Chapter 10 Chapter Seven Fusion and Reorganization Southern and Northern Dynasties

The North has returned to fragmentation, waiting for another chance to consolidate.Another opportunity for integration came later, after the Northern Wei Xianbei entered the Central Plains.Among several Hu tribes, the Xianbei entered the Central Plains relatively late.The tribe of the Tuoba clan was not very powerful at first. When they entered the Central Plains, the Hu tribe (the so-called Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms) who had established local regimes in the Central Plains had actually gradually lost their original strength. Locally, the big clans of the Han people held their own territory quite firmly.The Wuhu has a certain degree of integration with these big families, including cultural integration and economic interdependence.However, the management of the entire northern China is still scattered, and no effective regime has emerged.

The integration work of the Northern Wei regime can be seen from several aspects.If the Northern Wei Dynasty is regarded as a merged company, this small company in a marginal area has limited strength, but when it enters a market that has no clue, because the small company itself has relatively strong unity and its capital is relatively concentrated, it will soon be able to Integrate a fragmented market into a new corporate form.However, how this new company rebuilds its internal management functions, how to restore production, and how to restore the market is not an easy task.The work done by the Northern Wei Dynasty can be divided into several steps. The first step is to stabilize the population and restore agricultural production.If the country of the Northern Wei Dynasty is regarded as a company, the first service it provides is stability and prosperity.At that time, North China had gone through a long period of war, and the population was sparse, and there was quite a lot of land that was abandoned and uncultivated.

One of the most important tasks done by the Northern Wei Dynasty was to put the productive forces back on the land.Originally, the wandering people returned to farming, and the soldiers also returned to production as much as possible.In the land equalization system of the Northern Wei Dynasty, every farmer basically had land allocated by the state.These lands were originally unowned and abandoned, and a considerable part of the people settled in the land.The land equalization system made the big clans threatened by the regime, but North China also got a respite. The second step is more difficult, which is to separate the tribes and become citizens.This part of the work was done with the help of a Han Chinese scholar, Li Chong.Li Chong was trusted by the court of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Although he was not a real prime minister, he had a certain say in decision-making.The Northern Wei Dynasty established a three-head system. Whether it is Xianbei people or people from other ethnic groups captured, they all belong to the local level and are managed by the three-head system. It is equivalent to the structure of our neighbors, village chiefs, and even county and city chiefs today. .Of course, there will be many obstacles in the implementation of the work of assigning the population of the tribe to the region, and the leaders of the Xianbei clan do not approve of this approach.Fortunately, the monarch of Xianbei and the counselors of the Han people cooperated quite well, and the policies contributed by Li Chong received strong support, making the Xianbei people a population that relied on agricultural production for a living, and no longer soldiers who plundered China's resources for a living.The people of the country maintained their livelihoods through agriculture, and the entire Northern Wei Dynasty also gained stability and relative peace.

On this basis, the Northern Wei Dynasty carried out a thorough reorganization of Gongwei.Because although the Xianbei regime is already a government of the Han people in structure, it still needs effective name rectification.The reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty merged the Xianbei regime with the Han people.On the one hand, he encouraged intermarriage between Hu nobles and Han clans, and on the other hand, he recruited talented people from Han clans to serve in the central government.He even changed the surnames on a large scale; the Sinicization of the Hu people's surnames made the Hu people forget that they were originally Hu people, and also made the Han people more accepting of these foreign clans.For example, the Tuoba clan was changed to the Yuan clan, and many nobles also changed their surnames to identify with the Central Plains.Of course, this work has received considerable support from the Han people, and the Han people have also contributed a lot of power to transform the local government established by the Han people into a local government that can be directed by the central government.

Let's go back to the perspective of company management. This integration work is quite thorough, so thorough that some distributors are completely incorporated into the central head office.Li Chong, who contributed the most to such changes in the Northern Wei Dynasty, is himself a descendant of a wealthy family.In order to reconcile the disputes between Hu and Han, he persuaded Emperor Xiaowen, the emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, to Sinicize.The system of the Northern Wei government, and even the religious sacrificial rites, were all designed by him.What was particularly fortunate for Li Chong was that he was not only trusted by Emperor Xiaowen, but also fully supported by the Empress Dowager at the time.Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty even moved the capital to Luoyang in the Central Plains at that time, entirely because he hoped that the cooperation among ethnic groups could be the best.Therefore, the Sinicization of Emperor Xiaowen was the result of the joint efforts of both the monarch and his ministers.

