Emperor Liu Qi of the Han Dynasty was the key emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, but compared with his father Emperor Wen of Han and his son Emperor Wu of Han, the historical evaluation of him by later generations is much inferior, but even so, the 16 years of his reign are still an important period that cannot be denied.
When Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, he appointed Liu Qi as the crown prince at the suggestion of his ministers, and some ministers at that time proposed that the cultivation of heirs to the throne was very important, especially Jia Yi and Chao Cuo. So Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty selected some people as the prince's mentors, among which the biggest influence on Liu Qi was Chao Cuo, Liu Qi could be said to be obedient to him, and he became the most important advisor around Liu Qi.
When Liu Qi was still relatively young, he drank with Liu Xian, the crown prince of Wu King Liu Bi, and played six games of chess. Because Liu Xian has a frivolous and fierce personality, and he is usually very arrogant, he had an argument with Liu Qi during the game of chess, and the angry Liu Qi picked up the chessboard and smashed Liu Xian, but unexpectedly smashed him to death.
After this incident, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty sent Liu Xian's body back to Wu for burial, but Liu Wei began to resent Liu Qi from then on, which not only made Liu Qi's life appear a bloodstained page, but also laid more hidden dangers for the deterioration of the relationship between *** and the local princes.
When Liu Qi became Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, he let the most trusted Chao Cuo serve as the internal historian, and later let Chao Cuo be the imperial historian, allowing him to enter the inner circle of Western Han politics. After that, Chao Cuo told Emperor Jing of Han to be especially wary of Liu Bi, the most powerful king of Wu, because at this time Liu Bi had been secretly preparing for forty years, he not only minted money and boiled salt to sell privately, but also recruited fugitives, and the rebellion had become more and more obvious. Therefore, Chao Cuo strongly advocated that Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty cut the fiefs of the kings - that is, cut the feudal domains.
Soon Emperor Jing of Han followed Chao Cuo's advice and decided to first cut down the two counties of Huiji and Yuzhang of Wu. Seeing that the imperial court was starting to move, Liu Bi was unwilling to be captured, so in 154 BC, he united with the princes and kings of various places and launched a rebellion on the grounds of "punishing Chao Cuo, Qing Jun's side (killing Chao Cuo, and clearing out the traitorous ministers beside the monarch)". A total of seven princes and kings participated in this rebellion, which is known as the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms".
Of course, Emperor Han Jing knew that even if he killed Chao Cuo, he would not change the immediate result, but in order to make his division famous, he still killed Chao Cuo.
Later, things developed as Emperor Jing of Han thought, the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms did not stop because of Chao Cuo's death, so Emperor Jing of Han asked Zhou Yafu to lead the troops to quell the rebellion, and finally Zhou Yafu adopted the strategy of cutting off the rebels' grain route and then holding on, and completely quelled the rebellion in three months.
After the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms was pacified, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty took advantage of the fatal blow to the power of the princes and kings with the same surname to take the branches and border counties of the princely states into the possession of the imperial court, and then took a series of measures to weaken the power of the princes and kings to strengthen the centralization of power: continue to implement Jia Yi's plan of "building princes and less strength", and successively divided the princes into princes and kings; The power of the princes and kings to appoint and dismiss feudal officials and collect taxes was abolished, so that they could only collect the taxes of their respective countries in the amount prescribed by the imperial court; It was stipulated that the princes and kings could no longer continue to govern the feudal state, but that the emperor would send officials to govern; Reform the official system of the vassal states, change the prime minister to the prime minister, and eliminate most of the officials such as the imperial historian.
Since then, the counties of the princely kingdoms have been reduced from 42 counties to 26 counties during the Han Gao Emperor period, and the counties directly governed by the ** have increased from 15 counties to 44 counties during the Han Gao Emperor period, and the vast majority of the princely kingdoms only have one county, and their actual status has been reduced to the county level, and the country and the county are basically the same, completely changing the power contrast between the *** and the local princes.
In this way, the princes and kings gradually lost their political power, so that the princes who had posed a threat to the emperor since the early years of the Western Han Dynasty were controlled, although the princes and kings still existed at this time, but Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty had laid a good foundation for further attacks on the princes and kings during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
At the same time as attacking the princes and kings, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty also began to take measures against the military group.
Since the military merit group monopolized the positions of the prime minister and most of the three dukes in the early Han Dynasty, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty gradually lifted the control of the military merit group over the positions of the three dukes by removing the lieutenant and killing Zhou Yafu. Immediately after appointing cool officials such as Zhidu and Ning Cheng, he cracked down on the Marquis of Che (the highest rank of the 20th rank in the Qin and Han dynasties) who were awarded by Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty through misdemeanors and heavy punishments, and used the method of indiscriminate titles to cause a large number of low title recipients to appear in the country, so that the incomplete hereditary class (the first to the eighteenth rank of the 20th rank of the lord) lost a series of privileges brought by military merit.
In addition, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty's economic actions were also an important prerequisite for consolidating the rule of the Western Han Dynasty.
Because Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty continued to adopt the rule of inaction, the implementation of the policy of light taxation and resting with the people, not long after the accession to the throne, the land rent was reduced by half, that is, the fifteen taxes were reduced to thirty taxes, so the land rent tax rate has since become a custom of the Western Han Dynasty. Later, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty postponed the age at which men could begin to serve in conscription by three years, shortening the length of service. In addition, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty took back the right to mint coins from the state, and while enriching the treasury, he was able to crack down on the princes and kings who profited from coinage. Therefore, the Han Dynasty during this period further recovered the loss of national strength caused by years of war, and greatly reduced the burden on the people.
At the same time, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty continued to carry out the construction of Ma Zheng. He not only expanded the horse gardens located in the west and north, but also encouraged the counties and the people to breed horses, so that the horse breeding industry has developed greatly during this period, of which the number of horses belonging to the government has grown to 400,000, which greatly increased the military power of the Han Dynasty.
Externally, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty continued to adopt a policy of peace with the Xiongnu to appease the Xiongnu, and at the same time set up a guan city in the border area of the Xiongnu and carried out ** with them, which reduced the harassment of the Xiongnu to a certain extent.
It is under this premise that the first rule in the history of Chinese imperial system, "Wenjing Zhizhi", initiated by Emperor Wen of Han and inherited by Emperor Jing of Han, brought decades of peace to the people, and thus set an example for successive generations of promising monarchs in Chinese history to govern the country, and this period of time has also become an eternal memory in the soul of every Chinese with the inheritance of Han culture. **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan