Chapter 36 Chapter two

Tuoba Hong's father was only 19 years old when he took the throne of Emperor Xianwen, and he was at the age of youth, but he still published an imperial edict, saying that he conceded the throne because he wanted to live a quiet life.After his abdication, Emperor Xianwen was revered as the Supreme Emperor, but he couldn't be quiet at all. His young and fiery heart was always beating and wanting to do something, so he personally led the troops to attack Rouran as the Supreme Emperor, and constantly patrolled various places. "The major events of the country should be heard with salt", and an old minister who was deposed by Queen Mother Feng was reappointed.All of these naturally triggered and deepened the conflict between him and Queen Mother Feng.The court struggle is the most naked, bloody and cruel. The two sides in the battle often use all means to disregard the blood relationship, so that the other party will die in a bleak blood and then hurry up.There is no blood relationship between Empress Dowager Feng and Emperor Xianwen, so to force him to abdicate and give him the title of Supreme Emperor is already merciful.However, Emperor Xianwen was young after all, and failed to understand the far-reaching intentions of Empress Dowager Feng, so he continued to "break ground on the head of Tai Sui".As a result, Emperor Xianwen became a "thorn in the flesh" in the eyes of Empress Dowager Feng and a stone under her feet. In 476 AD, she simply did nothing and killed him unceremoniously.

This year, Tuoba Hong was nine years old.He lost his mother when he was two years old, and he never knew who his biological mother was when he grew up; he lost his father's care and love when he was nine years old.If it weren't for his special background, he could have had a happy family and lead a life that a normal person should have. However, the irrevocable autocratic cruelty of the feudal dynasty determined that he could only live in a deformed environment and atmosphere all his life. kill life. As soon as Emperor Xianwen died, Empress Dowager Feng was revered as Empress Dowager Tai.Until her death in 490 A.D., she was always in charge of the court and did not give up her power.In the late Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager Cixi listened to politics behind a curtain, and it is very likely that she drew a lot of "inspiration" from Empress Dowager Feng.However, Empress Dowager Feng was not only outstanding in talent, but also had outstanding political achievements. For more than 20 years, she managed the Northern Wei Dynasty in an orderly manner, which was far behind Empress Dowager Cixi.In terms of women's ability and achievements in governing the country, in Chinese history, only Wu Zetian can be compared with Empress Dowager Feng.

Empress Dowager Feng was not only not the kind of woman with "long hair but short knowledge" that people often say, but she appeared in front of the world as an excellent politician with vision.She not only cultivated the new emperor according to the ideals in her heart, but also incorporated the entire Northern Wei Dynasty into the framework and model of her own conception.Her goals are quite clear. One is to attack the Southern Dynasty, and take advantage of the civil strife to send troops to seize a large area of ​​Huaibei and push the border of the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Huai River area; the other is to reform the interior and adopt the etiquette system of the Han Dynasty to govern the country.Small changes are insignificant, and of course they will have no effect, and it is difficult to achieve effective goals, while drastic reforms will inevitably attract opposition from vested interests and stubborn adherents to the old customs of Xianbei.Therefore, Empress Dowager Feng decisively dealt with a group of political enemies, either executing them or exempting them from noble titles or exile.Then, she relied on the members of the Feng family, reused eunuchs and Han officials, wooed the elders of Xianbei, cultivated a group of reliable cronies around her, consolidated power, and strengthened reforms.

Among the series of reform measures of Empress Dowager Feng, the most influential one is the salary system for several shifts. The purpose of nomads going south is to plunder wealth. They often "come with a single horse and whip, and return with a hundred carts".In order to encourage the soldiers to fight bravely, the clan leaders first let the looted things belong to the individual, and second they rewarded them according to their merits. "Squads and soldiers have their own differences."This kind of policy has greatly stimulated the interest of the soldiers in fighting. They understand that the benefits they get from the war are much greater than those of the nomads. Improved combat effectiveness.After the Tuoba clan of Xianbei established the Northern Wei Dynasty, they still retained the legacy of the past - officials had no salary, and their income mainly depended on plunder and rewards.In addition to the soldiers who went to war, the objects of rewards also include civil and military officials.With the North united, there are fewer opportunities for war and plunder.Officials have no salary, so they can only find their own solutions through search, corruption, business and other means. "Officials at the time have no power to pay, but only take and give to the people."As a result, officials openly embezzled and accepted bribes, bent the law according to their own preferences, and wantonly searched and included the people in a lawless manner.Officials in the Northern Wei Dynasty were corrupt, finances were deficient, state institutions were severely corroded, Xianbei nobles were greedy for enjoyment, and the old style of toughness and fighting was gradually disappearing.The emperors of all dynasties were deeply disturbed by this, and issued edicts many times to punish unjust officials, but they could not solve the persistent problem of official corruption at all.Officials have no salary. If they are not corrupt and searched, how can they live?A small number of honest and self-disciplined officials, especially some Han officials, lived in a very difficult life.If you want to cure the root cause, there is only Banxing salary.

