Why did Cao Cao rise? Can the Son of Heaven really make a disobedience? Conventional wisdom has been turned upside down.
During the reign of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling, the Eastern Han Dynasty fell into the abyss of decline. According to statistics, during the reign of Emperor Huan in 157 AD, the population of the country was about 50 million, but in 280 AD, during the Taikang period of the Western Jin Dynasty, the population plummeted to more than 16 million, a decrease of two-thirds.
Does this mean that the wars of this period led to a sudden decline in the population? Indeed, since Emperor Ling's accession to the throne, unrest has erupted throughout the country, leading to secession and then into war, which lasted for decades.
The war brought huge losses to the population, which led to a significant reduction in the population of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The portrait of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty reveals the current situation of the reign of the wealthy families of the Eastern Han Dynasty who shared power with the emperor. Although land annexation already existed in the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial court paid attention to and tried to resolve this issue.
However, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial court was vague about land management and did not even consider land annexation a problem. The interests of the wealthy are closely linked to land, and they are naturally reluctant to redistribute, leading to increased land annexation and greater concentration of wealth, which has an impact on social mobility.
The influence of the wealthy clan gradually expanded, monopolizing power and wealth, and passing it on to family members, making it difficult for outsiders to get involved. This meant that the majority of people had less power and wealth, and this was exacerbated by the Han Dynasty's talent selection methods.
Eastern Han Dynasty,"Generations of scriptures"The rise of landlords and wealthy people began to monopolize academic resources. This discipline requires years of accumulation and the guidance of teachers, and only the children of wealthy families can succeed by mastering the scriptures.
They received a good education and professional training at a young age, so they surpassed the average person academically. They naturally entered the officialdom and further monopolized social resources.
In this way, most of society's resources are occupied by a few, hindering social mobility and even impoverishing the majority of the population. Life is getting harder, and frustration and panic are growing.
The imperial court could not function properly under a distorted system. The struggle for power between relatives and eunuchs led to chaos in the foreign courts, which eventually led to the disaster of the party. The number of ** in the imperial court suddenly decreased by thousands of people, and Emperor Ling decided to sell his official position, which could not only make money, but also fill the vacancy.
However, the quality of the position obtained by selling officials is uneven.
The original political struggle, under the impetus of the Ten Standing Servants, gradually spread from the inside to the outside, changing the traditional policy of "adopting sons and inheriting lords" of eunuchs. This made the adopted son of the eunuch no longer confined to the palace, but established his own local power, and clashed with the big landlords and wealthy families.
This conflict spreads from local to local and from local to local. In the process of land annexation and the transformation of peasants into gangsters, the relationship between landowners and producers gradually became estranged.
Producers no longer occupy the land, and there is no strong identification with and dependence on the land. As the number of yeoman farmers decreased, most producers became people who lived by selling their labor, so there was no need to work on fixed land.
Zhang Jiao's portrait depicts the situation of the lower classes of producers in a period of social upheaval. They fled in turmoil, only to find no turning back. On the one hand, they have found a new basis for survival and production, and they do not venture back without much change from where they were; On the other hand, after a long period of time without a new place to live and produce, they can only become "rogues", living by armed and violent plundering of others.
The Yellow Turban Rebellion arose as a result of looting and harassment by the Rogues, who forced local peasants to leave their places of origin in search of a new way out. This knock-on effect causes the peasants to join the rogue and attack the next target.
The rapid development of the Yellow Turban Army, in addition to its religious appeal, was also related to the disintegration of the social structure. The large number of peasants leaving the land is a concentrated manifestation of the social crisis and a sign of an unhealthy society.
In this society, the majority of people lack the opportunity to rise, which makes the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion inevitable. The emergence of the Yellow Turban Rebellion was mainly due to the swarming of various places, which was a thorny problem for the Eastern Han Dynasty, which had undergone great changes.
Due to the disaster of the party and the emperor's betrayal of office, many ** lack ability and sense of responsibility. If it is just unrest in one place, it may be possible to find capable people to solve it, but once there is unrest in all parts of the country, a large number of peasants break away from the land and become displaced people, and then become outcasts, and the harassment of the outcasts leads to the emergence of more outcasts.
