The era of the three kingdoms. Period of the three kingdoms The emergence of the three kingdoms

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Three Kingdoms in China
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Age of the Three Kingdoms, Sango(Chinese trad. 三國, exercise 三国, pinyin: Sānguó, pall. : Sango) - a period of time in ancient China from g to g, which went down in history as a struggle and confrontation between three different states of China - Wei and Shu.

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In the city of Sima Yong founded here a new Jin dynasty, which in the city managed to subjugate Shu and Wu, uniting all of China under its rule again, however, only for several decades.

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Excerpt from the Age of the Three Kingdoms

Despite the fact that they all went with him, Anatole apparently wanted to make something touching and solemn out of this appeal to his comrades. He spoke in a slow, loud voice and swinging his chest with one leg. - Everyone, take glasses; and you, Balaga. Well, comrades, friends of my youth, we had a drink, lived, and had a drink. A? Now when will we meet? I will go abroad. Have lived, goodbye, guys. For health! Hurray! .. - he said, drank his glass and slammed it on the ground.
“Be healthy,” said Balaga, having also drunk his glass and wiped himself off with a handkerchief. Makarin hugged Anatol with tears in his eyes. “Eh, prince, how sad it is for me to part with you,” he said.
- Go, go! - shouted Anatole.
Balaga was about to leave the room.
- No, stop, - said Anatole. - Shut the doors, you have to sit down. Like this. - The doors were closed, and everyone sat down.
- Well, now march, guys! - said Anatole getting up.
Lackey Joseph handed Anatol a bag and a saber, and everyone went out into the hall.
- Where's the fur coat? - said Dolokhov. - Hey, Ignatka! Go to Matryona Matveevna, ask for a fur coat, a sable cloak. I heard how they were being taken away, - said Dolokhov, winking. - After all, she will jump out neither alive nor dead, in what she sat at home; You hesitate a little, there are tears, and father, and mother, and now you are cold and back, - and you take it in a fur coat right away and carry it in the sleigh.
A footman brought in a female fox cloak.
- Fool, I told you sable. Hey Matryoshka, sable! He shouted so that his voice rang out far across the rooms.
A beautiful, thin and pale gypsy woman, with shining, black eyes and black curly hair of a gray tint, in a red shawl, ran out with a sable cloak on her arm.
“Well, I'm not sorry, you take it,” she said, apparently shy in front of her master and feeling sorry for the cloak.
Dolokhov, without answering her, took a fur coat, threw it over Matryoshka and wrapped it up.
- That's it, - said Dolokhov. - And then like this, - he said, and raised the collar near her head, leaving it only slightly open in front of her face. - Then like this, see? - and he moved Anatole's head to the hole left by the collar, from which Matryosha's brilliant smile could be seen.
- Well, goodbye, Matryosha, - Anatole said, kissing her. - Eh, my fun is over here! Bow to Steshka. Well, goodbye! Goodbye Matryosh; wish me happiness.
“Well, God grant you, prince, great happiness,” said Matryosha, with her gypsy accent.
There were two troikas at the porch, two fellow drivers were holding them. Balaga sat down on the front three, and, raising his elbows high, unhurriedly took apart the reins. Anatol and Dolokhov sat down with him. Makarin, Khvostikov and the footman sat down in the other three.
- Ready, eh? - asked Balaga.
- Let it go! - he shouted, wrapping the reins around his hands, and the troika carried off to beat down Nikitsky Boulevard.
- Whoa! Go, hey! ... Whoa, - just heard the cry of Balaga and the fellow sitting on the box. On Arbat Square, the troika hit the carriage, something creaked, a shout was heard, and the troika flew down the Arbat.
Having given two ends along Podnovinsky, Balaga began to restrain and, returning back, stopped the horses at the crossroads of Staraya Konyushennaya.

