On modern maps, different boundaries are often marked with the same color. On Chinese historical maps, although the southwest region has been marked as a uniform and unified whole by the same color since the Qin and Han Dynasties; however, Zhao Bing only realized that in this era, unlike the continuous border lines of modern countries, the vast areas within this traditional cognitive territory were actually not included in the direct rule of the Central Plains dynasty.
This area that is not under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains dynasty is often called Yidi, Shedi or Miaojiang. This area generally refers to the mountainous areas in the eastern part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau today, where the Miao and other southwestern ethnic groups are concentrated inhabited. The various ethnic groups living here are collectively called "Sheng Li" by the Central Plains dynasty, which means they do not obey the imperial etiquette, do not pay taxes, do not serve corvee service, and become enemies with the government.
As early as the middle of the Warring States Period, after Qin destroyed Bashu, in order to facilitate the management of Baland far away from Xianyang, in addition to carrying out military conquests, they also allowed the Ba people to govern themselves and won over the titles through marriage. However, the results were very little, and the Li people still rebelled from time to time. Therefore, the Eastern Han Dynasty and subsequent regimes had to change their strategies and win over them with soft strategies, so as to give seals, titles, and property to the barbarian leaders, and recognize their status.
In order to strengthen the court's control over the descendants of the Ba people who flowed into Guizhong, Emperor Gaozu of Han divided Qianzhong into You, Yuan, Chen, Wu, Wu, and Wu, and the descendants of the five brothers of the Ba family, each with the same status. "Gaozu was fed up with military affairs, and also had Xiao Zhang's plans, so he quit his martial arts and rested, and was unprepared for the prison." The origin of the term "Guilu" comes from this.
After the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui Dynasty, the policy of banning was increasingly improved and institutionalized. After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Gaozu of Tang Li Yuan issued a special edict to formally implement banning. That is, the imperial court established prefectures in ethnic minority areas, governed by customs, and distinguished from ordinary prefectures and counties. The system of banning prefectures and prefectures with "disappearance of deserted areas, Xingzheng was different from Hanxia" was born.
In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the empire became increasingly declining in the Anshi Rebellion and the successive court struggles, and the vassal states ruled the country. The leaders of ethnic minorities under the throne took the opportunity to expand their power, attack each other, and became the local emperors who dominated one side. Of course, in the late Tang and Five Dynasties where heroes were competing, the strength of these local emperors was not enough to compete with the Central Plains dynasty, and compared with the Khitan, which were both ethnic minorities, it was even more slim.
After the rise of the Northern Song Dynasty, the system of restraint was inherited and improved. In addition to recognizing the political status of the local ethnic minority leaders, those with greater power were also given additional titles or granted territory, making them the spokesperson for the Northern Song emperors in the region. The system of restraints developed in the Tang and Song dynasties and formed characteristics in the southwest region, and evolved into the chieftain system in the Yuan Dynasty.
Relying on these local regimes that were submissive and independent in fact, the Central Plains dynasty could only maintain its rule over the southwest region in form and could not implement effective rule. Zhuge Liang's southern pacification of Yiyue was not only the southern barbarians of Meng Huo, but also the Wuxi barbarians of the Southern Central region of Meng Huo, and during the Battle of Yiling, in response to Liu Bei's call, threatening the Wu Kingdom in southern Jingzhou.
The Tang Dynasty set up banished states in the southwest. Although there were hundreds of them, the boundaries between these banished states and vassal states and vassal tribes were very blurred. The banished states were often like vassal states, and they only accepted enfeoffment and fulfilled their tribute obligations, but were actually still independent. Because the Tang Dynasty often entrusted heavy military service and tribute to the banish states in the border, many banished states deviated from the Tang Dynasty, and even like Nanzhao, completely separated from the Central Plains dynasty and embarked on the road of independence.
In the Song Dynasty, which learned from the lessons of the Tang Dynasty, the vassal prefectures in the border areas were listed as "extreme border" places, and they did not easily interfere in their affairs, nor did they incorporate them into direct rule. The vassal heads who received official positions maintained their de facto independent status in addition to paying tribute and providing troops. When Taizu Zhao Kuangyin first established the country, he sent Wang Quanbin to pacify Shu, and he wanted to take advantage of the momentum to take Yunnan and presented a map. However, Zhao Kuangyin used a jade axe to draw the west of the Dadu River and said: It is not my own!
After that, all the emperors of the Song Dynasty followed the strategy of Emperor Taizu, accusing the independence of the Dali Kingdom, and the two countries lived peacefully for three hundred years. The root of this was nothing more than worrying that the barbarians rebelled against impermanence, which involved the energy of the empire, so they simply abandoned it. Of course, the Song Dynasty did not completely abandon the policy of banishment and implemented this system in some areas of the northwest and southwest.
