Chapter 18 Section 3: The Germination and Development of the Principle of Canine Teeth

Discussion of the principle of incisiveness must start with a story.Liu Heng, the son of Liu Bang (later Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty), with the help of Zhou Bo and other ministers, cleared up the party members of Empress Lu, and after ascending the throne of the emperor, he sent a letter to Zhao Tuo, the leader of Nanyue who ruled south of the Five Ridges. , Suggesting that the Han and South Vietnamese should strike a truce and live in peace.At the end of the letter, there is such a passage: "I want to determine who has the dog's teeth, so I asked the official, and the official said: 'The Emperor Gao introduced the land of Changsha', and I can't change it arbitrarily."

From the letter of Emperor Wen Wen, we can infer that Zhao Tuo must have sent a letter to the Han court at first, expressing his desire to adjust and unify the border, but Emperor Wen Wen refused to agree.So what exactly does it mean that the canine teeth are in harmony, and why did Emperor Han Wen not want to draw the boundaries neatly, but insisted on the state of the canine teeth? We are very lucky that we can still see the original appearance of this famous border today after 2000. In 1977, an extremely precious silk map of the Western Han Dynasty was unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan.This map goes south and goes north, which is the opposite of today's map.The main part of the map is the topography of the southern part of Changsha and the distribution of counties and districts (represented by boxes and circles).At the top of the map, the South China Sea and the Pearl River system flowing into it are drawn.The Pearl River Basin is within the scope of the Nanyue Kingdom, and it is only briefly indicated on the map, except for the two words in the middle of the seal, no place names are marked.Between Nanyue Kingdom and Changsha Kingdom, there is a mountain range running from east to west. This is Nanling, which was the boundary mountain between the two countries at that time.

We further found that in the upper left corner of the map, there is Guiyang County (now Lianxian County, Guangdong), which is located in the south of Nanling and the source of Huangshui (now Lianjiang, a tributary of Beijiang River).Although this county is south of Nanling, it does not belong to Nanyue Kingdom, but belongs to Changsha Kingdom north of Nanling. It can be seen that Nanling is not always the boundary between Nanyue and Changsha.The so-called "canine teeth" in Emperor Wen's reply to Zhao Tuo's letter refers to the fact that the border between the two countries does not coincide with the direction of the Nanling Mountains.This situation made Zhao Tuo always feel that his northern border was unstable, so he desperately wanted to adjust the border to coincide with the Nanling, so that he could rely on the mountain as a danger and maintain the stability of the separatist regime.And this is why Emperor Hanwen refused to agree, because on his side, he never forgot to unify Lingnan. Although the strength was insufficient at that time, the deterrent situation must be maintained.

The reason why Emperor Wen of the Han stated that the boundary cannot be changed is: "Emperor Gao introduces the soil of Changsha." In fact, this is just an excuse: the boundary between Changsha Kingdom and Nanyue Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty followed the border between Changsha County and Nanhai County in Qin Dynasty.Because at the time of Qin's death, Zhao Tuo merged Guilin and Xiangjun with Nanhaiwei, and established himself as the King of Wu of Nanyue, taking over the land of the three counties.At that time, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were competing in the Central Plains and had no time to take care of Lingnan, so this border was maintained.At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Changsha County was used to set up a vassal kingdom, but they were unable to recover the land of Nanyue. Zhao Tuo was named a foreign vassal in name, but actually treated him as an enemy country.Of course, it was inconvenient for Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty to mention that this boundary was a legacy of the previous dynasty, so he could only excuse that it was set by Liu Bang.

It can be seen from this that, with Qin Shihuang's foresight and sagacity, in order to maintain a high degree of centralization, he has begun to adopt the principle of canine teeth to strictly control the local area.This measure was very necessary at that time, because the Lingnan area was too far away from the ruling center, and it took a lot of effort to finally conquer the territory. means, once something happens, the place is still easy to break away from the dynasty's territory, and later facts prove that the prediction at that time was correct.The dog-to-tooth plan designed in the Qin Dynasty not only made Guiyang County in Changsha County go deep into the south of Lingnan, but also made Tancheng County in Xiangjun cross Lingnan.This state enabled the army of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to defeat the resistance of the Nanyue Kingdom in a short period of time, and unified the Lingnan area into the Han Dynasty.

In the Qin Dynasty, the basic principle of dividing county boundaries was the convenience of mountains and rivers, supplemented by the principle of incisiveness in some areas.However, the implementation of the latter principle only made the county boundary and the direction of the mountains and rivers not completely consistent, and did not completely deviate from it, as happened in the later Yuan and Ming dynasties.The Lingnan area in the Qin Dynasty still maintained the general integrity of its natural area. The principle of dog-to-tooth integration was not only applied to mountainous areas, but was also applied to plain areas in the Han Dynasty; it was not only used between counties, but also between kingdoms. stability of the room. "Historical Records Xiaowen Emperor Ji" contains: "Emperor Gao granted the younger brother of the prince, and the dog and teeth of the earth are in control. This is the so-called rock clan." And the phase is also included." "Hine teeth phase system" in "Hanshu" as "dog teeth phase error", the meaning is the same.This strategy also worked when Wu and Chu rebelled, allowing the central government to quickly quell the rebellion.

