The Dangxiang people are a nation with no sense of existence in Chinese history. Compared with the Xiongnu, Turkic, and Tubo who had brought infinite troubles to the most prosperous Central Plains dynasties such as the Han and Tang Dynasties, or the Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols who had bullied the weak two Song dynasties to the point that life was worse than death, and even the Xianbei, Di, and Shatuo forces that had only been the overlords of the Central Plains for a while, the Western Xia established by the Dangxiang people was always pressed to death by the Song, Liao, Jin and other enemy countries on the barren land in the northwest. Therefore, don't look at the party members who are aggressive like Pingtou brothers, catch and bite whom, and the record looks quite dazzling, but in fact, the front line has been circling in the ravines and ravines at the door of the house, and people will steal the ...... at every turn if they are not careful
The aggressive party members also have the most tragic ending.
Therefore, in the 189 years of the end of the Western Xia Kingdom, let alone the destruction of the country, even the core cities such as Chang'an and Datong, which seem to be close at hand, have not been touched, and it can be said that they will be lonely when they fight back and forth.
Some people have compared the more than 100-year confrontation between the Liao, Song (Western) and Xia Kingdoms with the Dingli of the Wei, Shu and Wu Kingdoms, but they have not been recognized much, and one of the important reasons is that the Western Xia is too weak. Even the Northern Song Dynasty, which was tossed the most anxious by the party members, always regarded the Western Xia as a disease of ringworm and scabies, and their henchmen were first the Khitans, and then the Jurchens, but they had never had the turn of the party members.
Compared with Wei Shu and Wu, the Western Xia, whose strength is too weak, is not worthy of being called Song Liao.
But it was this Western Xia Dynasty, which was looked down upon because of its weak national strength, but it was like a small power that could not be defeated - not only survived the two strong enemies of the (Northern) Song and Liao, but even the most fierce Mongols at that time took 22 years and launched 5 large-scale wars to destroy the Western Xia.
The price paid by the Mongols was even more tragic, that is, the fall of a generation of Tianjiao Temujin.
In fact, if it weren't for the unreliable emperor Li An'an in Western Xia, the Mongols would have to pay more time and greater costs if they wanted to completely conquer the Dangxiang.
Xia Xiangzong Li An'an was the seventh emperor of Western Xia. His grandfather is Xia Chongzong Li Qianshun, and the latter has 3 sons - the eldest son Li Renai was originally the crown prince, but because he is a mixed-race child (his biological mother Yelu Nanxian is the princess of Cheng'an of the Liao State) is very dissatisfied with his father sitting back and watching the Jin State destroy the Liao, and was finally angry to death. The second son Li Renxiao (also a mixed-race child, whose biological mother Cao is Han) was able to become the first person on the throne of the Western Xia Emperor, and it was Xia Renzong. And after Li Renxiao's death, he passed the throne to his son Li Chunyou, who was Xia Huanzong.
Li An'an, who reigned for only six years, opened the curtain of the fall of the Western Xia, which was both a natural disaster and a man-made disaster.
Li Qianshun's youngest son, Li Renyou, did not have such good luck. Seeing that his second brother died in the Northern Song Dynasty, he refused to die of anger, so he was destined to have no chance with the throne and could only be a king. And Li An'an, the son of Li Renyou, looks even more bleak in the future. After all, Li Renxiao has reigned for 55 years, and his orthodox status is deeply rooted, who can shake it?
But Li An'an is not convinced: I have the same grandfather as you Li Chunyou, why can you be the emperor, and I have to be a minister?
In particular, Li Chunyou was still cautious, not only did he not allow Li An'an to inherit his father's title of King Yue, but also demoted him to the king of Zhenyi County for no reason, which aroused the latter's anger. However, if he wants to confront the emperor head-on, Li An'an's strength is still not enough, so he showed a trick - seducing Li Chunyou's own mother, Empress Dowager Luo.
Because all kinds of archives were almost burned by the Mongols after the fall of the Western Xia, it is impossible to know what kind of means Li An'an used to make Empress Dowager Luo confused, and actually agreed to join forces with him to kill his own son. But judging from the result, Li An'an killed Li Chunyou and established himself as emperor. And Empress Dowager Luo didn't seem to get any benefits, and since then she has lost her trace in the historical materials, most likely because she was used as a rag and threw it away.
