Wang Fuzhi, a famous thinker in ancient my country, once said: Guoheng is destroyed by weakness, while Han alone is destroyed by force. This sentence not only expresses the praise for the prosperity of the Han Dynasty, but also a tragic summary of the final demise of the Han Dynasty .
Throughout China's dynasties and dynasties, almost all the great unification dynasties inevitably fell into decline in the long-term development, or eventually went to perish under the blow of external worries or internal troubles.
In contrast, The demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty is much more embarrassing - local forces are too strong for the central government to control. The reason for such a situation is also due to the process of the transition from the special state capital to the military government in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
1. The transition from prefects to state shepherds is difficult to contain.
1. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, prefects became a major local problem.
After the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion, the local prefecture-state forces in the Western Han Dynasty could no longer pose a direct threat to the central government. , but even so, the Western Han government could not blatantly take military strikes to eliminate them one by one.
In order to firmly control the locality in his own hands, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty creatively implemented the conspiracy to weaken the power of the princes. For the local government, he adopted the establishment of a prefect, which has the power of supervision. And the official position directly responsible to the emperor, the prefect system also came into being.
Although in Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's vision, the governor and local officials should be a mutual check and balance relationship, but due to the corruption of the late Western Han Dynasty, most of the emperors were also incompetent and listened to slander, which made the governor's direct ability. The actual prestige and power of the officials who talked with the emperor greatly increased , which formed a strong unilateral deterrent to local officials, and even began to interfere in local government affairs. This was also the first wave of the expansion of the Inspector's power.
After Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, a series of political reforms he implemented not only failed to quell the original social contradictions, but caused dissatisfaction from everyone from scholars to civilians., the entire new dynasty fell into chaos for a while , local turmoil emerges one after another.
In order to maintain his rule, Wang Mang greatly expanded the power of the governor, delegating almost all powers in military, administrative, and people's livelihood to the governor. The purpose was to win over the governor and facilitate their military activities of suppressing local rebellions.
And it was at this time that the governor was upgraded to a state shepherd, from a central official with only procuratorial powers to a local supreme leader who actually controlled the party. It is worth mentioning that the title of the state shepherd can even be hereditary, which undoubtedly provides conditions for the state shepherd to expand and deepen his own power in the local area. After the establishment of
in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty was still only one of many uprising regimes, and was still in the stage of struggle. In order to ensure his victory to the greatest extent, Liu Xiu paid great attention to attracting local tyrants from the beginning of the army. From the decision to rebel to the final unification of the whole country, Liu Xiu gathered four groups of forces from different sources and elements.
Although these local forces have made great contributions to their victory, when the war-torn era ended, they also began to transform into unstable factors that threatened the central government—even if they had no such intentions themselves.
Therefore, Liu Xiu had to continue to maintain the excessive power of the state shepherd to suppress the local tyrants, until the 18th year of Jianwu . More importantly, before all local separatist regimes were eliminated, the state shepherds were always necessary, because most of them were still loyal to the imperial court at this time.
2. The governors inevitably transformed into state shepherds
Eighteen years after the establishment of the military, when the remaining separatist forces in the Eastern Han Dynasty were eliminated one by one, Liu Xiu set about reforming the state shepherding system and downgraded them to Inspectors, and one of the most obvious points is to weaken their military power .
In the decades from the 18th year of Jianwu to the enthronement of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was almost no record of the governor leading the army to cause chaos, which undoubtedly proved that Liu Xiu's reform of the governor's military power was successful at that time. But , this reform has a more obvious disadvantage - overkill.
As mentioned earlier, the original purpose of the Inspectorate was to supervise local officials. In order to prevent the prefects from abusing their supervisory power, the Western Han government issued a series of clear regulations, but there were no such clauses in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In addition, the supervision power of the governor of the Eastern Han Dynasty expanded rapidly, and the scope of supervision even went deep into the large and small affairs of the county.
There are no policy restrictions, and the scope of supervision has been greatly increased. Even if the governors do not have the power to lead the army, their powers inevitably exceed their own supervision power. It is far different. "Although he played an event, he dispatched strategists, and he still held the power of the army and the people, so it was called the old city of Xijing, but the real power was far greater than that of Emperor Wu." This situation cannot be contained either. The Yellow Turban Uprising that broke out after forced the central government of the Eastern Han Dynasty to expand the powers of local governors to suppress the rebellion, which further exacerbated the situation.
In AD 188, the Eastern Han government adopted Liu Yan's suggestion and upgraded the prefect to the prefecture. Looking at the development process of the entire Han Dynasty governor, it seems that it is a matter of course and inevitable that it will be transformed into a state shepherd.
