This battle of Huaixi has finally come to an end.

At the end of the song, it was supposed to be a time to breathe a sigh of relief and sit down for a cup of tea and a cookie.

No one thought that just two months after the Battle of Huaixi, a major event occurred in the Southern Song Dynasty.

On April 12 of the 11th year of Shaoxing, Emperor Gaozong issued an edict ordering Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong and Yue Fei, the three envoys of Xuanfu to come to the court as soon as possible.

This command is a bit confusing.

Although the great battle between the Song and Jin sides on the Huaixi battlefield has temporarily subsided, the local war is still continuing. Especially on the battlefield in the northwest, the big drama co-starring Wu Yuanwan and Yan Sali is still in the climax, and the Song and Jin armies are inseparable, so it is not lively.

Under such circumstances, the next round of large-scale war could break out at any time, how could Emperor Gaozong be so disregarding the overall situation and recall the three commanders of the military region back to the palace at this juncture?

There is only one reason, at this time, Qin Hui has re-established a relationship with Wanyan Wushu, and has received a promise from his old man - this time the peace will be completed.

Now that safety has been guaranteed, Emperor Gaozong naturally has to enforce the traditional rules of the old Zhao Emperor.

"A glass of wine releases military power"

To be fair, the Southern Song court's "right to release soldiers" was comprehensive, covering all high-ranking officers, and was not aimed at a specific person.

From Liu Qi to Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong, and Yue Fei, all those who had their own independent troops were all targeted by the "right to release troops."

Therefore, when the self-righteous Zhang Jun took the initiative to cooperate with Qin Hui, he secretly murdered Liu Qi, Han Shizhong, Yue Fei and others. I thought that Qin Hui would fulfill his promise: "Do your best." and the power of the army shall be returned to you. ”

In summary. Qin Hui asked Yu Shitai to impeach him lightly, and asked him Zhang Jun to return to the prototype.

It's ridiculous, it's lamentable

It is certainly not enough to simply "release the military power". Regardless of whether the high-ranking officers who were dismissed from military power were convinced or not, the imperial court still needed to arrest a person to come out to "sacrifice the flag" in order to "set an example for the chickens and monkeys."

The original target of the imperial court was Liu Qi, which later became Han Shizhong, but in the end, the target of the imperial court became Yue Fei.

Our upright Yue Shaobao. He used his influence to save Liu Qi first and then Han Shizhong; But when it was his turn, tragedy struck!

The story of the Storm Pavilion is roughly like this

In fact, it was the wish of Emperor Gaozong and most of the literati and doctors to restore the system of respecting literature and suppressing military force and using literature to control military force during the Northern Song Dynasty; Successive prime ministers were also worried that their position would be threatened by the military generals who had made great achievements in war, and they were working day and night to plan how to remove the military commanders from military power.

Starting from Emperor Taizu Zhao Kuangyin and the first prime minister of the Song Dynasty, it has become the consensus of the imperial court to suppress military generals, not to let military generals have real power, and not to allow military generals to have the opportunity to rebel.

It is no wonder that the history of the five dynasties and ten kingdoms before the Northern Song Dynasty is all bloody lessons.

Merely. Is it really necessary to suppress the generals so much?

Counted, in the Southern Song Dynasty Gaozong era. The call for the removal of military power from military forces did not come only from the era when the five commanders of Liu, Zhang, Han, Wu, and Yue reflected each other.

In the early years of Jianyan, Liu Yue, the head of the household department, bluntly said: "All the generals raised troops to enter the Hajj, and they all named themselves with military names, and there was a big danger of falling behind. ”

In the fourth year of Jianyan, Wang Zao, who was also a straight bachelor, reprimanded the generals:

"Now there are some generals and the weight of the two towns, among the ruling class, the family is full of gold and silk, brocade clothes and meat, in and out of the flying and domineering, do not follow the law of the court, its disaster is worse than the gold captive, it can be said that the country is negative, the people are burdened, the crime is so, with the ancient law should be punished."

At that time, there were only Liu Guangshi and Zhang Jun who had the title of "the weight of the two towns".

In the first year of Shaoxing, Wang Zao once again played a chapter, talking about "the generals have heavy troops, and sleep into the trend of external weight", presented "three strategies for controlling generals", and suggested that Zhao Gou should "gradually lose the power of generals".

At that time, Emperor Gaozong's answer was: "The next ten years will be like his plan." ”

Sooner or later, the military power will be lifted, but you can't be too anxious, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry!