Under the continuous impact of vicious events such as the Yellow Turban Uprising, the court's ability to cope was overstretched. In order to solve this dilemma, the imperial court adopted a new strategy of coping, that is, to appoint state ministers and delegate the power of local governance to state pastors to deal with local crises.
Governors need to maintain good relations with local wealthy families, or be members of wealthy families themselves, in order to assume the responsibility of maintaining stability. In order to expel the "outcasts" and stop the "outcasts", the governor must have his own army and a bureaucracy that communicates from top to bottom.
The imperial court needs to give the state pastor enough power to deal with the problems of eunuchs adopting sons and the emperor selling officials, that is, giving the state pastor the power to prevent *** from interfering in the locality.
The implementation of the portrait policy of Yuan Shao significantly improved the autonomy of the Hao clan, and shared governance with the imperial court in another way. This shared governance is different from the co-governance of the big clans in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the Hao clan did not directly enter the **, but handed over the area to the local Hao clan management, and the power of the state pastor was greatly decentralized, almost impossible to recover.
Although the authorization was hasty, there was not enough time to establish a relationship between the new place and the **, but in the face of the chaos at the bottom, the imperial court was unable to deal with it, so it could only hand over the power to the wealthy families with the ability and resources, so that they could maintain local stability.
The appearance of the portrait of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty indicates a change in the structure of the political power. The eunuchs spread their power from inside the palace to outside the palace through the method of "adopting sons and attacking lords".
Once the local governor has grasped the power, the first problem to deal with is the eunuch. Although the number of eunuchs during the reign of Emperor Ling of Han was still large, their influence declined dramatically.
In addition, the power struggle in the palace is also fierce. Empress He and Empress Dowager Dong each formed two camps, fighting openly and secretly. After the death of Emperor Ling, the He clan seemed to have the upper hand and removed the Empress Dowager Dong from the power system.
Although Empress He and General He Jin are both relatives, they are very different from their relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The He family is not a big family, and it is entirely because of Empress He who lacks strong family support.
He Jin took power with the help of his foreign relatives and tried to reach an alliance with the foreign dynasty. However, the current foreign dynasty has evolved into an alliance of local powers, rather than the former situation of the monopoly of the nobles.
Among them, the Yuan Shao family is the most powerful of the local forces, and in order to stabilize its position in the palace, it made a strong request to He Jin to eradicate the threat of eunuchs. But He Jin faced a problem, he was not a child of a family, he lacked armed forces, and could only borrow other people's troops.
Therefore, he turned to Dong Zhuo for help. Dong Zhuo's soldiers and horses were stationed in Bingzhou, and they were one of the forces that He Jin could control the most, so He Jin ordered Dong Zhuo to send troops and horses to Luoyang to strengthen his own strength.
He Jin was hesitant and in a dilemma, his doubts mainly stemmed from two reasons: first, the He family was not powerful and was afraid of eunuchs; Second, they do not fully trust the DPRK.
However, as time passed, the eunuchs seized the opportunity and launched an attack on He Jin, eventually killing him. Hearing the news that He Jin had been killed, Yuan Shao, in order to protect his strength, immediately led his troops into the palace and had a fierce confrontation with the eunuchs.
With his great strength, he managed to eliminate more than two thousand eunuchs. Yuan Shao came from a big family, however, the situation in Luoyang had reached a point beyond his control, because Dong Zhuo was already in the vicinity of Luoyang.
Dong Zhuo took advantage of the chaos to invade Luoyang, deposed the young emperor, and set up the emperor instead. This mistake gave the major forces an excuse to unite against Dong Zhuo. A state pastor who has no blood relationship with the Empress Dowager Dong dares to break into the national capital without authorization and abolish the emperor, which is simply a great rebellion.
In Dong Zhuo's crusade, the major forces quickly gathered into"Kwantung Army", work together to fight against Dong Zhuo. Among them, in addition to the state governors, there is also a special participant, he is Cao Cao, the captain of the imperial court.
Although Cao Cao's strength was mediocre, he joined the Kwantung Army on the pretext of protecting the young emperor. Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, was actually the adopted son of the eunuch Cao Teng, which is also an example of the expansion of eunuch power.
