At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the seriously injured Xiongnu were endangered
During the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu was a historical IP that could not be ignored. Over the centuries, this regime engaged in a series of fierce duels with the Han Dynasty, forming that period of heart-wrenching history.
However, the Han and Hungarians could not coexist peacefully, and the reason behind this was the contradiction between politics and humanity. In the political sphere, humanist ideals such as freedom, independence, respect, understanding, humility and tolerance are often difficult to achieve.
Because of the contradiction of existential interests, the two regimes cannot live in peace. Only by understanding this can we objectively look at the Xiongnu issue in the Han and Han dynasties.
Today, let's learn about the Xiongnu in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, which once again gave birth to the pinnacle of individual heroism in the Han Dynasty, and can even be said to be the pinnacle of individual heroism in Chinese history.
At the same time, we will also briefly introduce the rules of survival of nomads.
It is necessary to understand the geographical concept of "400 mm rainfall contour" and reveal its dividing effect on the agrarian regime of the Central Plains and the northern steppe peoples. Outside of this line, due to many reasons such as low rainfall, large temperature difference between day and night, and a large amount of land being desertified, the people living in this vast land can only live by hunting and grazing, and these people are what we often call nomads.
While many of us today may aspire to that kind of free and easy life, nomads have always faced many challenges and trials in terms of survival. The sudden and impermanent white plague, the black plague, the fierce and brutal tigers, leopards and jackals all make them face the test of life and death at all times.
The impoverished land resources and high-level technology that are difficult to break through also make them rely on the weather for food most of the time. Therefore, the life of nomads is not just poetry and distance, but more of the hardships and challenges of life.
In this harsh living environment, nomads have developed a tenacious survival instinct and a fierce fighting spirit. Their children grew up on horseback and learned to ride and shoot arrows from an early age to adapt to this challenging and dangerous world.
They know that only by constantly evolving themselves can they survive the screening of nature. Although both farmers and evicted households are farmers, their living conditions and opportunities are very different, and this is natural selection.
The nomads gained an advantage in survival by increasing their combat effectiveness in an unfair environment. They are extremely fast and mobile, which is difficult to match the farming people.
Moreover, their individual combat ability is also very strong, every child is a soldier, and their fighting spirit and combat effectiveness cannot be ignored. This is the unique charm of nomads and the key to their survival in difficult environments.
Nomads have fatal defects in the harsh living environment, such as lack of self-rescue ability, backward technology and equipment, lack of strategic materials, difficulty in improving the population and economy, and limited ability to withstand war damage.
These deficiencies make it seem that nomads and agrarians live in two different worlds. So, why are they involved?Logically, the grievances between nomads and agrarians originated from a scenario similar to that of a poor man and a rich man as neighbors.
Once the poor see the living conditions of the rich, they will have uneasy emotions in their hearts and want to change their living conditions. This kind of thinking will stimulate the violent spirit in their hearts and prompt them to seek change.
Advocating force, he likes to solve problems in a fighting style. In the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the condition of the Xiongnu was also affected by this law of survival.
Since ancient times, disputes between nomads and the Central Plains regime have been recorded in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but the escalation of large-scale fierce battles began in the early Han Dynasty. Taking the famous "White Mountaineering Siege" as an example, we can see that there are deep-seated reasons behind this upgrade.
Under the courageous command of Qin Shi Huang, for the first time in Chinese history, great unification was achieved, with the rich grouped together and the poor unable to compete. In the same way, the nomads also need to be united, so Mao Dunshan Yu, the "Qin Shi Huang" of the northern steppe, took the lead in unifying the northern steppe and bringing the nomads under the Xiongnu regime.
It should be noted that the Xiongnu were not a nation, but a regime. Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty after the Chu and Han rivalries, while Mao Dunshan Yu duly unified the northern steppes.
Two civilizations with different attributes and heroes from two different camps collided with the earth-shattering sound of the siege of Baishan Mountain at that point in time.