In order to conquer the barbarians of Meishan, Taizong set up several camps around Meishan, stationed heavy troops to block Meishan, and did not allow Han people to interact with Meishan laborers. However, it was not until the reign of Emperor Shenzong that the court sent a large army to conquer and recruit and apply it together that the Meishan area was included under the jurisdiction of the Song Dynasty, and the Xinhua and Anhua counties were established here under the name of the Kaihua of the King of Hua and the People of Andehua. However, in the Northwest Song Dynasty, it was impossible to stop the independence of the Western Xia. For this reason, the Song Dynasty had to use force and deal with the Western Xia for decades, but failed to win. Instead, it consumed a lot of military spending and lost hundreds of thousands of troops.
As a descendant of later generations, Zhao Bing naturally knew what happened after the Song Dynasty. Speaking of which, it was a bit dramatic when it formally implemented the policy of restraint in all dynasties. The one who completed the historical turning point was the Mongols who were also regarded as barbarians by the Central Plains dynasty. The tool that enabled them to rule the barbarians in the southern border was actually the post road.
During the Second Mongolian-Song War, in order to avoid the natural danger of the Yangtze River and achieve the strategic goal of detouring to the Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan led the Mongolian army to the south from the junction of Sichuan and Tibet to conquer Dali, and placed Yunnan under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Dynasty for the first time. In order to connect Yunnan provinces with the mainland, the Yuan Dynasty successively built three post roads, namely the Jiandu Road to Sichuan, Wumeng Road and Pu'an Road to Huguang.
After the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty occupied Dali, they moved the political center from Dali to Kunming in the east, and walked all the way east, entered Huguang, and turned to the Pu'an Road to Yuan Dadu, and this post road just passed through Miaojiang. Only then did the entire appearance of the southern border finally enter the vision of the Central Plains dynasty through the post road built by the Yuan Dynasty.
After the Mongolian Yuan seized southern Xinjiang, they began to use the "Tishi system" to implement the control of the newly occupied areas. The chieftains were actually not formally named, but titles of similar officials. In Zhao Bing's view, the chieftains system was also derived from the Tang and Song dynasties, which of course also made the two similar and special:
First, the position is hereditary, and local officials, like the princes of the Central Plains dynasty, can pass the position to their descendants or other relatives; secondly, the chieftains have greater power in their own territory than ordinary local officials, and can appoint subordinate officials on their own territory; secondly, the chieftains can have a certain number of private soldiers, servants and servants in their own territory to maintain their own ruling authority.
Of course, the court is not without restraint on the chieftains. In addition to nominal sanctions, the chieftains also have other obligations to the emperor. The chieftains must pay tribute to the emperor like tributes from overseas vassal states, which can also be regarded as a form of maintaining the alliance between the monarch and the ministers of the two. In addition, when the dynasty changes, the chieftains must swear allegiance to the new emperor and get the recognition and seal of the new dynasty in order to continue the legitimacy of the regime.
However, the chieftain system of the Yuan Dynasty cannot be regarded as a success. After Zhao Bing recorded the righteousness of the Red Turban at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the chieftain took the opportunity to expand its power, join the local warlords, or simply set up his own business, and participated in the competition among the heroes in the late Yuan Dynasty. However, it caused trouble because the chieftain was too active in this dynasty change, so that he was regarded as one of the threats to dominate the world by the final winner Zhu Yuanzhang.
In the eyes of the Central Plains dynasty, the most important task of governing Miaojiang was to transform the "breeding seedlings" that were not well-versed in language and were not under the jurisdiction of the government or local chieftains into "cooked seedlings" that were well-versed in the language of the Han people and paid taxes to the government or chieftains, so that Miaojiang became a place of enlightenment. To achieve this goal, both the Ming and Qing dynasties took great pains to achieve this goal.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the chieftains from the southwest region were used to conquer Shengmiao and guard Miao. In order to prevent the restraining of chieftains, dense garrisons and military camps were set up around the areas of chieftains, forming a situation where the staggered and mutual restraints were formed. However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the garrisons of the southwest were in decline and abolished, and the Ming Dynasty had to recruit a large number of local soldiers under the chieftains to fill the void of the garrison. It can be imagined that relying on the requisition of chieftains to maintain stability in Miaojiang would only cause the chieftains to hold the Miao and bear the weight of their own weight, and the tail would not be lost.