Then Li An'an did the promising job of the emperor, and then another clan carried out a coup d'état and killed Li An'an, the eighth emperor of Western Xia, Xia Shenzong Li Zunwei.
At this time, it has only been 6 years since Li An'an became emperor.
It is said that although the state of Western Xia is less than 200 years old, there have only been 10 emperors before and after, and the average reign time is close to 19 years - this is a remarkable record that can rank among the top three in Chinese history.
The fact that the poor and weak country of Western Xia was able to hold out for 189 years has a lot to do with the long reign of the emperor in the early period and the strong continuity of national policy.
Among them, Li Qianshun and Li Renxiao have made great contributions, and the two of them have reigned together for 109 years, not only occupying nearly 3 5 years of time in the Western Xia Kingdom, but also forcibly dividing the development process of a dynasty into three completely different stages.
The first stage is from the founding of Xia Jingzong Li Yuanhao to the 55 years of the reign of Xia Yizong Li Liangzuo and Xia Huizong Li Bingchang. At this stage, the dynasty established by this party member is completely in line with our consistent impression of it, that is, life and death are downplayed, and if you don't accept it, you will do it!
Western Xia originally went out from the Northern Song Dynasty, so naturally there was nothing to say between the two countries, and they became a mess. Moreover, this fight lasted for more than 80 years, and it stopped when the Northern Song Dynasty died in one go, and the Southern Song Dynasty and Western Xia no longer bordered, and they couldn't fight each other if they wanted to.
However, when it comes to the scene of Xia attacking Song Shou and the party people pressing the Song people to the ground and rubbing them, it basically appeared in the first 50 years of the founding of the Western Xia Dynasty - Li Yuanhao's successive three battles of Sanchuankou, Haoshuichuan, and Dingchuanzhai were fought to the bone marrow in the Northern Song Dynasty, and they could not be relieved for decades. Although the Western Xia was unable to fight again due to the weak national strength and excessive consumption, they had to sign the Qingli Peace Agreement with the Northern Song Dynasty, but when the party members relieved themselves, the war between the two sides inevitably came again. Although the Battle of Xihe, the Battle of Yuanfeng Wulu and the Battle of Yongle City defeated the party and the people, from the result of the defeat, Xia won and Song was defeated, but both sides were unable to fight again.
However, just beating a weak Northern Song Dynasty can't satisfy the aggressive nature of the party members. So they set their sights on the more ferocious Khitans, and went to flirt when they had nothing to do.
In the seventh year of Yanzuo (1044 AD), after Li Yuanhao instigated a rebellion against the Liao Dangxiang people, he also openly sent troops to kill Xiao Puda, the Liao State recruiter, which completely angered Liao Xingzong Yelu Zongzhen. The latter mobilized an army of 100,000 to attack Xia and entered its interior in one go.
Li Yuanhao is an out-and-out madman. But it was precisely his madness that created the glory of Western Xia.
It is said that at that time, the Western Xia had just lost the Northern Song Dynasty, and had to sign a peace agreement with the Qingli when the mountains and rivers were exhausted. Therefore, in the face of the menacing Khitan army, Li Yuanhao could only muster more than 10,000 people to resist. However, his tactics were very clever, that is, to lure the enemy deeper, clear the walls, and constantly lengthen and attack the fragile supply lines of the Khitans. When the Liao army was sick and hungry, it suddenly launched a sneak attack and defeated it, and Yelu Zongzhen was almost captured.
In the first year of Ningguo (1049 AD), Yelu Zongzhen took advantage of the opportunity of Li Yuanhao's hanging up to send troops for the second time, intending to avenge the revenge of the past. As a result, the three-way army of the Liao State was defeated all the way and returned all the way in vain, only a small victory along the way, and in the end it was still no way to take the Western Xia.
