Back to the Song Dynasty: The Rise of an Empire

I originally posted it in a later chapter, but the author still thinks it would be better to post it in the comments so that everyone can participate in the discussion. I know that some people have read some historical novels or new media historical articles and come here to argue. To put it simply, the entire history of ancient China is a process of continuous centralization of imperial power. The first stage: the tribal era, the central government has extremely weak control over local areas, and it can be said that it has no control. The second stage: the enfeoffment era, with the Zhou royal family as a typical example, the local princes were independent in finance, administration, military power, and justice, and even the country was independent. The society was a pyramid structure, one layer above the other. Even in the Western Zhou Dynasty, when the royal power was at its peak, the Emperor of Zhou had no right to interfere with the tax laws or weights and measures of the vassal states. The third stage: the era of county system. This is the greatness of the First Emperor. He extended the system of prefectures and counties originated from the Chu State in the Spring and Autumn Period to the entire China, beginning the path of centralization. Some people say that the death of Qin was due to violence against Qin, or that Hu Hai was killed, but in fact these are superficial reasons. The fundamental reason is that the power of the vassal states is still very strong, and the Qin State only uses force to force everything to unify. The emperor's centralization of power is only temporary, because the empire is full of restless old nobles from the six countries. It can be said that centralization is only a superficial phenomenon. What is true centralization? I don't know if it's the pressure of powerful force, but the unified recognition of ideology. Obviously, the Qin State was just the beginning. At the beginning, everyone was not used to it, so there was a rebound. The most severe rebound was of course the powerful Chu State. This is where Xiang Yu's fans will complain. Why did Xiang Yu lose? Isn't that smart? Of course not. Xiang Yu is reversing history. He wants to return to the enfeoffment of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Is it possible to go back to that time? The nobles like them are happy and have power again, but what about the common people? Don't forget that the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period were troubled times! These are troubled times where human life is like a piece of grass! Therefore, great unification is what the people want. Liu Bang was a loyal fan of Qin Shihuang, and he saw clearly the general trend of the world. The fourth stage: the era when the feudal system and the county system coexisted: the Han Dynasty At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there were many vassal states. Why? Because the old nobles of the Warring States Period are still very powerful, Liu Bang can no longer fight, and the world wants peace. Therefore, the method of coexistence of vassal states and counties was adopted to create the Han Dynasty. At the beginning of the founding of the Han Dynasty, two-thirds of the territory belonged to the princes and kings. The real Han Dynasty only had one-third of the territory! What can I do? Use a soft knife to defeat them all! That's why everyone saw Liu Bang starting to touch the founding heroes! But the royal family is a symbol of the stability of the country. Liu Bang cannot take action himself, otherwise the emperor will become a villain and lose his heart. After much deliberation, he can only let his wife take action.

There are many fans of the starting point, and I am neither a fan nor a fan. Let me emphasize again that the Song Dynasty was very different from the Ming Dynasty in terms of economy and political system. Don't read too much about Ming history and try to mislead Song history. After you do it, you will find it incomprehensible. The Song Dynasty was indeed weak externally, but few people knew that the Song Dynasty had a military-style national policy. The emperor was directly in charge of the army, and the imperial army only reported to the emperor. This was related to the founding emperor. Zhao Er also continued to strengthen this, and the monarchical centralization of the Song Dynasty was also more complete than the previous dynasties. The ministers of the Song Dynasty, except for the Huizong Dynasty of Song Dynasty, there were really many treacherous ministers. In the previous terms, there were many famous ministers, and they were all very moral. They really took the people seriously. I am not a Song black man, nor a Song fan. I just hate Song's weakness. There is no need for everyone to argue about which dynasty is better and which dynasty is worse. In fact, the feudal dynasties all had a shortcoming, that is, as time went by, the update of the political system could not keep up with the development of the social experience structure. In the end, the aging overall structure held back economic development. Don't tell me about the sprouting of capitalism in the Song Dynasty or the sprouting of capitalism in the Ming Dynasty. Even the original capital has not been accumulated, and there is no germination. More importantly, the total amount of grain production has not shown a large surplus for the time being. Under this situation, it is impossible for the court to encourage people to do business. Everyone is doing business, and who will farm the land? What do people in the country eat when no one cultivates the land? Science and technology is the primary productive force. If the productivity cannot keep up, there is no need to talk about budding. It is still just a natural business in an agricultural society, but it has only expanded in scale. I personally never remember or try to find out whether there was an opportunity for capitalism to sprout in ancient China. China has always been a large agricultural country in ancient times. This is not determined by Chinese human nature, but by the natural environment and location. The east is the sea, the south is the sea, the southwest is the plateau and mountains, the northwest is the desert, and the north is Siberia. The map of China has expanded to the limit of ancient times. The Silk Road was as difficult as you can imagine, but in the end everyone still felt that farming was better. Agricultural civilization also has its advantages. China does not believe in gods. In Chinese mythology, Sun Wukong wants to level the Nantian Gate, Hou Yi wants to shoot down the sun, and Xing Tian still carries the ax even if his head is chopped off. The special features of farming civilization are precision and tenacity. This is the wealth inherited by our country's culture. Once in modern times, geographical restrictions are broken and productivity suddenly increases. The national tenacity and wisdom formed by China's accumulated cultural wealth for thousands of years will lead the country to take off, and facts have proven so.

