Recently, the TV series "Yanyuntai" tells the legendary life of Xiao Yanyan, the Empress Dowager of Liao. Han Derang, the hero of this play, is Xiao Yanyan's lover and a standard "Yan Yunhan".
The greatest historical contribution of the hero and heroine to Liao country is to repel the army of the Northern Expedition in Song Dynasty and help Liao country keep sixteen states.
According to the traditional historical concept, Shi Jingtang betrayed sixteen states to the Liao State of Qidan in the late Jin Dynasty, which had a great influence on later generations, especially in the Song Dynasty, and was one of the turning points in the North-South relationship.
Sixteen counties grasp the danger of Yanshan Mountain, and once occupied by forces beyond the Great Wall, there is no danger to defend Hebei Plain. Moreover, it is an important pasture for horses. Once it is lost, the cavalry of the Central Plains Dynasty will be weak. In addition, the population and financial resources here are of great significance to the Liao country and have made great contributions to the long-term stability system of the Liao country.
Therefore, all sixteen states belong to Liao State, which doomed the national strength of the Northern Song Dynasty to be weak. However, can all the disadvantages of the Northern Song Dynasty really be pushed away from Shijingtang?
First of all, in history, Liu Shouguang and his son occupied Youzhou first, and then Liu and his son were destroyed by Li, so Youzhou was formed in the later Tang Dynasty. At this time, most of the sixteen states were still under the control of the Central Plains forces in the late Tang Dynasty. However, even in the heyday of Li and Li Siyuan in the late Tang Dynasty, the Khitan forces could not be completely expelled from this area. Just like Cao Cao beheaded Wu Huan, Gao Qi beheaded the Khitan Rouran Turkic and so on.
Moreover, even if the sixteen states were not occupied, the imperial power of Khitan and Khitan was constantly developing. For example, the destruction of the Bohai Sea is at least as important to the Khitan of Liao as the capture of Yanyun.
The rise of the Khitan greatly leveled the contrast between the north and the south of the Great Wall. The civilization level of Qidan is much higher than that of all ethnic groups outside the Great Wall before. Later, in the later Tang Dynasty, Shi Jingtang gave it to the Khitan himself. Only Shanzhou in Datong Basin belonged to the Khitan, and the danger of Yanmen in Shanxi was not inevitable. Shanzhou was given to the Khitan by warlords Zhao Dejun and Zhao Yanshou, not directly by Shi Jingtang.
Later generations of history books said to Ye Luduang through the mouth of the Queen Mother of Khitan: "If the place occupies the danger of Chongqing Pass, then you should hurry back. To Zhao warlord: "Even if you want to be emperor, it is not too late to repel the Khitan first and then go south. However, judging from the records of jinliang's later hegemony and the struggle and negotiation with Qidan in the later Tang Dynasty, things are not that simple.
The fact is that the North China Dynasty at that time was unable to expel the Khitan from the whole Yanyun area, and the danger of Yanshan was not fully consolidated. The danger of Chongqing Pass has not been restored and consolidated all the time. On the whole, the Central Plains regime and Qidan were in a state of confrontation at that time. At this time, the civil war in the Central Plains suddenly became unbalanced. This is not only a question of sixteen states, but whether the Khitan can March into the Central Plains.
Zhao Dejun and Zhao Yanshou may have misjudged the situation, but they are also warlords in troubled times. We can still see that if the Khitan was really fragile, he would have completely expelled the Khitan from the piedmont area, and even fought Yanshan to continue northward. Because Zhao and his son could not do this under the condition of the unified and stable state support in the later Tang Dynasty, he is now isolated in the civil war in the later Tang Dynasty. Can he stop the Khitan from coming from all over the country on his own? Even if you can stop it, the result is that you are exhausted and completely insignificant.
As a buffer zone, the greatest interests are naturally self-protection and status. The reason why Zhao and his son took refuge in the Khitan completely was obviously because of the disparity in strength. If the strength is really not so wide, even if Zhao wants to surrender, the soldiers of the whole deep and remote state buffer region will not support him.
If the strength of the two sides is not great, the Youzhou army has expelled the Khitan from the whole area, and can occupy Chongqing Pass at a small price, so that the soldiers of the Khitan nationality can return in vain. Even if Zhao and his son can't see the situation clearly, so can the generals around him? The Five Dynasties were the times when the soldiers in the buffer regions were handsome.
