After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, China formed a unified empire based on the county system, which is a very special thing in civilization because it is so advanced. The advantage of this unified empire is that it can unify words, ideas and measurements in a vast area, concentrate powerful manpower and material resources to complete giant projects such as repairing the Great Wall and diverting the Yellow River, and organize military forces to resist foreign invasion.
On the other hand, this advanced system also made the regime pay a huge price. In order to manage such a large territory, the empire formed a huge bureaucracy and hierarchical management system. In addition, there are not enough supporting transportation and communication conditions, so the central government has limited control over the grassroots people. Overlapping administrative costs not only affect the operating efficiency of the government itself, but also turn all kinds of losses caused by it into huge costs, and finally fall on the bottom people.
In the early days of the regime, because of the influence of the war, the land was vast and sparsely populated. At this time, farmers have enough land to bear such costs. However, with the economic recovery, population growth and per capita arable land reduction, the operating cost of political power is also increasing, which makes the bottom people gradually unbearable. After this contradiction reaches a certain level, the empire will have a ruling crisis, and then after a new round of war reshuffle, the regime will start again at a new starting point and cycle.
The regime of the Eastern Han Dynasty was built on the ruins of the Western Han Dynasty, and the growth of its powerful forces made it impossible for the empire to maintain the system of all the people being soldiers. Under the leadership of Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, the local government abolished the material officer knight and carried out military contraction.
The so-called strongmen refer to families that have gathered a lot of land and wealth. After they accumulated wealth through their ancestors, they continued to buy land and hire tenant farmers to further expand their wealth. When their wealth and population reached a certain level, they developed the manor economy. The manor not only has a complete agricultural system, but also has animal husbandry and handicraft industry, raising horses, pigs, chickens, sheep, fish and other livestock. Brewing, making sauce, making sugar, making preserved fruits, weaving, making instruments and making utensils can all be carried out in the manor, and some manors can even smelt iron and make salt. On the basis of a complete economy, the manor also developed its own internal order, organized education and armed forces, and became an independent kingdom.
Compared with the bloated imperial system, the manor is undoubtedly much lighter in scale and management mode, and it does not have to bear huge military and construction costs. The living conditions of tenant farmers in the manor are much better than those of ordinary farmers. But the problem is that the powerful manor will compete with the government for population, making it impossible for the state to collect taxes and affecting the operation function of the court, so it is the object of attack. This kind of competition between the powerful and the imperial court is actually the competition between two different economic systems. In a sense, the emperor is the greatest strongman.
During the period of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, it dealt a powerful blow to the powerful forces, but it could not stop the emergence and expansion of the powerful groups. Even Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu was born in a powerful family. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the country still had spare capacity to operate abroad, but as time entered the second century, the imperial court became more and more powerless.
On the one hand, powerful forces are getting stronger and stronger, occupying a large number of land and population, and gradually controlling public opinion and personnel. On the other hand, climate change has led to frequent disasters, reduced grain production and affected national movements. At this time, aliens with certain strength have invaded and harassed the border areas on a large scale. In order to solve the hundred-year Qiang rebellion, the Eastern Han Dynasty launched a large-scale war, which almost razed the imperial capital to the ground in Huan Dynasty. Under the double pressure of natural disasters and military affairs, yeomen faced bankruptcy and had to rebel or take refuge in powerful people, which further aggravated the ruling crisis of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
By the Lingdi Dynasty, the whole Eastern Han Dynasty was in financial trouble. Emperor Ling thought of various ways to increase expenses, including temporary taxation, opening the harem, selling officials and blackmailing new officials to repair the palace. , and even lead to death.
However, these measures did not alleviate the crisis of the imperial court, but further damaged the prestige of the imperial court and coerced officials to participate in corruption in disguise. However, the uprising activities in various places are still in full swing, and the court has been unable to support the expenses of the rebels. Therefore, it has to delegate the right of conscription to the counties, and the local governments will bear the military expenses themselves, and officials are also allowed to lead troops to quell the chaos.