Xiaowendai's trust in Li Chong can also be reflected by the following incident.At that time, there were still many Xianbei nobles in the court of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, hoping to occupy a certain position in the court, and there were also many Han Chinese families who hoped that their heirs could obtain high positions.Emperor Xiaowen asked for Li Chong's opinion, can these people be used?Li Chong asked: Do you want to share the world with these rich kids?Or do you want to find capable people to do things for the country and benefit the people?Emperor Xiaowen said that of course it is necessary to have talented people to do things for the country and make politics on track.Li Chong replied: Then you should not use these anointed children, but use some talented people, regardless of their status.Li Chong's thinking is very similar to Wang Meng's, the difference is that Wang Meng himself was born in a poor family, while Li Chong was a son of a wealthy Han family and was reused by the Xianbei court.The positions of the two are the same, and they hope to establish a good management system and use talents to serve the country.

Another thing they have in common is that they put aside racial considerations and put the permanent interests of the country on the premise.Wang Meng once had the opportunity to help Huan Wen, who was a general in the Southern Dynasty at that time.At that time, Huan Wen's army had already arrived near Chang'an, and Wang Meng hoped to help Huan Wen rebuild the government of the Southern Dynasty.Wang Meng is a very informal person. When he met Huan Wen, he scratched his head and talked about his ideals of governing the country: how to establish an effective government, how to advance the army, and regain more lost ground.However, when Huan Wen was more interested in being emperor himself than restoring a decent Central Plains dynasty, Wang Meng was useless.Until Fu Jian went to him, Wang Meng believed that Fu Jian would accept his opinion, so he assisted Fu Jian in establishing the former Qin government.Therefore, the relationship between Fu Jian and Wang Meng, Emperor Xiaowen and Li Chong is the same. The monarch and the advisers must have the same goal and be able to work together; the monarch must give the advisers absolute trust and support so that the ideal can be realized.These two monarchs, Fu Jian and Emperor Xiaowen, were able to suppress the people of the same clan in the court and make the ideals of the two Han people come true, which is quite admirable in history.

Wang Meng contributed a lot. He helped Fu Jian organize a very effective government, making the former Qin almost the master of North China at that time.After Wang Meng's death, the situation changed. Fu Jian became proud, and he didn't have another good helper. After the battle of Feishui, the former Qin Dynasty was lost.Similarly, Emperor Xiaowen listened to Li Chong's work and established a good government, but his descendants were not as persistent as he was in administrative affairs.When the Xuebei border guards in the north attacked the imperial court and seized power, there was no way for the Northern Wei Dynasty to continue.

The duration of the Northern Wei Dynasty was much longer than that of the former Qin Dynasty, because the two methods suggested by Li Chong: the land equalization method and the system of three chiefs, could maintain a long-term effect.The choice of two systems will allow the people to return to the farmland, increase productivity, and turn the original tribal people into registered residents, and those who used to work for the Han nationality into taxpayers.To operate efficiently, it is not only enough to employ a few talented people, but also to have a legal system that can be followed, so that the management organization can maintain long-term stability.

After the reform of the Northern Wei Dynasty, there was another important reform in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, which allowed the ethnic groups of the Han people to mix with the army of the Xianbei people in the north: this is the Fubing system.Of course, the Fubing system established by Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty also received the help of Han people with insight.Su Chuo assisted Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty to skillfully combine the organization of the tribe and the organization of the army.Nominally, the army inherited the six-point or eight-point method of the previous tribes; soon, the composition of the army was no longer limited to Xianbei people, and local powerful troops from the Central Plains were added.The Han people who once joined the army of the Northern Zhou Dynasty all changed their surnames to the Hu surname, but soon changed the Hu people's names to the Han people's names, and changed their county prestige to a place near the capital Chang'an at that time.These two name changes made it difficult for everyone to remember who is a Hu and who is a Han.The system of the Imperial Guard was also changed to the Fubing system, and professional soldiers were scattered all over the country.Ordinarily, the army does not need to be supported by the state, but farms to support itself, and when it is time to fight, it takes up weapons to fight for the country.Such a system enabled the country to have a strong military force, but did not require the people to pay too much tax to support it, making the Northern Zhou Dynasty achieve an unprecedented situation of wealth and military strength.

Of course, being able to do this depends on the full cooperation of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty and Su Chuo.Su Chuo's father, Su Wei, was also a very important adviser. He helped the Western Wei Dynasty to reorganize the already implemented land equalization system and further promote its implementation.Both Su and his son serve in the government, trying to make people's lives better.When Su Wei was in power, he often thought that the people had to pay a lot of taxes, and hoped that the next ruler would reduce the taxes.When he was in Su Chuo, he realized his father's wish and worked hard to reduce the taxes of the common people.These are intellectuals with ideals, contributing their wisdom and ability, and thinking for the people, so that the minority regime can become a Hu-Han coordinated regime, and the army has become a Hu-Han mixed army, which laid the foundation for the prosperity of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.