Chapter 10 Chapter 9 The Path to Unity

The Tuoba clan were a Xianbei ethnic group who made important contributions to the unification of China in the Middle Ages.Today's scholars are still not fully sure of the origin of their race.They seem to speak the early Turkic language, but there are still early Mongolian and early Tungusic characters in it.Some Chinese historians pointed out that when they came to the north of China at the end of the 3rd century AD, Tuoba’s tribe had just broken away from the original commune organization. They still had no living quarters, no writing, and no legal codes, probably before they came into contact with Chinese merchants. , has no private property yet.

The Tuoba people and other peoples moved from the northeast to the southwest in the 2nd century AD.In 258 A.D., the allied tribes gathered in today's Helinger in Suiyuan, and the Tuoba family claimed to be in command of thirty-six tribes.In the early 4th century, they boasted that there were 200,000 lands in the immediate control string, but it seems that the total population is only 600,000, and it is difficult to exceed one million. In 310, they made an agreement with Liu Kun, a general of the Jin Dynasty, who needed their help to drive out other tribes, so the Tuoba people began to have agricultural bases.

Hu Han's cooperation has not been fruitful, and the Tuoba clan has not been seen in the scriptures for the time being. At the end of the 4th century, it was the days when the Di and Qiang people came to the fore. They conquered other ethnic minorities, including the Tuoba clan.It was not until 383 years ago that the Qin leader failed to attack the Eastern Jin Dynasty from the south (the Battle of Feishui), that the Tuoba nation made a comeback and commended its independent status. In 386, their leader Tuobagui claimed to be Daiwang, and later changed to Wei.Wei is the name of the country in the early days of the Zhou Dynasty. After thousands of years, such a country name will be copied and used by many dynasties one after another, mainly because they inherited the territory of the former country.Some similar dynasties used the same country name and repeated it back and forth.Following the method of traditional Chinese historians, we call this Wei Dynasty "Northern Wei" or "Tuoba Wei".In 399 A.D., Tuoba Gui promoted himself to be emperor.The empire he created had a total of 12 emperors and lasted for 148 years until it was split into two parts in 534.During this long period of turmoil, its reach has broken records.Historically, the Northern Wei or Tuoba Wei were not included in the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms.

When the empire was established in the early days, the Tuoba nation focused on strengthening its agricultural foundation with the captured population because it was a minority without a long cultural tradition.In 391 A.D., Tuobagui won a great victory in the battle with the Xiongnu. According to the records of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he won 300,000 horses and 4 million sheep.A total of 5,000 Xiongnu leaders and their family members were all executed, and the remaining tribesmen were all sent to the vicinity of today's Baotou in the Yellow River Hequ, where they were forced to become farmers, and the land and farm tools were allocated by the state.Up to the fifth century, the same method was also applied to other tribes.In 398 AD, the Tuoba clan forced the relocation of 100,000 people from Goryeo and Murong (also belonging to the Xianbei lineage) to enrich their capital (in today's Datong, Shanxi), and each of them was also allocated cattle and farm tools. When Daning was opened up in 413, Emperor Tuoba Wei personally supervised it.

Near the capital, Tuoba Wei's leadership was divided into eight ministries to oversee agriculture, whose farms were run by the state. The official document in 404 stated that the eight ministries at that time had no original ethnic boundaries; and the imperial edict in 440 specified that households with cattle should use the cattle for households without cattle, and the government still stipulated that the latter The method of paying the former with labor.From this point of view, if the plowmen first started as state serfs, they would soon gradually acquire the status of small owner farmers.It is not impossible for some Tuoba leaders to become big landlords; it is just that the evidence exists that they did not appropriate most of the country's real estate, nor did they convert a large number of people into tenant farmers without authorization.

In fact, because Tuoba Wei was able to directly levy taxes on farmers, he gradually extended his ruling power to a vast area.At first, the imperial court sent military officers to register the subordinate population, and temporarily collected cloth instead of regular taxes; it was not until 426 AD that all taxes were ordered to be handled by state and county officials, and all other managers were withdrawn.This method of direct taxation would not have been possible had it not been for the fact that those who might interfere, such as the power of Han clans and gentry and princes and ministers among ethnic minorities, had been removed from authority.The Diji of the 5th century of the Northern Wei Dynasty also recorded the household registrations of the subordinates, with three thousand ones and five thousand three ones, successively.Obviously, the trend of decentralization since the late Han Dynasty has been reversed.Where the Northern Wei Dynasty could not be conquered by force, external pressure was applied to make it naturalized.The Tuoba imperial court was also able to defend against the invasion of other nomadic peoples such as Zhuzhu (Rouran), and had resources for disaster relief and famine relief, all of which increased its own prestige.In context, however, their original decision to create a supply base and directly control the agricultural labor force, both brutal and ingenious, was the turning point.