This momentum intensified after the Yellow Scarf Uprising. In order to appease social contradictions, Emperor Ling ordered amnesty for as many as 20 times during his 22-year reign, and also lifted party member's imprisonment. However, all these actions are to no avail, and the uprising activities are still frequent. Emperor Han Ling had to sell officials while continuing to delegate military power and financial power. In the end, it developed into mass production and money trading in the name of the ruler, and established a state animal husbandry system that controlled the military and political power of a country.
Then the question is, if the court can't raise troops, how can local officials raise troops? The answer is to form a cooperative relationship with strong people. That is, the strongmen pay for people, and officials give the strongmen privileges and status in the government, and develop the armed forces in a way different from the centralized system of the empire.
Ada, who is in charge of Yizhou, and Liu Biao, who is in charge of Jingzhou, came to power, first killed the local strongmen who refused to cooperate, then fostered the strongmen who were willing to cooperate, and gained their support by transferring part of their power, thus achieving the goal of regional hegemony. There has been a subtle change, that is, the status of the powerful.
In the original centralized empire, there was a competitive relationship between the powerful and powerful, and they would compete with the government for population, which was the object of attack. Under the new system, the strongman is the object to be wooed and the cooperative relationship. However, the degree of cooperation between the two sides should be considered. If the powerful force is too large, the centralization of the government will undoubtedly be weakened, but the situation at that time could not support the maintenance of centralization, and the two sides could only continue to tug at war in the dual relationship of competition and cooperation.
As a result, local officials completed the military and political rule over the region in the process of this seesaw battle, that is, the process of warlordization. When they can fully bear the military expenses and fight against the rebellion without causing trouble to the court, they actually get rid of their dependence on the court. At this point, they are only one fuse from independence. And this fuse will come soon, that is, Dong Zhuo went to Beijing.
Emperor Ling died young, and the Ho brothers and sisters, the consorts of civilians, actually had the opportunity to reconcile with eunuchs in the power struggle, but at the instigation of scholars led by Yuan Shao, the two sides finally fought to the death and died together. Luoyang, the capital of the power vacuum period, was controlled by Dong Zhuo, a good soldier of Mazhuang. With the help of rescue, he is above all officials.
Dong Zhuo's luck can be said to be good or bad. Although he took advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and entered Luoyang without much effort, he was left with a mess to clean up. The centrifugal force of local officials towards the imperial court is getting stronger and stronger. The imperial court failed to get out of the financial crisis, but it was still consuming infighting again and again. The urgent task is to rebuild the authority of the imperial court, so as not to end up in an alienated situation.
In order to achieve this goal, Dong Zhuo also made a lot of efforts, such as climbing relatives with Dong Taihou, trying to win the status of consort for himself, and promoting celebrities in China to foster cronies. But it is a pity that Dong Zhuo, as a frontier warrior, is at the low end of the big fellow's contempt chain and has not made much contribution to China. Zhang Huan and Duan Qirui, who are from similar backgrounds, both played the role of thugs in the court turmoil and did not command the overall situation. Therefore, the bureaucratic group is not convinced of Dong Zhuo and is unwilling to accept his bribes. On the contrary, they always want to get rid of him. Hu Muban, the satrap of Hanoi holding Jin Wu, said in his surrender book to his uncle Wang Kuang that the Kanto governors who opposed Dong Zhuo were actually jealous of Dong Zhuo, which is probably the reason.
However, Dong Zhuo didn't realize that his situation was in jeopardy. But completely angered the literati group by abolishing the emperor. Taxi drivers with a keen sense of smell had a premonition that the crisis was coming and fled Luoyang in succession. Not long after, someone hit the banner of Dong Zhuo, and there was a denunciation. Although a large number of local officials did not respond for various reasons and did not try their best to help Dong Zhuo stop the Coalition forces, they watched. The court controlled by Dong Zhuo fell into a state of complete isolation and lost its prestige.