In addition to the two great enemies of Song and Liao, Western Xia also fought a lot of chaotic battles with the Qingtang Tubo, the Ganzhou Uighurs, the Western Uighurs, and the Northwest Zahu. Anyway, as long as there is a party force that can be touched and touched by the party members, there is nothing that they have not fought. But the result? He has won many battles against Song Liao, but every time he wins, he has to be a minister, and he has not grabbed much territory and wealth, but he has more and more capital to get in.
So don't look at the party members fighting more and more, but they are also getting poorer and poorer, and they can't even live their lives.
Li Yuanhao is a pure madman, Li Liangzuo is at least half crazy, and although the Empress Dowager Liang, who has actually been in power since then, is a Han Chinese, she desperately attacks the mother country in order to stabilize power and transfer contradictions (more than 50 times in 13 years against the Song Dynasty), which is even ......more crazy than Li YuanhaoTherefore, when Li Qianshun regained power with the power of the Khitans, the mountains and rivers of Western Xia were already broken, and the people were struggling to make a living, even if he wanted to go crazy with it, he didn't have the capital.
Li Qianshun is Han Xuan, Tang Gao, and Kang Yongqian of Western Xia, without him, Western Xia would have been finished.
Therefore, Li Qianshun and Li Renxiao's father and son had to embark on an atypical path of development in Western Xia, that is, they did not hesitate to admit that their father should try their best to avoid war, make every effort to develop internal affairs and accelerate the process of sinicization of party members. After 109 years of governance and development by Li Qianshun and his son, the Western Xia was reborn like a dying patient, with clear politics, unprecedented economic prosperity and cultural prosperity, and became a veritable overlord of the northwest, known as the rule of Chongren in history.
Especially in the chaotic period when the Jurchens rose and the Liao and Song dynasties suddenly perished, Li Qianshun showed superb vision and political skill. He decisively abandoned Liao and invested gold, and at the same time took advantage of the chaos to secretly encroach on a large area of land from the hometown of Liao and Song. After Li Renxiao ascended the throne, he resolutely inherited his father's policy of attaching Jin and the (Southern) Song Dynasty, and did not care about shame to curry favor with the Jurchens, thus obtaining a large number of rewards, including land.
By the end of the Qianyou Dynasty (1170-1193), the territory of Western Xia covered all of present-day Ningxia, most of Gansu, northern Shaanxi, southwestern Inner Mongolia, northeastern Qinghai and parts of Xinjiang.
Li Qianshun and his son not only led the Western Xia out of the crisis, but also reached its peak.
But the so-called prosperity and decline are not a joke, and the reason why Xixia embarked on this road of no return and entered the third stage of the national turning point is both natural disasters and man-made disasters.
The so-called natural disaster is the rise of Mongolia. What is especially fatal is that the party members have always been friendly with one of Temujin's sworn enemies, the Kereb tribe. In the 10th year of Tianqing (1203 AD), the Kereh tribe was annexed, and the son of its chieftain, Sangkun, fled to Western Xia.
It is said that the Khitans had a life-saving grace for Li Qianshun back then, but when the Jurchen soldiers pressed the border, the lord of Zhongxing in Western Xia sold Tianzuo Emperor Yelu Yanxi, which was exchanged for the peace of the whole country and the subsequent great development. What kind of thing is Sankun compared to Yelu Yanxi? Is it really worth gambling with the national fortunes of Western Xia?
However, although Li Chunyou's brain is not good, he is completely different from his father's and ancestors' manipulation and did not bring disaster to Western Xia, after all, Temujin at this time has not completed the great cause of unifying Mongolia. It is Li An'an who really wants to meet the Mongolian iron fist head-on.
The Mongol war to destroy the Western Xia was fought a total of 5 times, except for the last time when the party had run out of oil and lamps, and could only sit back and watch the Mongols slaughter the city and destroy the foreign country, the most critical turning point was the third Mongolian battle of the summer, and this battle was fought during Li An'an's reign.
In the fourth year of Yingtian (1209 AD), in the face of a large-scale attack by the Mongols, Li An'an mobilized 50,000 troops to fight against the enemy, but suffered a heavy defeat. The Mongols drove straight into the siege of Zhongxingfu (now Yinchuan, Ningxia), the capital of the Western Xia Kingdom, and Li An'an had to sacrifice his daughter to sue for peace, and at the same time promised to attach himself to the Mongols and pay tribute every year.