As of the date of its own collapse, the Northern Wei court registered 5 million taxpayer households, and a population of 25 million. This can be regarded as a great success in a turbulent era. The alien-dominated court issued its most important decree at the end of the fifth century.The salaries of all bureaucrats were published in AD 484, which means that the finances of the Northern Wei Dynasty were still inseparable from decentralization before then.The same circular also provides for taxation on a household basis.Each household is included in the third and nine categories according to its property and population.Medium-sized household nanometer 20 stones, 2 pieces of cloth, with raw silk and silk fabrics.In fact, this is just a general standard, and the actual collection amount varies greatly, and the number of taxpayers may not all match the number of households with separate households.The document on that day pointed out that sometimes 50 households were registered as 1 household.The central government only requires the top three household registrations to be paid to the capital, and the other quotas are obtained from rough estimates, and the implementation is subject to the flexibility of local officials.This order only means that the control will be tightened from now on.

A year later, the Northern Wei Dynasty promulgated its Equalization Order.The principle is that all the land is owned by the emperor, and everyone has the right to use it only because of his admiration: every man over the age of 15 receives 40 mu of land, women get half of it, and slaves and small cattle are added, and the above is used for farming rice For the use of wheat, the old man was spared and returned to the government.Other fields for growing mulberry vegetables and fruits are another domain, which can be inherited and traded within limits. The Land Equalization Order in 485 was an epoch-making milestone in Chinese history. After that, only the detailed numbers were changed. The principles were copied by successive dynasties, down to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and implemented until the second half of the 8th century, lasting about 300 years.At the same time, the militiamen in the Northern Wei Dynasty were called the Fubing System, which also became the initial scale of similar organizations in subsequent dynasties.

Many readers usually ask when they see the above-mentioned edict: Is land equalization a kind of restriction or a guarantee as mentioned in the above-mentioned edict?A hopeful goal or a rule of immediate fulfillment?To what extent is it implemented?Did the local officials divide the land and confiscate the excess?Not even the most talented historian can answer without hesitation.We can only answer this type of question based on side information and conjectures.Basically, any edict concerning the whole empire can only be worded broadly, and when the bureaucrats put it into practice in the countryside, the standard of consistency in the text is usually more than it can actually be implemented.Of course, all practitioners must do their best to obey the emperor's edict.But when a requirement cannot be practicably fulfilled, its figures may be falsified and its provisions discounted for expediency.In other words, the demands of national unanimity are bound to encounter obstacles at the grassroots level, even the most effective police power can do nothing about it.And the method of using money control to ensure policy implementation cannot start in this era.A sympathetic reader can also see from this that such a tradition has become a serious burden to modern Chinese managers.

Judging from the previous and subsequent deeds, the equalization of land since the 5th century cannot be regarded as a failure; because its purpose is to create a grassroots organization, so that most small farmers pay taxes and serve as soldiers. From this point of view, this facility can still be considered an absolute failure. big success.Juntian is not like Wang Mang's paper articles. Its executor is a new military force, and its environment is the recovery after the long-term war. All parties regard it as a kind of relief.In fact, the Land Equalization Order in AD 485 never considered "should have" as guaranteeing its "must have".The decree pointed out that if the land in the area is not enough for distribution, the number of acres may be reduced, and the recipients of the land may also request to leave the "narrow township" and go to the "wide township".Therefore, the state ownership of cultivated land only has a legal basis and is authorized to bureaucratic organizations as a basis for them to enforce government orders. As for the detailed situation, it is impossible to make a consistent conclusion across the country.The fact that the land is owned by the state is not the original purpose of filing the case.