Investigating the history of the Central Asian nomads, we are faced with a fact that cannot be explained if we do not involve, it would seem, outside information from the history of neighboring peoples. From 200 BC to 150 AD The Han dynasty of China pursued an extremely active foreign policy, which ended in the defeat of the Hunnu state. And immediately after that, China weakened so much that in IV v. The original Chinese lands in the Yellow River basin fell into the hands of the nomads. The Huns, Xianbi, Qyans (nomadic Tibetans), even the Tszilu (a cross between different tribes) defeated the organized Chinese troops with incredible ease. At the same time, no upsurge was observed among the nomads at this time.On the contrary, the steppes were deserted due to drought, which culminated in III v. AD, and the economy of the nomads was in decline. Obviously, the reason for the victory of the nomads lies in China itself, and from this point of view, the era of the fall of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms is of particular interest to the nomadist historian. However, it is not easy to satisfy this interest, because the available manuals provide either too brief an overview of events, or countless small facts that are very difficult to summarize in a coherent system. Neither one nor the other is suitable for our purposes. We need to catch the vector of movement and describe the mechanism for transforming a grand empire into a powerless despotism. General phrases about the crisis of feudalism do not give any idea of ​​the course of events and the reasons for the victory of the Sima surname, which soon destroyed China. Events are committed by people, and from this point of view, people are interesting to the historian. It is just as difficult to understand the labyrinth of private research, breaking the monolithic era into details, as a result of which the forest cannot be seen from behind the trees and bushes. In order to answer the question posed, we adopted a method of generalizing particulars in order to capture the patterns that led China from greatness to destruction. In this regard, only one work has been created - the so-called "novel" by Luo Guan-Zhong "Three Kingdoms", written in XIV v. The definition of this work as a novel is conditional and imprecise. In medieval China, historical chronicles were written according to a certain canon, and everything that did not meet the requirements of official science was taken out of them. Luo Guan-Zhong wrote a book for the general reader and, naturally, neglected the requirements of pseudoscience. He introduced dialogues and psychological motivations for the actions of historical figures into the text, but, from our point of view, this does not diminish, but increases the value of historical reconstruction. However, we follow Luo Guan-Chung only in the direction of thought, and not in assessments and conclusions, and we propose a slightly different concept based on a scientific vision. XX in., which differs from the understanding of the author XIV v. Being limited by the size of the article, we omit the huge bibliographic apparatus and, relying on well-known facts taken from the point of view we have adopted, we refer the interested reader to works that contain a statement of facts that we only explain or mention.

Eunuchs.

Although the Han dynasty suffered many upheavals, but until the end II v. she was strong and stable. Luo Guan-Chzhong believes that the perpetrators of the decline were, "perhaps ... the emperors Huang-di and Ling-di", but does not explain why and because of what they ended up in this role. Therefore, you need to look for these reasons.

The system of the Han monarchy consisted of three elements: a central government, a civilian provincial administration, and a standing army. In relation to these elements, which made up the ruling class, all other groups of the Chinese population were in a subordinate position and did not have political rights, but they replenished the ruling clique, singling out from their midst "u" - physically strong and trained people - for the army and the police. and "wen" - people inclined to mental pursuits - to replenish the administration. The latter were all Confucians, which determined the direction of the Han policy and their own position. The need for a monstrously extensive education led to the emergence of an intelligentsia closely associated with the dynasty that fed this intelligentsia.

A huge country with a multi-tribal population and persistent separatist tendencies was subject to this rigid system. Solid power provided the subjects of the empire with comparative security from external enemies and relative order within the country, and the disunited nomadic steppe was not terrible. The tolerance characteristic of the Chinese allowed the Taoist sages to settle in the provinces, while the Confucians flourished at court. Everything looked pretty good, but a new danger poisoned the healthy, albeit frayed, organism.

The stability of the government depended entirely on the loyalty of officials, but the latter were loyal to their country, and not to the whims of the ruler. Confucians were guided by the principles of ethics adopted from childhood, and for their sake they could sometimes sacrifice a career and money. Therefore, they sometimes expressed and carried out opinions that went against the wishes of the emperor. For example, the Confucians strongly opposed the preaching of Buddhism, despite the fact that the Emperor Huang Di converted to this faith. They also condemned the insane extravagance of the Emperor Ling-di, who erected luxurious palaces and pagodas. In short, the government needed not only intelligent, but also obedient officials. It found them, and they destroyed it.