The tragedy of Western Xia was not only that it was too close to the Mongols, but also that its allies were still Erha.
This battle almost wiped out the little family money that Li Qianshun's father and son had saved for more than 100 years of recuperation, and Western Xia returned to the pre-liberation period overnight. But although it is a little miserable, it will not fall to the extent of the end. After all, the Mongols at that time did not do their best to conquer the summer or the levy for gold, and soon shifted their interest to the Western Front, which for the next 50 years or so, they had been playing the Western Expedition with great interest, bent on completing the great achievement of penetrating Eurasia.
In this case, the Mongols were actually half-hearted when they attacked the Western Xia, the Jin Kingdom, and later the Southern Song Dynasty, and it was not until after Kublai Khan ascended to the throne that they began to go all out. But the problem is that at that time, there was only one Southern Song Dynasty left on the huge Central Plains, where did the Western Xia and Jin countries go?
The answer, of course, is that the Mongols have half-heartedly defeated the country. And Li An'an is one of the culprits, if not the culprit.
Why? Because since he was crippled by the Mongols, Li An'an neither admitted to squatting at home and developing obscenely, nor did he go crazy like his ancestor Li Yuanhao to fight the Mongols to the end, but turned around and fought with the Jurchens.
I have to admit that no one can beat the Mongols in that era, and Li An'an will naturally be no exception.
Why do you have to argue with Jin Guo? To be honest, this can't be all blamed on Li An'an - the party members have called the Jurchens for decades their father, and when their son is beaten, of course they have to ask their father for help. As a result, the gold lord Wanyan Yongji, who also had a bad brain, not only refused to send troops, but also became a melon-eating crowd in a weird way:
"Zhongxing was besieged for more than a month, and was safely sent to Jin to beg for help. Jin Qunchen all said: 'If the Western Xia dies, Mongolia will come to add me, it is better to attack the Western Xia head to end, and you can advance and retreat.' The gold lord said: "When the enemy attacks each other, what is the blessing of our country?" So he sent no troops. (Western Xia Shushi, Vol. 40).In other words, not only Wanyan Yongji, but also the emperors of the Jin Kingdom in the past dynasties did not have many brains. After the Mongols destroyed the Western Xia, they began to attack the Jin State again, and this time it was the turn of the Jurchens and the Song people to die and have cold lips and teeth, but what did these two do - one was beaten while delusionally invading the Huahua world in Jiangnan to make a windfall, and the other was full of the shame of the Northern Expedition. As a result, the Song and Jin countries fought in full swing, and the Mongols were stunned and felt like a third party being left out.
It wasn't until the Jurchens were beaten that they couldn't take care of themselves anymore that they suddenly realized. So Jin Aizong finished Yan Shouxu and hurriedly wrote a letter to Zhao Yun of Song Lizong, talking about the great truth of cold lips and teeth:
"(Song) today I am tired, according to my Shouzhou, tempt me Dengzhou, and attack my Tangzhou, he is also shallow. The Great Yuan destroyed the country for forty, as well as the Western Xia, and the death of Xia will reach me. My death will be in Song. The lips are dead and the teeth are cold, the principle of nature. If they are reconciled with me, then he who is for me is also for him. (Jin Shi, Vol. 18, Benji XVIII.)If you knew this was the case, why bother in the first place?
The topic has gone off the rails again, let's continue to talk about Li An'an.
The Xia Jin War was actually two half-crippled people fighting each other, and they both thought they were martial arts masters.
The son was beaten and the father ate melons, which was only the superficial reason why Li An'an abandoned Meng and attacked gold. In fact, the deeper reason can be said to be Li An'an's "atavism" - the aggressive and crazy genes of the party members represented by Li Yuanhao broke out in Li An'an's body again after more than 100 years.
Not only him, but also Li Zunwei, the Xia Shenzong who subsequently killed the monarch and usurped the throne, is also a virtue.
