Author: Chen Erhu
(Li Yuan)
<h1>First, start with the "six towns" of the Northern Wei Dynasty</h1>
The two more prosperous and powerful dynasties in Chinese history are the "Strong Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty", that is, the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang Dynasty was founded by Li Yuan, a native of Chengji (present-day Tai'an, Gansu), and together with Yang Jian, the founder of the sui dynasty of the previous dynasty, it was related to the "Guanlong clique" that began in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Tuoba Xianbei established the Northern Wei regime, moved the capital to Pingcheng (present-day Datong, Shanxi), and established six important military towns in the northern frontier: Woye Town (present-day northwest of Wuyuan, Inner Mongolia), Huaishuo Town (present-day Baotou North), Wuchuan Town (present-day Wuchuan, Inner Mongolia), Fumu Town (northeast of present-day Wuchuan), Rouxuan Town (present-day Xinghe Northwest inner Mongolia), and Huaihuang Town (present-day north of Zhangjiakou, Hebei).
At that time, the six towns, the status is quite high, very important, the Northern Imperial Rouran, Gongwei Kyoto Pingcheng, is the northern Wei lifeline, its generals are all humble nobles, high and powerful, not only enjoy preferential treatment, because of the opportunity for promotion of military merits, many nobles rush to the six towns to join the army, in order to get promoted.
After Tuoba Hong (Yuan Hong), emperor Xiaowen of northern Wei, moved the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang, and its political center was subsequently transferred to the Central Plains, so that the six towns lost their original role, and Emperor Xiaowen implemented a policy of Sinicization, infringing on the interests of the Xianbei nobles, so that the military status of the "six towns" plummeted, from "darlings" to "abandoned children", and even sent criminals here, so that the social status of the generals of the six towns gradually declined.
The six towns were originally the places where the Xianbei people and nobles were located, retaining the customs of the Xianbei people, and the deep-rooted Xianbei complex naturally rejected and hated the Sinicization, and inevitably there was a violent conflict between the Hu and Han cultures. Thus, the Rebellion of the Six Towns broke out.
In 523 AD, the Broken Six Han Baling Tombs, which originated from the Xiongnu, gathered a crowd in The Town of Woye to launch an uprising, which was widely responded to by the soldiers and civilians of the Six Towns, and the momentum gradually expanded, and the Broken Six Han Baling claimed to be the "True King" and led the army to attack south.
With the defeat and killing of the soldiers of the Broken Six Han Dynasty, the six towns revolted like a wave, and the flames were continuous.
<h1>Second, the formation of the Guanlong Group</h1>
In the course of the "Six Towns" uprising, a "Cao Cao"-style figure appeared, this person named Erzhu Rong, who is said to be a Qihu person, and it is difficult to know exactly what ethnic minority this "Qihu" person is, but it is certain that he has a humble bloodline. It is said that the tribe under Zhu Errong was not affected by the Sinicization of Emperor Xiaowen and still retained its own tribal form and customs and culture.
When Emperor Xiaoming died, Erzhu Rong, in the honor of being the "Qing Junfang" of the Qin Dynasty, entered the Northern Wei capital city of Luoyang, threw the young emperor Yuanzhao and Empress Hu into the Yellow River and drowned, and then sent the Northern Wei princes and nobles and more than 2,000 officials to Heyin (present-day Mengjin, Henan) and massacred them en masse, known in history as the "Change of Heyin". Yuan Ziyou (元子佑), the Prince of Changle (at this time, Tuoba changed his surname to Yuan) as emperor, was made Emperor Xiaozhuang.
For a time, Erzhu Rong's men gathered Hou Jing, Gao Huan, He Bayou, Yuwen Tai and other influential figures.
In 528, guanzhong launched an uprising, and Generals such as He Bayue and Yuwen Tai went to suppress the rebellion, and He Bayue established himself in Guanzhong and became the beginning of the rise of the Guanlong clique.
Zhu Errong was killed, and the power of Northern Wei fell into the hands of Gao Huan, who did not want He Bayue to dominate Guanzhong, and sent people to alienate the Guanzhong general Hou Mo Chen Yue and kill He Bayue, and Yuwen Tai, who was then the general of He Bayue's army, killed Hou Mo Chen Yue and became the actual ruler of the Guanlong clique.
Yuwen Tai (宇文泰) was from the Xianbei Yuwen Clan, and his father Yuwen Qiu (宇文肱) was also a general of the Six Towns.
Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, unwilling to be a puppet emperor, fled from Luoyang and defected to Yuwen Tai. Gao Huan also established Yuan Shanjian as Emperor Xiaojing, known in history as Eastern Wei; Yuwen Tai poisoned Emperor Xiaowu and established Yuan Baoju, the Prince of Nanyang, as Emperor Wen, known in history as Western Wei, and from then on Northern Wei ceased to exist and split into Eastern and Western Wei.
