In the long history, China has witnessed the rise and fall of many dynasties. This vast land has given birth to a rich civilization, and ours is not unique.
The North and the West have also given birth to a number of unique civilizations, some of which are enemies of ours and some of which are friends.
Taking the Song Dynasty as an example, powerful forces such as the Jin State and the Liao State emerged around our country, forming a situation in which the three kingdoms were established. So, which region do the Liao and Jin countries that once existed belong to now? Are they still part of our country?
The rise of the Liao State stemmed from the fall of the Tang Dynasty. As early as the Tang Dynasty, the Khitans already existed, but at that time they were still subordinate forces of the Tang Dynasty and failed to establish their own state.
With the warlord melee in the last years of the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains region entered a turbulent period of five dynasties and ten kingdoms. The Khitan people saw an opportunity for development and gradually rose up. During this period, the history of the Liao State saw the emergence of an outstanding monarch, Yelu Abaoji.
Yelu Abaoji unified the Khitan tribes with great power and established the Liao State. Subsequently, the Liao State began to expand its territory, including the three eastern provinces, Sakhalin Island and other places, making the land area vast.
At the same time, in order to establish his own power, the warlord Shi Jingjiao in the Central Plains region received the support of the Liao State and used the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun as a bargaining chip. As a result, the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun became the territory of the Liao State, which now includes Datong in Shanxi Province and the areas around Beijing and Tianjin. At this time, the territorial scope of the Liao State was basically determined.
The territory of the Liao State basically covered the vast area north of Datong in Shanxi Province in the territory of present-day China. At that time, China's topography could be divided into three main regions: the chaotic Central Plains, the relatively stable Liao State, and the chaotic Northwest Region.
After decades of gradual growth of the Liao State, the civil war in the Central Plains came to an end, and Zhao Kuangyin marched all the way, ending the troubled times and establishing the great unification of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Since the Liao State had annexed the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun and bordered the Northern Song Dynasty directly, the two countries were in a dispute. After a long battle, the Northern Song Dynasty reached a peace agreement with the Liao State, and the Central Plains entered a period of peace.
At this time, compared with before the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, the territory of the Liao State expanded again, from the Outer Khing'an Mountains in the north, to the Sea of Japan in the east, and to the Altai Mountains in the west, and the land area of present-day China has exceeded one-third. However, the Liao State also began to gradually decline.
After the Song Dynasty and the Liao State signed an armistice agreement, the Song State entered a period of stable development, and at the same time implemented a policy of emphasizing literature over military force. And the Liao State gradually became degenerate.
On the basis of the armistice, the Liao not only paid annual tribute to the Song Dynasty, but also obtained profits through trade. The top brass indulged in hedonistic mode, but what the Song and Liao did not anticipate was that another force was rapidly emerging.
According to records, the predecessor of the Jurchen tribe was the Bohai Kingdom. After the Bohai State was wiped out by the Liao State, a large number of remnants of the Bohai State became slaves and inferior people of the Liao State. Faced with a situation similar to that of the southerners during the Yuan Dynasty, they united against the Liao State. Under the leadership of the fierce man Wanyan Aguta of the Liao State, they established the Jin State in present-day Harbin, and the battle between the Jin State and the Liao State officially began.
In eastern Asia, the Jin Kingdom, the Liao Kingdom, the Song Dynasty, the Western Xia, and the Dali Dynasty constituted five simultaneous states. However, Western Xia and Dali were rarely involved in wars, and the Song dynasty was not involved in the conflict between the Liao and Jin states. At the current stage, it is mainly the Jin State that continues to encroach on the territory of the Liao State.
Based in Harbin, the Jin State quickly occupied the entire three eastern provinces and eventually conquered the Liao State. However, the remnants of the Liao state chose to re-establish their power, led by Yelu Dashi, and expanded to the northwest while developing westward to strengthen themselves.
In the heyday of the Western Liao, with the Husihu ear as the core, the Ili River in the north, the Syr Darya River in the south, the Talas River in the west, and the Barsihan in the east, plus many affiliated countries, formed a huge land area, which is equivalent to the western part of modern Xinjiang and Central Asia.
However, the glory of Western Liao was short-lived. Less than a hundred years after the founding of the state, Western Liao was annexed by Genghis Khan's general Jebe.
After defeating the Liao, the Jin did not rush to attack Western Liao, because in their opinion, Western Liao was a bitter cold land. The main target of the Jin State was the Northern Song Dynasty in the Central Plains, so the Jin State began to attack the Northern Song Dynasty and captured Bianliang, Tokyo, which led to the destruction of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Southern Song Dynasty was established the following year, and the land area of the Jin State expanded again.
However, the Jin State was not satisfied, and they continued to encroach on the territory of the Southern Song Dynasty, gradually driving the Southern Song forces south of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains. At this point, the land of the Kingdom of Jin reached its peak.
At present, the three eastern provinces of China, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and part of Anhui are all under the control of the Jin State. On this basis, the Jin State was fully capable of continuing to occupy the Southern Song Dynasty until it was completely annexed, achieving the goals of the later Yuan and Qing dynasties.
However, it is a pity that while the Jin State continued to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, another force in the steppe was rapidly rising, and this force was the Mongols.
If China's territory is divided into four parts, three of them can be roughly regarded as the territorial changes of the Song, Jin, and Liao states. The Liao Kingdom originated in the present-day Northeast of China, and gradually occupied some areas of Northeast China and North China with its development, reaching its peak.
With the rise of the Jin Kingdom, they conquered the current Northeast and North China and part of the northwest region of China, while the Western Liao continued to expand to the northwest. The Southern Song Dynasty continued to retreat to the south when confronting the northern forces, with the Xiangyang City defense line as the main point of defense.
During the period of continued retreat of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin state was destroyed and the Mongols rose. The Mongols defeated the Western Liao, Western Xia, and Jin states, and also conquered large territories in Central Asia and Europe. Eventually, the Mongols defeated the Southern Song Dynasty and established the Yuan Dynasty, which led to another dynastic change in the Central Plains. The territory of the Yuan Dynasty was unprecedentedly extensive, encompassing almost the entire region of Asia.
Looking at ancient warfare in the context of today's territory, ancient wars were relatively small in scale and mainly fought for territory within China.
However, the wars of the Song, Jin, and Liao kingdoms promoted ethnic integration to some extent, especially the development of the northern and northwestern regions of China. As a result, during the Ming Dynasty, a strong sense of belonging had developed in these regions.
Before the establishment of the Liao State, these places were still in the tribal period, but after years of wars and changes, these areas gradually entered the feudal period. Although the Yuan Dynasty later appeared, after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was reunified and gradually formed the territory of the present country.
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