If a weak Song wins, he will say to his opponent: "Oh, you see, I have won. Am I qualified to negotiate peace? Am I qualified to pay tribute? What? Qualified? Wow, I am so happy!" The protagonist is sitting in the palace, holding a sword in his hand: "I don't want you to know, I want to change everything! Anyone dares to propose peace! I will punish the nine tribes of Ququ!" The emperor's eyes were like daggers, and he lit a cigarette 🪖: "Li Aiqing, do you think it would be better to send the envoy?" 😏"You can't die, you are going to die, let me lead the troops to defend the enemy." 🤫"Li Aiqing, let me ask you, what is the most important problem that Yijia needs to solve?"

The author is a fan of Zhao Da. To objectively evaluate the Song Dynasty, one must first understand the two emperors Zhao Da and Zhao Er.

I can't stand it anymore. You spend money to build new weapons, and there are so many famous generals, but you still have to use people to fight. One death costs 35,000, which is inconsistent. You said that the Divine Arm Bow has a range of more than 500 meters. I tentatively believe that with such a range, more people will die than Xixia. The first-generation muskets are actually better than the Divine Arm Bow, and the first-generation artillery is actually an explosive bomb. Military idiot. Too much nonsense and swear words. The quality of books on Qidian has been getting worse and worse recently. It is a complete waste of readers' time to have such books available.

Let me first give some advice. Before I talk about one of my opinions on this, I would like to give a little advice to the student party members. Intelligence is really just a small dimension in measuring talent. Well, I think China has never lacked talents since ancient times. From ancient times to the present, there are so many talents. Were there any good generals in the late Song Dynasty? There must be! Was there anyone as awesome as Zhang Liang and Zhuge in the late Song Dynasty? There must be one. Don't ask me who I am. How the hell do I know? The masters are among the people! Even Zongze was in his sixties before he was discovered to be so good at fighting! What's the problem? This is the problem with the entire system, real talents are being buried. To give an example, Fang La was captured by Han Shizhong, but in the end, when Tong Guan was calculating the credit, he gave it to his cronies. The credit was robbed. Han Shizhong was very unhappy. He drank wine depressedly at the banquet, but met Liang Hongyu. The focus of this story is of course not Liang Hongyu and Han Shizhong, but Tong Guan and Han Shizhong. Some people say that Tong Guan was one of the few people who could fight in the late Northern Song Dynasty. Well, going back to my first sentence, talent is only a small dimension in measuring talent. Just like in today's companies, if you go for an interview, no matter how talented you are, people will find you unreliable. Sorry, don't! At least that's how I feel. Reliability is the most important thing. A good system is not about discovering very good people, but about discovering very reliable people. What is reliable is that if you leave this matter to you, there will be no trouble. Even if it may fail in the end, at least in the process, it will continue to give you feedback on the real situation and constantly think of ways to solve it. Among the generals in the late Northern Song Dynasty, I only saw it in Yue Fei, Zongze, and Han Shizhong. Therefore, history evaluates them, and it makes sense to label Tong Guan, who also can lead troops in war, as a traitor. From the perspective of talents, it shows that the entire system of the Northern Song Dynasty was broken. 🤫 That's all I'll say for now.

Too many bad words, I can't stand it anymore

I think China's decline started in the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty created a Duke of Yansheng in the Confucius family, improved the status of the literati, and castrated China's warriors with civility and martial arts. As a result, the subsequent dynasties did not resist even if they were taken over by foreigners. Moreover, the Kong family is the fastest in China to surrender to the enemy. I'm just talking about the Kong family in the back, not Confucius.

Why was the Song Dynasty surrounded by powerful countries? Don't make any excuses. I believe most people understand this in their hearts. The Song Dynasty paid tribute to the nomads every year. Give away your own money to others. This way. Fattened the nomads. Raised the nomadic people from tribe to empire. But the Song Dynasty's own money was getting less and less. It gradually changed from an empire to a backward vassal state. It is said that the Song Dynasty was very powerful. It's just that there were too many powerful countries around the Song Dynasty. People who say this. Do you have a face? Powerful countries surrounding the Song Dynasty. Wasn't it raised by the Song Dynasty himself? If it were the Han and Tang Dynasties. How could there be such a weakening of oneself. What about fattening the enemy? Han and Tang Dynasties only knew it. A gentleman takes revenge. Ten years is never too late. The Ming Dynasty would directly turn nomads into prey for hunting. Song Chao you? Those who give away money feel ashamed. Fatten the enemy. In the end, it was said that it was not because our army was not working hard. But the enemy is too powerful? How did these powerful enemies appear?

Cai Jing and Tong Guan were rare capable ministers in the Zhao Ji Dynasty. Please respect history. The decline of the Song Dynasty was caused by the three pigs Zhao Ji, Zhao Heng and Zhao Gou. This pot cannot be washed.