Throughout Chinese history, there has never been a shortage of civilian generals and even civilian emperors, such as Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, or Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. However, in the turbulent times of the Wei and Jin dynasties, there was such a person: he was a slave, but he unified the north and established his own country;He came from a humble background, but he was good at literature and history, and was good at strategy. This person is the Emperor of Later Zhao - Shi Le. 
Later Zhao Emperor Shile statue. ** Shanxi Yushe Shile Tomb.
On the big stage of history, you can come if you are brave enough
In 265 AD, Sima Zhao's son Sima Yan replaced Cao Wei to establish a new regime, changed the name of the country to Jin, and set the capital Luoyang. Later, China was reunified, ending the situation of the three kingdoms. The well-known "Sima Zhao's heart" has truly become a foregone conclusion. In the early days of his reign, the Jin Dynasty once had a situation of "Taikang's rule", but the good times did not last long, in view of the growing power of the gate lord clan, the Jin Wu Emperor Sima Yan still retained the practice of dividing the kings, giving them great political and economic autonomy, and through rectification measures to ensure the privileges of the gate lord clan in occupying land and sheltering peasants. In fact, they already had the strength to confront the royal family of the Jin Dynasty. After Sima Yan's death, his son Sima Zhen inherited the unification, and his relative Yang Jun assisted him. The internal contradictions of the ruling class intensified, Sima Zhen completely lost control of the situation, and finally the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" broke out.
The princes and kings of the Sima clan killed each other, the peasant uprisings continued one after another, the political situation in the whole country was chaotic, and there were about to appear heroes in the storm of history. The slave emperor Shile grew up in this background.
Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty in the Diagram of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties. It is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Find your way to your destiny
Shile character Shilong, originally named (bèi) Le, is a member of the Shangdang Wuxiang clan. His ancestors were descendants of the Xiongnu side branch Qiangqu, and his fathers had been small leaders in the tribe. From an early age, he showed something amazing, according to the records:
When Le Sheng, the red light filled the room, and the white air belonged to the atrium from the sky, and those who saw it were different. In the fourteenth year, with the people of Luoyang, leaning on the east gate, Wang Yan saw the difference, and said left and right: "To the Hu Yan, I look at his voice and vision have strange ambitions, I am afraid that it will be a disaster for the world." "Gallop away, Huile has gone. ”
Shi Le's long howl when he was fourteen years old was noticed by Wang Yan, the prime minister at the time, and even almost killed him. He often heard the sound of sword scabbards and bells clashing, and Schler went home to tell his mother, who told him, "It's tinnitus caused by exertion." However, this may be a harbinger of his blood on his hands for the rest of his life.
Iron halberd of the Western Jin Dynasty. ** Anxiang County Digital Museum, Changde City, Hunan Province.
In 302 A.D., the gears of fate began to turn quietly. Shile was one of the severe famine in the Bingzhou region where he lived, and a large number of people were forced into exile. Sima Teng, the assassin of Ke Bingzhou, had no intention of helping the people, but only sent troops to arrest the Hu people everywhere and sell them as slaves in exchange for military rations and wealth. Shile was sold into slavery several times during his escape, it is recorded:
Le then submerged to surrender to Li Chuan, the road met Guo Jing, crying and saying that he was hungry and cold. Respect them to the runny nose, bring goods to eat them, and give them clothes. ”
There is also a number of people who are more than 20 years old, and they are also among them, and the number is driven by Long. ”
It can be seen that he was humiliated and beaten in the ranks of the Hu slaves who were sold, and in order to survive, he even proposed to Guo Jing, who had saved him: lure the Hu people to flee and arrest and sell them while they were unprepared, in order to seek a way out. But this offer did not help Shile to escape the fate of slavery. After that, Shile was sold again, the last time to Shi Huan (also known as Shi Huan). Shi Huan thought that Shi Le had a strange appearance and could not be abused, so he was exempted from his slave status. There was a horse ranch near Shi Huan's house, where there was Jisang, who was good at horses, and Shi Le took the opportunity to get acquainted with Jisang, and began the process of recruiting troops and horses. However, at this time, they were only going around looting and plundering property, and they did not think about how to gain a foothold in society in the long run.
Western Jin Dynasty painted pottery horses. ** Sanmenxia Museum.
In 304 AD, civil strife broke out again in the Western Jin Dynasty. Unwilling to sit idly by, Shi Le and Ji Sang rebelled, and soon became a military force to be reckoned with.
