Some people say that China's ability to become the world's largest unified country is inseparable from Qin Shi Huang's unification of the world. It is also said that there is also a lack of Qin Shi Huang in European history. That's right, Qin Shi Huang's unification of the six kingdoms and the establishment of the first unified multi-ethnic state in Chinese history had a profound impact on later generations. However, the aristocracy in the history of Western Europe has also happened in our land of China, let us enter this extraordinary era together - "Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties".
When it comes to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, some friends may be puzzled, saying which dynasty and what era is the "Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties"? What happened? After reading this article, I believe that friends who have this doubt will definitely dispel these doubts.
Our ancient history is most widely known in the Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were deliberately downplayed in textbooks or film and television dramas, so that for a period of time, a "What dynasty was before the Sui?" Discussion. If you don't know much about the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, then the "Three Kingdoms Period" in the late Eastern Han Dynasty before him, I believe everyone must be familiar with it!
Next, we will introduce the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, an era characterized by chaos. said that he was chaotic, in addition to the world disputes in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, there were also various regimes after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the "Sixteen Kingdoms Period". In this article, I will focus on the clan wars of the two Jin Dynasty and the relationship with imperial power. It also briefly discusses the position and role of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties in ancient Chinese history.
On the whole, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a long-term historical period that succeeded the Qin and Han dynasties and then the Sui and Tang dynasties. It is a special period when the gate lord clan (which can also be said to be the aristocracy) lives on the historical stage, a period of great national integration, and a period when the feudal code system is constantly changing and giving birth to a new system.
After the collapse of the unified regime of the Eastern Han Dynasty, local forces arose, local warlords fought each other, and finally formed a stable situation of the three kingdoms, and then after 90 years of war and turmoil, the Western Jin Dynasty unified the whole country in 280 AD.
Since the Sima clan was a powerful minister, there were many internal contradictions among the ruling class.
In order to strengthen the rule, and at the same time miscalculated that the reason for the demise of the Cao Wei regime was that there was no feudal clan, so the Jin Dynasty adopted a completely different clan policy from the Cao Wei period, such as the Cao Wei period, which strictly stipulated the rights of the clan, except for a number of food households, no political activities were allowed to participate, there was no ** right to appoint and remove, and there was no right to personal freedom (forbidden to leave the fief).Everywhere is subject to ** moderation, and there are more virtual guards "more than 100 veterans to defend their country". On the contrary, the Western Jin Dynasty not only used the princes of the clan as vassal kings to assist the emperor in power, but also expanded its power many times, so that the feudal kings could choose their own local officials, and they could also purchase armies, and even the Western Jin Dynasty allowed the kings to supervise the military of various states.
The ambitions of the kings of the Western Jin Dynasty, whose power was expanding, also grew, which eventually led to the Eight Kings Rebellion in the struggle for the throne, which caused the lives of the north and south of the Yellow River to be devastated. Common sense speaking, the kings of the Western Jin Dynasty should fulfill their duties and do their best to assist the emperor, although the centralization of power has been seriously weakened, but the local kings do their best, do not fight for power and profit, the country should develop in a good direction, but unfortunately the son of Emperor Wu of Jin is an imbecile, resulting in a power vacuum, and there is no regulation for the local kings, with the chaos of the government, it is easy to understand that the kings are fighting for power, and Emperor Wu of Jin believes too much in the loyalty of the clan. In the rebellion of the eight kings, the kings attacked and killed each other, and there was no rooster crying for thousands of miles, and the unification and stability of the Western Jin Dynasty only lasted for more than 30 years.
It can be said that the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" of the Western Jin Dynasty was an important driving factor for his demise, and in addition to the cannibalism of the clans, the extravagance and corruption of the ruling class of the Western Jin Dynasty should also be responsible. The extravagant history of the ruling class of the Western Jin Dynasty is rare: the founding monarch of the Jin Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty, "lost all 10,000 people in his harem";The aristocratic bureaucracy still complained that there was "no place to go", coupled with the aristocracy comparing with each other, fighting for wealth, and the emperor connived, the newly established state quickly lost its vitality, leaving only the emptiness of thought and the degradation of morality, which fueled the dark politics.
In addition, during the Eight Kings Rebellion, the kings did whatever it took to recruit Hu mercenaries for the sake of war, and they did not hesitate to recruit a large number of Hu mercenaries, which laid the root of the Yongjia Rebellion. In the end, the Xiongnu army broke through the Jin capital in the late Western Jin Dynasty, captured the Jin Emperor, and destroyed the Western Jin Dynasty. After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the imperial family Sima Rui, the prince of the Western Jin Dynasty, established the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Jiangnan with the support of the Nandu Shi clan.