Dong Zhuo is like a humble Mongolian doctor. He is eager to prove his medical skill. He gave a dose of arsenic to a seriously ill patient, which accelerated the patient's death.
After Dong Zhuo's death, his subordinate Li Jue Guo Si won the battle. Although their attitude was lower than Dong Zhuo's, they also sent ministers to Kanto, hoping to save the reputation of the imperial court. However, the reputation of water under the bridge in the Han Dynasty has fallen to the bottom, and it is difficult to restrain the behavior of local rulers. What the local officials who were separated by warlords did was superficial, and they wouldn't really listen to LiGuo. And the two soon fell into infighting, and the envoys sent were eventually detained by Yuan Shu. The world has really reached the point where they don't know how to be a king or an emperor.
When Lu Su told Sun Quan that the Han Dynasty could not prosper, it did not mean that Liu could no longer be emperor, but that the world could not return to the past order. The rise of local tyrannical forces destroyed the old order, and the new order must accommodate these people. The centralized empire, which was mutually exclusive to the strongmen, had no attraction for them, so they didn't want to go back to the Han Dynasty. In fact, everyone had no conditions to go back to the Han Dynasty. Only a new system that can coexist with authoritarian regimes is what they expect. Whoever can do this will be qualified to enter the next era. Su Can saw this because he was a strong man himself.
Cao Cao, the founder of Cao Wei, is a man who values efficiency. Naturally, he doesn't like the existence of strongmen. Once, he tried to beat them with heavy punches. The result was betrayed by most of Yanzhou's strongmen, leaving only three counties. At this time, he realized that he did not have the ability to resist the status quo and began to explore ways to coexist with strongmen.
Cao Cao welcomed Feng to gain authority, made him a general or a corps commander, and designated two or three counties as counties as his sphere of influence. Incorporate strongmen through official positions and give them legal military and political power.
This is undoubtedly a compromise made by Cao Cao to reality. Later, the teacher said that Changba had rebelled against Cao Cao five times, and it was recorded in the History of the Three Kingdoms at least three times, but Cao Cao chose to forgive him. Liu, a native of Guanzhong, fell into the hands of Cao Cao twice and was treated well. Tian Chou, a famous player in Youzhou, refused to obey Cao Cao's wishes many times, and Cao Cao did not dare to neglect him. Huang Hua, a native of Jiuquan, kidnapped the satrap and rebelled in the early days of Cao Pi's succession, but his career remained prosperous after his surrender. For this unreachable rebellion, it is difficult for the court controlled by Cao Cao to send troops to quell it in person like the Han Dynasty, and it is highly dependent on powerful or even foreign invasion. If the other party is willing to surrender voluntarily, it will naturally get preferential treatment.
Local officials in Cao and Wei dynasties also highly relied on the cooperation of powerful people in internal affairs and military affairs when governing the territory. There is even an extreme example. In order to govern the territory, the tomb refused to send people to Beijing and was finally impeached.
However, Cao Cao didn't just compromise. He settled the fields by recruiting talents directly, and set a very high tax rate to enrich the country's use, and on this basis, he formed Chinese and foreign troops. As for the state and county soldiers recruited by the local officials in collusion with the strongmen, although the military expenses were not entirely borne by the court, Cao Cao established a commander-in-chief system and sent confidant officials to manage these troops. In order to curb the emergence of new warlords, a pledge system was established, taking local generals and families of military households as hostages to increase their worries when they rebelled. Cao Cao's descendants also constantly improved the viceroy system and strictly restricted the authority of the viceroy.