At this time, Shile did not know what kind of path he would take in the future.
From slave to overlord, the "bloodthirsty" hero
In the face of the threat of the Shile army, the Western Jin Dynasty will naturally not sit idly by. Jin Taifu sent troops to crusade, Shile was defeated, and Jisang was killed. He turned to Liu Yuan, the "King of Han", a Xiongnu nobleman, and helped him subdue a Wuhuan army, so he was reused by Liu Yuan. On the surface, Shi Le was a subordinate of the Han king, but in fact he was also expanding his power through war. One of these battles was extremely crucial, that is, the battle of Jizhou.
In the first month of 308 AD, Liu Cong and other ten Xiongnu "Han King" generals went south to occupy the Taihang Mountain area, and Shi Le led an army of 7,000 as the forward governor. Liu Kun, the assassin of the Western Jin Dynasty and the state, sent the protector Huang Xiu and others to rescue Huguan, and Shi Le killed Huang Xiu in Baitian and captured Huguan while he was victorious. Later, Shi Le and other generals went east to attack many fortresses in Wei County, Ji County and Dunqiu, and they were invincible.
Map of the Taihang Mountains in the Western Jin Dynasty. ** Tan Qixiang, Historical Atlas of China
In the same year, Liu Yuan was proclaimed emperor, and Shi Le led an army to attack Yecheng, and the defenders of Yecheng were scattered. He attacked Zhao County and killed Feng Chong, the governor of the western part of Jizhou. Soon after, Liu Yuan granted General Shile Anton, allowing him to open a government and set up bureaucrats. Shi Le attacked Julu and Changshan again, captured more than 100 barriers in Jizhou counties and counties, and the number of soldiers reached more than 100,000.
At this time, Shile was not satisfied with his military strength alone. Years of battlefield experience have made him more deeply aware of the importance of intelligence and strategy, according to records:
Its well-dressed characters are set as the Gentlemen's Battalion. It is to introduce Zhang Bin as the mastermind, the first military merit Cao, with Diao Ying and Zhang Jing as the humerus, Kui An and Kong Chang as the minions, and Zhixiong, Huyanmo, Wang Yang, Taobao, Lu Ming, Wu Yu and so on as the generals. ”
He gathered talented people together, called the "gentleman's camp", and set up a mastermind, and set up many advisers and generals. From then on, the army of Schle really became a military force that was resourceful and good at fighting.
Shile sent generals to other places to persuade the Hu people, and analyzed the pros and cons of the situation with them, and many people came to join him because of his prestige, and tens of thousands of people surrendered before and after. On the one hand, Shi Le showed no mercy to the surrender of troops and the promotion of officials, and killed tens of thousands of people by "pit more than 10,000 soldiers", on the other hand, he paid attention to rewarding the brave and loyal people under his command, as well as the talented people of the Han nationality, in order to attract people's hearts. This positive and negative approach has yielded good results. In 310 AD, Shile successfully captured the counties of Jizhou.
At this time, Liu Yuan also launched a general attack on the Western Jin Dynasty. In 311 AD, Shi Le took advantage of the chaos of the army after the death of Sima Yue, the commander-in-chief of the Western Jin Dynasty, to attack, resulting in the destruction of the entire army of the Western Jin Dynasty, which was also the last army strength of the Western Jin Dynasty. In the same year, Emperor Huai of Jin was captured. The political situation of the Liu Han Kingdom was unstable, and Shi Le also took the opportunity to become independent and continue to develop his power east of Luoyang. He showed no mercy to the obstacles that stood in his way and uprooted them one by one. In the face of Wang Mi, Shi Le used the method of "Hongmen Banquet" to trap him;In the face of Liu Kun, Shi Le took the opportunity to kill people with a knife, took advantage of the contradiction between Xianbei and him, and used counter-plots to get rid of him. In the face of Zu Ti who "smelled the chicken and danced", he first took gentle measures to stabilize Zu Ti, and when his Northern Expedition ended in depression, he wiped out all of his clan. In this way, this "bloodthirsty" tyrant unified the entire North China Plain and formed a confrontation with the Liu dynasty.
In 317, Emperor Chu of the Jin Dynasty was captured, and the Western Jin Dynasty perished. Previously, the Liu regime and Shi Le were nominally monarchs or allies, but after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, what will happen to their relationship?
Situation map of the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. ** Atlas of the History of Chinese Wars, Military Museum of the Chinese Revolution, Planet Map Publishing House, 2007.
