The year 2023 has come to an end, and a new year beckons to us. Stepping into the New Year, the first thing to usher in is the first holiday - New Year's Day.
One is renewed, and everything is renewed. Yuan, which means "Yuan Chu", represents the beginning;Dan is the sunrise, which signifies the beginning of the day. Therefore, "New Year's Day" means the first day of the first month of the year, and its concept has been widespread thousands of years ago, when civilization was born.
However, unlike the first day of January in the Gregorian calendar today, New Year's Day in ancient China refers to the first day of the first lunar month, which is the first day of the Lunar New Year, so if you want to experience the "ancient system", you will have to wait two months.
For people nowadays, when they hear the words "New Year", "New Year" and "New Year's Day", they will always immediately think of the joyful red, the warm reunion of the family, the sumptuous dinner and the sound of firecrackers in childhood memories. For people in ancient times, "New Year's Day" was also a lively and joyful scene. Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty once wrote a poem with the title of "Yuan Ri":
In the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into Tusu.
Thousands of households always replace the new peach with the old one.
However, as the beginning of spring and the tail of winter, the New Year is not always peaceful and beautiful.
In fact, the ancient New Year, or winter in ancient times, is a very special time, and many major events will happen in winter.
The first is the marriage ceremony, ancient China belongs to the agricultural society, spring planting and autumn harvest, intensive farming, friends who have had rural life experience know that sowing, seedling, harvesting have a very precise time point, once missed it is easy to affect the growth and yield of crops, so it is always very busy all year round. Only when the harvest is complete and the granary is full, can you rest for a while in winter. Therefore, in ancient times, folk entertainment, including wedding and other celebrations, was mostly concentrated in winter.
Another thing is war. The principle is the same, in ancient times, soldiers also needed to farm in peacetime, and in the era of low productivity, no monarch would choose to start a war during the busy agricultural season, because conscripting the army would consume a lot of labor, which would lead to the waste of fertile land. Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty requisitioned too many young and middle-aged people because he sent troops to Goguryeo three times, and even gathered many female soldiers in the later period, so that the world fell into famine, and people from all walks of life revolted one after another, and finally lost the country.
Therefore, the New Year's Day represents the New Year not necessarily means joy and tranquility, but may also hide the shadow of swords.
A war report from a thousand years ago sparked a coup d'état
On the first day of the first month of the first month of 960 AD, a war report from the front line reached the court of the Later Zhou Dynasty: the Liao State and the Northern Han Dynasty invaded the south, and the situation was very critical, and the court was requested to send troops to rescue as soon as possible.
Many people know something about the Liao State in history, and know that this is the "old enemy" of the Song Dynasty, and often appears as a villain in film and television themes such as "Yang Jiajiang". However, at this time, the Song Dynasty had not yet been born, and the Later Zhou Dynasty and the Northern Han Dynasty both belonged to the secession regime during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
In 907 AD, the Tang Dynasty collapsed, and then in the Central Plains there were five dynasties of the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han and the Later Five Dynasties, and at the same time, there were ten local separatist regimes in various places, known as the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period. In 950, the Later Han general Guo Wei rebelled, seized the throne of the Later Han Dynasty, and established the Later Zhou. Four years later, Guo Wei died, and his adopted son Chai Rong ascended the throne. On July 27, 959, Chai Rong died of illness in Tokyo (now Kaifeng City, Henan Province) at the age of 39His son Chai Zongxun succeeded to the throne at the age of 7. The so-called Northern Han Dynasty was the only local secession regime in the north during the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period, and its capital was located in Jinyang (now Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province). Liu Chong, the emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty, accepted the canonization of the Liao State and called himself the "Nephew Emperor", so the joint attack of the Liao State and the Northern Han Dynasty on the Later Zhou Dynasty was formed.
When the report of the first battle of the first month of the first month came, Zhao Kuangyin also served as the commander of the palace in the later Zhou Dynasty (the highest commander of the capital garrison), and concurrently served as the envoy of Songzhou (now Shangqiu City, Henan Province) to the German army, and belonged to the military generals with military power.