Cao Song inherited Cao Teng's title, and Cao Cao was promoted to filial piety, served as a councilor, and later promoted to the rank of cavalry captain, commanding the army to fight against the Yellow Turban Army. When Dong Zhuo captured Luoyang, Cao Cao also joined the coalition against Dong Zhuo.
In Dong Zhuo's rebellion, Cao Cao, who stood on the side of the eunuchs and confronted Dong Zhuo, was actually not surprising. However, at that time, no one would have thought that this person with a complex background would become the final winner.
It was not an easy thing to join forces to fight against Cao Cao, but it was this difficulty that made Dong Zhuo feel pressured. He was forced to stay away from Luoyang, and even used force to control Emperor Xian and the entire imperial court in his own hands.
In order to better control the situation, he also took a large number of people from Luoyang and asked them to move to Chang'an. According to historical records, more than two million people were forcibly relocated, and while this figure may be exaggerated, there is no doubt that it was a large-scale exodus.
Since the "Yellow Turban Rebellion", population migration has occurred from time to time, at first it was just turmoil in the countryside, but Dong Zhuo's atrocities made the national capital Luoyang also fall into chaos.
His actions pose a threat not only to Luoyang, but also to the stability of the whole country.
The destructive effect of Dong Zhuo's rebellion on Luoyang stemmed from the displacement of a large number of Luoyang's population, triggering a wave of displacement that lasted for decades. And the emergence of this phenomenon is often accompanied by large-scale robbery.
Displaced people are engaged in a frenzied plundering of the places they pass. Previously, the goal of the ruling of the state herds and the wealthy was to protect the people from harassment and allow them to produce and live normally.
The best way to do this is to stay away from the chaos and avoid the effects of war. However, as more and more people are displaced, so does the impact, and in this chaotic situation, the state pastors and wealthy families are no longer able to protect their own turf.
In the era of the Three Kingdoms, in order to survive, the state pastors and the wealthy families could only change from passive to active. Once they have enough financial and military strength, they will begin to expand their sphere of influence, taking their armies to other regions to plunder resources.
As a result, the army that was supposed to defend the area joined the bandwagons, which made the looting more intense and the losses caused. Eventually, this turned into a clash between armies, leading to a sharp decline in the population.
Although there were once people who revered the Son of Heaven as the supreme authority, Dong Zhuo was killed by Wang Yun and Lü Bu shortly after he moved Emperor Xian from Luoyang to Chang'an. After Dong Zhuo's death, Li Dao and Guo Yan led the army, and Wang Yun was also killed by the two, and Chang'an fell into chaos.
In this chaos, the emperor and a group of ** were forced to flee.
Portrait of Guo Yan: From Luoyang to Chang'an, the dignity and status of the emperor fell to the bottom. After Dong Zhuo's rebellion, the Central Plains was full of wolves, and all walks of life seized one side. The spheres of influence of giants such as Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and Yuan Shu tightly surrounded Luoyang.
Jingzhou has Liu Biao, Sun Ce in the southeast, Liu Zhang in Yizhou, and Ma Teng and Han Sui in the northwest. The Central Plains was in shambles, and the regular army could not sustain itself. At this time, Liu Bei had not yet become a climate, and the forces in various places were complicated.
Through the study of Liu Biao's portrait, we find that the Three Kingdoms is not just a true record of history, but a constructed historical concept. At the end of the Han Dynasty, heroes and heroes from all walks of life acted separately and their forces were intertwined, and this situation was crowned"Three Kingdoms", which is not only easy to understand, but also highlights the conflicts and contradictions between the three countries.
This is how the concept of the Three Kingdoms came into being. At that time, Emperor Xian originally planned to take refuge in Yuan Shao, but was refused. All forces have learned the lesson of Dong Zhuo, and the establishment of Emperor Xian did not bring practical benefits, but became the target of public criticism.
At that time, each faction occupied a piece of territory and tried to expand its own territory, at most, there was some friction with nearby forces. However, if you welcome the self-proclaimed emperor, doesn't it mean that you will be on the cusp of the storm and become the primary enemy of other forces?
The portrait of Ma Teng dedicated to the emperor was helpless and could only return to the broken city of Luoyang. Later, Cao Cao welcomed him to Xudu, and it is widely believed that Cao Cao's success was largely due to his strategy of "serving the Son of Heaven and ordering not to obey".
