children can't make a living." Tuoba Jun said angrily: "Why didn't you say it earlier? I saw that I promoted him today, so I said yes!" At that time, he led all the officials to visit Gao Yun's home. Gao Yun was unprepared, of course he "presented it as it is" in front of the emperor.Tuoba Jun couldn't believe the sight in front of him. The residence of this court official was just a thatched roof, a few bungalows, and no other beautiful buildings.Walking into the house, I saw linen quilts and rough padded jackets piled on the kang, and there were only some pickles left in the kitchen.Tuoba Jun sighed to the crowd: "Since ancient times, there is no poorer person like this!" He gave him 500 pieces of silk and 1,000 hu of grain, and appointed his eldest son as General Suiyuan and Prefect of Changle. Take office immediately.Gao Yun made excuses many times, but Tuoba Jun ignored him at all, and paid more attention to Gao Yun. He didn't call him by his first name, but respectfully called him "Ling Gong".The emperor took the lead, and the others followed suit. Since then, the reputation of "Ling Gong" has spread far and wide.

What needs to be pointed out is that in the era of Gao Yun, the Northern Wei Dynasty still practiced the system of no salary for a hundred officials. It is easy for ordinary officials to have family property, otherwise they have to find other means of livelihood in order to support their families. One of the reasons (in fact, even if it is high salary and high treatment, it is not the case that most of them are greedy).Gao Yun's family was poor, so he always sent his sons to the mountains to cut firewood for self-sufficiency.No one would not be in awe of such a down-to-earth official. Gao Yun had a very long life span during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. He was called to be an official from the time of Tuoba Tao, and lived until the reign of Tuoba Jun's grandson, who was later Emperor Xiaowen Yuan Hong. He was not able to live in the hometown, and died at the age of ninety-eight.Gao Yun's life is the best footnote to the so-called "those who have no desires live forever".

For officials from all over the country, Tuoba Jun's measures are to assess the results of governance, emphasizing that rewards and punishments are clear; for ordinary people, he is also very willing to carry out "image projects", and he goes down to the localities every year to observe the customs and customs, and he goes down many times. The edict reduced and exempted unnecessary taxes and corvee.As far as these actions are concerned, he hardly looks like a Xianbei tribe born in the Rongma Desert, but more like a Han emperor deeply influenced by Confucian culture. In the first year of Tai'an (AD 455), he dispatched Shangshu Mu Fuzhen and others to inspect various states and counties, and issued an edict to clearly state the purpose of the inspection:

"If the farmers don't cultivate, and the fields are too barren, the corvee will be incessant, and it will be useless. If thieves and thieves go out in public and plunder and plunder endlessly, there will be no authority and prohibition, and punishment will be lost; public slander will flourish, big and small will complain, good people will hide in hiding, and sycophants will be in the way, then the law will be confused and government will be confused. .” No matter what kind of problems occur in the local area, in the final analysis, it is the dereliction of duty and negligence of local officials, who need to be punished, dismissed, or even executed;At the same time, if there are grievances or crimes in the local area, they can appeal to the inspectors; if the inspectors accept bribes and find out the injustice, they can appeal to the emperor to strictly prevent the phenomenon of mutual protection between officials and officials.The results of the inspections were good, and the long-standing abuses in many places were eliminated.

Under the governance of Tuoba Jun, the Northern Wei Dynasty gradually turned from depression to prosperity at the beginning.The most obvious change is that the sporadic rebellion activities in various places in the first few years have almost disappeared by the end of his rule.In order to further ease the contradictions and appease the masses of the people, Tuoba Jun restored the Buddhism that was banned by Tuoba Tao. Of course, Buddhist believers were extremely happy. (Buddhism has experienced the most destruction in Chinese history, but "a centipede is dead but not stiff", and the reconstruction after each fall is more prosperous than before. It can be said to be a very interesting cultural phenomenon. )

In the second year after he regained Buddhahood, Tuoba Jun was riding a horse and bumped into a monk.The monk was afraid and called out "crime".Tuoba Jun shouted back at the left and right attendants who went up to arrest him, and smiled at him: "This is a good man, haha!" He believed that this was the Niu monk that God wanted him to get acquainted with, so he welcomed the monk into the palace and offered him teacher ceremony. This monk is indeed an eminent monk, his Dharma name is Tan Yao, because he heard that the emperor lifted the ban, so he resumed his status and rushed from Zhongshan to the capital.Tuoba Jun likes to listen to Buddhist lectures, and often invites Tan Yao into the palace to discuss in detail, and when it comes to excitement, his heart is naturally moved.Instigated by Tan Yao, he imitated the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, and dug a mountain to open caves in Wuzhousai (today's Zuoyun to the west of Datong, Shanxi) west of Pingcheng. The predecessor of today's Datong Yungang Grottoes - Tanyao Five Grottoes.Since then, Buddhism in the Northern Dynasties has become more and more prosperous, and it has become a veritable Buddhist country. Tuoba Jun reigned for fourteen years, which was the fourteen years in the middle of the Northern Wei Dynasty.There was no Zhongzong in the Northern Wei Dynasty, so it would not be too much to grant this temple name to Tuoba Jun (his own temple name is Gaozong).At the time of his death, the conditions for the perfection of the Northern Wei system and comprehensive Sinicization were basically mature.What his empress Feng and eldest grandson Yuanhong did in the future actually accomplished what he had never done in his lifetime.Let's save these afterwords in the third part "Ming Lord and Faint Lord", and then expand them in detail.