After receiving the battle report from the front, the imperial court held an emergency meeting overnight to study countermeasures. Under the strong recommendation of Deputy Prime Minister Wang Pu, Prime Minister Fan Zhen decided to let Zhao Kuangyin lead troops to meet the enemy. However, Zhao Kuangyin shirked in every possible way, saying that the troops in his hands were not enough, not enough to resist the Liaohan coalition army.
Faced with the pressure of the army, Prime Minister Fan Zhen had no choice but to hand over the command of the Guards Division to Zhao Kuangyin, and let him command the two troops of the Palace Front Division and the Guards Division to go north to resist the attack of the Liao State and the Northern Han Dynasty coalition army.
However, doing so went against the last wishes of Emperor Sejong Chai Young. Because, the front division of the palace is the garrison of the capital, and the guard division is the emperor's guard force, and these two troops together constitute the emperor's janissaries. Chai Rong arranged the funeral during his serious illness, and thought that his son Chai Zongxun was only 7 years old and could not control the government, so he demoted some generals who held military power and transferred them out of the capital, so that the generals of the forbidden army who remained in the city checked and balanced each other, so as to prevent any general from holding the power of the forbidden army alone, so as to threaten the position of the new emperor. Zhao Kuangyin was inspected in front of the palace at that time, but he was only the supreme commander of the front division of the palace, and now the prime minister handed over the guard division to Zhao Kuangyin, Zhao Kuangyin became the commander-in-chief of the forbidden army, and the two most elite troops in the latter Zhou were commanded by him, so the checks and balances within the forbidden army set up by Emperor Sejong Chai Rong were completely broken.
After Zhao Kuangyin served as the commander-in-chief of the forbidden army, he immediately ordered Murong Yanzhao, the deputy capital of the palace, to lead the leading troops to set off one day earlier and go north to meet the enemy.
Regarding the relationship between Murong Yanzhao and Zhao Kuangyin, there are two theories: one is that the relationship between the two is very close, and they call each other brothers, and Zhao Kuangyin respectfully calls Murong Yanzhao his brother;The other is that the relationship between the two is relatively estranged, although Murong Yanzhao's status in the forbidden army is inferior to Zhao Kuangyin, but his reputation is comparable to Zhao Kuangyin, which is enough to fight against him.
These two statements are not contradictory. If the relationship between the two is good, Zhao Kuangyin trusts Murong Yanzhao's ability, so he sends him north to defend the Liao army;If the relationship between the two is average, as soon as Murong Yanzhao leaves, no one around Zhao Kuangyin will hinder him, and the entire forbidden army will be Zhao Kuangyin alone.
However, not long after the vanguard troops left the city, such news began to circulate everywhere in Kaifeng City: "On the day the army sets out, it will be checked for the day!."When the residents of the city heard the news, they all thought that there was another change of dynasty, so they prepared to flee.
During the Five Dynasties period, dynasties changed too frequently, and each change was accompanied by brutal wars and bloody killings. Therefore, as soon as the people of the capital heard that they were going to change the Son of Heaven, they immediately fell into a panic.
Celestial anomalies: just an excuse to shape **
However, the panic of the people in the capital did not have the slightest impact on Zhao Kuangyin, and the day after Murong Yanzhao took the lead in the departure of the troops, Zhao Kuangyin led the army out of the city and went north in a hurry.
However, when the large army had just arrived at Chenqiaoyi (now Chenqiao Town, Fengqiu County, Henan Province), which was more than 40 miles away from Kaifeng City, Zhao Kuangyin suddenly ordered: The army stopped advancing and camped on the spot. At this time, the vanguard led by Murong Yanzhao had crossed the Yellow River and continued to advance north. However, the follow-up troops led by Zhao Kuangyin did not move at Chenqiaoyi, and distanced themselves from the vanguard troops, what did Zhao Kuangyin want to do?
In the evening of this day, the sky ** appeared a solar halo phenomenon, which was described in the history books as "round rainbow". There was a man named Miao Xun in the army, who claimed to know how to observe the sky, pointed to the "round rainbow" in the sky and said: "I see that there is a day after day, and the black light is swaying. Then he said to one of Zhao Kuangyin's cronies: "This destiny is also!."”
