The Northern Wei Dynasty, the Xianbei Tuoba Jue regime established in 386 AD, came to an end in 534 after 13 dynasties and a total of 148 years of rule.
It was also the first dynasty in history in which a foreign tribe ruled the Central Plains. As an ethnic minority in northern China, the Xianbei people went through the process of integrating themselves with the Han nationality in politics, economy, culture, and military after entering the Central Plains.
However, this process of integration also touched the vested interests of some people in the ruling group, which led to the intensification of contradictions within the ruling group, and eventually led to the failure of integration, and the Northern Wei Dynasty also went to the first and the end of the country.
Next, we will analyze the reasons for the demise of the Northern Wei Dynasty from the following aspects.
In 493 AD, Emperor Tuoba Hong of Wei Xiaowen decided to move the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang in order to promote the policy of sinicization. However, this decision has caused some opposition.
As the old capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty and as a political and military center, Pingcheng has a profound historical heritage. However, due to its location in the north, water sources are scarce, and the climate is cold, the economy is relatively slow.
Even though the Northern Wei Dynasty ruled here for a hundred years, due to the limitations of natural conditions, Pingcheng's economic foundation was weak and could not provide enough wealth and food for a huge capital and surrounding areas.
Especially during the famine, the capital could not accept the victims, and the hungry people in the city had to go elsewhere to survive. Therefore, the geographical environment of Pingcheng can no longer meet the needs of the country's political and economic development.
In order to change this situation, relocation is the only option.
Located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, Luoyang has always been an important area for agricultural development, with abundant rainfall and fertile land, with abundant products and prosperous commercial transactions. Even after the war, the economy was able to quickly regain its vitality after the regime stabilized.
In contrast, Heijo is not an ideal national capital. Based on this consideration, Emperor Xiaowen decided to move the capital to Luoyang. However, the Northern Wei Dynasty has been in Pingcheng for a hundred years, and the Xianbei nobles and the old clans of Daixiang are deeply rooted here and have strong strength.
Moving the capital to Luoyang is like uprooting them, which undoubtedly touches their interests. In addition, a series of reform measures of Emperor Xiaowen, such as the gate valve system, also touched their rights.
In order to stabilize his rule in the Central Plains and gain the support of the Han scholars, Emperor Xiaowen followed the gate valve system of the Han Jin Dynasty. He set the family name and made the Xianbei nobles gate-shut, which was essentially to promote the rapid integration of the Xianbei nobles and the feudal nobles and landlords.
Emperor Xiaowen hoped that through this process, the political and social status of the Xianbei aristocracy would be improved throughout the country. However, the actual effect did not go as he hoped, and instead caused more questions.
First of all, only the Xianbei nobles who followed and moved to Luoyang benefited from the gate valve system, and those soldiers and Xianbei nobles who stayed in Pingcheng also plummeted with the decline of Pingcheng's political status.
In addition, Emperor Xiaowen's relocation of the capital and the policy of emphasizing literature over military force made the soldiers who guarded the north feel unfair, and they sacrificed blood, but they could not see the hope of promotion, and their hearts were full of dissatisfaction.
Secondly, the Xianbei nobles who moved to Luoyang were promoted in political and economic status, and their rich material wealth made them unable to resist **, leading to corruption in life. Emperor Xiaowen needed their support for the reform of Sinicization, and did not strictly control this, and this corrupt atmosphere made the entire ruling group lose the courage to fight the world immediately, and the combat ability was greatly reduced.
This is an important reason why the Northern Wei regime was unable to suppress the Northern Mutiny in the later period of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
In the early days of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Xianbei ethnic group did not have the awareness of using a unified currency due to their nomadic life, so it was more convenient to barter. According to the Zizhi Tongjian, the Northern Wei Dynasty did not begin to mint the currency "Taihe Five Baht" until the 19th year of Taihe, a hundred years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and ordered the capital and various prefectures and counties to use this money, which shows the importance of currency unification to the country's economic development.
During the Northern Wei Dynasty, the monetary system was very chaotic, and although there were attempts to mint a nationwide five-baht coin, it was not used nationwide due to insufficient implementation.
In addition, due to the widespread mismanagement of currency and the phenomenon of private coinage, the quality of various currencies is uneven, which seriously affects the credit of the currency itself, and thus hinders the circulation of money.