Many people believe that the Han Dynasty was defeated by the Xiongnu Empire in the Siege of Baishan Mountain, but in reality this was not the case. At that time, Liu Bang had just unified the world, and the country was still in the stage of being in ruins, and he did not have enough defense against the Huns, so he seemed a little passive.
However, after the siege of Baishan Mountain, the Han and Hungarians exchanged for about 60 years of relative peace through peace, tribute, and mutual trade. This is because the main purpose of the nomads invading the Central Plains is to improve their living conditions and obtain strategic materials for survival, and when their goals are achieved, there is naturally no need to fight the Han Dynasty to the end.
By the time Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty succeeded to the throne, the Han Dynasty had already solved problems such as princes and kings, military merit groups, and foreign relatives groups, and the "rule of Wenjing" made the country strong.
As a fiery man, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty said that he would use his enthusiasm to burn the entire grassland, and to stage a period of burning passion. He has both strength and time, and he doesn't want to get used to those Huns who are arrogant and domineering for nothing.
Therefore, you need confidence to fight, and this confidence depends on your own strength. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty held a large amount of savings from his grandfather's two generations, his own horizons were broad, and his subordinates were also full of talents, so he naturally dared to tear his face with the Huns.
If Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was just to prevent the Xiongnu from entering the Great Han Kingdom, it might have been easier. However, Emperor Wu of Han was a rare man of great talent, and his goal was to eliminate the threat of the Xiongnu once and for all, and make the Xiongnu pay the same price as they had for the Han Dynasty.
Under his command, outstanding talents such as Wei Qing and Huo Quzhi, as well as Han soldiers, fought bravely, and finally drove the Xiongnu to the extremely cold Mobei, and there was no royal court in Monan.
In the process, Huo Qubing discovered and opened the Silk Road while pursuing the Xiongnu, and incorporated the Western Regions into China's territory. After being defeated by Emperor Wu of Han, the Xiongnu were in a difficult situation, and life began to become difficult.
They need to decide whether they want to fight back or actively seek to become allies of the Han Dynasty. These two kinds of people existed in the Xiongnu Empire at the same time, so the Xiongnu Empire experienced a long period of ** and annexation, and eventually became the two Xiongnu in the north and south.
The Southern Xiongnu felt great pressure between the Northern Xiongnu and the Han Dynasty, so they took the initiative to join the Han Dynasty and help the Han Dynasty guard the border and resist the Northern Xiongnu.
For this mercenary who took the initiative to come to the door, the Han Dynasty naturally would not refuse. Among them, the famous historical event "Zhaojun out of the fortress" is the result of the Southern Xiongnu Hu Han Evil Shan taking the initiative to join the Han Dynasty during the period of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty.
With the help of the Southern Xiongnu, the northern border of the Han Dynasty has always been calm, and there are only occasional local conflicts caused by different cultural backgrounds of the Han and Hungarians, but these are not major problems.
In 104 BC, after Wang Mang, a reformer of the Han Dynasty, usurped the Han Dynasty, he became famous for changing his name and becoming addicted. He changed the name of the Xiongnu Shan Yu to "surrender slaves to submit to Yu" and demoted all the barbarian kings to marquis, an insulting act that angered the Southern Xiongnu and the surrounding minority regimes, and eventually led to their rebellion.
However, Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was a superhero who was able to handle these problems properly. During his 32-year reign, he adopted a combination of suppression and appeasement, pacifying the Xianbei, Wuhuan and Goguryeo in the northeast, pacifying the Qiang tribes in Longdi, the Nanban in Jiaozhi and the Yi tribes in the southwest, so that all the ethnic minorities who had been angered by Wang Mang were properly arranged.
However, the Huns remained a huge challenge. Although Liu Xiu was unable to solve this problem in his lifetime, he left a strategy for future generations to solve the problem.