In fact, this Miao Xun is not a soldier but a Taoist priest, who studied under the Taoist master Chen Tuan, who invented the "Innate Diagram", and is good at astronomical astronomy and astronomy, and is good at strategy. In the ** opera of later generations, Miao Xun was described as Zhao Kuangyin's military advisor, as famous as Zhuge Liang and Xu Maogong.
Yuanhong was originally a very ordinary natural celestial phenomenon, but Miao Xun used this celestial phenomenon to fabricate a prophecy and incite the soldiers in the barracks: "The big sun at the bottom is about to swallow the little sun above!"These words spread quickly in the barracks, and the sergeants believed that this was the will of God, so they gathered together to plan: the current emperor is young and has no ability to govern, and he must be a little sun that has been swallowed up, and it is not worth our lives for him at all. They were determined to proclaim Zhao Kuangyin as the Son of Heaven and then go north to defend against the Liao invasion. Among them, the leaders are Zhao Pu and Zhao Kuangyi, both of whom are Zhao Kuangyin's cronies, Zhao Kuangyi is Zhao Kuangyin's brother, but after Zhao Kuangyin ascended the throne and became emperor, he changed his name to Zhao Guangyi in order to avoid secrecy.
After the agreement, in the early morning of the next day, everyone rushed into the military tent where Zhao Kuangyin was resting, and without saying anything, they put the yellow robe that had been prepared first on Zhao Kuangyin's body, and then knelt on the ground and shouted in unison: "Long live my emperor, long live, long live!"”
Zhao Kuangyin seemed to have just woken up from drunkenness, and said that he would not wear the yellow robe that his subordinates draped on him. However, in the face of the officers kneeling together, Zhao Kuangyin couldn't refuse for a while, so he had to say: "You must agree to my conditions, otherwise I will never be the emperor." All the soldiers replied in unison: "Your Majesty, please command." Zhao Kuangyin said: "First, the queen mother and the young emperor must not be allowed;."Second, we must respect all ministers and ministers;Thirdly, it is forbidden to rob citizens and warehouses. Those who obey orders will be rewarded, and those who violate orders will be punished!The soldiers shouted in unison, "No!."Zhao Kuangyin put on a yellow robe, and with an order, the army returned to Kaifeng City.
After entering Kaifeng City, Zhao Kuangyin immediately returned to the front of the palace, took off his yellow robe, and ordered the soldiers to bring Prime Minister Fan Zhen and others to the front of the palace. Fan Zhen faced the wolf-like soldiers, and asked Zhao Kuangyin without fear: "The first emperor treated you like his own son, and now that the first emperor's bones are not cold, how can you do such a thing?"Zhao Kuangyin suddenly burst into tears, crying and saying: "The first emperor is as kind to me as a mountain, but I was coerced by my soldiers, and I can't help it!."At this point, I am ashamed of heaven and earth, how can this be good?”
Before Zhao Kuangyin's crying ended, one of his officers drew his saber and threatened: "We people can't do without a master, and we must confirm the Son of Heaven today." Fan Zhen saw that the general trend had gone, so he had to ask Zhao Kuangyin to hold a Zen ceremony, and then treat the queen mother like a mother who served him, and the young master like his own son, so as to live up to the old favor of the first emperor. Zhao Kuangyin agreed one by one.
On the fourth day of the first month of the seventh year of Zhou Xiande (960), Zhao Kuangyin held a Zen ceremony in Chongyuan Hall and officially ascended the throne as emperor. The next day, Zhao Kuangyin announced that the era name would be changed to "Jianlong". Because Zhao Kuangyin had previously served as the commander of the palace and the envoy of the German army, the garrison of the German army was in Songzhou (now Shangqiu City, Henan Province).Therefore, the name of the new dynasty was set as "Song", and Kaifeng Mansion continued to be the capital, known as the "Northern Song Dynasty" in history.
A new dynasty was born in one day.
Was the Chenqiao Mutiny premeditated or accidental?