Yuwen Tai held the power of the Western Wei Dynasty, improved the old Xianbei military system in the Guanlong region, and created the prefectural military system, that is, the "Eight Pillars State" to divide the military power, and completely strengthened the Guanlong clique.
In 556, Yuwen Tai died, and before his death, he gave power to his nephew Yuwen Hu.
Fast forward to the following year, on December 30, 557, Yuwen Hu forced Emperor Gong of Western Wei to abdicate the throne and install Yuwen Tai's son Yuwen Jue as emperor. The name of the country was changed to Zhou, and the history was called Northern Zhou.
The short-lived Northern Zhou eventually let Yang Jian take his place.
Yang Jian, the son of pu liu ruzhong, the duke of the Sui state of northern Zhou, was given the xianbei name Puliu Rujian, that is, Yang Jianxianbei's surname was Pu liuru.
After Yang Jian usurped the throne of Northern Zhou, he gave the state the title of Sui, also known as Emperor Wen of Sui, and passed the throne to his son Yang Guanghou and perished. Since then, the most brilliant dynasty in Chinese history, the Tang Dynasty, has stepped onto the stage of history.
<h1>Third, the origin of the Tang Dynasty Li clan</h1>
The Li family of the Tang Dynasty was also from the Guanlong clique, from Longxi, and was a native of Chengji (present-day Tai'an, Gansu), and according to the official history, the Li Yuan family was a descendant of Li Huan who divided Hexi during the Five Dynasties and Sixteen Kingdoms period and established the Xiliang regime.
Li Huan had ten sons, the eldest son Li Biao and the second son Li Xin. Li Xin was the lord of The Western Liang Dynasty, and Li Xin had eight sons, the third of whom was named Li Zhong'er, who defected to the Southern Dynasty's Liu Song After the fall of Western Liang.
When Northern Wei attacked Liu Song, Li Chong'er surrendered the city and became an official in Northern Wei, with Li Chong'er's son Li Xi (李熙), serving as the general of Kinmen Town, and later changing the town to Wuchuan (武川, southwest of present-day Wuchuan, Inner Mongolia). Li Xi's son was named Li Tianxi, and Li Tianxi had three sons: the eldest son, Li Qitou, the second son, Li Hu, and the third son, Li Qidou. The second son, Li Hu, was Li Xun(李昞), Li Yuan's father and Li Shimin's grandfather.
However, in the relevant historical materials, we cannot find the deeds of Li Zhong'er.
Mr. Chen Yinke, a scholar of traditional Chinese studies, found that this Li Zhong'er was the same as a "deed" called Li Chuguba (who had been the Taishou of the Northern Wei Dynasty), that is, this Li Zhong'er was most likely Li Chuguba, so the Li Tang royal family was more likely to be a descendant of Li Chuguba than a descendant of Li Chuguba in Xiliang.
The Book of Song and the Biography of Liu Yuanjing says: "The pseudo-Hongnong Taishou Li Chugu plucked the infant city to consolidate itself, and the armies of Faqi, Andu, and Fangping clamored for Lingcheng. ”
In the "Book of Wei and the Biography of Xu Andu", it is said: "Later from the Lu clan into Kou Hongnong, the executive guard Li Ba and so on. "This Li Ba also refers to Li Chuguba. And this Li Chuguba is not Han Chinese, but a Xianbei person, and Li Chuguba's "Li" is not his surname.
Li Chuguba's son Li Xi (or Li Chong'er's son) was the general of the "Six Towns", and at this time his "cousin" Li Chong was very prominent, and he entered the political arena in the last year of emperor Tuoba Hong's reign, appointed as a regular attendant, worshiped Zhongshu Ling, and was deeply favored by the Empress Dowager Wen. Emperor Xiaowen ascended the throne and was enfeoffed as a great general of the Auxiliary State, which was deeply used by Emperor Xiaowen. It is reasonable to say that Li Chong and Li Xi are cousins who are closely related by blood (the grandson of the first grandfather), but Li Chong does not recognize that Li Xi's clan is the same clan, which shows that the Li Tang royal family claims to be a descendant of Li Hui, and it is very likely that they are impersonating.
The deeds of Li Tang's royal ancestors only began to become clear and prominent when Li Yuan's grandfather Li Hu, the grandfather of Tang Gaozu, became prominent. Initially a general under Northern Zhou YuwenTai, he was later given the title of Grand General of the Pillar State, Taiwei (太尉), Shangshu Zuo (尚書左仆射), Duke of Longxi Commandery (龍西郡公), and was also given the surname of Daye (Note: Northern Wei zi Xiaowen Emperor admired Han culture, changing 118 surnames of Xianbei to Han surnames, his own Tuoba surname to Yuan, and the rest such as Dugu's surname Liu, Bu Liu's surname lu, DaXi's surname to Xi, etc.).