Although Liu Xiu was not a "kill and bury" leader, he was indeed a wise emperor who left behind policies that would help future generations solve difficult problems.
What is the specific policy, we will give you a detailed introduction in the future.
When the Central Plains was in turmoil, the Xiongnu had the opportunity to re-emerge, but in the end they were unsuccessful. Hudu and the corpse of Gao Ruoyu, the Xiongnu Shan Yu at that time, took the opportunity to restore the rule of Wuhuan and other neighboring ethnic groups, and set up Lu Fang, who pretended to be the great-grandson of Emperor Wu, as the emperor of the Central Plains.
However, Lu Fang's own inability was insufficient, and he was later coup d'état by his subordinates, and finally died in the Xiongnu. The intention of the Emperor of the Han people was to convey a message: as long as the Great Han could treat him the same way he did to Huhan Evil Shan Yu, he could also become a good child of the Great Han.
However, at that time, the Han Dynasty was in a state of chaos, and no one paid attention to him. Therefore, Hudu began to **, whether it was to establish Lu Fang or support Peng Chong's rebellion, his real intention was to create chaos and put the Central Plains regime in a difficult situation.
However, the Xiongnu at that time were no longer the Xiongnu of the past, and were always defeated by Liu Xiu and his Yuntai generals, and were often wiped out even south of the Great Wall.
Liu Xiu knew that his life was already good, and he didn't want to have a hard time with the barefoot Huns, so he adopted a friendly attitude towards the Huns"Treat each other with courtesy, give generous gifts, and look forward to their return visits"。
However, some people misunderstood Liu Xiu's kindness and thought that he was easy to bully, so they gradually tentatively invaded internal counties such as Zhongshan, Shangdang, Fufeng, and Tianshui. In response to this situation, Liu Xiu chose to strengthen the fortifications of the border fortress and did his best to move the people of the border fortress to the interior.
After 30 years of war, the Han people need to recuperate, and there is no need for us to play a game of cat and mouse with a biker like the Huns. History has a high degree of symmetry, is this similar to the situation in the early Han Dynasty?
When the Eastern Han Dynasty ignored the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu began internal chaos. In 46 AD, the Xiongnu began a series of reforms in Hudu, but he made changes to the principle of succession of brothers.
The ruling logic of the steppe peoples is fixed, and there is not much room for flexibility, because the living conditions do not allow the ** people to run in for a period of time after the death of the previous leader and then take over the operation of the entire tribe.
Whether it's fighting or looting, fighting disasters or migrating, these things need someone to be able to take over and handle them quickly. Therefore, brothers have become an unspoken rule in the institutional culture, and everyone consciously abides by them.
However, since Comrade Hu Hanye institutionalized this principle, it has become rigid. For example, if Lao Shan Yu is a long-lived person, his younger brother should not be young, and his son is naturally not young.
In this case, from the perspective of young age, it would be better for the big picture to inherit by the son. Originally, this principle could be applied flexibly, but after Hu Hanyi institutionalized it, it had to be inherited by the younger brother who was also the same age.
Hudu broke this loophole rule, he abolished the next legal ** and finally killed him, and appointed his son Zuoxian Wang Wuda Marquis to succeed him. What does it mean to openly challenge or even break the rules of the heirs?
It means that a choppy infighting is about to begin. Who would be willing to lose their low-hanging weight of power?
The King of the Sun failed to live up to expectations in the battle for Shan Yu and instead established his own territory in the southern grasslands. However, this caused dissatisfaction among his nephew, the new Xiongnu Shan Yu.
Shan Yu sent two discipline inspection cadres stationed in Monan to investigate the situation of the Japanese king. Feeling uneasy, King Rizhu secretly sent the Han Guo Heng to meet the Taishou of Xihe, asking for the protection of the Eastern Han Dynasty and presenting a map of the Xiongnu.