Whether it is the official history or the wild history, the description of the Chen Qiaoyi mutiny is roughly the same, which makes people feel like an unexpected event stimulated by strange celestial phenomena. Zhao Kuangyin was forced by his subordinates to become the emperor. So, is that really the case?If this is not a coincidence, but a premeditation, who is the mastermind behind it?If you want to solve this mystery, you have to start with the deathbed of Emperor Chai Rong of the Later Zhou Dynasty.
When Sejong was dying, he said to the ministers Fan Zhen and Zhao Kuangyin beside him: "The old man of the Wang's Domain, if I don't shy away from it, I should be the prime minister." It means "After I die, let Wang Shu be the prime minister."
Wang Shu is a very capable and resourceful man. Sejong always wanted him to be the prime minister, but he couldn't make up his mind because he was worried about the king's problem with good wine, and he was afraid that he would make a mistake after drinking. However, when he was dying, he explained to the two ministers who took care of his life, and let Wang Zhu be the prime minister after his death, which shows Chai Rong's affirmation and trust in Wang Zhu's ability.
After Sejong's death, these two ministers did not carry out the emperor's will. Why is that?
From the perspective of quality, there were already two prime ministers at that time - he and Wang Pu, although he was a "minister of life" and had an extraordinary status, he was still afraid that Wang Zhu would take his place after taking over as prime minister. From Cho Kuangyin's point of view, the non-execution of Emperor Sejong's will has a double significance: first, it removes the obstacles to his own march to the throne;Second, having a common secret with Fan Zhen is equivalent to pulling Fan Zhen into the same boat and forming an alliance on the road to power. Even if Fan Zhen is unwilling to cooperate in the future, it will be difficult to ride a tiger.
Since the two ministers have formed an alliance, why did Zhao Kuangyin stage the farce of "yellow robe and body" half a year after Sejong's death?
The reason is very simple, the military power at that time was not completely in the hands of its own people. As mentioned earlier, Sejong had long planned everything for his young son, and would never allow any general to have a chance to monopolize power. However, in the six months after Sejong's death, the appointment and arrangement of senior generals of the forbidden army changed in favor of Zhao Kuangyin.
First, when Sejong was alive, the former deputy capital of the palace was vacant for a long time, and after his death, Murong Yanzhao obtained this important position;Second, the high-ranking generals in the forbidden army, such as Shi Shouxin, the commander of the palace, the palace commander, Wang Xianqi, the guard commander Han Lingkun, the guard Sima Jun commanded Gao Huaide, and the guard Sibu Jun commanded Zhang Lingduo, all of whom were Zhao Kuangyin's sworn brothers.
In short, the main commander of the Later Zhou Forbidden Army was basically replaced by Zhao Kuangyin's people;The preparations for the seizure of power have been completed, and the supreme command of the Guards Division has not been grasped. At this time, news of a large-scale invasion of the Liao State came from the north. Taking advantage of the opportunity to resist the invasion of Liao, Zhao Kuangyin finally took all the command of the forbidden army into his own hands. Of course, without the support of Prime Minister Fan, Zhao Kuangyin would not have been able to do it.
However, the historical Zhao Kuangyin claimed that he knew nothing about the Chen Qiaoyi mutiny. But he has a flaw that cannot be concealed - time.
On the first day of the first lunar month, news of the invasion of the Liao State came from the north;On the second day of the first lunar month, the vanguard led by Murong Yanzhao set off for the north;On the third day of the first lunar month, Zhao Kuangyin personally led the main force to go out as a backup;On the fourth day of the first lunar month, Zhao Kuangyin took his men and horses back to Kaifeng City, and held a Zen ceremony on the same day. With the level of communication and transportation at that time, this speed was too fast, right?Obviously, the Liao army did not invade the south at all, and it was completely a deliberate rumor spread by someone, just to put pressure on the imperial court to grasp the military power, and to take the troops out of the city, playing this trick of "adding a yellow robe".
What's even more strange is that, according to common sense, if the rebels attack the capital to seize the throne, there will inevitably be a siege battle, and there will be a river of blood and human suffering. However, the troops led by Zhao Kuangyin entered Kaifeng City bloodlessly, why is this?