The aristocracy of the Western Jin Dynasty mainly refers to the clan power of the Jin Dynasty, vigorously divides the kings and gives a lot of power, resulting in the kings entering the dynasty that is among the ministers, and the dynasty can grasp the local military and political power, not dictatorship, but a typical unauthorized power, at that time, the princes of the comparison believe that everyone has also heard, what 100 meters of silk, what millennium coral, all are declaring the wealth of the kings, not only greedy for money, but also greedy for power, the rebellion of the eight kings belongs to the royal turmoil, and the nobles destroyed themselves with their own strength.
Different from the royal nobles of the Western Jin Dynasty, due to the great influence and destruction of the Eight Kings Rebellion, the clan of the emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, that is, the royal family or kings of the original Western Jin Dynasty, was mostly defeated and died, and the strength of the clan nobles was greatly reduced. The Eastern Jin Dynasty was also established with the support of the Nandu Shi clan, so the imperial power declined during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the Shi clan, as a new aristocracy, replaced the old clan nobles with scholars and familiesAnd began to appear the pattern of the gentry **. The emperor was dissatisfied with the scholar clan **, and used the clan to suppress it many timesHowever, almost all the high positions in the Eastern Jin Dynasty were held by famous scholars, and the Manchu Dynasty ** may come from the same family, and the supreme imperial power was suppressed at this time, and the Sima clan represented by the emperor was naturally suppressed by this new noble.
Under the protection of the Jiupin official law and the genealogy and other systems, the big scholar clans have been along for hundreds of years, especially in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and four or five gate valve families have successively controlled the government, and the emperor's power has fallen.
If the old aristocracy is not reliable with blood relations as a bond, then the new aristocracy is slightly more reliable than the former with interests as a bond, and the Jiupin Zhongzheng system is also the manifestation of the Jin Dynasty aristocratic politics in educationI recommend and promote you, you have to be grateful, put yourself into my door, and in the future, you can't forget the teacher, and the politics of the gate valve is very popular. Nepotism made the entire Jin Dynasty period "the upper grade have no poor families, and the lower grades have no scholars".
At that time, the more prominent scholars included the Langya Wang clan, the Qinghe Cui clan, the Chenjun Xie clan and so on. Among them, the Langya Wang clan is the most prominent. When the Western Jin Dynasty fell, the Wang Dao and Wang Dun brothers of Langya assisted Sima Rui, the king of Langya, to create the Eastern Jin Dynasty by virtue of their high positionEmperor Jin Yuan, Emperor Ming and Emperor Cheng all "treated with special courtesy", and even had a special relationship of "the world is together, and the royal bed is on the same board", and the people of the time called "the king and the horse share the world". This reflects the strength of the clan and the fact that the imperial power relied on the support of the clan to maintain its rule under the politics of the gatelord.
But as the emperor was always pressed, he didn't want to, so the Eastern Jin Dynasty imperial power and the clan joined forces to suppress the power of the clan to a certain extent, and the struggle will not be repeated. This situation did not change until the situation of the scholar clan in the late Eastern Jin Dynasty. But the influence of the scholars continued into the late Tang Dynasty.
At this time, in the north, many ethnic minorities and the Han nationality established a total of nearly 20 secession regimes, collectively known as the "Sixteen Kingdoms", the relatively large strength of the former Qin established by the Di people, once unified the north, and tried to conquer the south of the Yangtze River, and he opposed, the Eastern Jin Dynasty also repeatedly went on a northern expedition, although once Zudi recovered most of the south of the Yellow River, but in the end still failed to complete the unification。In the end, it was the Northern Wei of the Xianbei tribe that achieved the unification of the north for a long time.
During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there were also some regimes established by displaced people in the interior, such as the Cheng Han regime that seized Yizhou.
After the Northern Wei Dynasty achieved the unification of the north, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was replaced by Liu Song, the first dynasty of the Southern Dynasties of China, and then the history entered the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, after two hundred years of confrontation between the north and the south, the Sui army destroyed Chen in 581 A.D. and unified the country.
In this historical period, the economy of the south has developed from backwardness to initial development, and the economy of the north has gone from development to destruction, and then started to develop again, so that the economic development of the north and south of China has gradually converged. Overall, the economic status of the North and the South began to level during this period. The degree of national integration was also further deepened during this period.
The changes in the canonical system mentioned at the beginning also underwent great changes during this period, and some expedient measures at that time were retained. The great difference between the Han system and the Tang system in China is also related to the evolution of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties periods, and it can be said that the institutional construction and political ideology of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties laid the political pattern after the unification of the Sui and Tang dynasties.