However, two of Shan Yu's discipline inspection cadres discovered this action and persuaded Shan Yu to kill the King of Rizhu during the Dragon City sacrifice in May. This news was learned by the younger brother of the king of the day and reported to his elder brother.
So, the king gathered the soldiers and horses of eight tribes and formed an escort of forty or fifty thousand people. Soon, the Xiongnu headquarters sent a 10,000-strong army, but seeing that the king of Rizhu was fully prepared and his troops far exceeded his own, he pretended that he was only here to release the wind, and then quickly retreated.
In 48 A.D., the eight Xiongnu tribes in the south united and supported the right Ao Ji Ri to compete with the king as their single Yu, making the Xiongnu once again become the north and south.
Does this north-south ** situation feel familiar? In 50 A.D., the Southern Xiongnu imitated the practices of their predecessors and expressed their willingness to be a vassal barrier of the Han Dynasty forever against enemies in the north.
At that time, many of Liu Xiu's comrades did not think it was necessary to pay attention to them, but Geng Guo (Geng Yi's younger brother) was a person who understood. He persuaded Liu Xiu to follow Emperor Xuan's practice back then, accept the subordination of the Southern Xiongnu, let them resist Xianbei in the east and the Xiongnu in the north, and set an example for the barbarians.
Eventually, Liu Xiu accepted Geng Guo's advice and adopted his strategy. Only by understanding people can we understand people's minds, Liu Xiu and Geng Guo are both understanding people. In general, in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the situation of the Xiongnu was similar to that of the north and south during the period of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, which was a very favorable situation for the Han Dynasty.
Liu Xiu's coping strategy has also won the support and recognition of Geng Guo.
The nomads marched south to plunder in order to survive, and the Central Plains regime struggled to resist with defensive measures such as the Great Wall. Now that the Southern Xiongnu have surrendered, it is more convenient for the Han Dynasty to govern.
Everyone has the mentality of "not suffering from poverty, but suffering from inequality", and the rich achieve control over the poor by sowing contradictions between the poor. The best way to govern minorities is to nurture a strong enough group to give them what they need to strengthen their position and eliminate potential threats.
Liu Xiu took the historical opportunity as an opportunity to unleash the biggest strategy in his life - to fully integrate the Southern Xiongnu into Han Chinese society through all-round assimilation. His three key steps were: First, the Southern Xiongnu regularly exchanged protons, giving them an in-depth understanding of Han culture, so that they could connect culturally and emotionally with the Han people, and gradually eliminate Han-phobia.
Secondly, Liu Xiu strengthened the supervision and participation in government affairs of the Southern Xiongnu, and set up a general to make the Xiongnu Zhonglang, which was equivalent to the commissioner system in later generations. Eventually, Liu Xiu moved the Southern Xiongnu to the Great Wall and allowed them to settle in the eight counties on the northern border, thus changing their habits.
Through these measures, Liu Xiu succeeded in making the Southern Xiongnu his own.
In this passage, we would like to introduce the third point, which has a greater disagreement and influence in later generations. The positive effect is to reduce the cost of defense and increase the controllability of the Southern Xiongnu.
Moving the Southern Xiongnu south, they became the first line of defense against the nomadic raids in the north, and the Han Dynasty only needed to feed them and provide them with a certain amount of economic assistance.
At the same time, due to the contraction of the defensive line, the Han Dynasty's own military expenditures were greatly reduced. It's like paying for a bodyguard. Moving the Southern Xiongnu to the south of the Great Wall would ensure that they would not be capricious, and the northern steppes could no longer be returned to them, and they could only obediently obey orders on the territory of the Han Dynasty.
In addition, the relocation of the Southern Xiongnu into the interior can also take advantage of the strong assimilation ability of Han culture, so that they can gradually and thoroughly Sinicize. Over time, they will no longer be their original selves, without their own culture and traditions.
