Did Emperor Xiaowen's reforms succeed or fail? Years later, the Northern Wei Dynasty perished.
The reform of Emperor Xiaowen has a pivotal position in Chinese history, and this far-reaching change involves many aspects of the Northern Wei Dynasty, such as politics, economy, and society.
However, what is curious is that only 24 years after the death of Emperor Xiaowen in 499 AD, the Six Towns Rebellion broke out in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and in 534 AD, the Northern Wei ** was the Eastern Wei and Western Wei, and finally declared its demise, which was only 35 years after the end of the reform of Emperor Xiaowen.
Why, then, did the once-powerful Northern Wei Dynasty, the first empire of the Northern Dynasties, fall so quickly 35 years after the reforms, despite the importance of Emperor Xiaowen's reforms in history?
The reform of Emperor Xiaowen was the last step of the Tuoba royal family to promote the reform of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the reform during the period of Empress Dowager Feng and Emperor Xiaowen was part of the entire Tuoba royal family. After the establishment of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Tuoba royal family embarked on a difficult but resolute reform process, the core goal of which was to strengthen the dominance of the Tuoba royal group.
Daowu Emperor Tuoba Jue was the first step in the reform process, and through his iron will, he broke the lofty status of other military nobles in the era of the Tuoba tribal alliance, separated the tribes, and reorganized the tribes controlled by the tribes into the household Qi people of the Northern Wei Dynasty, bringing the Tuoba clan into the initial feudal state era.
Although the Northern Wei Dynasty fell more than thirty years after the death of Emperor Xiaowen, this did not mean that Emperor Xiaowen's reforms failed. The reform of Emperor Xiaowen was the last step in the reform of the entire Tuoba royal family, and it was the key to achieving a major transformation from a tribal alliance to a feudal state.
Tuoba's policy of dispersing tribes succeeded in defeating opponents within the alliance and laid the foundation for the consolidation of imperial power in the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, even within the Tuoba royal family, there was still a threat to the nomadic tradition of brotherhood and the system.
During the Sixteen Kingdoms period, the problem of the inability of the heir to stabilize the situation could not be resolved, and the nascent regime was unable to provide natural sacredness, which led to frequent changes of the imperial throne.
However, the second emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Tuoba Hei, succeeded to the throne by quelling the rebellion of his younger brother Tuoba Shao, and relied on his father Tuoba Shao to cut off some powerful members of the imperial family and successfully sit on the throne.
However, Tuoba Hei is not in good health, and how to smoothly hand over the dragon chair to his son Tuoba Tao has become his heart disease. At this time, Cui Hao, an important minister from the Cui clan in Qinghe, offered the strategy of the crown prince to supervise the country, so that the prince was familiar with and controlled military affairs in advance, cultivated his own power and prestige, and laid the foundation for Tuoba Tao to finally take power.
Although the system of princely supervision was invalid in the Tuoba Tao era, the Tuoba clan, which had completed three generations of changes and unified the north, had also built up the prestige of its own regime, so that the Northern Wei Empire finally achieved a stable transfer of the throne that had not been seen in a century.
From the establishment of the Northern Wei Dynasty in 386 to the succession of Emperor Xiaowen in 471 and the reign of Empress Dowager Feng, in nearly 100 years, the emperors of the Tuoba clan worked hard to finally create a stable and prosperous Northern Wei Empire.
However, the glittering Northern Wei Empire harbored hidden crises, which became the cause of a series of reforms by Empress Dowager Feng and Emperor Xiaowen. Empress Dowager Feng's careful layout and Emperor Xiaowen's final decision allowed the Northern Wei Dynasty to develop into the reign of Empress Dowager Feng, and the entire empire entered a key watershed.
On the one hand, the previous emperors of the Northern Wei Dynasty went to govern the army and the people, the territory of the Northern Wei Dynasty expanded step by step, the state machinery of the Northern Wei Dynasty was also improved step by step, and the comprehensive strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty was steadily improved.
The process of feudalization that began with Tuoba Jue resolved the powerful competing tribes in the era of tribal alliances, and also solved the steppe tradition of brotherhood and brotherhood, and formed a stable succession of thrones.
But on the other hand, some very fatal problems have become more and more serious with the passage of time, especially the penetration of the imperial power of the Northern Wei Dynasty into the local area is very unsatisfactory. At this time, the center of gravity of the Northern Wei state was still concentrated in the Daibei region centered on Pingcheng, and its control over the vast Hebei and North China regions was not firm.
In the Tuoba Tao era, the southern regions of the Northern Wei Dynasty implemented the system of "lord supervision", that is, the Northern Wei court actually gave the right to rule these areas to the local wealthy clans.
This was a very pragmatic policy when the strength of the imperial court in the early Northern Wei Dynasty needed to be improved. However, with the expansion of the national strength of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the expansion of the power of the rulers, the powerful people from all over the country who were originally pleasing to the eye have become thorns in their eyes.
These powerful people controlled one side, the taxes could not be paid to the Northern Wei court, and the population was not the household of the Northern Wei court, which was a huge obstacle to further strengthening feudalism and further centralizing imperial power.
Not only that, but some other remnants of clan society were also preserved in the Northern Wei court, hindering the further optimization and improvement of the state apparatus of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Empress Dowager Feng and later Emperor Xiaowen were determined to embark on a larger and deeper reform process.
The reform measures led by Empress Dowager Feng were capable and subtle, and the results were remarkable. The reform mainly includes three things: first, the "Ban Yulu" modeled after the old system of the Han and Wei dynasties, and the Northern Wei court issued the "Ban Lu" to the officials; the second is to implement the "Uniform Land Order", which will grant the ownerless barren land to farmers regularly and according to the population in the name of **; The third is the implementation of the "three-chief system", in which the three chiefs appointed by the imperial court manage local affairs.
The subtlety of Empress Dowager Feng's reforms lies in their sequencing and pragmatic goals. The payment of salaries to officials was the measure of least resistance, which complemented the means of controlling officials and laid the foundation for the implementation of the remaining measures.
While recovering the control of the grassroots, the three-long system also gave corresponding compensation to the local powerful factions, achieving the goal of ensuring the security of the people. After Emperor Xiaowen succeeded to the throne, the reform goals were more ambitious, including moving the capital, fixing the clan, etc., banning the Hu language, changing the Han surname, etc., although it was a great success, but the Northern Wei Dynasty finally collapsed more than 30 years after the death of Emperor Xiaowen.
This contradiction lies in the grand perspective of Chinese historians studying history, often understanding historical issues from the perspective of the development of Chinese civilization, and Emperor Xiaowen hoped to build a mature Central Plains empire by transplanting the mature Central Plains dynasty system, and then complete the goal of the complete transformation of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the unification of the world.
His radical measures accelerated the process of sinicization of the Northern Wei state, but also laid hidden dangers for the collapse of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Emperor Xiaowen moved his capital to Luoyang, aiming to seek greater development in the south, but it led to the Six Towns Rebellion, which was also an important reason for the demise of the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, from a more macro perspective, Emperor Xiaowen's reforms actually promoted national integration, allowing Chinese civilization to continue and further develop.
In addition, the Rebellion of the Six Towns also brought the Saiwai Xianbei nobles southward, and they became a vibrant group that eventually contributed to the rise of the Tang Empire. Thus, although Emperor Xiaowen's reforms were a failure for the Northern Wei Empire, they were a successful attempt for Chinese civilization.