This chaotic monetary system led to the inconvenience of business in the country and seriously hindered the development of the economy. The inability to solve the problem of the circulation of a unified national currency was also an important reason for the demise of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
After Emperor Xiaowen moved his capital to Luoyang, he introduced a number of important policies in order to quickly integrate into Han culture. The first is the prohibition of the Xianbei language in the imperial court, emphasizing that "the language of the northern customs shall not be used in the imperial court, and anyone who violates it will be removed from his position." ”
Although this policy is mainly aimed at the court** and the age limit is relaxed to under 30 years old, it is still met with covert resistance from **, who superficially comply with it, but privately openly violate it.
In addition, Emperor Xiaowen also promoted the reform of clothing, requiring the Xianbei people to change the distinctive national costume - wearing the hair to the left to adapt to the Central Plains costume. However, this measure was also resisted by the old nobles of Heijo.
According to historical records, "Ren Yin, the edict forbade the people to wear Hufu." The people of the country are displeased. ”
The funeral problem after the relocation of the capital caused Emperor Xiaowen to issue an edict prohibiting the relocated people from returning to the north for burial, and all those who moved to Luoyang became from Luoyang, Henan. This made the Xianbei people very disgusted, because they had already recognized Pingcheng as their hometown, and even if they moved the capital to Luoyang, they were willing to return to Pingcheng for burial.
Although Emperor Xiaowen gave up the Pingcheng Mausoleum for the new policy and rebuilt the Beibishan Mausoleum in Luoyang, he still could not stop the clansmen's desire to return to Pingcheng, and some people even refused to be officials in Luoyang for this reason.
After Emperor Xiaowen moved his capital to Luoyang, he focused on cultural governance and despised military governance. He carried out a comprehensive Sinicization reform, successfully integrated the Xianbei ruling class with the Han scholars, and learned various economic measures from the Han people, making Luoyang increasingly prosperous.
The wealth of the dignitaries of the Northern Wei Dynasty was like mountains and seas, and ordinary people also became rich through business. In stark contrast, the Xianbei people who remained in the north, had a prominent reputation for holding armies before the policy of moving the capital to Luoyang.
After moving the capital to Luoyang, the Xianbei people and soldiers who stayed in the north lost their original superior status. The soldiers, in particular, were "exhausted by their labor, poorly clothed, exhausted by exhaustion, poorly fed, and living all year round, and with disease and hardship, seven or eight out of ten of them died in the ditches."
The unequal treatment between the North and the South has created discontent among the troops remaining on the Northland border. During this period, the important military generals who stayed in Pingcheng were Mu Tai, Lu Rong, Yuan Pi and others, all of whom were important ministers of the court.
During the Heiseong period, Mutai had been a staunch supporter of Emperor Xiaowen, but he was adamantly opposed to moving the capital. In order to prevent internal **, Emperor Xiaowen adopted a strategy of attacking and pacifying the generals who remained in Pingcheng.
On the one hand, he relieved Lu Yi of the post of governor of the three states who fiercely opposed the relocation of the capital, and on the other hand, he also took into account their actual situation, appointed Yuan Pi as the assassin of the state, and gave Lu Yi the governor of Hengshuo and the military of the two states, and gave him the reward of "having a table of smooth relocation and adding 400 households".
However, these measures have not had a substantial effect.
At the instigation of the opposition, the crown prince decided to go north to Pingcheng and rebelled against the decision to move the capital together with the old nobles. This is the so-called "Prince Yuan Sui Beiben" incident.
Emperor Xiaowen once revealed this matter to Yuancheng, the king of Rencheng: "Mu Tai plotted against him and incited the clan. If something really happens, and the relocation of the capital has just been completed, the northerners will miss the old land, the contradiction between the north and the south will escalate, and Luoyang will not be stable. ”
However, after the failure of the crown prince Yuansui to run north, the old nobles of Pingcheng began to recruit other clans, such as Nan'an Wang Yuanzhen, Yangping Wang Yuanyi, and Leling Wang Siyu, and launched rebellions again and again, showing their determination not to give up until they succeeded.
Emperor Xiaowen sent troops to suppress it, and finally put down the rebellion. Heijo's opposition to the relocation of the capital went underground and was secretly brewing for decades. Eventually, the military forces of the Six Towns rebelled again, putting an end to the Northern Wei regime.
Although the national integration policy pursued by Emperor Xiaowen conformed to the historical trend, due to the failure to fully take into account the huge differences between the two ethnic groups, the reform efforts were too large, and the lack of transition led to a serious situation in the implementation process of the upper ruling group of the Xianbei aristocracy, and the contradictions deepened day by day, and finally moved towards confrontation, and the regime was buried in the original beautiful reform attempt.
Nevertheless, his reform experience provided a valuable reference for the subsequent national integration of our country.