Until September 8, Qiu Lai, I will kill the flowers as soon as I finish, and the fragrance will penetrate Chang 'an and the city will be full of golden flowers. This is a poem by Huang Chao, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty. Through this poem, we can see his ambition and desire to overthrow the Tang Dynasty. Let's learn about this peasant uprising, which is the biggest in the history of China.
The peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty was one of the three biggest peasant uprisings in Chinese history. This peasant uprising is huge in scale. The reasons for the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty are as follows.
The first is the dark and decadent politics of the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs came to power, and clique disputes continued, which split the internal rule of the Tang Dynasty. Rulers only know how to accumulate wealth, and official corruption is very serious. Landlords are also plundering people's property, regardless of people's lives Under the decadent rule, farmers embarked on the road of uprising in order to survive and safeguard their rights and interests. The struggle within the imperial court planted seeds for the peasant uprising and became the root of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty.
The second is heavy taxes. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the phenomenon of land annexation was very serious. Big landlords and officials plundered people's land for personal gain, which made many farmers lose their land. The land that fell into the hands of landlords was used by them as a tool to collect money. Even if the crops were not ripe, they had already asked farmers to pay. Besides food, officials also set many other taxes, such as paying for salt, housing and even drinking water. The direct reason for the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty was that the peasants who had no basic livelihood chose to resist under long-term oppression.
The reasons for the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty also included long-term natural disasters. At that time, even the drought caused almost no harvest, and there was famine everywhere. People can't guarantee basic food and clothing by eating bark, and many people starve to death. It is in this living environment that the government is still urging taxes, and some people can't even pay the money on time when they sell their houses. The people who were cornered finally launched a peasant uprising against the government's atrocities.
The Outbreak and Failure of Peasant Uprising in Late Tang Dynasty
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, politics was dark and decadent, and successive years of drought led to no grain harvest, exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous fees, and officials ignored the people's lives, so many farmers were forced to go to a dead end and finally chose the uprising, which was a large-scale peasant uprising in the history of China-the peasant uprising at the end of the Tang Dynasty. However, this uprising ended in the failure of the peasants. Here is a brief introduction to the outbreak and failure of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty.
In the late Tang Dynasty, the government's oppression of peasants was mainly concentrated in the southeast, which directly led to the outbreak of peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty in 859 AD. The peasant uprising first occurred in eastern Zhejiang, where the people were devastated. Officials only know how to plunder farmers' property. As soon as the East Zhejiang Uprising happened, many farmers responded. The number of insurgents reached more than 30,000, and they captured Tangxing and Cixi, and the scale was extremely huge. However, farmers have ideological limitations after all. In the face of the imperial court, conflicts quickly occurred within them, and the leaders hesitated, which led to missing the best opportunity. After the government troops arrived, the rebels retreated and finally failed. This was the outbreak and failure of the first large-scale peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty.
Later, farmers in the middle reaches of the Yellow River also launched an uprising, which was also an official rebellion against the people. Compared with the first uprising, the leaders of this uprising, Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi, were businessmen with the ability and experience of armed struggle. Under their leadership, the uprising was huge, gathering tens of thousands of people to capture many places and shocking the court. The imperial court sent troops to wage a tug-of-war with the insurgents. The rebel army was short of food supply, some people defected inside, and the imperial court was strong, so the rebel army didn't win the war in the end, and Huang Chao died heroically. This is the biggest outbreak and failure of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty.
Characteristics of Peasant Uprising in Late Tang Dynasty
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, a large-scale peasant uprising took place, which lasted for 25 years. One of the characteristics of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty was the slogan of "equality". Equality means equal distribution of resources, including land and taxes. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, politics was corrupt, eunuchs were in power in the central government, local provinces were divided, and farmers were oppressed. Therefore, farmers urgently hope that the country's resources can be evenly distributed.
The second feature of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty was the mobility of the peasant army. Huang Chao Uprising was a famous peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty. Huang Chao set out for Shandong, went south to Anhui and Jiangxi, then south to Guangzhou, and finally returned to the Central Plains to conquer Chang 'an, during which he traveled to more than half of China.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the peasant uprising army was mobile because its strength was not strong enough to establish a stable base area. In the Tang Dynasty, there was no coordination among local provinces, which made the peasant army survive in the cracks between the provinces.
The third feature of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty was to bring small businessmen and intellectuals into the peasant class. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the development of commodity economy led to the emergence of small businessmen, but they were blackmailed by bureaucrats, which made some small businessmen join the peasant army. Huang Chao was a small salt merchant before the uprising.
The peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty had a similar feature, which was vigorous, but it was finally defeated. Land annexation and heavy taxes at the end of the Tang dynasty made farmers hate the Tang dynasty, so a peasant army could get many farmers' echoes when it first rose. The reason why the peasant army finally failed was that the local buffer towns in the Tang Dynasty represented the interests of the big landlords, and they would unite against the peasant army.
Significance of Peasant Uprising in Late Tang Dynasty
The most important significance of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty is the disintegration of the decadent rule of the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, there was a eunuch dictatorship in the central government and the emperor became a puppet. At the local level, our local governments are fragmented and become small courts. Shortly after the failure of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty, Zhu Wen, a peasant rebel, personally ended the Tang Dynasty.
Although the peasant uprising at the end of the Tang Dynasty failed to overthrow the rule of the Tang Dynasty, it laid the foundation stone for the establishment of a new dynasty. After being attacked by the peasant army, the Tang Dynasty existed in name only, then experienced a short period of five dynasties and ten countries, and ushered in a brand-new dynasty-Song Dynasty. The establishment of the Song Dynasty was only a few decades away from the failure of the peasant uprising at the end of the Tang Dynasty.
In the peasant uprising at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the slogan of "equal farmland" was put forward, but in the peasant uprising before the end of the Tang Dynasty, the slogan of equal farmland and equal production was not put forward. This is a great progress of the peasant uprising army. Later peasant uprisings, inspired by the peasant uprisings in the late Tang Dynasty, all put forward similar slogans. The land equalization system is also the significance of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty.
The slogan of the peasant uprising in the late Qin Dynasty was to overthrow the Qin Dynasty, and the slogan of the peasant uprising in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was that Huangtian was dead. Neither of them put forward the idea of equal field system. Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, the insurgents have put forward the idea of equal land system. The peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty opened Tian Jun's thoughts.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the peasant uprising dealt a heavy blow to the landlords and nobles. The peasant uprising led by Huang Chao moved to more than half of China and executed corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry in the Tang Dynasty along the way, so that all the peasants got the land. After this great uprising, successive authorities have promulgated some decrees to ease class contradictions.