However, the brave and ruthless character of the party members is only the appearance, and in their bones, they are actually bullying the weak and afraid of the hard. I think that even if Li Yuanhao was crazy back then, he only dared to chase and beat the Northern Song Dynasty, which had a weak army, but he only dared to occasionally flirt with the more powerful Liao State, and even if he won the battle, he had to quickly admit his guilt and call his father his father.
Li An'an and Li Zunwei are actually also virtuous. The Mongols couldn't beat them and didn't dare to fight, so they grabbed the Jurchens, who had long since fallen into degeneration, and beat them violently, in a vain attempt to make up for everything lost by the Mongols.
So in the 13 years from the second year of Huangjian (1212 AD) to the third year of Qianding (1225 AD), Xia and Jin fought every year, and fought 25 large and small battles, and the result was that both sides were defeated
"Since the Heavenly Conference, there has been no military revolution with the Xia people for more than 80 years. At the beginning of Zhenyou, there was a small invasion, so that the construction was difficult for ten years, one win and one loss, the elite were exhausted, and both countries had disadvantages. (Jin Shi, Vol. 134, Liebiography No. 72).Could it be that Li An'an doesn't understand the truth of the cold lips and teeth, and can't see who the dead summer will be in the end? Of course not. The problem is that he has gone crazy like his ancestors, and only cares about the small profits in front of him, so why not care about the flood after his death?
The Mongols of the Thirteenth World are really lucky, and almost all the enemies they encounter are in arrears.
In the eyes of the Mongols, both the Western Xia and the Jin Kingdom were vulnerable to death, but as a result, these two people did not know whether to live or die and beat each other, and in the end only "silk blood" remained. In this case, don't say that the Mongols are only half-hearted, even if they are half-hearted, it will not be difficult to destroy Xia Jin.
The word "security" seems to be a modern one, and I've seen people say that it came from that small island in the east. In fact, as early as the Han Dynasty, the word "safety" has been seen in historical records, and it means safe and safe
"Come to the dragon body, drive three thousand a day, stop at the south of Cangwu, and marry Fu. It's easy and safe. (Jiao's Yilin, Little Animal Hexagram).Li Renyou named his baby son "safe", which shows his love for his son. But who knew that his ambitious son not only had no sense of security, but also brought the greatest security disaster in the history of his home country and planted the cause of his country's demise.
But in fact, it is also unfair to put the black cauldron of the fall of Western Xia on Li An'an's head. Because the birth of the Western Xia dynasty was a very accidental thing in itself.
With the poverty and weakness of the northwest, it is simply impossible to support a dynasty independently.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, during the Huangchao Rebellion, Li Sigong, the leader of the Party Tuoba Department, was awarded the envoy of the Baixia Prefecture Festival (later changed to the Jiedu Envoy of the Dingyan Army) for his meritorious service in quelling the rebellion, and was named the Duke of Xia - this is also the origin of the name of the Western Xia State.
However, in the 150 years since, although the Li clan has been continuously inherited, it has always been an inconspicuous local power, and it needs to constantly pay tribute to the overlord of the Central Plains in order to survive. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, because of civil strife, it even reached the point where the fiefdom was lost and it was trying to survive.
Fortunately, the Northern Song Dynasty Chongwen suppressed the military, and at that time the main energy was focused on fighting with the Khitans for the sixteen states of Youyun, and it happened that Li Jiqian and Li Yuanhao, two rare heroes in the party, came to the world, which led to the founding of the Western Xia, and struggled to survive between the two behemoths of Song and Liao.
And it was also under the condition that the Song and Liao countries actually didn't take Western Xia very seriously.
Why? It's not because Western Xia was too poor.
The hometown of Western Xia, which is probably equivalent to the so-called Ganlong, Henan and its surrounding areas in the Han and Tang dynasties, has always been the place where the Central Plains Dynasty raised horses, and for thousands of years, there have been many elite soldiers and strong generals, and it is not an exaggeration to say that its land has supported the backbone of the strong Han and Tang Dynasty.
However, an indispensable premise is that the abundant population and endless financial resources of the hinterland of the Central Plains must be constantly fed back to this region. Otherwise, with the barrenness of the land and the scarcity of the population, it will be difficult to make a rich country and a strong army.