A controversial figure who unified the North
In 318 AD, Liu Yao was proclaimed emperor. Seeing this, Shi Le immediately sent troops to annex the state, took the lead in breaking through the Han capital Pingyang, burned down the Pingyang palace, and migrated the armillary spheres and musical instruments of Pingyang to Xiangguo. Since then, Shile has officially broken with Liu. In 319 AD, Liu Yao moved the capital to Chang'an, changed the country name to "Zhao", and was known as "Former Zhao" in history. In the same year, Shi Le also became king in Xiangguo, and the country name was also "Zhao", known as "Later Zhao" in history.
The battle of Shile to unify the north. ** Atlas of the History of Chinese Wars, Military Museum of the Chinese Revolution, Planet Map Publishing House, 2007.
The clouds of war loom over the north, and everyone is waiting for their time.
In 324 AD, Shi Sheng, the assassin of Sizhou, attacked and killed Yin Ping, the former Zhao Henan Taishou, and plundered more than 5,000 households in Xin'an County. This behavior was like a spark, which ignited two powder kegs in an instant. The two countries began to fight on a large scale, and in this war, the former Zhao was repeatedly defeated, and the latter Zhao had all the lands of Si, Henan, Xu, and Yan. In 328 AD, Liu Yao led the whole country to repel the attack of Shi Le's nephew Shi Hu, and took advantage of the situation to attack Luoyang, which was defended by Zhao Shisheng, and flooded the city with water, and at the same time sent generals to attack Ji County and Hanoi County, and Zhao was in danger. Seeing this, Shi Le ignored the dissuasion and insisted on rescuing Luoyang in person. Until the end of the year, Shi Le made peace with the Later Zhao Zhujun, and saw that Liu Yao did not have a defender, so he sneaked with light troops. Liu Yao did not begin to prepare for defense until after Shile crossed the Yellow River, and he was in disarray, and the general lined up in the west of Luoyang. And Schle's prediction of this has long been true:
Yao Sheng's army became Gao Pass, and the plan was also;Blocking Luo water, followed by also;Those who sit in Luoyang are also captured. ”
He believed that it was the best policy for Liu Yao to set up a large army to defend Chenggao Pass, and it was the middle policy for the troops to intercept him in Luoshui, and it was the best strategy to sit in Luoyang, and he would only be captured alive by himself. In fact, the Later Zhao army defeated the former Zhao and captured Liu Yao alive. The news of Liu Yao's defeat soon spread throughout the north, and the former Prince Zhao who stayed in Chang'an was shocked when he found out, abandoned the city and fled. Finally, in August of that year, the former Zhao Liu Yin led the army ** Chang'an was defeated by Shi Hu, and all the princes and ministers of the former Zhao were hunted and killed by Shi Hu, and in the same year, Shi Le also killed Liu Yao, and the former Zhao perished.
After this war, the former Zhao was completely out, and various forces came to cling to it when they saw this. In 330 A.D., Shile was officially proclaimed emperor. From then until Shile's death, there were almost no major wars in the Central Plains.
Shile was officially proclaimed emperor and established the Later Zhao regime. ** Tan Qixiang, Historical Atlas of China
Shile was born as a slave, but in the end he was able to rule the world, not only because of his talent, but also because he was good at learning. There are deeper reasons for his military success. Scholars such as Sima Guang in history and Li Zhiwen and Li Qingfeng in modern times have had some good evaluations of Shi Le. Although he was a military general, he was particularly fond of literature and history
Shi Le did not know the book, so he made people read the Book of Han. After hearing that Li Shi persuaded him to establish the Six Kingdoms, he engraved the seal and gave it, and was shocked: "This law should be lost, how can the clouds have the world!".'To stay in the marquis' advice, he said: 'Rely on this ear!'’”
Because he was illiterate, Shile often asked people to read the Book of Han to himself. When he heard that Li Shiqi (a native of the late Qin and Chu Han dynasties, Liu Bang's subordinates) persuaded Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, to make the descendants of the Six Kingdoms a prince, and Liu Bang immediately engraved the title and conferred the title, he exclaimed: "This practice will lose the world, how can you finally get the world!"When he heard Zhang Liang's dissuasion, he breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Thanks to (Zhang Liang)!."”
Qing Guangxu imitated the ancient pavilion book "Han Shu" photocopy. ** Pu'an County Digital Museum, Southwest Guizhou Province, Guizhou Province.