So the Khitans didn't really take a decisive piece of territory from Shi Jingtang for nothing, and then took the opportunity to expand. However, in the fierce confrontation and struggle between the northern and southern regimes of the Great Wall, the Khitan successfully occupied sixteen states through powerful force deterrence.
Moreover, this history fully shows the stability of the Khitan system. It was not the collapse of civil strife like the traditional nomadic people, but the civil war of the Central Plains dynasty and the large-scale attack of Qidan. It should be noted that for a long time before and after the fall of the Sixteen States, the national strength of Khitan continued to rise and the imperial power was further consolidated. And until the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was no large-scale and long-term civil war and civil strife in Liao country.
And of course, the Khitan will not be satisfied with winning sixteen states, but Shi Jingtang still has strength, and the Central Plains buffer region still has strength, so the Khitan is satisfied with conferring the title of Emperor Jin.
But even in Shi Jingtang's time, the latter Jin was not so tame to the Khitan. After Shi Zhonggui came to power, a full-scale civil war broke out. Traditional history books accuse Shi Zhonggui of overreaching, but this is also an important reason why Qidan wanted to go south to the Central Plains. From the war to the destruction of history, the Khitan couldn't keep it, and retreated to China under the counterattack of the Central Plains buffer region headed by Liu Zhiyuan in the later Han Dynasty.
The whole process of the war proved that the central plains buffer region had the ability to stop Qidan from going south. If it weren't for Shi Jin's own civil strife, it would be impossible for Qidan to go south. Even under the civil strife in the late Jin Dynasty, it was untenable for Qidan to enter the Central Plains. There are also five dynasties of buffer region system. Although there are no civil servants in the way, it is inevitable that civil strife will continue in this system.
Then we can draw a conclusion. First of all, it is not that Shi Jingtang betrayed sixteen states to the Khitan, but that with the rise of areas outside the Great Wall, Khitan, as a representative of the regional forces, will inevitably go south and sixteen states will be occupied, which is a necessity, not a result of betrayal.
Later, Zhou Shizong's Northern Expedition proved the general formation of the power contrast between the North and the South. The Khitan was able to win and hold sixteen states, but could not continue to go south to seize the whole Central Plains. The Central Plains Dynasty was able to stop the Khitans from going south, but it could not expel the Khitans from the border areas.
Guo Rong of Zhou Shizong died young, but Zhao Kuangyin of Song Taizu was with him. If the generals of the later Zhou Dynasty judged the military situation at that time and thought that the Khitans could be cut and failed, then nothing could stop Song Taizu from doing the same thing after he took office and driving the Khitans out of the Youzhou area. In fact, if the Khitans were really weak enough to attack, how many times should the Central Plains regime attack the Khitans from the late Tang Dynasty to the late Jin Dynasty to Song Taizu? They didn't do this, obviously thinking that they couldn't do it at that time.
Song Taizu believes that we must unify the four sides, destroy the weak enemies first, and accumulate wealth and military strength before we can fight the Khitan. The Northern Song Dynasty roughly unified the South and wiped out the Northern Han Dynasty, and the territory's population wealth increased unprecedentedly, and its troops were greatly enhanced. So in Song Taizong's time, the two sides fought fiercely again, and this contest ended in the form of a covenant in Song Zhenzong's time.
Song Taizong and Zhao Guangyi are not as good as Song Taizu militarily, but what he took was basically a group of old generals and hundreds of soldiers from Song Taizu. If a failure is accidental, then the results of two, three and many times once again prove the balance of power between North and South. Qidan can win and hold sixteen states, but it is unable to continue to go south to seize the whole Central Plains, while the Central Plains dynasty has the ability to stop Qidan from going south, but it is unable to expel Qidan from the border areas. Khitan's steady occupation of sixteen states is the inevitable result of the power contrast formed by this long-term repeated struggle.
Therefore, it was not the return of sixteen states to Liao that doomed the national strength of the Northern Song Dynasty to be weak. But at that time, a new factor appeared in history, that is, the great development of the area north of the Great Wall and the rise of the local Hu nationality, which inevitably led to a completely different situation from the Han and Tang dynasties without this factor. It is a historical necessity that the Northern Song Dynasty and Liao State formed a new confrontation between the Northern and Southern Dynasties.