Second, the local forces are always in a state of expansion
1, the localities can actually control the army
For all the dynastic rulers, Only when all the armies of the whole country are in their own hands can they maintain their rule most securely. Especially after seeing the precedent that the Tang Dynasty perished due to the separation of the vassal and towns, the Song Dynasty came out on top among many dynasties in this aspect.
The Western Han Dynasty separated the power of commanding and mobilizing troops for this situation, so that although the locality could control the army, if they wanted to mobilize and use them, they had to go through layers of reporting and obtain the emperor's consent. For example, in the sixth year of Jianyuan, "Ying, the King of Fujian and Yue, attacked the border towns of Nanyue, and the King of Nanyue kept the promise of the Son of Heaven and did not dare to raise troops without authorization, so he sent a letter to the Son of Heaven."
His own borders have been attacked, and the King of Nanyue still does not dare to mobilize the army to resist privately. This shows the strength of the Western Han government's control over the military. Rebellion activities have been greatly reduced.
However, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, this situation began to change. On the one hand, the Eastern Han government abolished the local standing army system, This made it possible to go out to fight only by the army subordinate to the central government, and fought for many years. Greatly weakened the strength of the central government;
On the other hand, the provincial governor became more casual in dispatching troops. Originally, in the Western Han Dynasty, the tiger talisman was required to mobilize the army, but now it is only necessary to hold the section, and mobilizing the army has become a flexible task. It is a very high degree and arbitrary thing.Especially after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, this phenomenon is more common and difficult to contain.
Originally, Liu Xiu’s reform focus on the state shepherds was to weaken their military power to prevent local rebellions , but with the spread of this phenomenon, the ruling foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty was greatly shaken, and the state shepherds in various regions have since then had the capital to support their troops. Manager, most of the governors had certain power in the central government before they were transferred. , especially some officials who were transferred from generals, still had control over the army.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, when a subordinate to When a general of the central army is transferred to a place, although he will be given the title of a general and the seal of a general, he can still command the army that was originally in the central army.For example, General Ma Cheng at that time was "in the south to protect the border, nothing to do in the north, worship as the prefect of Zhongshan, the general seals the ribbon, and leads the troops as before." An army that should not be underestimated, while indirectly weakening the strength of the central government, it can continue to develop troops loyal to itself at the local level, which can be described as killing three birds with one stone.
It is also for this reason that most of the state shepherds at that time also had the title of general. For example, Yuan Shao was the general and led Jizhou shepherd, and Cao Cao was the general of Xingfenwu, General Jiande, general of Zhendong, and general of Yanzhou Shepherd.
In addition, the state shepherd at that time was very keen on cultivating his own shogunate forces . The phenomenon of cultivating the shogunate actually appeared as early as the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Moreover, due to the situation mentioned above, the central government could not impose restrictions on the localities, so that the state shepherds often had no scruples when cultivating the shogunate forces, and there were hundreds of people at every turn.
Although Liu Xiu's subsequent reforms prevented this phenomenon to a certain extent, with the changes in the situation in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, this phenomenon also appeared again. , coupled with the recruitment system that was popular in at that time, provided the necessary conditions for state shepherds to expand the number of troops they had.
In addition, this kind of shogunate is often counted within the local bureaucracy, that is, state officials, who work closely with the state shepherd's general's office to enable the state shepherd to achieve the effect of integrated management of the administration and military, thereby consolidating his own rule. .
Finally, the reason why the Eastern Han state government changed to a military government was largely because of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Whether to help maintain the Eastern Han government or just to maintain their own rule, the state shepherds must focus on the military field to suppress the Yellow Turban Rebellion.As a result, many local official positions began to be militarized.
went so far as to say that many people were named generals and served as state shepherds because of their meritorious deeds in suppressing the rebellion, and they handled local affairs while suppressing the rebellion. Although it was pacified later, the local forces have already shown a tendency to be inexorable, and the Eastern Han government has nothing to do.
3. Summary
In fact, the phrase "Guoheng is destroyed by weakness, while Han alone is destroyed by force" is by no means a mere compliment of the Han Dynasty. On the contrary, it more reveals the helplessness of the Han Dynasty's demise With a sense of regret, also exposes the truth that the central government must firmly control localities in order to maintain national stability .
It is true that even in the most chaotic stage of the confrontation of the Three Kingdoms, the surrounding ethnic minorities are unable to invade the Central Plains, but this is not the peaceful and prosperous age that the majority of people yearn for. Therefore, the Han government fell into the hands of civil strife, often causing more sighs and sighs.