There is no doubt that Chinese and foreign troops are the real cornerstone of Cao Wei. If we lose them, the Cao Wei court will have no capital to control the four sides. As can be seen from the records, Cao Wei's Chinese and foreign armies are in a superior position. When Si Mazhao cut Shu, he specially issued the imperial edict of Yihai, stipulating that the reward of the governors of counties and counties could not be the same as that of Chinese and foreign troops. Although the Liangzhou military forces and Hu Qiang Jian 'er recruited by Wargo have repeatedly made outstanding achievements, they rarely get rewards, while the Zhong Jun generals under Zhong Hui will be rewarded for their achievements.
At the same time, Cao Wei made great efforts to raise this army. During Zhuge Liang's resistance to the Northern Expedition, because China troops were often dispatched, farmers in Jizhou were specially transferred to wasteland for logistical supplies. When Sima Yi made an expedition to Liaodong, the annual expenses of 40,000 troops brought a heavy burden to the court. During the period of Si Mazhao, Chen Tai was praised privately by Si Mazhao because he didn't easily ask the court to send Chinese and foreign troops.
The main reason is that with the migration of the war and the concealment of the powerful, the number of people that the court itself can master is very small. At the peak of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were 56.47 million court books, while when Cao Wei destroyed Shu, Cao Wei's books were only 4.43 million, less than one tenth of that of the Eastern Han Dynasty. However, in the 20 years since the reunification of the three countries, the national household registration has tripled, which shows that the population of each country is pitiful and the phenomenon of household registration hiding is serious.
The total registered population of Wei, Shu and Wu is 7.67 million, while the total number of soldiers exceeds 900,000, which is close to eight to one. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the household registration and the number of soldiers could only reach 100 1 at most, which could not be maintained for a long time. It can be known that only a small number of standing armies in Wei, Shu and Wu were completely funded by the imperial court.
Gao, the minister of Cao Wei, said that the salary of ministers was less than one-fifth of that of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and that of the three ministers in the Western Jin Dynasty was only about half that of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This shows that the court of Cao Wei and even the Western Jin Dynasty was not very well off economically. However, there are many records in the history books that officials in the late Wei Dynasty and the early Jin Dynasty lived a luxurious life, so the money they spent on luxury enjoyment certainly did not come from their salaries. Except for the part of corruption and bribery, everything else comes from legal income, such as food city, rewards and land property. Even Dan Tao, considered poor, occupied the official land of this country.
Even though many methods were used to restrict local officials, this system based only on China's army undoubtedly provided the soil for the emergence of new warlords. When the authority of the imperial court declines, they will emerge sooner or later, which is a curse from the powerful. However, before that day came, Cao Wei was usurped by the Sima family.
Sun Wu's system went a step further than Cao Wei's, because the Sun Ce brothers had few troops in the early days, and their fame was insufficient, and they were also the old subordinates of the traitor Yuan Shu. It was difficult for them to recruit a strongman like Cao Cao with the official horn, so there was an extremely fierce conflict between the two sides. Sun Ce took very cruel measures against the rebels. He even became a little nervous about those who refused to accept himself or whose prestige might surpass himself, and his death was inseparable from this. After Sun Quan came to power, he also carried out Sun Ce's line. However, with the Sun Shi brothers gradually gaining a foothold in Jiangdong and accepting the knighthood of the imperial court, more and more Jiangdong clans are willing to join the Sun Shi brothers, such as Lu Gu Zhang Zhu of Wu Jun.
In the face of opponents' voices, Sun Quan was as merciless as his brother. Shen You, who was born in a big family in Wuxian County, was immediately executed after expressing his strong opposition to Sun Quan. No one in Shen Shi's family held a high position during Sun Quan's period. It was not until the last years of Sun Wu that Shen Ying, the secretariat of Danyang, was appointed as the first class in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Despite many twists and turns, Sun Quan finally established a close cooperative relationship with Jiangdong clans, especially the strongmen from Wu County. These strongmen held various important positions in Sun Wu's regime, had considerable privileges, and even monopolized personnel voting rights to a certain extent.
