For the Song Dynasty, many of our impressions are such as the "highest GDP", the richest dynasty, etc., of course, there is the Military of the Song Dynasty, which is criticized, there is a Song Dynasty and a Dynasty that were suppressed by the nomadic people in the north, first the Khitans, then the Western Xia, and then the Jin Kingdom, which was hard to destroy the Jin and finally encountered a giant Mongolia, and the Song Dynasty was also the only dynasty in history that died of external troubles.
However, what few people know is that the Song Dynasty was also the dynasty with the most popular uprisings in history, the largest of which was the Li Shun Uprising during the Song Taizong Period, the Fang La Uprising during the Song Hui Period, and the Yang Mi Uprising during the Song Gaozong Period, especially the Fang La Uprising that swept through the southeast.
However, the Song Dynasty is the most difficult to succeed in the rebellion in Chinese history, the scale of these uprisings is very large, but it ended in failure, and according to statistics, there are nearly 434 other small-scale uprisings in the Song Dynasty, which can be said to be the most popular of all dynasties, so why did the Song Dynasty revolt so frequently?
Why are Song Dynasty uprisings so frequent?
For the Song Dynasty, we often think that his GDP is very high, according to incomplete statistics, the GDP of the Song Dynasty at that time accounted for about 70% of the world, and in order to promote economic prosperity, the Song Dynasty also vigorously developed handicrafts, and now many exquisite crafts are also handed down from the Song Dynasty.
In addition to these, the Song Dynasty was the most revolted dynasty in Chinese history, so why did the Song Dynasty revolt so frequently?
First of all, many people did not have land, and in ancient China, many dynasties vigorously attacked the powerful in order to combat land annexation, but the Song Dynasty did the opposite, and land annexation was allowed in the Song Dynasty. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the policy of "no establishment of the field system" and "no suppression of annexation" was formulated.
Frankly speaking, this national policy of the Song Dynasty did aggravate the economic prosperity of the Song Dynasty and greatly increase the yield of crops, but its drawbacks were also obvious.
Under the general policy of not curbing land annexation, there are often many gentry who buy and sell strongly, which leads to a growing gap between the rich and the poor of the low-level people and the scholar-doctor group, and some people have no land and no good craftsmanship, one is to sign a contract with the gentry and become their peasants, and the other is to take the road of revolt.
In addition, during the Song Dynasty, the implementation of "spending money to buy peace", every year to the Liao, Western Xia, Jin to send a large number of coins, and these burdens must ultimately be borne by the people, and in the Song Huizong period in addition to these, Song Huizong himself is even more extravagant, huashi gang, building palaces, repairing gardens is even more aggravated by the people's living difficulties, so why such a large Fang La uprising broke out at that time is not difficult to understand.
There are so many uprisings in the Song Dynasty, why is it so difficult to succeed?
The scale and number of Song Dynasty uprisings can be said to be the largest in history, but it is difficult to succeed in so many Song Dynasty uprisings, so what is the reason for this?
First of all, a very important reason is that it cannot be supported by the scholar group, and now many "public knowledge" and "reading people" say that they yearn for the beauty of the Song Dynasty, because it is the most beautiful era of readers.
At the beginning of the founding of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, decided to "rule the world together with the scholars", and the Song Dynasty law was also "the punishment of the scholar", and Cai Jing, who had brought calamity to the country and the people, was only exiled.
For example, Di Qing and Yue Fei, who were military generals, were treated much worse than the scholars, for example, Di Qing was despised by the civilian officials at that time because he was no one, and Ouyang Xiu in the textbook even despised him in front of Di Qing's face, so Di Qing was also depressed, and the same case was also Yue Fei, as the mainstay of the Southern Song Dynasty, because of the emperor's suspicion, he finally got a "false accusation", and the "Wind Wave Pavilion Unjust Case" became a regret of many people.
For the warriors, the Song Dynasty is the least desirable dynasty, because there is no military knighthood here, only endless contempt, and the readers can get preferential treatment here, even if you are at the level of a half-hanger, speaking out to the outside world will also make people feel that there is a light on their faces, so the Zhao and Song royal family has the support of the scholars.
However, many of the readers of the uprising at that time belonged to the illiterate who did not have much knowledge, there were not many knowledgeable "cultural people" under their hands, and their uprising was not for any lofty dream, but simply wanted to survive, what strategic planning, etc. There were no knowledgeable people behind them to help them advise, and more importantly, the leaders of the rebel army at that time were very large and rude, how could they possibly think of these?
An important factor in the success of Zhu Yuanzhang later was to give preferential treatment to the scholars, Liu Bowen, Li Shanchang, Zhu Sheng, and so on, each of whom was called a genius, but these people were willing to die for Zhu Yuanzhang.
And many peasant rebels would not think so much at all, so the only people who could leap from the bottom to become emperors in ancient China were Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang, and the others were Li Zicheng and the like who only wanted to make small profits and had no long-term plans, so although there were many uprisings in the Song Dynasty, many of them would soon fail.
Secondly, when the Song Dynasty was founded, it learned the lessons of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to avoid many practices, such as prohibiting the warriors from sitting on the throne, the low status of the military generals during the Song Dynasty can be called the highest in the past, and the "heavy literature and light weapons" was absolutely famous at that time, and this effectively avoided the situation of the dictatorship of the military generals and avoided the possibility of successful rebellion.
And as mentioned above, during the Song Dynasty, land annexation was allowed, and the Song Dynasty was very kind to the scholar groups and the rich merchants of the Song Dynasty, but what about the peasants? Later, when Ming Taizu revolted, his strategist Zhu Sheng's nine-character policy of "building walls high, accumulating grain, and slowly claiming the title of king" was the basis for Ming Taizu's success.
The leader of the rebel army himself had neither money nor food in his hands, and could not feed hundreds of thousands of troops, so what the soldiers under his command did with him, and the eventual failure of the uprising was also an inevitable phenomenon.
And there is another is that the Song Dynasty is really too rich, in the face of the phenomenon of uprising, they generally adopt a policy of appeasement, in fact, many people at that time understood that the peasant uprising was often unable to survive to do this desperate thing, but where there is a way to live, who is willing to do this?
Therefore, in the face of the uprising, the Song Dynasty adopted a policy of appeasement most of the time, that is, it is often said to spend money to buy peace, and Song Jiang in "Water Margin" belongs to this kind, which is often said to be Zhao'an.
Some of the soldiers in Zhao'an were absorbed into the Forbidden Army of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is why there were more and more Forbidden Troops in the Northern Song Dynasty later, and the largest number of The Northern Song Dynasty's Light Forbidden Army was as many as 800,000, and raising so many soldiers in peacetime caused the Phenomenon of "Redundant Soldiers and Redundant Officials" in the Song Dynasty, and some of them were dismissed back to their original homes.
From these points, it can be seen that the Song Dynasty had already avoided the possibility of successful uprisings when it was founded, so the Song Dynasty caused frequent uprisings during the Song Dynasty due to its non-suppression of land annexation, but the national policies formulated by the Song Dynasty allowed them to perfectly avoid the risk of extinction, so the Song Dynasty can be called the most difficult to succeed in rebellion.
Sometimes the wealth of the Song Dynasty was not absolute, this kind of wealth was a rich gentleman, and the ordinary people at that time had no relationship at all, on the contrary, due to the phenomenon of land annexation, the gap between the rich and the poor became wider and wider.
In the face of the Hu people in the north, the Song Dynasty could not stand up a bit of backbone, only knew how to spend money to buy peace or cut land to pay compensation, and eventually the Song Dynasty became the only dynasty that died of external troubles.