What effect did the Eastern Han Dynasty's control over the Southern Xiongnu achieve? It is that the position of Shan Yu of the Southern Xiongnu has been vacant for three years, and the Han Dynasty can still arrange candidates for Shan Yu. Finally, the Southern Xiongnu were gradually transformed by the Han Dynasty and had another advantage, that is, it made the Northern Xiongnu feel red.
They were all Huns, and seeing that the Southern Xiongnu lived a comfortable life under the protection of the Han Dynasty, while they themselves starved and froze in the ice and snow every day, the gap was too great.
Therefore, many Northern Xiongnu people will choose to flee south, and the national vitality of the entire Xiongnu will be drastically reduced.
It is not entirely disadvantageous to move the Southern Xiongnu into the territory, because they are not people of the same race, and their hearts are unpredictable. It's hard to guarantee that they won't turn into unfamiliar white-eyed wolves, and once they turn their backs, it's troublesome.
Some people will ask, didn't it be said earlier that the Huns would gradually sinicize? Then this should not happen. However, considering the level of education at that time, although the ability to integrate Han culture was strong, knowledge and culture were very luxurious in the absence of paper and block printing.
Therefore, Han culture could only assimilate a small number of Xiongnu nobles, while for the majority of the middle- and lower-class Xiongnu, their tribal and national spirit still existed and would not be easily changed.
This incomplete assimilation may pose some risks. One is that some people will use national sentiment to incite these Huns; The second is that they may learn and imitate the Han system.
It was for this reason that the famous "Five Nonsense Rebellion" incident in history arose.
Liu Xiu's policy towards the Xiongnu was quite reasonable. If a person is cornered, he will burst out with very strong combat power. For example, the Northern Huns, who did not surrender, will fight fiercely against you when they encounter a natural disaster that they cannot survive, because they have to survive no matter what.
Without the Southern Xiongnu as a buffer, the Han Dynasty would have faced great trouble. There are three famous Xiaoice River periods in history, the Eastern Han Dynasty caught up with the first, the Song and Yuan Dynasty caught up with the second, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties caught up with the third.
During these Xiaoice periods, the Eastern Han was the only one that could withstand the frenzied attacks of the nomads, and the Song and Ming dynasties were destroyed as a result. The Southern Xiongnu played a vital strategic buffer role in this.
The Northern and Southern Xiongnu fought often in order to survive, and each battle reduced their strength by a certain amount. When the Northern Xiongnu could not survive and could not enter the Han Dynasty, they would beg the Han Dynasty, would rely on the Southern Xiongnu, and would give up their dignity in order to survive.
The Southern Xiongnu grew stronger because of their dependence on the Northern Xiongnu, but the Han Dynasty continued to extract resources from them and demanded that they move inward. The Southern Xiongnu were like a transformer, and the Han Dynasty constantly consumed and extracted the vitality of the Northern Xiongnu through the Southern Xiongnu.
According to the normal trajectory, the Northern Xiongnu will be gradually weakened, and the Southern Xiongnu will be completely assimilated. However, all this presupposes the normal functioning of the state apparatus of the Han Dynasty.
Some people will ask, in this case, will the Northern Xiongnu take the initiative to surrender to the Han Dynasty? The answer is yes, but the Eastern Han Dynasty will not accept it, because the rank gap is too large, and the Northern Xiongnu cannot become a subsidiary of the Han Dynasty.
For example, in 51, 52, and 55, the Northern Xiongnu asked for peace for three consecutive years, but Liu Xiu refused. Liu Xiu even ordered Wuwei Taishou not to receive the envoys of the Northern Xiongnu, wanting to completely destroy the Northern Xiongnu.
Seeing that the Northern Xiongnu were about to fall, an unusual thing happened in 62 AD: in November, the Northern Xiongnu invaded Wuyuan County; In December, they invaded Yunzhong County again, but were defeated by the Southern Xiongnu Shan Yu.
Why did the Northern Xiongnu, who were originally dying, suddenly become active again? Stay tuned for the following!