About Chapter 66 Story Introduction: After the founding of the Northern Liang Dynasty, the lord Duan Ye listened to the slander and prepared to remove Li Wei from the position of the Taishou of Dunhuang, which caused Li Wei to be dissatisfied, Li Wei immediately raised troops to stand on his own and established the Xiliang regime, Duan Ye was cowardly and incompetent, and there were frustrated and Mengxun brothers in the country to hinder him, and finally there was no good way to prevent the Xiliang regime from becoming bigger, and the Xiliang regime under the leadership of Li Wei, gradually controlled the northwest region of Liangzhou, and shocked the countries of the Western Regions, and the national strength of Xiliang began to become stronger.

In this story, Duan Ye, the lord of the Northern Liang Kingdom, has no opinion on the matter of choosing who to serve as the Taishou of Dunhuang, and his low governing ability is vividly expressed, in the face of the struggle for power and profit of the domestic clans, Duan Ye has no corresponding political means to influence at all, and the clans in the Liangzhou region want to fight openly and secretly for power when the Houliang regime declines, but we can also see that at this time within the Beiliang regime, Duan Ye, the lord of the country who was elected by the Frustrated Mengxun brothers, is still more calculated, but unfortunately it coincides with troubled times, The lord of mediocrity is naturally difficult to make a difference, and even has the risk of losing his country, Duan Ye is so inactive, he will inevitably face the fate of being replaced.

In fact, we have also analyzed before that during the period when the Later Liang regime ruled Liangzhou, its internal was like the Shu Han regime during the Three Kingdoms period, and the contradiction between the foreign political group and the local political group was extremely acute, so the Northern Liang regime and the Southern Liang regime established by the nomads appeared, and the Western Liang regime we mentioned in this chapter was also derived from this contradiction, but it was separated from the Northern Liang regime, but it was caused by the need for the local political groups in the Liangzhou area to become local rulers. The Xiliang regime was created by the big families in the Liangzhou region, at the same time as the establishment of the Xiliang regime, the four Liang countries in the northwest region existed at the same time, and the foreign Houliang regime has been compressed in the various contradictions in the Liangzhou region and only controlled the area around the capital Guzang, and the Houliang regime in its main tribe Di people basically completed the sinicization, its internal chaos is still abnormal, so the Houliang regime will inevitably go to extinction, and its main tribe Di people will also withdraw from the historical stage when they complete the national integration.

We said that the clans in the Liangzhou region can build their own country, so why can't the big families in the Central Plains be able to build their own country? In fact, the very powerful clans in the Central Plains have gone south to the Jiangnan region as early as the end of the Western Jin Dynasty to participate in the construction of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and most of the clans who stayed in the Central Plains are not strong, they are some small and medium-sized local scholars, and these nomads who can enter the Central Plains are all tribes with strong military strength, large populations, and certain political strategiesTherefore, among the Sixteen Kingdoms, there are relatively few regimes built by the clans, and only the Xiliang regime and the Qianliang regime we talked about before, while the other regimes are basically created by the nomads relying on the local clans. That is to say, except for the Xiliang and Qianliang regimes, the ruling classes of other regimes in the Sixteen Kingdoms are relatively vague, of course, the ruling class of these regimes can also be simply called the Shi landlord class, but at the same time, the nomadic nobles can only be counted as the Shu landlord class.

Comparatively speaking, the former Liang regime and the Xiliang regime, which were dominated by the Shi landlord class, maintained a relatively good development trend. In particular, the former Liang regime established by the Zhang family enjoyed the country for the longest time and made the greatest contribution to the development of the northwest region. The Xiliang regime established by the Li family only occupied a corner of the northwest region of Liangzhou, but with the efforts of the local families, the Xiliang regime also made a very important contribution to the development of the northwest, and the Xiliang regime continued its influence and control over the countries of the Western Regions, laying a good political foundation for the Central Plains Dynasty to control the Western Regions in the future. However, after all, the Xiliang regime was a small regime among the sixteen countries, and its comprehensive national strength was relatively weak, so it was difficult to maintain a relatively long period of enjoyment among the powerful countries like the former Liang regime. Therefore, the Xiliang regime will gradually lose in the struggle for hegemony in the Liangzhou region because the national strength is too weak, and it will be drowned in the long river of history with the tide of national integration. However, the descendants of the Li family who established the Xiliang regime became a member of the Guanlong aristocratic group during the Northern Dynasties, and after the fall of the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the most prosperous dynasty in the history of our country, made more outstanding contributions to the history of our country.