Zuo Xuanyi Lang Wang Zhizhi ignored the Jin people on the side, stared at the tiger, wrote to Gaozong, and strongly demanded that the generals' military power be confiscated, and the tradition of recovering the army with civil ministers should be restored, and he appealed: "I hope that Your Majesty will think carefully and choose a virtuous and respected Wenchen to give him an axe and a horse, so that he can command the six divisions." ”

In the eighth year of Shaoxing, Zhang Jie, the superintendent of the imperial history, also said: "The power of the generals is too heavy", reminding Emperor Gaozong to reduce the military power of the generals as soon as possible.

Gaozong greatly appreciated this, and immediately said, "In one or two years, things should be done by themselves."

Judging from Emperor Gaozong's reply to the ministers, the incident of "releasing military power" that occurred in the eleventh year of Shaoxing has long been included in Emperor Gaozong's timetable.

Since the emperor has this wish, of course he must actively implement it when he becomes prime minister.

When Zhang Jun was in the phase, he relieved Liu Guangshi of his military power on the grounds that the generals had been holding heavy troops for a long time, but it also triggered the Huaixi Mutiny.

Zhao Ding succeeded the prime minister, Wang Shu was in the cardinal mansion, and the two still wanted to seize the military power.

They entrusted the subordinate generals of the major generals with important responsibilities and promoted them, so as to disperse the military power of the major generals and achieve the goal of breaking the whole into zero.

Their experimental subject was Zhang Jun, but because Qin Hui returned, Zhao Ding and Wang Shu were dismissed one after another, and this time the action of collecting troops and seizing power ended before it could be launched.

There is a first and a second, and there is a third and a fourth......

From this point of view, the removal of Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong, Yue Fei and other three people from military power was actually the main theme of the society at that time, and it was something that would happen sooner or later.

The question is, is the system of respecting culture and suppressing military force and using literature to control military force really so appropriate?

There is no doubt that the Song Dynasty was a pinnacle of Chinese antiquity.

The level of scientific development of the whole society, the affluence of the country and the people, and so on, can be said to be unprecedented and unprecedented; Don't say that the previous Han and Tang dynasties can't be compared. The later Ming and Qing dynasties were even worse.

True. The reason for the prosperity of the Song Dynasty generation. It is the continuation and result of the Li family's openness and tolerance to the world over the years in the Tang Dynasty; However, the Song Dynasty's weak military power contrasted sharply with her ultra-high gross national product.

Whether it is the country's tax revenue, the country's population, or the gross national product, the Song Dynasty is comparable to the ratio of the United States to Mexico in comparison with the Khitan Liao and Jurchen Jin states.

There are also people who use various data to illustrate the strength of the Song Dynasty's army, such as the victory in the Western Xia battlefield. Wait a minute; It's just that the huge United States was actually forced by the weak Mexico, and was beaten and angry everywhere, no matter how it is explained, it cannot get rid of the identity of the weak.

The reason for this is this hateful system of "using literature to control force."

There are also many people who attribute the weakness of the Song Dynasty to the lack of horses.

The lack of horses is certainly a disadvantage, but it is definitely not the main reason.

In the era of cold weapons, no kind of weapon or equipment can determine victory, and the most important factor is people.

There is also a sentence in the quotations of Mao Taizu of the Celestial Dynasty: "The decisive factor is people." And not things. ”

Then, the system of "respecting literature and suppressing military force, and using literature to control military force". And how did it lead to the weakness of the Song army?

The military physique of the Song Dynasty can be roughly divided into two layers.

The arrangement of the upper echelons, according to the History of the Song Dynasty? The description in "Rank 2": "The privy council is in charge of the soldiers, the tiger charm, the three yamen are in charge of the army, and the ministers are in charge of the army, and each has its own guard"

In this way, the command system of the entire army was divided into three, with mutual checks and balances, and also mutual bargaining.

The arrangement of the lower levels, according to the provisions of the "Changing the Law": the Qifu and the forbidden army of the prefectures regularly change their garrisons, the purpose is to make the soldiers do not know the generals, and there will be no special troops.

As a result of this arrangement, the control of the entire army is vested in the imperial court, and not subordinate to someone.

It's just that the court is empty, and the emperor doesn't have so much effort to manage it every day.

The result that no one can control becomes that no one cares.

This kind of system is actually a kind of public ownership in disguise, or it can be called "official ownership". Compared with the "People's Commune" and "Big Pot Rice" before the reform and opening up of the Celestial Empire, it is very similar.

The result of the "big pot of rice" will inevitably bring about the bloated organization, the corruption of personnel, the inefficiency, and so on.

When the Song Dynasty's high military investment did not have high output, but was beaten and controlled by others everywhere, conservatism and retreat naturally became an inevitable choice.

