In 1120 AD, in November of the second year of Xuanhe of the Northern Song Dynasty, Fang La rebelled in Jiangnan and quickly occupied several cities, including the important city of Hangzhou.
A month later, at the age of 39, Song Huizong received news of a rebellion in the south.
When the emperor learned of this bad news, it showed that the matter had developed to a very serious level. The local ** will always try to solve a problem on their own, and only when they are completely out of control will they have to report it to the imperial court.
Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty sent his elite forbidden army to suppress the uprising.
The first forbidden army was led by the eunuch Tan Zhi, and the war fell into a stalemate.
A month later, he sent a second regular army led by Tong Guan.
The Song army began to show an overwhelming superiority over the rebels, and three months after Tong Guan arrived on the battlefield, Fang La was captured and sent to the capital for execution.
The uprising, which lasted nearly eight months, resulted in the deaths of one million rebels and two million civilians in Jiangnan, as well as significant economic losses in six state capitals.
According to the alliance between Song and Jin, Tong Guan's army was supposed to appear on the battlefield of the attack on Yanjing of Liao.
The two sides agreed to attack the Khitans in the north and south, and if the Liao State was destroyed, the Northern Song Dynasty would be able to recover the coveted Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, known as the Maritime Alliance in history.
The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun have always been the deepest pain in the heart of the Great Song Dynasty.
When the Song Dynasty was founded, the sixteen states of Yanyun were in the hands of the Liao State, there was no barrier in the north, and there was no danger outside the city of Bianliang in Tokyo, so there was no danger to defend, so a large number of troops had to be kept for necessary defense.
Song Taizu and Song Zhenzong sent troops to the Northern Expedition many times, trying to recapture the sixteen states, but they all returned in vain.
Now, Jin Guo has opened this condition, which is really too powerful, and Huizong has torn up the alliance signed between Song Zhenzong and Liao Shengzong.
This alliance ensured peace between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao State for more than 100 years.
In a letter to Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, the Jin Emperor Wanyan Aguta repeatedly reiterated that if the Song army had not participated in the attack on Yanjing, then he would not have returned the Yanyun region to the Song Dynasty as promised.
The Fangla Uprising made the Song army appear on the battlefield of Yanjing a year late.
The Song army, which came with a tired body and dust, was defeated by the Khitan defenders of Yanjing City, and the Jurchens, who shot later, captured Yanjing bloodlessly.
After the Jin ransacked Yanjing's population and wealth, they left an empty city for the Song dynasty.
After this war, the Northern Song Dynasty not only had no results, but also lost a large number of soldiers and horses.
And, let the Jin people see the weakness under the fame of the Great Song Dynasty, and laid the groundwork for the future invasion of the south.
At the end of 1123, the Liao general Zhang Ji brought Pingzhou, one of the sixteen states of Yanyun, to the Song Dynasty.
Huizong was overjoyed and accepted Zhang's surrender without thinking.
This action broke the agreement between Jin and Song that they were forbidden to provide asylum to their subjects of Liao, and the Jin emperor, in a fit of rage, seized the state by force and demanded that Zhang's head be handed over to Jin.
The Song Dynasty weighed it and complied.
Using this as an excuse, the Jin State began to plot to invade the Song Dynasty in the south.
In December 1125, the Jurchens invaded in two ways, and soon north of Taiyuan fell.
When the news reached Kaifeng, there was a heated discussion in the court, but it was really impossible to come up with an effective response plan.
Huizong also did some things, he issued an edict of sin, promising to abolish some vices of **, stop building the palaces of the princes, no longer enter the birthday platform, and abolish the order to build Taoist temples.
The savings are handed over to ** as military spending.
The most discussed among the ministers in private was that Huizong should abdicate and leave his younger son in charge of the task of guarding the Jingshi.
The ministers believed that Huizong's personal abilities could not handle the crisis, and that the ascension of a new emperor to the throne might boost the morale of the soldiers and the common people even more.
Huizong undoubtedly recognized this suggestion, and once others began to take over the situation, he could continue to live an elegant and comfortable life.
When the Jin soldiers began to cross the Yellow River, Huizong ceded the imperial throne to Qinzong and changed the Yuan to Jingkang.
Kaifeng City began to go all out to prepare for the upcoming siege, and Huizong left the capital by boat with some of his entourage, including Cai Jing and several other old ministers.
That year, Huizong was 45 years old.
Three months later, Jin Bing, who had extorted a large amount of money, left Kaifeng.
The Qin Sect sent a letter to Huizong in Zhejiang, asking him to return to the capital. After much hesitation, Huizong returned to the palace and lived in the Longde Palace in the northern corner.
Huizong kept hearing the news that his former ministers had been reprimanded or given death, and that he had actually become a prisoner.
In November of that year, the Jin general Han Li and the two troops of Mu Khan, about 100,000 people, prepared to attack Kaifeng City.
The siege battle was very fierce, and although the defenders were extremely heavy, they were still able to resist to the death.
At this time, the Xuanhua Gate in the south of the city suddenly opened, and a man named Guo Jing led 7,777 people to pour out of the city gate.
