Among the emperors of the past dynasties, I have always been surprisingly fond of Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, because I think he is quite a tasteful person, and an interesting emperor is always more attractive than an emperor who only knows how to kill.
What's interesting about him? When people seize imperial power, they often go in with white knives and come out with red knives, straightforwardly, but Zhao Kuangyin takes a detour, pulls the team out, and then comes back to solicit opinions from all parties, and then accepts the deposed emperor's Zen throne through formal etiquette, and swears in public to protect the family of the first emperor, and does the thing of seizing people and mountains to do a tortuous way, Si Swenwen, interesting? Not afraid of cumbersomeness, respecting human nature, being thoughtful, and refusing to kill, this is also an important reason why Zhao Kuangyin was able to establish the Song Dynasty after the turbulent five dynasties.
Originally, after the death of Chai Rong of Zhou Shizong, Zhao Kuangyin had been appointed to the post of the front secretary of the palace, and in the court, the largest civilian official was the prime minister, and the greatest power of the military general was Zhao Kuangyin, who was equivalent to the commander of the three armies. And Emperor Chai Rong's son Chai Zongxun is only seven years old, and the minister of supervision is Fan Qian, so if Zhao Kuangyin wants to quickly cut through the chaos and mutiny, he can be coerced with knives and guns, but Zhao Kuangyin does not, first lied that the Liao State invaded, led the army out of the city, and then let some subordinates in the army give themselves yellow robes, and came back to the prime minister Fan Zhen to cry about his helplessness, and then under the auspices of Fan Zhen, he accepted Chai Zongxun's Zen concession, and swore to promise to treat the Chai family well from generation to generation, so that the mutiny, a major event of changing the dynasty, could be achieved without blood, and even with a little warmth.
After becoming emperor, Zhao Kuangyin began to solve the problem of frequent mutinies during the Five Dynasties. The first thing he had to do was to take back the military power of the generals and prevent the heroes from becoming big. And it is also interesting that he collects military power, he is not like other emperors, "the bird hides the bow, the rabbit dies and the dog cooks", using conspiracy to cut off the heroes, and withdraw the military power in disguise. Zhao Kuangyin is not like this, he is very simple, he called the generals to drink together, and said frankly, you have military power, I can't sleep, hand over the military power, I will give you ** Houlu, give you generations of wealth, and form a family with you to ensure that wealth lasts for a long time. With such good conditions, who wouldn't listen?
Then, Zhao Kuangyin sent a general judgment to the local area to divide the military power, financial power and personnel power of the local jiedu envoy, and later simply sent a civilian official to serve as the jiedu envoy, eliminating the local threat to the **. It also selects local elite soldiers to the local army, strengthens the forbidden army, and leaves some old and weak people in the locality, called the box army, which is responsible for local security. As a result, the military power was collected openly and happily, eliminating the possibility of military generals seizing the throne and consolidating the imperial power.
While consolidating the imperial power, Zhao Kuangyin began to fight in the south and the north to recover the Central Plains. In 963, he ordered Murong Yanzhao to level Jingnan and destroy Hunan, in 965, he ordered Wang Quanbin to recover Houshu, in 971, he ordered Pan Mei to capture the Southern Han, and in 975, he ordered Cao Bin to take the Southern Tang. The next year, Zhao Kuangyin died. So far, except for the Northern Han Dynasty and Wuyue small areas, the Central Plains region was basically under the control of the Song Dynasty, and the initial unification was completed.