Because the core area of the Xiliang regime is in the area of today's Dunhuang, Dunhuang, the capital of the Xiliang regime, can become the ancient city of our northwest today, and the tourist attraction also has an indispensable contribution. And we can see from the period of the founding of the Western Liang Dynasty, the ownership of Dunhuang, an important town in the northwest, that in ancient times, the relationship between the local government and the central dynasty was not particularly close. The central dynasty had difficulty in governing the localities, and Dunhuang was supposed to belong to the Houliang regime, but with the establishment of the Northern Liang regime, it was difficult for Dunhuang to keep in touch with the Houliang regime, so it could only be attached to the Northern Liang regime. But in fact, Dunhuang, as an important town in the northwest, faced with many contradictions and fragments in the Liangzhou region. The great families who can represent the fundamental interests of the people in the Dunhuang area naturally take advantage of the convenient conditions of the Dunhuang area and embark on the road of independent statehood.

It can be seen that the control of the local power by the ancient central dynasty was relatively weak, especially after the internal turmoil of the central dynasty, the control of the local power was often more difficult, and the situation of warlord secession was also relatively common. During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, as the central dynasty, had already been in favor of Jiangnan after the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, but there was still a chaotic situation within the family. Therefore, within the Eastern Jin Dynasty, in fact, there were also some local secession regimes one after another, such as the Shu regime that divided the Shu land, the Huan Chu regime that briefly destroyed the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and some local regimes controlled by the clans. Some of these regimes firmly maintained the orthodox status of the Eastern Jin Dynasty on the outside, and some were inconsistent on the outside, respecting the Eastern Jin Dynasty royal family on the surface, but behind the scenes they were playing their own wishful thinking, and some simply rebelled against the imperial court and established a secession regime belonging to their own regions.

As a matter of fact, the relationship between the central and local governments has been a relatively difficult problem since ancient times. Therefore, the history of our country is also the process of the ruling class constantly strengthening the centralization, but it is limited by the low productivity of ancient times, and the real centralization is completed, and only after the middle of the Qing Dynasty can the centralized power be basically achieved, and in the feudal dynasties before the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there are often rebellions or secessions of local powers. Although the Dunhuang state of independence from the Northern Liang regime mentioned in the story was not a central dynasty, the relationship between the Northern Liang and the Later Liang regime was also the same as the relationship between the central and local governments in ancient times. The Xiliang regime was nothing more than a re-division of the local regime in the secession of the local regime, so although the Xiliang regime had a certain development, when the larger Liangzhou local regime was unified, the Xiliang regime naturally faced the fate of being re-annexed.

Although the Xiliang regime is weak, it is still a local regime that has made important contributions to the development of China's northwest region, and its influence on future generations is not deep, but we should also understand this once glorious small regime, not to mention that its descendants created the Tang Dynasty that has a strong mark in the history of our country. Because of the strength of the Tang Dynasty, the surname Li has become the surname of our country, and today, most of the people with the surname Li today are from the family of Li Wei, the lord of Xiliang, which should also be one of the influences of the Xiliang regime on our later generations.

With the gradual strengthening of the Xiliang regime, its ruler Li Wei naturally has to establish a meritorious career in the troubled times, so the Xiliang regime should also implement its own national strategy in accordance with the blueprint of occupying Liangzhou, dominating the northwest, and then drawing the Central Plains, and the first enemy is naturally the Beiliang regime in front of him, Li Wei is in order to be able to take the lead in the war against the Beiliang regime, so he moved the capital to Jiuquan, always maintaining the threat of the Xiliang regime to the Beiliang regime, and lost no time in encroaching on the territory of the Beiliang regime. This also laid the groundwork for the later demise of the Xiliang regime.

Through the collapse of the Later Liang regime, the Liangzhou region appeared in succession of the Southern Liang regime, the Northern Liang regime, and the Western Liang regime, we can see that in the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, it was the critical period of the great economic development, cultural integration, and ethnic integration of our northwest region, and it was also during this period that the northwest region, which was originally separated from the area ruled by the Central Plains Dynasty and the areas controlled by the nomads, began to move towards the area that the Central Plains Dynasty must strive for, and its regional culture began to be completely no different from the Central Plains culture. They are all new Chinese culture formed by the fusion of nomadic culture and settled culture, and the aborigines of Northwest China also began to become the newly formed Han ancestors after the great integration of ethnic groups during this period. From the perspective of the development of the northwest region in our history, the chaos in the Liangzhou region during the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms is also an inevitable trend of historical development. Among them, the emergence of the Houliang regime has its own characteristics, but it is by mistake in the transition stage of the great change in the northwest region from development to integration, so the Houliang regime has not contributed much to the development of the northwest region, but the former Liang regime, the southern Liang regime, the Northern Liang regime and the Western Liang regime

All of them have contributed to the development of the Northwest region.