However, because of enjoying so many privileges, I have a considerable sense of identity with Sun Wu's regime. When Sun Quan surrendered to Cao Pi and accepted the knighthood of Wu Wang, Sun Quan's civil and military officials showed great dissatisfaction, and they no longer yearned for the northern regime. This unique sense of self-identity lasted until the end of the Jin Dynasty. Lu Ji, a descendant of the Lujia family, still missed the Huating crane in his hometown before his death. The descendants of the family also rejected the conquest of Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, and chose to return to their hometown of Jiangdong in the face of increasingly fierce war in the Central Plains.
But outside the clan of Jiangdong, the old headquarters of Sun Ce across the river is also an important part of the regime. Because Sun Ce did not have the conditions and resources to form the supreme right to speak at that time, it adopted the method of dividing the exclusive army and territory for its subordinates, namely, the ministerial system and the feudal system. Sun Wu's generals had to run their own sites to recruit soldiers and raise military expenses. That is to say, at that time, Sun Wu's generals were all small warlords, and then everyone would take orders from the big warlord Sun Ce.
People who can get ahead in the Sun Wu regime have a characteristic, that is, they must get on the horse and manage the government. Therefore, most of Sun Wu's military commanders and advisers appear in various records as both civil and military. When I was a county magistrate in my early years, people like He Ji who had forcibly eradicated local strongmen by strength were very fond of the Sun Quan brothers and got along well under the Sun Wu regime.
Sun Quan also regards plundering the population resources of Shanyue as a basic national policy. Relevant records show that Sun's generals directly obtained the plundered population. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Sun Wu has gained130,000 households, 30,800 people and140,000 soldiers in previous raids on Shanyue, which does not include actions without specific figures, and Sun Wu's household registration in the country is only over 500,000 households and over 200,000 soldiers.
Therefore, Sun Wu's tyrannical forces are extremely powerful, and it can even be said that Sun Wu's court itself is a group of tyrannical forces that support it. When He Shao, the grandson of He Ji, served as the prefect of Wu County, he went to search for the illegal hiding population of Qiang people in Wu County, such as Gu Gu and Lu Jia, which directly shocked Lu Kang and Sun Hao, and finally the incident went away. There is an unwritten tacit understanding between the Sun Wu regime and the powerful clan. He Shao couldn't have been unaware. He should have known that what he had done wouldn't have any practical effect, just wanted to warn the other party not to ride on his head.
However, the greater the power of the powerful, the more the power of the court itself is affected. Therefore, the Sun Wu regime was ruled by several big families in Sun Jiahe. The emperor wants to give these families high officials and generous salaries from generation to generation, admit their sphere of influence, and even look at their faces when the emperor lacks prestige. So when the emperor is weak, there will inevitably be infighting between big families. After Sun Quan lost his well-trained successor, Sun Deng, he became suspicious of the minister. He propped up the power of the king of Lu, probably to make each family attack each other and weaken their own strength, but in the end he failed.
Sun Wu's system is very similar to the later Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, so it is also called the Southern Six Dynasties. At the same time, the family inheritance of these six dynasties is also very strong, and many families continued from the end of the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. From this point of view, Sun Wu's system is not a failure, and it can even be said that it has reached a steady state in the current situation, which provides another possibility for studying the future development of the Middle Ages. If there were no foreign invasion, it would not be another large-scale Six Dynasties after the powerful encroached on the regime.
There are few materials in Shu and Han, so it is difficult to study the system in depth. According to "Jiuzhou Chunqiu", Zhuge Liang gained the attention of Liu Bei through the household registration of Jingzhou refugees, and gave Liu Bei the capital to compete for hegemony. This is what the so-called "like a duck to water" means. According to Yang Hongchuan Ma Zhong Biography, at least during Liu Bei's period, the Shu-Han regime still maintained a considerable military system in the Han Dynasty.
However, it is obvious that the book population of 940,000 shows that the problem of hidden households in Shu Han is not less serious than that in Wei and Wu, and some clues also prove that even in the northern part of Shu Han, many troops are strong and strong.