The northwest has always been rich in elite soldiers and strong generals, but that is under the premise of being integrated with the Central Plains and supporting each other.
That's why Li Yuanhao stared at the Northern Song Dynasty and chased after him, that is, he coveted the wealth and population that were indispensable if the Western Xia wanted to be strong. It's a pity that they have won many battles, but they can only go around in the ravines and ravines at the door of their homes, and they have never even touched the edge of the core place of Guanzhong, let alone the prosperous and rich Central Plains?
Therefore, Western Xia can only continue to be poor, destined to continue to struggle for survival but never find a way out.
The party people are indeed very capable of fighting, and the backbone of their army, the "Bubazi" and "Iron Harrier", whether it is against the Song army and the Liao army, or even if they encounter the Jin army and the Mongolian army of the same size on a specific battlefield, they can often fight back and forth without falling behind
"The western thief has a mountain tribe called 'Bu Bazi', up and down the hillside, in and out of the stream, the most able to exceed the high and far, light feet and good walking. There are Pingxia cavalry called 'iron harriers', a hundred miles away, thousands of miles and periods, the most able to come and go, if the electric shock cloud flying. Whenever they encounter an enemy in the place where they gallop on the plains, they use iron harriers to think that they are rushing soldiers; When encountering the enemy in the deep and dangerous places of the valley, they often use foot treks to stab and cover the attack. This Westerner is also a long rider. (History of the Song Dynasty, Volume 190, Zhi 143).But the problem is that Bubazi is a mountain light infantry, and it is no problem to fight mountain warfare with the Song army, and it is a food delivery to the cavalry of Shangjin and Mongolia in the plains. Of course, there was no shortage of horses for the party members, but among their 500,000 tribal cavalry, there was not one in ten who could get together a set of armor, and the regular cavalry of Jinmeng still delivered food.
The iron harrier is very good and powerful, but it's a pity that the party can't afford it.
The only thing the party can handle is the iron harrier. This is a real heavy cavalry unit, and the "Poor Armor" they are equipped with is a kind of cold-wrought iron armor that was very technologically advanced at that time, which is extremely strong, which makes the Song army, which is known for its equipment, very envious
"The Zhenrong army has an iron armor, which is hidden and is said to be a treasure. Han Wei Gong Shuai Jing and Yuan once tried it. Fifty paces to go, a strong crossbow shot at it, can not enter. There is a arrow that runs through the tree, but it is in the hollow, scraped by the hollow, and the iron is reversed, and it is so strong. (Dream Creek Writings, Vol. 19).With the Qizi armor, the Iron Harrier became a first-class cavalry unit that could be called the Liao State Leather Room Army and the Jin State Tiefutu at that time. But how many such elite troops were there in Western Xia? The answer is only 3,000 people.
It's not that Li Yuanhao and Li An'an don't want to expand the organization, let alone that they can't pick out qualified soldiers among the strong party members, but that Xixia is too poor to afford to support this person. Moreover, once an iron harrier dies in battle, even if a few or dozens of lives are spared, the party members will have to desperately tear off the armor on the deceased and bring it back, otherwise the iron harrier will not even be able to maintain the current establishment.
Therefore, the Western Xia was destined to be a dynasty without any development prospects. The reason why they have been able to struggle to survive for 189 years is actually indispensable to Li Yuanhao's crazy killing of the Quartet and the credit of deterring Song Liao, as well as the painstaking efforts of Li Qianshun and his son to recuperate for a hundred years and stabilize the country. Of course, the most important thing is that the Khitans, Song people, and Jurchens did not want to make progress, or they didn't look down on the poor place of Western Xia at all, which allowed them to survive.
But the Mongols are different—they are a people who have an insatiable greed for land, and even useless barren land must be fenced off first, then stamped with its own seal, and left to be left uncultivated. Therefore, when the Mongols rose, they were doomed to the end of the party.
But if it weren't for Li An'an's inexorable fight with the Jurchens without any sense of security, who would dare to guarantee that Western Xia would not be able to hold on for another 10 or 20 years?
Therefore, this black cauldron can only be carried by Li An'an.