Later, in order to focus on resisting threats from the north, the Ming Dynasty had to completely give up its plan to conquer Miaojiang. It actually thought of using a side wall to isolate the seedlings outside the wall. So in the western Hunan area south of the Yangtze River, a Tingziguan from Hunan to the border of Guizhou was built in the south, and the Magpie Camp in Guzhang County, Xiangxi Prefecture, north, passing through two major Hunan-xi towns, Phoenix and Jishou, with a total length of more than 380 miles and running through the Great Wall of the entire Hunan-xi region. It can be seen how helpless the rulers of the Ming Dynasty were and how difficult it was to achieve the rule.
By the Qing Dynasty, Miaojiang, located on the border of Hunan-Guizhou, including southeastern Guizhou and western Hunan, became the last animal in the southwest region that was not under the jurisdiction of the government. Emperors of all dynasties were also worried and adopted measures to promote the conquest with both hands.
During the Yongzheng period, Miaojiang senior member Zhang Guangsi once suggested that in order to learn Chinese, Miao students who participated in the scientific examination specially selected the number of students to be rewarded. During the Qianlong period, there was a clear provision: seedlings are not allowed to take the exam to show preferential treatment for mature seedlings. For the mature seedlings that take the exam, they must indicate the new nationality, which is different from Han candidates and facilitates the care during admission.
At the same time, the Qing court also relaxed the ban on Miaojiang in the previous generations, allowing seedlings to be registered in the government and obtained certificates and licenses, and even intermarriages with Han and mature seedlings. Not only that, as long as there is no rebellion, Miaojiang Miao cases are also allowed to be resolved by themselves in the "Miaojiang Case". Even if it is a criminal case such as life theft, it is also possible to be slightly tolerant.
In the Ming Dynasty, in order to strengthen administrative intervention in the chieftain's jurisdiction, the government continued to abolish local chieftain officials on the grounds that the chieftain had no descendants or violated the national law and resigned non-hereditary officials (ripped officials) from the central government to succeed. This practice of strengthening centralization developed into the Qing Dynasty. In order to resolve the threat of chieftain's separatist threat, it finally evolved into a large-scale transformation of land and reincarnation.
Under the auspices of Ortai, the Qing government first launched a large-scale reform of land and relocation in the Yunnan-Guizhou region, using the strategy of "capture is the best and soldiers and suppression is the best". While trying to win the chieftains to voluntarily hand over their territory, they would eliminate those among the chieftains by force by force. For chieftains who actively cooperated with the relocation, the court granted current military positions or other hereditary official positions to show preferential treatment. In addition to resetting prefectures and counties, military institutions were also added to check household registrations and measure land for easy management.
The transformation of the land and the flow of the chieftain system that was popular in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties collapsed. However, after some officials took office, they suddenly increased taxes due to their poor governance, and corruption and abuse of power, which intensified the conflicts with the local people. The chieftains in many places rose up, Kang, Yong, and Ken, and Miaojiang failed to get rid of the so-called Miao disaster of "a small rebellion in thirty years and a large rebellion in thirty years".
Especially in the Miao people's uprising in the late Qianlong period, the Qing court even used 180,000 officers and soldiers from the two lakes, Guangdong, Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and seven provinces, and lasted for more than ten years to calm them down. The two important officials of the Qianlong Dynasty, Fukang'an and Helin, died of illness in the army that suppressed Miao and Xinjiang. After entering the Jiaqing Dynasty, they built the Great Wall to isolate Miao and Han, and strictly prohibited the mixing of Miao and Han. This also became the last solution for the Qing Dynasty to do with Miao and Xinjiang.
The Qing Dynasty organized Han and Miao people on both sides of the Great Wall into their respective military garrisons and included them in the unified management of the state, making them tenants who were engaged in military farming and farming for the country. The transactions between the Han area and Miaojiang were also carried out under the strict surveillance of a few border cards. Any entry and exit of the border card must be processed, otherwise it will be treated as a stolen crossing of the border.
Under the airtight control, Miaojiang was turned into a border area where military farming soldiers were produced and constructed by military farming soldiers. At the same time, the Qing government had to abolish the taxes in the new district and respect local customs to maintain the results of reform, which gradually restored stability in the western Hunan region. However, during the chaotic period from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, military farming government quickly disintegrated, and soldiers who lost their fields flew everywhere, turning western Hunan into a rampant area of ​​soldiers and bandits...
Therefore, under Zhao Bing's understanding, the essence of the ban system is actually to basically maintain its original social organizational structure and management mechanism under the premise of submission to the Central Plains dynasty in form of ethnic minorities, and to appoint local minority leaders or respected officials as local officials. Except for regular tribute to the central government, all local affairs are managed by them themselves. This strategy is beneficial to maintaining rule and regional peace in a certain period of time, but when the dynasty's national strength declines and its control declines, it will become a confidant.
Chapter completed!