In 484 AD, Emperor Xiaowen issued an edict to implement the salary system.The salary is paid every three months, starting from October of each year.At the same time, more severe punishments were enacted for corruption: "After the reward, the person who has stolen a horse will die." After the implementation of the salary system, the centralization and feudalization process of the Northern Wei Dynasty was strengthened, and it did have the obvious effect of ensuring the daily life of officials and preventing corruption.It is not only the prelude and harbinger of Emperor Xiaowen's reform, but also the expression and symbol of Northern Wei eradicating the remnants of nomadic slavery and accepting the Han bureaucratic political system.

Just one year after the salary system was implemented and achieved obvious results, the Northern Wei Dynasty adopted a very important reform in the economy - the land equalization system, which was developed from the development of the counting mouth receiving land in the tribal division of labor of the Xianbei people. The long-term war made the originally prosperous Central Plains area present a desolate and desolate scene, and many unowned wastelands appeared.At the same time, the return of exile households, large numbers of migratory people and the forcible occupation of powerful landowners caused serious property rights disputes over the ownership of many owner-owned lands.Many peasants could not survive without land, or gathered in the mountains and forests to make trouble, or became reclusive households of powerful landlords.These are all serious threats to the rule of the Northern Wei regime. Therefore, it is imperative to take reform measures to clean up the household registration and rectify the cadastre.

The land equalization system is to allocate and adjust the existing land in the name of the country.The establishment of household registration in advance is the basis for the implementation of the land equalization system. Only when the population is approved can land be granted on a household basis.In the early days of the Northern Wei Dynasty, there was no household registration system, and many farmers either went bankrupt and fled, or became hidden households of powerful landlords.The population cannot be counted, and the government's tax revenue has been greatly reduced.In 473 A.D., Emperor Xiaowen sent people to check the household registration in various places. Only five states including Qingzhou and Jizhou found more than 100,000 hidden households.Therefore, the Northern Wei Dynasty abolished the suzerain supervisory system and established the "three chiefs system" under the suggestion of Li Chong, a close friend of Empress Dowager Feng.The specific content is "five families establish neighbors, five neighbors establish district leaders, and five miles establish party leaders", and dispatch household registration ambassadors to various states to check and establish household registration.The three-headed system broke the local clan power for hundreds of years, brought the peasants who were attached to the powerful clans under the direct rule of the state, and strengthened the centralization of power.

With the establishment of the Three Chiefs System, the Northern Wei Dynasty began to strictly implement the land equalization system, distributing land of different qualities such as exposed fields, mulberry fields, hemp fields, house plots, and vegetable plots to ordinary people in a certain amount, and granting public land (that is, salary land) to local officials. And the inheritance, sale and transfer of land were strictly regulated and controlled.At the same time as the promulgation of the Land Equalization Order, the Northern Wei government also carried out corresponding reforms on the taxation system and determined a new rent adjustment to reduce the burden on farmers.

The three-head system, the land equalization system and the new rent adjustment are a series and a whole. They are implemented in conjunction with each other. They have imposed some restrictions on the land ownership of the powerful families, taken back a lot of labor from them, and distributed a piece of land to the farmers. , to ensure the country's fiscal revenue.From a certain point of view, we can regard it as a discounted realization of the ideal of egalitarianism in ancient China. It allowed the tillers to have their land, met some of the requirements of the majority of farmers, and played an important role in restoring production, developing the economy, and stabilizing society. All played a positive role.

The land equalization system is an important land reform system in Chinese history. It went through the Northern Wei Dynasty, Northern Qi Dynasty, Northern Zhou Dynasty, and Sui Dynasty, and did not come to an end until the middle of the Tang Dynasty.It lasted for about 300 years in ancient times and affected East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, but it started in the era of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty. In fact, the three-head system, the land equalization system, and the new rent adjustment were all decided by Empress Dowager Feng, and then promulgated and implemented in the name of Emperor Xiaowen Tuobahong.Although Tuoba Hong also participated in the decision-making and actively implemented it, it was Empress Dowager Feng who played the main decisive role.

