Cao Shuang continued to watch in the papermaking workshop under the leadership of Ma Jun, looking at each process carefully. Ma Jun thought for a while and said: "Prime Minister, I thought that the Qiang chaos could continue to this day.
The reason is that the strength of the Han army at that time declined.
Since, Empress Dowager Deng has not paid much attention to force, and even eunuchs have taken over the military power and oppressed the Qiang people at will. These Wei Dynasties should learn from their experience and lessons!"
Cao Shuang nodded in agreement and said: "I also believe that any country should attach great importance to the development of force at any time. We cannot abandon force just because it is a peaceful and prosperous time. If not, it would not have been able to completely solve the Qiang rebellion for so long.
, the Qiang Rebellion in the Eastern Han Dynasty is a bloody lesson."
The direct reason why the Qiang Rebellion was difficult to quell was the defeat in battles, but the root cause of the military problems was the Eastern Han Dynasty's repeated strengthening of centralization of power, which led to the overall civil discord and political darkness and inefficiency.
The Western Han Dynasty, which previously ruled the world, was not a harmless benefactor to humans and animals. For example, starting from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the monarchs frequently destroyed the central decision-making mechanism.
Not only did they suppress the power of the prime minister, but they also used the ministers and other attendants to be close to them as "Chinese DPRK" to arbitrarily control state affairs, so that the outer DPRK headed by the prime minister could only follow orders.
Private wealth was also repeatedly harvested by the imperial court, forcing ordinary farmers to seek refuge with local powerful men after they could no longer bear the squeeze from the government.
However, in order to compete for household registration, the imperial court would also kill powerful families. However, as far as military affairs were concerned, it produced many "Chinese and North Korean generals" who could sit at the core, and most of them had certain military experience.
Local counties also had some military power, with selected knights as the main force responsible for maintaining local order. Although the office efficiency of the government was restricted by technical conditions, it was still highly efficient.
Whenever the central government issues a document, it can take as little as seven days and as long as one month to reach the border areas such as Qinghai or the Western Regions.
However, the Eastern Han Dynasty eliminated all the remaining advantages above. Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, who seized the world from the warlords, launched a sweeping attack on the local military system in order to eliminate the hidden dangers of separatism and stabilize the country.
The cavalry system was directly abolished, and many local armed forces, even deployed in northern Vietnam thousands of miles away from Luoyang, were directly returned to the central government by the emperor.
But the power to withdraw troops does not mean attaching importance to military affairs, because since the regency of Empress Dowager Deng, military topics have become taboo in the court.
Affected by this general environment, the professional quality of military commanders has naturally deteriorated from generation to generation.
The positions of chief officials of the Northern Army, such as Changshui and Shesheng, which had been established during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, actually became forbidden Confucianism in the Eastern Han Dynasty! The generals of China and North Korea, who were regarded as important weapons of the country in the past, gradually lost their military color and became increasingly civilized.
direction.
The titles of captains with ranks lower than generals have increased, but the essence is that the ability of senior leaders to command large corps in combat has declined, and they can only use a large number of small troops to maintain law and order.
The ultimate consequence of the reverse evolution was that eunuchs interfered in politics and eunuchs controlled the army. The already very centralized decision-making mechanism of the "Chinese and Foreign Dynasties" in the Western Han Dynasty developed into the "Inner and Internal Dynasty" system in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The eunuchs were the "inside" who determined the fate of the country, while the ministers were sidelined and became the "outside". The professional bureaucracy headed by the Sangong was further marginalized in the same way.
But the imperial court would never have imagined that it was precisely this withdrawal of troops from the Western Regions that triggered the largest Qiang rebellion in the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the country fell into a serious decline as a result.
In the first year of Emperor Yongchu of the Han Dynasty (AD 107), the imperial court officially issued an edict to abolish the Protectorate of the Western Regions, and recalled Duan Xi, the Protector of the Western Regions, Liang Jin, the Vice-President, Zhao Bo, the Cavalry Commander, and the colonists stationed in Yiwulu and Liuzhong.
corps.
Cavalry Captain Wang Hong was ordered to summon the Qiang people in Jincheng County, intending to organize an army to meet Duan Xi, Liang Jin and others who returned from the Western Regions.
This seemingly normal behavior caused a rumor to spread like wildfire. Rumors spread among the Qiang people that the purpose of this trip was to station troops in the Western Regions and that they would never be able to come back. Along the way, the Qiang people kept running away, and Wang Hong adopted high-pressure methods and brutal suppression, and finally
The situation quickly deteriorated.
The rebellion of the Qiang people was like a domino chain effect, with one tribe rebelling after another.
Lejie Qiang and Dangjian Qiang defected out of the fortress; Shaodang Qiang fled Jincheng County; Dianling Qiang and Zhong Qiang, branches of Xianling Qiang, took the opportunity to kill and plunder.
The Qiang rebellion affected a wide area, including Zhangye and Wuwei in the Hexi Corridor, as well as Jincheng, Hanyang, and Longxi counties, and the road to the Central Plains was cut off.
This rebellion of the Qiang people was really due to a misunderstanding, but behind the misunderstanding was the deep contradiction between the Han and Qiang peoples.
This contradiction is very complex. It not only contains the seeds of hatred sown by the long-term war between the two ethnic groups, but also has many political, economic, and social problems caused by mixed living. Therefore, there is actually a complicated background behind the seemingly accidental incident.