As for South China, the strongmen here undertook a lot of manpower and material resources in the Northern Expedition, so that Qiao Zhou finally mentioned this point when persuading Liu Chan to surrender and warning him to be careful of the betrayal of South China.
Ma Su suggested that Zhuge Liang should go south. Zhuge Liang also specially ordered Meng Huo, who has a high prestige among the local people, to capture him alive, not only to let him inspect the army, but also to capture seven and seven verticals. The purpose is to make Meng Huo realize the powerful strength of the Shu-Han army, and make him afraid of the "Tianwei" of the Shu-Han, afraid to launch a rebellion and stop the local people from rebelling. In addition, Meng Huo and other southern strongmen were appointed by the Shu Han court, and southern officials also appointed a large number of local strongmen-Qu Shuai, in order to maximize their privileges and make them willing to contribute to the court instead of falling into the quagmire of counter-insurgency and rebellion.
Because of strict law enforcement, Zhang Yi, the commander-in-chief who surrendered, led the local tribe to revolt again and was quickly replaced by Zhuge Liang. The court of Shu and Han did not regard the rebellion and peaceful rebellion of the Han people in the south as a trivial matter, but tried to choose officials who could appease the local people.
In addition to South China, Shu Han also attached importance to the Qiang and Hu minorities in the north, and these foreign handsome men also supported Shu Han's northern expedition to a great extent. From a certain point of view, Jiang Wei can be reused by the Shu-Han court, because he has considerable prestige among foreigners. Jiang Wan not only suggested that the court let Jiang Wei get in touch with aliens, but Jiang Wei also consciously used these people during the Northern Expedition.
With the help of Bashu strongmen, Nanzhong strongmen and surrounding aliens, Shu Han was able to support a large number of troops with one corner. But even so, the large number of troops of Shu Han still caused a considerable burden to the court, and because of the national policy of the Northern Expedition, Shu Han had more than two standing armies for a long time, which further aggravated the burden. Therefore, after Zhuge Liang made four northern expeditions in the three years from the sixth year of lite (228) to the ninth year of lite (23 1), it will take another three years to accumulate strength. After Jiang Wei resumed the Northern Expedition, he crippled the country in less than ten years.
Fortunately, Zhuge Liang, Jiang Wei and other high-ranking people, in view of the country's predicament, set an example and restrain themselves to maintain a clean and honest official atmosphere. As a general riding a car, Deng Zhi lives on his own salary, and his family is inevitably hungry and cold. We can see how low the treatment of Shu and Han officials is, and we can also better see the living standards of ordinary people.
Shu-Han system is an extraordinary system in a specific environment, which puts the victory of foreign wars first. It requires politicians to have both ability and political integrity, front-line generals to win every battle, and the internal peace between the monarch and the minister. Any link goes wrong, which will bring huge internal contradictions. This doomed the Shu-Han system to be very fragile and difficult to maintain. It can even be thought that even if Shu Han really successfully completed the Northern Expedition, he would gradually abandon the previous system in order to seek a long-term future. As a result, Shu Han's fragile system collapsed at the touch of a button, and it collapsed the most thoroughly.
The so-called Three Kingdoms is an era when different people look for different paths after the centralized empire encounters a ruling crisis and can no longer maintain this form of existence. Some people don't feel the changes of the times and want to maintain order. Some people see the change of the times and want to take advantage of it. Some people follow the changes of the times and drift with the tide. Some people don't want to adapt to the changes of the times and dream of restoring the past. There are people in Qian Qian who have no choice at all. They are stepping stones to their own pursuit of the road.
When the heavy chains on the Yangtze River disappeared in front of the mighty fleet of the Western Jin Dynasty, the times seemed to give the answer. However, the strength of enemies from all corners of the country, from hair to bone marrow, shows that this is not the real export of history. For people at this time, they can't predict where the future empire will go.