As Emperor Xiaowen grew up day by day, his relationship with Empress Dowager Feng became increasingly subtle and complicated.Although Empress Dowager Feng is not Tuoba Hong's real grandmother, he has been brought up, educated and favored by Empress Dowager Feng, and naturally has a strong affection and dependence.Empress Dowager Feng cultivated and molded him according to the model in her heart. Tuoba Hong received the edification and education of traditional Han feudal culture since he was a child. Their thoughts are in the same line, and they have the same views on many issues.However, there are also contradictions and frictions between the two, and the key to this contradiction still lies in one word - Quan.As the supreme ruler of the feudal system, power is everything, even more important than life.Empress Dowager Feng has a strong desire for power and is suspicious by nature. She saw that Emperor Xiaowen, who was growing up day by day, was becoming more and more "sage", and worried that it would be difficult to control in the future, which would be "not good for the Feng family", so she thought of abolishing it.So, she locked Tuoba Hong in a room for three days and no food was delivered to him. It was the twelfth lunar month of winter, and he was only wearing a single piece of clothing.Empress Dowager Feng convened a discussion with ministers, intending to make Xianyang Wang Xi another emperor, but was strongly opposed by many senior ministers, so she had to give up.At the same time, she also ordered the internal officials to monitor the words and deeds of Emperor Xiaowen and report every ten days.Once, the eunuch secretly reported his "mistake", and Empress Dowager Feng was furious. Immediately, Tuoba Hong was sent to beat him severely with dozens of sticks.Emperor Xiaowen couldn't resist, so he had to "accept it in silence, not affirming himself."Tuoba Hong has a smart temperament and deeply understands the way of tolerance, not like his father who is full of blood.Perhaps, he learned the bloody lesson from his father so that he did not expand the conflict between him and Queen Mother Feng.If not, with Empress Dowager Feng's perseverance and strategy, no matter how powerful the minister's "solid advice" was, he would have been kicked away from the throne of the Northern Wei Dynasty emperor long ago. In 486 AD, Emperor Xiaowen turned 20 and had grown up.In terms of emotion, reason, and situation, it is inconvenient for Empress Dowager Feng to continue to listen to the government. She had to hand over the "magic wand" of power to Tuoba Hong.Therefore, "the emperor began to wear the crown of gun, and served all the nations in court", and then officially presided over the government, and even drafted the imperial edict himself. After Tuoba Hong came to power, Empress Dowager Feng did not completely withdraw from the political arena. Given her extreme desire for power, she would definitely have to intervene in government affairs from time to time, but it was naturally Emperor Xiaowen who played the main role.During Tuoba Hong's twenty-eight years as emperor, the control of power should be divided into three stages: when he ascended the throne at the age of five to twenty, the power was completely in the hands of Queen Mother Feng; At the age of 24, Empress Dowager Feng died, and he and Empress Dowager Feng shared power; 3. From the age of 24 to his death at the age of 33, the political power belonged to Tuoba Hong alone. Time.Strictly speaking, Emperor Xiaowen really took charge of the Northern Wei Dynasty for only eight or nine years.However, he became emperor at the age of five and has been on the throne for 28 years, so he can be regarded as a very old emperor.The ninety-five-year honor of the feudal emperor made him establish a supreme majestic and awe-inspiring image in the minds of ministers and the people since he was a child. Once he was in power, he showed the vigorous appearance of a generation of heroes. Empress Dowager Feng died in 490 AD at the age of forty-nine.After the death of Empress Dowager Feng, Tuoba Hong was very sad. He didn't eat well for five days. He only ate half a bowl of rice porridge for three meals a day, and he refused to take off his mourning clothes.Although Empress Dowager Feng made a will requesting a frugal funeral, Emperor Xiaowen held her funeral quite grandly, and said that she would follow the ancient rituals and keep filial piety for three years.After being strongly opposed by princes, ministers and civil and military officials, he reluctantly gave up. The reason why Emperor Xiaowen wanted to "make a big fuss" at Empress Dowager Feng's funeral was because he did have relatively strong feelings for her. Although Empress Dowager Feng had reprimanded him and wanted to abolish him, he always thought that " The grace of nurturing and the virtue of edicts and teachings have been searched for in a long time, and there is no match." Furthermore, Emperor Xiaowen wanted to implement the feudal etiquette culture, loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness of the Han nationality through the form of funerals; at the same time, he I also want to express my attitude to the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs through the funeral, that is, I will implement Empress Dowager Feng's reform strategy to the end in a faster, more resolute and more thorough way.