The Mongolian Plateau in the north of China has always been a hotbed for the rise of nomadic tribes, and the Great Wall is the natural dividing line between nomadic people and farming people. Since the Qin dynasty, the nomadic regime in the north has gradually formed a consortium, which is no longer a single tribe.
Since the Huns, the Han regime in the Central Plains has waged a tug-of-war with grassland regimes of all sizes for thousands of years. The grassland regime wiped out one crop after another. Although the grassland chaos was apparently quelled by the power of the Han and Tang Dynasties, as long as the land of the Central Plains is in trouble, the nomadic regime in the north will surely rise again. This problem, which troubled the Central Plains for thousands of years, was not really solved until the Yuan and Qing Dynasties, because these two regimes themselves evolved from nomadic regimes.
Since Mulan Ci was written in the Northern Wei Dynasty, we naturally think that Mulan should appear in the Northern Wei Dynasty. As we know, after the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, China entered a 400-year-long period of great division and was divided into sixteen countries in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Northern Wei Dynasty ended the division of the North and opened the era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, which later evolved into the unification of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
The Northern Wei Dynasty was a political power established by Tuoba, a Xianbei people. It was founded in 386 AD. At the beginning of the founding of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the northern land had just experienced the brief reunification of the former Qin Dynasty. After the Battle of Feishui, the former Qin Dynasty collapsed and the north was divided. It was at this time that the Northern Wei Dynasty rose. After destroying a series of small countries in succession, the biggest enemies of the Northern Wei Dynasty were Rouran in the north and Liu Song in the south.
However, Rouran is the same species as the Northern Wei Dynasty, and they are all Xianbei people. People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded more than ten years later than the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, after the minority regime entered the south of the Great Wall and established political power, in order to adapt to farming life, it inevitably embarked on the road of sinicization, and those poor relatives in the north became their enemies. After Tuoba Xianbei entered the south of the Great Wall, he gradually established his own political power in the northern grassland, which is called Rouran Khan in history books.
Taking advantage of the opportunity of the Northern Wei Dynasty to deal with many small countries in the south, it surrendered to many tribes in the Mongolian Plateau, centering on Mobei, starting from Daxinganling in the east, Altai Mountain in the west and the Great Wall in the south. During this period, there were more than 20 wars with the Northern Wei Dynasty, which were basically evenly matched. At the same time, the Northern Wei Dynasty built the Great Wall and set up border towns to resist gentle attacks.
In 423, a series of large-scale counterattacks against Rouran broke out in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and Emperor Tuoba Tao of the Northern Wei Dynasty succeeded to the throne. Rouran heard that the new Northern Wei Emperor succeeded to bully the Northern Wei Emperor who had just turned 65,438+06, so under the leadership of Khan, he invaded the Northern Wei Yun (now northwest of Inner Mongolia and Linger) with 60,000 cavalry, and Tuoba Tao led only 20,000 cavalry to repel it under heavy siege. This battle fully embodies the military talent of Emperor Wu of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Taizu TaBaDao
In the following years, Taizu gradually eliminated the separatist forces in the north, and at the same time, his national strength increased greatly. In order to alleviate the threat of Rouran in the north and avoid being caught between Rouran and Liu Song, he took the initiative to launch a large-scale attack on Rouran. It was during this period that Mulan was recruited into the army and established military exploits with Emperor Tuoba Tao.
In order to make the Northern Expedition flexible and increase the reserve of soldiers, the Northern Wei Dynasty required every household in the country to send a man to participate in military campaigns. Mulan's father was old and there were no other adult men in the family, so Mulan disguised herself as a man to go to war instead of her father. At this time, the Northern Wei Dynasty was not completely divorced from the political characteristics of nomadic tribes in the grassland, so it is not surprising that Khan readily accepted it in Mulan Ci. Son of heaven? The title also appeared at the end of the poem, which also indicates the gradual sinicization of the Northern Wei regime.
Hua Mulan
In 429 AD, the war was led northward by Taizu Tuoba Tao himself. The army attacked softly in two ways and suffered a crushing defeat. King Tan fled to the Western Heaven, so soft? The country is scattered, the valley is stung, and the livestock is wild. No one is watching? . After the war, Tuoba Tao led the army in pursuit. Captives and livestock products there are all over the mountains, covering millions of people. After this battle, Rouran turned from prosperity to decline and could no longer pose a threat to the Northern Wei Dynasty. Rouran later had a short-term revival, but another more powerful tribe, the Turkic, was unbearable to Rouran's oppression, and finally rose up and rebelled, and destroyed Rouran with a devastating trend, reunifying the northern grassland and becoming a deadly enemy of Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Rouran cavalry
After that, the Northern Wei Dynasty solved the last separatist regime in the north, unified the north in 439, and moved the capital to Luoyang after Emperor Xiaowen's reform, which was completely sinicized and integrated into the Central Plains. Even the Southern Dynasties believed that the Northern Wei Dynasty was the inheritor of the Central Plains culture of orthodox Confucianism and Sinology. Although it was later divided into the Eastern and Western Wei Dynasties, the Northern Qi Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty, a unified team of Sui and Tang Dynasties was born. Later, the prosperity of Hu Feng in the Tang Dynasty originated from the influence of Tuoba, a Xianbei family in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The story of Mulan originated in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Later, after being processed and polished by literati in Sui and Tang Dynasties, Mulan gradually became the representative of ancient women, and in posthumous title in Tang Dynasty. General Xiao Lie? , and has been passed down to this day, becoming the representative of the outstanding sons and daughters of the Chinese nation.