Because, before Zhao Kuangyin led the army to leave Kaifeng City, he arranged for his henchmen Shi Shouxin and Wang Xianqi to lead the people of the palace to guard Kaifeng City. When the army launched a mutiny at Chenqiaoyi, Zhao Guangyi sent his henchmen back to the capital on fast horses overnight, and informed Shi Shouxin, Wang Xianqi and others to prepare to respond. After Shi Shouxin and Wang Xianqi received the notice, they immediately issued an order that all soldiers were not allowed to sleep, that Kaifeng City should be strictly controlled, and that the mutinous troops should enter the city at any time. With these cronies and generals as internal responses, the mutinous troops led by Zhao Kuangyin successfully entered Kaifeng City.
The most powerful evidence to prove that Zhao Kuangyin was the mastermind behind the "Chenqiaoyi Mutiny" is a record by the Southern Song Dynasty historian Wang Mingqing in the fifth volume of the "Records of the Aftermath of the Wave"."Taizu Shizhou, ordered the Northern Expedition, sent to the Fengchan Temple with the Empress Dowager Du. Arrived at Chenqiao to push Dai, Han Tong heard the chaos, and urgently went to the temple to visit, wanting to cause harm. Those who are the chief monks and keepers will be spared with their bodies. It means that Zhao Kuangyin sent troops to the Northern Expedition and hid his mother, Mrs. Du and her family, in Fengchan Temple. The news of Chen Qiaoyi's mutiny reached Kaifeng, and after Han Tong heard about it, he came to the monastery to look for Zhao Kuangyin's family and wanted to kill them. Fortunately, an abbot of the monastery was able to survive with his body.
Han Tong was the deputy commander of the Guards Department at that time, and Zhao Kuangyin's sworn enemy was killed after Zhao Kuangyin led his troops into Kaifeng City. If Zhao Kuangyin really didn't plan to carry out a coup d'état, why did he hide his family in the temple in advance?Some people argued that it was Zhao Kuangyin's mother who happened to go to the temple to offer incense. This is not tenable at all, did anyone bring all their family members to the temple to offer incense?
What's even more interesting is that Zhao Kuangyin, at the request of the prime minister, decided to perform Zen and give courtesy, and Zhao Kuangyin couldn't wait to hold a Zen ceremony. However, when Zhao Kuangyin came to Chongyuan Hall to prepare for the Zen throne ceremony, the ** who presided over the ceremony found that there was no Zen edict. At this time, Tao Gu, a scholar of Hanlin, suddenly took out the edict of Zen Rang from his arms. If it wasn't premeditated in advance, how could Tao Gu prepare the edict of Zen in advance?In short, the enthronement ceremony was successfully completed. Then it was changed to "Jianlong" and the country name was changed to "Song". In one day, everything was done to establish a new dynasty, and how could all this have been possible if it had not been premeditated?
In short, the Chen Qiaoyi mutiny was definitely not an accident, but a coup d'état that had been planned for a long time. The mastermind behind it is none other than Zhao Kuangyin himself.
However, throughout the seizure of power, he was pretending to be an uninformed person. This made the process of the birth of the Song Dynasty full of accidents, coincidences and weirdness. Even so, we must admit that Zhao Kuangyin replaced Hou Zhou to establish the Song Dynasty, and this process was too perfectly planned. Due to the careful deployment of every step, there was no battle during the whole process, and Zhao Kuangyin did not encounter any resistance when he led the army back to Kaifeng, except for killing a Han Tong, there were almost no *** pieces. Zhao Kuangyin "is not bloody, and the city is not easy to be unscrupulous", and peacefully seized power in the form of accepting Zen concessions. Such a change of dynasty is rare in ancient Chinese history.
With the establishment of the Song Dynasty, since the outbreak of the "Anshi Rebellion" (755) in the Tang Dynasty, the people who had been struggling in bloody wars for more than two hundred years finally saw the dawn of peace and prosperity again, and an era of civilization stability and unprecedented prosperity was finally coming.