The historical background of The Six Kingdoms should be viewed from two angles: first, the historical period of the demise of the six countries discussed by Su Xun to understand the basis of Su Xun's argument; Second, Su Xun's historical situation in the Northern Song Dynasty, so as to clarify the practical significance and writing characteristics of Su Xun's Theory of Six Kingdoms.
After the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, in view of the separatist regime in the buffer region at the end of the Tang Dynasty and the chaos in the Five Dynasties, centralization was implemented, the power of our time was lifted, and civil servants were sent to be local officials, and officials were sent to local governments to manage finances. The emperor directly controlled the imperial army, and local political power, financial power and military power were all returned to the central government.
In order to prevent military commanders from being too powerful, it is forbidden to specialize in soldiers. Even if they go out to fight, they should act according to the array given by the emperor. Generals often rotate, and soldiers don't know generals or soldiers, which leads to the lack of combat effectiveness of the army. Although these measures ended the warlord's rebellion, they also led to military decline.
During the 100 years after the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Northern Song army fought against the troops of the Khitan and Xixia for more than 60 times, with many defeats and few victories. The measures to strengthen centralization in the Northern Song Dynasty led to the expansion of bureaucracy and the continuous expansion of the army. By the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, officials' salaries and military expenditures were huge, and the government's finances could not make ends meet. The Northern Song government did not restrict the merger policy, and the phenomenon of land concentration was serious, and the nobles occupied a lot of land, and the social contradictions were sharp.
Political autocracy and corruption, military arrogance and incompetence have brought extreme weakness in diplomacy. When Su Xun was alive, the Northern Song Dynasty paid a large amount of silver and commodities to Qidan and Xixia every year. As a result of this bribe, it encouraged the arrogance of the Khitan and Xixia, increased the burden on the people, greatly damaged the national strength and brought endless disasters.
In other words, at that time, the Northern Song Dynasty was surrounded by peace in policy, poor and weak, and Su Xun wrote Six Kingdoms to address this reality.
Extended data
At the beginning of the Six Kingdoms, the reasons for the demise of the Six Kingdoms were first put forward. Really four words, "the six countries were destroyed, but the disadvantage was not soldiers, the war was not good, and the disadvantage was Qin." Su Xun categorically concluded that the six countries were destroyed. Su Xun believed that the six countries perished not because their weapons were not sharp, nor because they fought badly, but because they used land as a bribe to make peace with Qin.
"Bribing Qin" means bribing Qin. This is actually weakening our own strength, encouraging the enemy's aggressive ambition and pushing ourselves to destruction. Therefore, the author went on to state: "If Qin is guilty, he will lose his vitality, and the way to ruin is also." But in fact, not all the six countries dedicated their land to Qin, and those countries that did not "pay tribute to Qin" were also shattered, or: "The six countries mourned each other, so they paid tribute to Qin". What is the reason?
Su Xun deliberately asked this question, and then gave an answer: "Those who don't take bribes will die. Gai lost his strong support and could not do it alone. " So in the final analysis, "bribing Qin" is a great fatal wound. The above is the basic argument of the whole article, highlighting that the collapse of the six countries is "harmful to Qin", which is from the perspective of the six countries.
Then Su Xun discussed the consequences of this practice from two aspects: "taking bribes from Qin". Su Xun pointed out: the land gained by the state of Qin through bribery is 100 times more than that gained by the state of Qin through winning the war, and the land lost by other countries through bribery is 100 times more than that lost by defeat.
Then, of course, the most welcome thing for Qin and the most unfavorable thing for other countries is not to fight. Here, "Qin's great desire is a great danger to the princes, but he doesn't fight" focuses on the "non-soldiers are unfavorable, and war is unfavorable" in the first four sentences, which supplements and expounds the argument that "the disadvantages lie in Qin" from another angle.