Through the bits and pieces in the historical data, the early information of the Li Yuan family is a bit confusing, and Zhu Xi, a master of Southern Song Dynasty science, said that "Tang Yuanliu came from Yidi".
Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the four famous families of the northern Han people are Cui, Lu, Zheng and Li. Among them, the "Li" surname refers to the Surname Li of Zhao County.
<h1>Fourth, the monk's questioning</h1>
After Li Yuan established the Tang Dynasty, the Li family called itself the Li clan of Zhao County in order to elevate its own door, but the Li clan of Zhao County did not have a branch of Longxi at all, and it had nothing to do with the Li Yuan family.
Therefore, starting from Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, he searched for a new "ancestral source" for their Li surname and found Li Wei, because Li Huan was said to be the sixteenth grandson of the famous Western Han general Li Guang, and then traced back to the pre-Qin Taoist ancestor Lao Zi Li Er, claiming that Li Yuan was the fifty-sixth generation grandson of Li Er, and Li Shimin was the fifty-seventh generation grandson, from the Li clan of Zhao County to the "Li clan of Longxi", and also became the orthodox term of the Li Tang royal family.
During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Li Shimin, there was a high monk named Farin, who once questioned in front of Li Shimin that the Li family claimed to be from Laozi and belonged to the Li clan of Longxi: "Linwen Tuoba Dajian, Tang Yan Li Clan, His Majesty's Li, Si is its Miao, not the column under the Longxi stream. ”
Farin made it clear that Li Tangzhi's Li was not from Laozi, let alone from the Longxia Li clan, but was a descendant of Tuoba Dajian (Dajang should be a different writing of Ono, who was once given the xianbei surname of Dayo in his ancestors).
No matter what ethnic group the Li Shimin family comes from, this is also a problem discussed by experts and scholars, and no conclusion has been formed with academic persuasion, which is still under study and debate.
Let's return to the Topic of guanlong clique, the main generals of the Guanlong clique are almost all from the Xianbei nobles, and they are also the Xianbei clique that opposed the Sinicization of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei.
From the beginning of the "Six Towns" rebellion, it was because the soldiers of the Six Towns were gradually snubbed by Emperor Xiaowen, who moved the capital to Sinicization, because the soldiers of the Six Towns were gradually snubbed by emperor Xiaowen, and the social status of the soldiers of the border towns was gradually decreasing.
The Northern Wei political circles began to pay attention to their family lineage, and what made the generals of the six towns feel indignant was that those who were originally from the same clan (Xianbei) and were officials in the capital could have the status of nobles and surnames, while the people of Shubian were even disqualified from entering the dynasty as officials, becoming "broken and settled", so these Xianbei people on the shubian began to hold a group to "warm up", support each other, and strengthen themselves by marriage, gradually forming the "Guanlong Clique", and many prominent figures appeared in history, such as the "Three Dynasties State Zhang" Dugu Xin (Xianbei people).
Dugu Xin had six sons and seven daughters, the eldest daughter married the Northern Zhou Ming Emperor, the younger daughter married the Sui Wen Emperor Yang Jian, and the fourth daughter was Li Fu's wife and the mother of Li Yuan, the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
Dou Yi, one of the Eight Pillar States of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, was a Xianbei man with the surname Qidouling (纥豆陵), who was the maternal grandfather of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Li Shimin.
Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou's sister Princess Xiangyang Chang yuwen (宇文氏), a Xianbei native, was Li Shimin's maternal grandmother.
Li Shimin's mother, Dou Yi's daughter.
Li Shimin's empress Dowager Changsun (長孙氏) was a Native Xianbei and daughter of Sun Sheng, duke of the Sui Dynasty State of Qi.
(Empress Eldest Grandson)
Judging from the marriage of the Li family, several generations have married Xianbei women, leaving aside the Li family's own family origins, the proportion of the Xianbei blood of the Li Shimin family is relatively large.
Therefore, Mr. Chen Yinke said: "The reason why the Li and Tang clans are prosperous, they have taken the blood of the barbaric essence outside the plug and injected it into the decadent body of the Central Plains culture, the old stains have been removed, and the new machines have been restarted, so that they can create an unprecedented world situation." ”
Whether the Li clan that founded the Tang Dynasty was a Han Chinese with Xianbei blood or a Xianbei who gradually became Sinicized, they are an inseparable part of the history of the Chinese nation.
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