In 383, the Eastern Jin dynasty army defeated an army of 800,000 led by the Former Qin emperor Jian Jian, and after this defeat, Former Qin was seriously injured, and the north was soon divided, at this time the daiguo nobles in today's central Inner Mongolia were eyeing Former Qin.
Daiguo was founded by the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe, and today it is generally believed that the Xianbei tribe should be the descendants of Donghu, who originally lived in the eastern part of the Mongolian plateau, and after the Eastern Han Dynasty defeated the Xiongnu, xianbei began to move west, occupying the territory of the Xiongnu, and its power also spread throughout the Great Wall.
The Tuoba clan arose during the Cao Wei period, and by the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, Tuoba clan produced a fierce man named Tuoba Yilu, who unified the Xianbei tribe in central Inner Mongolia and was made the acting king by the Western Jin government, and the Tuoba clan officially rose.
After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, there was also constant infighting within the Daiguo, but due to its partiality to the northern grasslands, the Central Plains regime had no intention of caring about it, until the pre-Qin gradually unified the Central Plains, and the good days of the Daiguo were over.
In 376 AD, Emperor Jian of Former Qin sent an army to attack the Daiguo, and the Daiguo was destroyed.
For many people, the former Qin regime did not have a strong sense of existence, but in fact, this regime had great hopes of unifying China. At that time, the Former Qin Emperor Jian Jian could be regarded as a heroic and strategic strategy, and his only shortcoming was that his heart was too soft, he was appeased to those who surrendered, rarely killed them all, and also gave courtesy to the Tuoba clan who surrendered, which laid the groundwork for the collapse of Former Qin in the future.
Three years after the end of the Battle of Shuishui, Tuoba Jue, a Xianbei nobleman who had submitted to Former Qin, seized the opportunity to become independent and rebuild the daiguo.
(The territory of the newly restored country)
Tuoba Jue was a man of great ambition, because daiguo was the name of the state given by the western Jin government, and if he continued to use the daiguo as the state name, he could not get rid of the subordinate relationship with the Eastern Jin Dynasty at that time, so Tuoba Jue changed the name of the country to the state of Wei.
The reason why Tuoba Jue took this national name is very simple, because the Jin Dynasty imperial sima clan was once a vassal of Cao Wei, and the state name of the Jin state also came from Cao Wei's canonization, so soon after the restoration, Tuoba Jue changed the country name to Wei in order to suppress the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which was called Northern Wei in history, showing his ambition to compete for the world.
After that, through the efforts of Tuoba Jue and his son Tuoba Si, the Northern Wei state became stronger and stronger.
In 423, the third emperor of Northern Wei, Tuoba Tao, came to power as Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei, and Northern Wei began to unify the north.
(Portrait of Tuoba Tao painted by modern people)
Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao was a famous Ming Emperor in history, who not only skipped people, but also surpassed ordinary people in strength, and often personally charged into battle. After he came to power, the Northern Expedition rouran, the south rejected Liu Song, the eastern annihilation of Northern Yan, the western annihilation of Huxia and Northern Liang, and the completion of the unification of the north, which was the second unification of the north since the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty.
(The establishment of the Northern Wei Dynasty marked the end of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, and China entered the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.)
Tuoba Tao was only 31 years old when he completed the unification of the north, and at this time he was in his old age and strength, and he definitely wanted to unify the world.
However, due to the fact that Liu Song (the Eastern Jin Dynasty had died) was also in its heyday at that time, Tuoba Tao was temporarily unable to destroy the Song, so he turned his attention to internal affairs and implemented a policy of recuperation and recuperation, so that the people of the Central Plains who had experienced a century of war and chaos could live and work in peace and contentment again.
Tuoba Tao lived a total of 45 years, from the completion of the northern unification to his death, Tuoba Tao lived another 15 years. In these 15 years, Tuoba Tao's personality became more and more violent and murderous, and even Cui Hao, who assisted the three emperors of northern Wei, was killed for the "Prison case of national history", and countless people were implicated.
However, Tuoba Tao is not yet confused, but people are middle-aged, think that they occupy the Central Plains, are invincible in the world, and are more conceited. And for some of the wrong things he did, Tuoba Tao also often reflected.
After Tuoba Shou became emperor, he was very fond of a eunuch named Zong Ai. The life of this man is now unknown, and there are few records of his origins in history.
Zong Ai was deeply favored by Tuoba Tao in the later period of Tuoba Tao's reign, and just a year before Tuoba Tao's death, Tuoba Tao also crowned Zong Ai as the Duke of Qin County. As a eunuch, it was rare to be made a duke.
Relying on Tuoba Tao's favor, Zong Ai acted arbitrarily and even fought with the prince for power, causing a great disagreement between the two.
However, the prince is the prince after all, and he is going to inherit the throne in the future, and Zong Ai is not compatible with the prince, and he will definitely suffer losses in the future. Zong Ai was also aware of this, and he was also worried that the crown prince would take care of him after he ascended the throne, so he met with Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao and constantly slandered him, framing the prince's subordinate officials.
Tuoba Tao was enraged when he heard this, and executed the prince's subordinate officials Qiu Ni Daosheng and Ren Pingcheng, and the prince was shocked and afraid, and soon died of grief.
After the death of the prince, Tuoba Tao also felt that there was something wrong with this matter, and after investigation, he found that the prince was not guilty, and Tuoba Tao regretted it very much. Zong Ai, on the other hand, was worried that the emperor would settle accounts with him, so he actually killed emperor Tuoba Tao, and a generation of male lords died in such a vague way.
After the death of Emperor Taiwu, several ministers of the court did not yet know the inside story. Since the crown prince was dead and Tuoba Tao did not establish a new prince, in order to prevent infighting among the imperial family, several ministers decided to keep a secret and first elect an heir, but there was a dispute over the issue of supporting a new prince.
At this time, Zong Ai took advantage of the opportunity to summon several ministers to the palace under false rumors of the empress dowager's will, and then killed Lan Yan, Xue Ti and others to seize the power of the court. Subsequently, Emperor Ai established Tuoba Tao's sixth son Tuoba Yu on the throne, and forced Tuoba Yu to make himself the King of Feng Yi, becoming the first eunuch in Chinese history to be crowned king.
After coming to power, Zong Ai was very arrogant, which made Tuoba Yu dissatisfied, and the contradiction between the two deepened, and Zong Ai simply killed Tuoba Yu, which was less than a year after Zong Ai killed Tuoba Yu.
It was another duke, a king, and an emperor, and two emperors in a row, and Zong Ai's records have been maintained until now, which can be called one of the most horizontal eunuchs in history.
However, even after killing two emperors, Zong Ai was doomed to die.
After Tuoba Yu's death, the ministers who had long hated Zong Ai supported Tuoba Tao's grandson Tuoba Tao as emperor (Tuoba Tao was the son of the crown prince). As soon as Tuoba Hao came to power, he arrested Zong Ai and exterminated his three clans, which was considered to be revenge for his grandfather and father