Existing documents confirm the above inference.Large landowners still existed in this age, but they were the exception rather than the rule.Tax evasion is still not strictly dealt with.For example, taxation is beneficial to single people and unfavorable to married people, so the vast majority of taxpayers report that they are unmarried.However, this record also indicates that the general goal of increasing taxpayer registration has been achieved. The documents left by the two frontier defense areas in the 8th century were unearthed after this century, and their contents are also consistent with the above situation. Another imperial edict promulgated by Tuoba Wei in 486 A.D. had the effect of breaking the monopoly of the Haozong family and forming a local organization presided over by himself.This edict regards five families as neighbors, five neighbors as miles, and five miles as the party.Neighborhood party leaders are appointed by local officials, so the government has a chain of command that can be sent down to the small people.At the same time, the new tax also regards a husband and a wife as a "bed", and instructs them to pay 2 stones for rice and distribute them in District 1.Obviously, the above-mentioned local organization, taxation and land ownership are all related to each other.These laws organized the empire from the bottom up in an artificial concept. When traditional Chinese authors deal with this section of history, they usually focus on the efficacy of Chinese culture, believing that Chinese cultural relics can eventually influence other races and make them imitate China's strengths.Of course, using bureaucratic organizations to govern the rural masses has its own internal history, and it cannot be originated from the nomads. This explains why it took such a long period of time for the Tuoba people to master the technology to govern a large Chinese empire. When the edict came into effect in 486, it was the 100th year since Tuoba Gui became the queen, and it had been several decades since Tuoba Wei set up a Taixue in Datong to worship Confucius.Among them, the marriage between Hu and Han has made the Tuoba royal family Sinicized far beyond the color of Xianbei.The major reforms in 480 were determined by a Han woman, historically known as the Wenming Empress Dowager Feng, who was the nominal grandmother of the current emperor.Her advisor Li Chong is also a genius who is familiar with poetry and books. Because of the empress dowager's promotion, he rose from a humble position as a book operator to a high official in front of the imperial court.It was not until the Queen Mother died in 489 that Emperor Tuoba Hong began to rule in person.When he took charge of state affairs and implemented the Sinicization policy at the beginning, he tried his best to supervise and relentlessly, which surprised people at that time and scholars of later generations. In 484, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty was moved from today's Datong to Luoyang.The city was rebuilt due to the destruction of the war.Since then, the imperial decree banned Xianbei clothing, and the Xianbei language was banned next time. All officials under the age of 30 must speak Chinese, and only older ones will be given a transitional period to study.Those who violate this regulation may be demoted and dereliction of duty.The marriage between Hu and Han always pleased Long Yan, so Tuoba Hong pretended to be old under the moon, and appointed the emperor's younger brothers to apply for the marriage of the daughters of the Han officials on the throne.The last sign of the Hu people—the polyphonic surname of Xianbei—is also considered a foreigner.So the emperor himself changed his name from Tuoba Hong to "Yuan Hong".He also appointed a committee to jointly study and convert 118 polyphonic Chinese surnames into monosyllabic Chinese surnames based on syllables. Is Yuan Hong's decree considered an epoch-making move?In fact, it only seems so on the surface.What he does is no more than the recognition of existing trends, or the icing on the cake, the decoration of existing actions.The greatest contribution of the Tuoba nation in Chinese history is to re-create a uniform rural organization, otherwise the foundation of the great empire would not be able to stand.In the process of organizing, Yuan Hong's ancestors were both patient and consistent.It is only because they do not seek quick success and do not consider small gains that they can avoid the mistakes of Fu Jian, and they did not become the seventeenth country after the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms (the four after the Sixteen Kingdoms were destroyed by Tuoba Wei).The civilized Empress Dowager Feng and Li Chong's actions are effective because of the preparatory work they have done before.Yuanhong seems to be the icing on the cake, a higher level, but in reality it detracts from its effectiveness. The reconstruction of Luoyang is just a superficial addition of a period of prosperity and prosperity.The emperor's one-sidedness towards the Han people also increased the hatred of the Xianbei upper class.At the same time, it is also at odds with existing policies that attempt to suppress the ethnic Chinese in the countryside.Yuan Hong died in 499 AD at the age of 32.Soon the instability of the northern border, the resentment of non-Han military leaders, and conspiracies inside and outside the court made the Northern Wei court difficult everywhere, and it took about 20 years for it to split in two. If we start from the microscopic history, even if it is written as a special book, it cannot contain all the details and see it at a glance.On the other hand, looking at it with hindsight after 1500, it is not difficult to see its general trend.By the middle of the sixth century, the low-level institutions for rebuilding the great empire were already in place, and a large number of agricultural resources and manpower had been organized for the construction of the great empire.What is lacking is a disciplined bureaucracy at the top, that is, an equally homogeneous structure, not corrupted by vested interests.Characters who are merely moving on the stage cannot at this moment understand the true meaning of the role they themselves are playing. In the split in 534 AD, an emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty was afraid that his generals would rebel, which might force him to give in or be harmful to himself, so he took refuge in Xi'an, hoping that another local general would protect him, but unexpectedly he was killed by him.The Northern Wei Dynasty or the Tuoba Wei Dynasty might have died on this day, but the soldiers from the east and the west are still decorating their facades, supporting two puppet emperors to come forward.Since then, the Eastern Wei Dynasty has survived for