However, given Dong Zhuo's example and Yuan Shao's choice, one is cautious about this entrenched view. Does the emperor really have that much influence? Can he command the world?
The emperor was supported by Dong Zhuo when he was nine years old, and soon followed Dong Zhuo to Chang'an. Three years later, Dong Zhuo was assassinated, and a civil war between Li Dao and Guo Yan broke out in Chang'an, and the emperor had to flee, and after much hardship, he finally returned to Luoyang a year later.
At this time, he has no power, no backing, and even basic dignity, but he just has a title, what can he do with this title?
The original political order has been completely destroyed, and the imperial power has been seriously challenged, how can the emperor call the shots? Even if the emperor was able to unify the places, it would not take him a year to return to Luoyang from Chang'an.
The will of the emperor was not out of his own initiative, he was once "coerced by the Son of Heaven" by Dong Zhuo, first abolished the young emperor, and then killed him. After Dong Zhuo's death, Li Dao and Guo Yan also tried to "coerce the Son of Heaven", did they taste the sweetness?
No, in fact, during the period when they were "holding the Son of Heaven", the major forces regarded Dong Zhuo, Li Dao and Guo Yan as their primary enemies, so they joined forces against them.
Cao Cao rose to prominence with the Tuntian system, and the arrival of the emperor was not because the arrival of the emperor made his influence soar, but because he dared to welcome the emperor when he had advantages in all aspects.
If no one is willing to accept the sacrifice of the emperor, then Cao Cao will not be willing either. The emperor's prestige has fallen to the bottom, and it is obviously unreasonable to make Xu Du the political center and all forces submit to Xu Du just by welcoming the emperor to Xu Capital.
Cao Cao's influence did not stem from the emergence of the emperor, but from his solution to the problem of people and land, that is, the tuntian system.
Cao Cao's reform of the tuntian system was aimed at changing the way the army was supplied and preventing it from becoming a predator. His strategy was to turn some soldiers who did not participate in the war into peasants, gradually forming a pattern of combining soldiers and peasants, and laying an economic foundation for the army.
He also summoned the landlords and asked them to bring in their tenants and subordinates, and the landlords acquired large quantities of land within the sphere of influence of the army and protected them by the army.
In exchange for security, they had to turn in a portion of their output. This reform enabled the army to be self-sufficient, while at the same time protecting the rights and interests of the peasants and landlords.
Qingzhou and Xuzhou, which Cao Cao ruled during the Three Kingdoms period, were severely affected by wars and other reasons, and if they did not manage to restore agriculture, they would gradually fall behind other places, let alone compete with other forces.
Cao Cao's wisdom lies in his ability to gain insight into this reality and establish a safe agricultural production base through measures such as tuntian and landlord protection. In the process, new social relations emerge.
The turmoil at the end of the Han Dynasty caused the original clan system to fall apart, and the clan system became a new stable relationship between the tribes and tenants, replacing the clan system.
During the Three Kingdoms period, there was a clear difference between a tribe and a tenant, mainly in terms of whether or not they had a military status. Tenants are mainly engaged in agricultural production, and ensure their own safety and clothing through collective labor; The troops, on the other hand, also have the status of soldiers, and they also need to participate in labor in peacetime, and once war breaks out, they will be fully armed and follow the army to fight.
Such an organizational form not only provides a solid foundation for production, but also ensures stable living conditions. Although China's population decreased by two-thirds from the Han to the Jin Dynasty, it was not only due to deaths due to war, famine, and plague, but also some people who did not die, but were not counted by the imperial court.
They changed from the state's household to the private citizens of the wealthy clan, becoming the tribes and tenants of the wealthy clan, and no longer paying taxes for the imperial court, nor working as coolies for the imperial court.
Cao Cao's statues tend to focus on his cunning and treacherous side, ignoring his profound and unique insights. In fact, Cao Cao did not only stand out for his intrigue and cunning, but more importantly, he reformed the relationship between man and land.
This reform greatly improved the productivity of Cao Cao's ruling area, and also enabled him to have enough strength to draw the emperor to his side, realizing the real "serving the Son of Heaven to order not to be subordinate", and laying the foundation for the later Three Kingdoms.