The principle of dog-tooth matching developed in the Qin and Han Dynasties has been used in successive dynasties.Even though most states and counties in the Sui and Tang Dynasties followed the principle of convenience in the form of mountains and rivers, the measures of incisiveness were not completely discarded.For example, Yangzhou, which is famous all over the world for its Qionghua, was changed to Jiangdu County during Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, and the county straddled the north and south of the Yangtze River on the spot; another example is Linchuan County, which is centered on Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province today. Shanzhou (now Sanmenxia City, Henan Province) also straddles both sides of the Yellow River.In the early Tang Dynasty, the road was strictly demarcated by mountains and rivers, but it was adjusted in the middle period. For example, the Hedong Road occupied Guozhou (now the northwest corner of Henan Province) south of the Yellow River.But there are not many such examples. The prefectures, counties, and roads in the Sui and early Tang Dynasties generally did not cross the two sides of important mountains and rivers.

After the Anshi Rebellion, the government of the Tang Dynasty set up square towns all over the country, and "all the important counties have the amount of festivals".At this time, the imperial court began to consider the principle of fighting with each other to control Fangzhen.For example, Haozhou belonged to Huainan Road in the early Tang Dynasty, and it belonged to Xu Sihao Jiedushi with Xuzhou in Huaibei as the center during Tang Dezong.This incident was severely criticized by Tang Xianzong's prime minister Li Jifu more than 20 years later. He believed that it was because the then prime minister Dou Shen was "ignorant of learning and skill, and ignorant of border theory". This criticism is unreasonable.Because Haozhou (today's Fengyang) and Shouyang (today's Shouchun) blocked the Huaihe Mountains, it was originally the danger of Huainan. If the Huainan Jiedu envoys resisted by danger, the imperial court would be helpless.Therefore, the central government intends to break the danger of Huainan and strengthen Xuzhou's ability to protect water transport. Therefore, the three states of Xu, Si, and Hao in the north of Huainan were handed over to Zhang Jianfeng, who was loyal to the imperial court at that time.What's more, Li Xilie, the Jiedu envoy of Huaixi at that time, was arrogant and domineering, and colluded with the Jiedu envoy of Huainan. This precautionary measure was completely correct.Li Jifu's criticism was caused by Zhang Jianfeng's son who later tended to separate regimes and almost annexed Jianghuai with Xuzhou as his base.But this is a matter of this moment and that moment, and there are advantages and disadvantages, and the wrong of the future cannot be used to deny the right of the past.

But after all, there were not many Fangzhen towns in the late Tang Dynasty. Another notable example is that the Jiedushi of the Zhaoyi Army had jurisdiction over the east and west of Taihang Mountain.Most of the towns are roughly in line with the mountains and rivers.Therefore, from the Qin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, the principle of being able to serve each other has always been in a subordinate position.Of course, it has also developed. In the Qin Dynasty, the access was only in individual counties, and in the late Tang Dynasty it was expanded to the prefectures.After the Song Dynasty, the principle of dog teeth matching became more common.

There were more state capitals across important mountains and rivers in the Song Dynasty than in the Tang Dynasty.For example, Henan Province occupies Heqing County to the north of the Yellow River, and Mengzhou to the north of the Yellow River also owns Heyin and Sishui counties to the south of the Yellow River, making Mengzhou's territory form a strange twist.Another example is the case of Sizhou crossing the Huai River from north to south, which was also unprecedented in the Tang Dynasty. The roads of the Song Dynasty also deviated from the principle of the shape and convenience of mountains and rivers more than the roads of the Tang Dynasty.Although Jiedushi of the Wuning Army in the late Tang Dynasty (the descendant of Xu Sihao Jiedu) had jurisdiction over Huainan and the north, only one of the four prefectures he led was in Huainan.Although Huainan East Road in the Northern Song Dynasty was named after Huainan, half of it was north of Huai River.Moreover, the boundary between the road and Jingdong East Road in the north also forms a zigzagging shape.Yuzhang County in the Han Dynasty was almost equal to the Jiangnan West Road in the late Tang Dynasty and today’s Jiangxi Province. It was a relatively complete geographical unit. In the Song Dynasty, it was divided into two parts. The angle forms Jiangnan West Road.In addition, the East Road in the Northern Song Dynasty lacked a corner in the southwest, but crossed the Yellow River in the northwest, and there was a land on the west of the river.The main body of Yongxing Army Road is present-day Shaanxi, but there is a corner of the East River and a corner of the West of Henan. More importantly, the road has crossed the Qinling Mountains and has Shangzhou.Although Shangzhou is very small and not all located south of the Qinling Mountains, this is the first time in history that the north and south of the Qinling Mountains are spanned by the same political area.Jinghu North Road is also very special, its southwest part goes up along the Yuanshui River until it meets Guangnan West Road.

All of these show that the principle of incisiveness is undergoing a qualitative change.In the Qin Dynasty, this principle only made the county boundary not completely consistent with the direction of the mountains and rivers, and its access was no more than one or two counties, or two or three counties.During the period of confrontation between the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, the situation developed further. For example, in the Jin Dynasty, part of Jingdong East Road formed a narrow corridor extending between Jingdong East Road and Hebei East Road.Although the division of the roads in the Southern Song Dynasty has not changed greatly following the Northern Song Dynasty, the idea of ​​changing is already brewing.In short, the Song and Jin dynasties have developed the principle of incisiveness, out of the need to strengthen the centralization of power, but the most fundamental change occurred after the establishment of the Mongol and Yuan Empires.