another 16 years, and the Western Wei Dynasty has survived for 23 years; neither of them has gained anything substantial.In the end, the Eastern Wei Dynasty was held hostage by the Gao family, and they eventually replaced it, called the Northern Qi Dynasty (the ancient state of Qi was in the east);The Gao family is a mixed race of Han and Xianbei. They hope to tame the princes and lords of the ethnic minorities without offending the gentry of the Middle Earth.The Yuwen family is also of Xiongnu and Xianbei blood, and they also oppose Yuanhong's excessive Sinicization, hoping to get the support of leading forces among ethnic minorities. In fact, such initiatives have lacked a decisive impact.While the upper end is still brewing, the household registration and taxation policies created by the Tuoba ethnic group at the lower level have begun to take effect.Therefore, general conscription can be implemented.The aristocrats of the ethnic minorities used to hold the hereditary power of the tribes, while the aristocratic families of the Han people gathered the majority of household registrations and tried their best to dominate the localities.So far, both parties have lost the power they can rely on, and cannot control the overall situation.These two forces should bear most of the responsibility for the division of the past three and a half centuries.When their momentum is getting worse, it is not far away to rebuild the great empire and open the door of control with bureaucratic organizations. In this case, the western half has an advantage over the eastern half.The Yuwen family occupied the Xi'an area only in 530 AD. This area has always been easily influenced by the grasslands, and the family is called mixed.The Yuwen family claimed to restore the surname of Xianbei that was abolished by Yuan Hong, but this area lacks such a surname. The Northern Zhou royal family gave it to the Han people as a reward for their loyalty, which is also an honor.It was only because of the lack of power gathering in this area that Northern Zhou was given considerable freedom of action.When this regime was still in the Western Wei Dynasty, it had begun to form a bureaucratic organization, presided over by a scholar Su Chuo. His blueprint was "Zhou Li", which was to create freely by using intermittent design.That is to say, the less existing rights and interests in the west are enough to be a burden for China's reunification. From the entire history of the Tuoba country, we can also see that the development of the situation has a certain stereotype: in the process of unification, its decisive force moves from north to south, from west to east, that is, from the inland economy The relatively backward areas annex the areas close to the waterway traffic, and the human factors are more complicated.Because of its focus on uniformity and broad organization, the Xianbei nation was able to gain leadership.Just as soon as they entered Luoyang, they also built tall towers and magnificent gardens.From our perspective today, we don’t need to copy what the predecessors said, thinking that arrogance and obscenity will destroy human morality, but from the standpoint of the reunification of China in the 6th century, the Sinicization of Yuan Hong made the original organization simple Unanimity is out of control, and at this time Tuoba's leadership group should still maintain this characteristic. In the middle of the 6th century, countless palace changes made the nobles with various backgrounds clean up and clean.Compared with the situation in which China began to split, it can be regarded as the exact opposite of the previous policy.On the eve of the fall of the Later Han Dynasty, the local government lost control, which affected the instability of the court.At this time, it tends to be unified, and the local situation has been quite integrated, and the government at the top is required to adopt a streamlined consistency in order to have a substantial effect on the rule of the empire. The person who understands the mystery is Yang Jian. He is the Duke of the Sui Dynasty at this time, and he will be the master of entrepreneurship in the Sui Dynasty in the future.Yang Jian inherited his father's career and became an authoritative general in the Northern Zhou Dynasty. His daughter has married the heir of Yuwen's family.In 577 AD, he followed the emperor of Yuwen's family in the Northern Zhou Dynasty to conquer the Northern Qi Dynasty.A year later, the emperor died, and Yang Jian's son-in-law succeeded him as a prince, who only lived for two years.No one can tell with certainty what happened in the Xi'an court within the past three years.Did Yang Jian act in self-defense?Or is it his conspiracy to kill Yuwen's family?In fact, before he announced the establishment of the Sui Dynasty in 581 AD, 59 princes and grandchildren of the Yuwen family in the Northern Zhou Dynasty all died tragically. Yang Jian is completely Machiavelli style.He can weep when he sees the chaff in the food of his people: his officials are clothed in robes.He ordered his cronies to lure his bureaucrats with bribes, and those who planned would die. In this way, there are so-called "sting operations" in the United States today.Historians in the past have both praised and criticized this founder of the Sui Dynasty.His cruelty and morality are not surprising to us.We propose it here to reveal that the reunification of China requires the re-creation of a disciplined and self-respecting bureaucratic system, and how far the road is. Only by understanding such a background can we see through: once the foundation is in place, it is not very difficult to achieve the goal of unification through military operations.A civil service organization is proficient in the countryside. When organizing a large army with peasants as the backbone, it may do its best to recruit soldiers to prepare food and pay.With such conditions, coupled with numerical advantages, victory is already within grasp.In 577 AD, the Northern Zhou Dynasty mobilized 150,000 people to force the Qi army to fight. The two sides clashed near Linfen, Shanxi today.Although deployment and siege were also interspersed during this period, the decisive battle lasted only half a day.It was almost dusk that day, and the empire in the east was gone.Yang Jianzhi's attack on Chen (the last of the four dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen in the south) took two and a half months, between 588 and 589, and it is said that he used 518,000 troops.Chen Guo has always only made a symbolic resistance near the capital of Jiankang (today's Nanjing), which ended the division of China for the past three and a half centuries. I am afraid that even those who participated in the war that day could not clearly see the various forces behind the scenes. kind of mystery.