Another example: Le Yinfang Goguryeo, Yuwenwu lonely envoy, drunk, Xu Guang said: "I have opened the foundation since ancient times, what kind of lord is it?"He said: "Your Majesty's martial arts strategy is higher than that of the Emperor Gao, and the heroic art is superior to Wei Zu, and it has been incomparable since the three kings, and its Xuanyuan is Yahu!."Le smiled and said: "Don't people know that they are too much." If I meet the high emperor, when the north is in the matter, I compete with Han Peng and compete for the first ear. When it meets Guangwu, when it is driven to the Central Plains, it is unknown who killed the deer. The eldest husband should act like the sun and the moon, and he can't be like Cao Mengde and Sima Zhongda's father and son, deceive his orphans and widows, and be charming to win the world. I should be in the ear between the two Liu, Xuanyuan is not what to imitate!"All his ministers immediately said long live. ”
This passage is to say that when Shile feasted the envoys of Goguryeo and Yuwenwugu, and when the wine was in full swing, Shile said to his subordinate Xu Guang: "What kind of monarch am I counted as the emperor who has created the imperial industry since ancient times?"Xu Guang took this opportunity to slap Shi Le's ass, but Shi Le's mind was very clear. He thought that if he met Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, he would definitely be a minister, and he would go hand in hand with Han Xin and Peng Yue, and strive to be the first. If you meet Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, you don't know who killed the deer. He went on to say that the eldest husband should act above board, like the sun and the moon, and should not be like Cao Mengde, Sima Zhongda, father and son, bullying orphans and widows, and using obscene means to seize the world. Schler's assessment is still cited by many as one of the criteria for evaluating emperors.
As Sima Guang commented:
Le Yiyuan Cong was remnant, rising between the stars, even millions of people, rampant all over the world, and mourned the Jin room. Capture Xixi in the east, Wang Jun in the north, Liu Kun in the west, and Yanyu in the south, all of which are like picking up mustard. Liu Yaoxi's victory over the might, long drive Yiluo, have the ambition to annex Shandong, raise the whip, Yao was bound, and then annexed the country, the central region, Qiang Xian obeyed his talents, and those who did not have others could do so. ”
But in that case, why did the Later Zhao regime come to an end after only more than 30 years of existence?
Some believe that he and his sergeants still retained the savage habit of "cannibalism" and targeted civilians or prisoners of war. This bloody way exacerbated the contradictions between the ruler and the people, and hastened the demise of Later Zhao. This kind of view actually imposed on Shi Le's successor, Shi Hu and his son Shi Di. According to the Book of Jin:
The people have beautiful women and good cattle and horses, and they can't ask for it, so they are falsely accused of committing beasts, and more than 100 families have died. ”
Shi Di) and the bhikshunis in the posture, with whom they profane and kill, boiled and eaten with beef and mutton, and also gave them left and right, in order to know their taste. ”
These actions provoked public outrage, and the Later Zhao Dynasty continued to have civil strife and frequent uprisings, and finally perished in 351 AD.
In addition, in fact, the phenomenon of "cannibalism" is not uncommon in the Book of Jin, and Shile's army also has it: "The roads that Lele crosses are all strong walls and clear fields, and there is nothing to be found in the plunder, and there is a great hunger in the army, and the soldiers cannibalize each other." However, the only account of "cannibalism on the march" is that soldiers killed each other because of hunger, not prisoners of war or ordinary people. There is also a "Le to ride around and shoot it, trampling each other like a mountain." More than 100,000 people died. Wang Midi burned the rest of the people and ate them. The record was done by Shi Le's younger brother Wang Zhang, who was with Wang Mi when he was serving under Liu Yuan.
However, in addition to the aforementioned points, Shile did treat prisoners of war too cruelly, such as in April, when he caught up with the Jin army at Ningpingcheng in Kuxian County (northeast of present-day Dancheng, Henan). Wang Yan sent the general Qian Duan to face Shi Le, but was defeated by Shi Le, and Qian Duan died in battle. The Jin army was defeated, Shi Le divided his troops to surround and shoot the Jin army, the corpses of the Jin army were piled up, and more than 100,000 soldiers were killed, none of whom were spared. In any case, the slave-born, controversial "bloodthirsty" tyrant swept away obstacles and unified the north with thunderous means. Although he was fierce and even cruel on the battlefield, his governance and governance also gave the people a chance to breathe and develop.