Legend has it that his army could be completely invisible, but in fact, these 7,000 people were defeated in an instant, and the gate of Kaifeng was broken.
The city wall was lost, a large number of Song soldiers were killed, and other soldiers fled out of the city with the common people, and the Jin soldiers began to burn and loot in Kaifeng.
Over the next three months, the Jurchens began to extort money endlessly, demanding sky-high prices again and again.
One day, the envoy of the Kingdom of Jin demanded 10 million pieces of silk and satin, 5,000,000 gold ingots (50 taels each), and 10,000,000 silver ingots.
On the fifth day of December, Kim asked for 10,000 horses.
On the 22nd day of the first lunar month, Kim demanded two princesses, eight clan women, 2,500 palace maids, and 3,000 craftsmen.
The sack of Kaifeng finally came to an end, and the Jurchens began to pack their things and prepare to leave.
In addition to the countless gold and silver belongings, there were as many as 15,000 Song prisoners.
In this long list, there are:
Emperors: Huizong and Qinzong, 2 people.
Princes and princesses: 189 people.
Huizong's concubines and palace maids: 652 people.
Huizong's concubines and palace maids: 35 people.
Zhao family clan: 5600+ people.
Artisans, doctors, artists, etc.: 8,137 people.
Total: 14,613 people.
In March 1127, they set out from Kaifeng and successively traveled to Shangjing (in present-day Inner Mongolia), Hanzhou (in present-day Jilin), and Wuguocheng (in present-day Heilongjiang), which lasted about three years.
Many people were tormented during this long migration, and many died of abuse or starvation. For example, in the case of a clan of 5,600 people, there were less than 500 people left.
On the first day of May 1127, Zhao Gou proclaimed himself emperor in Shangqiu, Henan, and moved to Lin'an, known as the Southern Song Dynasty in history.
In April 1135, Emperor Huizong of the 54-year-old Song Dynasty died in the city of the Five Kingdoms.
With the Fangla Uprising as the boundary, the previous Song Huizong was a very charming person, with extremely profound artistic attainments in calligraphy and painting, etiquette, and architecture.
A thin gold body in one hand, an iron hook and a silver stroke, is wonderful.
In politics, he took Cai Jing as his prime minister, promoted a series of social welfare, built schools, raised orphans and widows, compiled medical books, and made great achievements in the economic field.
On the other hand, his extravagant lifestyle aggravated the contradictions in society, which led to the Fangla Uprising, which eventually caused this disaster.
When Zhang Juzheng was educating Wanli, he bitterly complained about the three sins of Huizong, superstitious Taoism, the establishment of Huashigang, and the appointment of Cai Jing, Tong Guan and other six thieves.
Huizong's final tragedy was completely self-inflicted, and he lost a good hand.
When Yuan Xiangtuo wrote the "History of the Song Dynasty", he commented on Huizong"Everything can be done, but it can't be a king's ear"。
Throughout the life of Song Huizong, he is quite similar to Li Yu of the previous dynasty.
You can't rule the world frivolously, a good literary and artistic young man, you really shouldn't be an emperor.
But if you look closely, the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty was not caused by Huizong.
To evaluate a person, we must consider not only his behavior but also the progress of history.
The party strife in the temple is incompatible, and the heavy military expenditure in the economy is beyond the means, these are all problems left over from history, and the gods and philosophers have not been able to solve them, and the board cannot be all hit on Huizong.
Huizong's extravagance was indeed extravagant, but it did not lead to the emptiness of the treasury, which led to great social upheaval.
The Jin Kingdom swept south, was invincible, and took away the entire Zhao family, and the Northern Song Dynasty forced the Southern Song Dynasty into the Southern Song Dynasty, which was also in vain.
One is because the Jin people at that time were the most powerful war machines, just like the Mongols a hundred years later.
Second, the Song Dynasty was geographically unobstructed, and there was no iron and no horse in terms of resources, even if military spending accounted for more than half of GDP, it could not change the situation of the "weak Song Dynasty".
The cavalry of the Jin people, the Song army that crushed the infantry in various ways on the plain.
If there was no external impact from the Jurchens, the Northern Song Dynasty would have continued to maintain peace under the rule of Huizong, and there would be no problem with a 60-point passing emperor, and it would not be as extravagant, perverse, and mean as the king of the dead country.
The Jin State did not fight the Yangtze River to unify China like the Qing Dynasty in later generations, but did not survive the Southern Song Dynasty. The main reason is that when the Song dynasty crossed to the south, the fundamentals of the Song Dynasty were still there, and Jiangnan was still fine.
The wealth of the world is endowed with Jiangnan, so the Southern Song Dynasty can resist in Lin'an for more than 100 years.
In the Song Dynasty under the rule of Huizong, the economy and politics were generally good, unlike the chaos in the world at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the people were not able to make a living.
From this point of view, Song Huizong is by no means too bad.
The Great Song Dynasty is nearly dusk, and the time is also fateful, and it cannot be attributed to one person.
It's just that the country is dead, the country is lost, and these artistic hobbies have become a great crime.
Huizong is a hateful person and a pitiful person.