Chapter 43 134 The split of the Northern Wei Dynasty

After Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved his capital to Luoyang, he mobilized his army twice to attack the Southern Qi Dynasty.Due to the resistance of the soldiers and civilians of the Southern Qi Dynasty, there was no victory.In 499 AD, the Southern Qi sent troops to attack the Northern Wei Dynasty.Emperor Wei Xiaowen resisted with illness and repelled the Qi soldiers.Soon, Emperor Xiaowen also died of illness. After the death of Emperor Xiaowen of Wei, Emperor Yuan Ke of Xuanwu of Wei succeeded to the throne, and the Northern Wei Dynasty began to decline again.When Emperor Wei Xiaoming came to the throne, because he was too young, his mother, Empress Dowager Hu, came to the throne.Empress Hu was a domineering and extravagant person.She believes in Buddhism and believes that Buddhism can alleviate her sins.She built a magnificent Yongning Temple next to the palace.The Buddha statues enshrined in the temple are made of gold and white jade, and the height of one is one foot and eight feet.Next to the temple, a nine-story pagoda ninety feet high was built.In the dead of night, the wind blows the bell on the tower, and the sound can be heard ten miles away.There are a thousand monks' rooms in the temple, all of which are decorated with pearls and jade brocade, which makes people dazzled.It is said that since Buddhism was introduced to China, there has never been such a gorgeous temple.

The rulers of the Northern Wei Dynasty also used a lot of manpower and material resources to dig grottoes and build Buddha statues.Before establishing Luoyang as their capital, they spent more than 30 years excavating a large number of grottoes in Zuoyungang (in today's Wuzhou Mountain, Datong City, Shanxi), with more than 100,000 Buddha statues of various sizes.From Emperor Xuanwu to Empress Dowager Hu, grottoes were excavated and Buddhist niches (sound kan) were built in Longmen Mountain in Yique, Luoyang.It took more than 800,000 manpower to excavate for 24 years.These grottoes and Buddha statues show the high level of sculpture art of the ancient Chinese people, but they also greatly increased the burden on the working people at that time.

Due to the strong national power of the previous generations of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the ruling class plundered a lot of wealth. Once, Empress Dowager Hu accidentally went to the warehouse to see that there were too many silks and satins accumulated there.He came up with an idea and ordered the nobles and ministers to come to the warehouse and reward them with silk.She stipulated that everyone should take as much as they can move according to their own strength.These aristocratic ministers are greedy guys, clamoring for more.However, they are pampered and pampered at ordinary times, so they can't afford a lot of silk.Shangshuling Li Chong and Zhangwu Wang Yuanrong each carried a stack of silk, and they were so tired that they were sweating profusely. As soon as they took two steps, they fell to the ground with the silk.Li Chong hurt his waist, Yuan Rong lost his leg and shin, and lay on the ground moaning and moaning in pain.

Empress Dowager Hu saw it, and sent someone to take all the silk from their backs.The two ministers stole chickens without eating a lot of rice, one rubbed his waist and eyes, and the other walked out of the palace gate empty-handed step by step.When people inside and outside the palace saw it, they all leaned forward and back with laughter. With Empress Dowager Hu taking the lead, the aristocratic families below also compared each other for wealth. Wasn't there a rich man Shi Chong in the Western Jin Dynasty?Wang Yuanchen (sound chen) of Hejian in the Northern Wei Dynasty also wanted to follow Shi Chong's example.He specially invited nobles and ministers to his house for a banquet. The tableware used in the banquet, including crystal cups and agate bowls, were surprisingly exquisite and gorgeous.Yuan Chen also invited everyone to visit his warehouse full of gold, silver and satin.Later, everyone went to his stable and found that the troughs for feeding the horses were also made of silver.

Yuan Chen led everyone to see, and said to Zhang Wu Wang Yuanrong: "Everyone talks about Shi Chongfu in the Jin Dynasty. I don't hate that I can't see Shi Chong, but it's a pity that Shi Chong didn't see me." When Yuan Rong came back from Yuan Chen's house, he felt that he was not as rich as Yuan Chen's family, and was so upset that he didn't get up for three days. The royal family and nobles of the Northern Wei Dynasty were so extravagant, of course they had to plunder the common people viciously.The people couldn't bear it, and finally rose up to resist.

At that time, the Northern Wei Dynasty set up six towns on the northern border and sent soldiers to defend them.In 523 A.D., the Xiongnu in Woye Town (now Wuyuan North, Inner Mongolia) broke Liuhan Baling (Po Liuhan is the surname) first led soldiers to kill the town general and launched an uprising.Soldiers from the other five towns also responded.The uprising against the Northern Wei Dynasty grew stronger and stronger.Because the Northern Wei Dynasty colluded with the Rouran tribe in the north to jointly suppress it, the uprising of the soldiers of the six towns was lost. In order to prevent the soldiers and civilians of the six towns from rebelling, the Northern Wei government escorted more than 200,000 soldiers from the six towns who failed in the uprising to Jizhou, Dingzhou, and Yingzhou (all of which are located in present-day Hebei).How could these soldiers be willing to be enslaved by the Wei Dynasty? In Jizhou, the flames of uprising were ignited again.Ge Rong of the Xianbei nationality led the rebel army to attack Yingzhou.The Northern Wei government appointed Zhangwu Wang Yuanrong as the great Sima, and Guangyang Wang Yuanshen (Zhong Yuanchen was two people) as the governor to launch a large army to suppress.

How can those nobles who only know how to eat, drink and have fun fight.When Ge Rong's uprising army arrived in Boye Town (now central Hebei Province), they sent a light cavalry to attack Yuan Rong's camp.Yuan Rong was unprepared and was killed by the rebels.When Yuan Shen heard that Yuan Rong had been killed, he retreated to Dingzhou, where he was also captured by Ge Rong's cavalry. Ge Rong gathered all the uprising soldiers from all walks of life, known as a million, and prepared to march to Luoyang with great momentum.At this time, there was a tribal chief Er Zhurong in Xiurong (in today's Shanxi Province), who had 8,000 strong cavalry under his command to fight against the peasant army.Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei Dynasty used Er Zhurong's troops to deal with Ge Rong.

Ge Rong thought that Er Zhurong had few troops and was easy to deal with.He spread out his soldiers in a position dozens of miles away, and prepared to round up Er Zhurong.Unexpectedly, Er Zhurong ambushed his soldiers in the valley, launched an assault with elite soldiers, scattered Ge Rong's soldiers, and then flanked them back and forth.The rebel army was defeated, and Ge Rong himself was killed. After the failure of the Ge Rong Uprising, great chaos also occurred within the Northern Wei Dynasty.Er Zhurong, Queen Mother Hu, and Emperor Xiaoming killed each other in civil strife.In the end, the real power of the Northern Wei Dynasty fell into the hands of two generals, Gao Huan and Yu Wentai.In 534 AD, Emperor Xiaowu of the Northern Wei Dynasty fled to Chang'an to join Yuwentai.In the second year, Yu Wentai killed Emperor Xiaowu and established Emperor Wen; Gao Huan established Emperor Xiaojing Wei and moved the capital to Yecheng.Since then, the Northern Wei Dynasty has split into two courts.Historically, the one whose capital was in Chang'an was called the Western Wei Dynasty, and the one whose capital was in Yecheng was called the Eastern Wei Dynasty.