Therefore, the military power of the Song Dynasty was completely disproportionate to his economic strength

From the first year of Jiankang to the eleventh year of Shaoxing, the time was as long as fifteen years. This was a very special time period in the Song and Song dynasties.

During this period, the power of the royal family was almost zero, and it could only rely on the charisma of social conventions and morals to maintain its rule.

As a result, the Southern Song Dynasty court can only let the development of various generals go, as long as you can insist on fighting with the Jin soldiers, as long as you are willing to fight the banner of my Song Dynasty.

The result of this laissez-faire development of military generals and officers is actually the "joint production contract responsibility system" after reform and opening up.

Only when you do your own things will you work hard.

From the first year of Jianyan's poverty and whiteness, the four years of Jianyan's "patrolling the mountains and searching the sea", to the ten years of Shaoxing's "shaking the mountains and shaking the Yuejia military disaster", it only took 15 years, and the Southern Song Dynasty court had a fundamental reversal of the military situation of the Jurchen Jin State.

The reason for this lies in the "contract system".

In this process, among the major military regions of the Southern Song Dynasty court, it was not only the Yuejia army that stood out, but presented a scene of a hundred flowers blooming and thriving.

The two brothers Wu Jue and Wu Fu in the northwest, Yue Fei in Hubei, Han Shizhong in the mouth of the Yangtze River, and Zhang Jun in Huaixi all inflicted heavy losses on the Jin soldiers.

It is a pity that when the situation stabilized a little, the emperors and civil officials of the Southern Song Dynasty were ready to move, bent on restoring the ancestral family law of "respecting literature and suppressing martial arts, and using literature to control martial arts".

The "contract system" was only implemented for 15 years before it was "put in order" by the imperial court.

As a result of "putting things in order," the situation of being passively beaten has naturally resumed.

It is understandable that the emperor wants to suppress the generals, so why do many literati and scholars come to join in the fun?

In a word, the ass decides the head.

It's like the caste system in India.

Although Kshatriyas were dissatisfied with the suppression of the Brahmins, they could not allow the Vaishyas and Shudras the opportunity to overtake them

Throughout Chinese history, after the Song Dynasty, China went downhill significantly.

Putting aside the short-lived Yuan Dynasty, the Ming, Qing, Republic of China, etc., the obvious generation is not as good as the generation.

As soon as it comes to this, someone will definitely jump out and say something about "Kangqian Prosperous Age".

Don't talk about it, that's just the last bit of a flashback to China's questioning

The depth and scope of the influence of the Song Dynasty's "respect for literature and suppression of martial arts" actually far exceeded people's imagination.

When you have a lot of resources in your hands, but you can't expand your territory to the outside world, the only possibility is to hide at home and squander indiscriminately, get drunk and dream of death.

But it was not a way to do this in the long run, so the theorists of the Song Dynasty prescribed a prescription -

Preserve the principles of heaven and destroy people's desires.

From a certain point of view, desire is the source of reform, innovation and social progress. When desire is gone, society naturally begins to decline.

It should be remembered that in Chinese society at this time, "respecting literature and suppressing martial arts" was not only the ancestral family law of the royal family, it had become a "consensus" in society, a custom.

Everyone thinks it's right and right.

As a result, the theory of "destroying human desires" continued to develop, and in the Ming Dynasty, it was combined with the social reality of the time, resulting in a new policy with the characteristics of Ming society—strictly prohibiting all strange tricks and tricks.

In the Qing Dynasty, there was a further version of the theory of destroying human desires: on the basis of strictly prohibiting strange tricks and tricks, a literal prison was added.

When Dai Zi, the inventor of the earliest machine gun (even the fire gun), was exiled by the Kangxi Emperor, and when the author of "Qingfeng is illiterate, why do you flip through the book" be punished by the nine tribes, the various humiliations and injustices suffered by China after the Opium War have become a historical inevitability

From the perspective of the entire world history, the era of the Two Song Dynasty coincided with the darkest medieval period in Europe.

But in contrast to China, from the late Middle Ages to the Middle Ages, Europe developed rapidly. The main reason for this is the emancipation of human nature.

The credit of the Renaissance lies not in a few literary works or some scientific achievements, but in the respect for the personality of the individual and the lifting of the shackles on personal freedom.

Mao Taizu of the Celestial Dynasty taught us that talent is the primary productive force.

Europe, which has completely liberated the productive forces, has become more rational in its leadership in modern and modern times.

And did this change originate from the Song Dynasty?

(End of book). (To be continued......)