The practice of using eunuchs to work in offices was not new in China, but in II v. AD it has become a system. Eunuchs from the lower strata of the population took leading positions, concentrated real power in their hands and formed a kind of caste. They were not constrained by any traditions. They carried out any will of the despot and at the same time made huge fortunes by bribery, causing the hatred of the people. However, the army was subordinate to the eunuchs in control of the government, and this gave them an advantage in the struggle, which could not but begin.

The first to oppose the eunuchs were the courtier scholars, i.e. Confucians. In 167, the commander Dou Wu and tai-fu Chen-fan tried to plot a conspiracy, but they failed to keep the secret and perished themselves. In 178, the advisor Cai Yong presented the emperor with a report denouncing the eunuchs and was exiled to the village. In the eighties, tai-fu Liu Tao repeated Tsai Yong's attempt and was executed. Confucian opposition, by its nature limited to legal forms of protest, turned out to be untenable in the face of an internal enemy.

"Yellow Bandages".

The court eunuchs overestimated their capabilities. Pursuing scientists and pressing peasants, they forced both of them to block, in other words, they themselves provoked the movement and gave it leaders. In 184, a certain Zhang Jiao declared himself the "Yellow Sky", i.e. The "sky of justice", as opposed to the "blue sky" of violence, and the revolt of the "yellow bands" began. Zhang Jiao himself was a man "who was prevented by poverty from obtaining a degree." The new teaching was based on the philosophy of Lao-tzu, but the people were more impressed by the natural water, which Zhang Jiao used to treat the sick, and the ability attributed to him to cause rain and wind. Followers began to flock to the prophet, more than 500 of his disciples walked around the country, preaching the "Great Calm" and recruiting followers, whose number grew day by day. They united in squads with commanders at the head, in order to establish the true faith before the expected end of the world. For six months, the forces of the rebels grew to 500,000 fighters, and among the rebels were the military settlers in Annam and the Huns. The government lost control of the country. Han officials were hiding behind the city walls.

The Yellow Bands movement was not just a peasant revolt or a political uprising. It was also marked by a powerful ideological shift: the philosophical system of Lao Tzu was transformed into a religion - Taoism, which absorbed the remnants of ancient Chinese polytheism - the veneration of the Sheng, pagan deities. With this, Taoism immediately won the sympathy of broad strata of the peasantry, and thus the peasant uprising merged with the preaching of the national religion, which arose as opposition to foreign Buddhism, which found shelter at court.

It is understandable why it was precisely the teachings of Lao Tzu, and not Confucianism, that were used in the struggle against the Han regime. This regime itself was the work of the Confucians, and they could only resent the mediocre application of the principle, but not the principle itself. True Confucians are always a little retrograde, as they are brought up on history and respect for their ancestors. In addition, the Confucians, getting their education, broke away from the illiterate people, so they defended the dynasty against the ruling nobles either as conspirators or as leaders of the Legitimists, nowhere close to the masses. Even in the face of the mortal danger posed by the eunuchs, the Confucians were unable to lead the resistance; this was done by the Taoist mystics, who absorbed the creative and restless elements from the peasant mass, for a mystic does not need to study sciences, but a warm heart and fervent imagination are needed, and when social hatred, resentment over centuries of oppression and injustice, aversion to foreign favorites, the civil war has become a fait accompli.

The political organization of the Taoists was theocracy. In northern Sichuan, in parallel with the uprising of the "yellow bands", an independent Taoist state with a dynasty of teachers-preachers of Taoism was created; Zhang Ling preached Taoism ideologically, and "the people loved him." Zhang Heng took rice for his lessons, and Zhang Lu declared himself the ruler of the region and created a school of Taoist propagandists called gui-tsu - "servants of the devil." The followers of Taoism were required to have faith in their master and truthfulness. Public repentance was introduced. For propaganda purposes, hospitable houses were set up with free shelter and food. Finally, among the Taoists were hermits and scientists who lived in the mountains and studied healing, magic and poetry. This was the Taoist intelligentsia, whose development was not inferior to the Confucian one and somewhat later played a decisive role in the civil war.

However, despite the fact that the country opposed the dynasty, the preponderance of forces was still on the side of the central government, since the army remained at its post. The rebellious peasants could not compete with regular troops - plate horsemen and crossbowmen. But, on the other hand, the troops, winning the battles, could not cope with the small detachments of the rebels using the tactics of guerrilla warfare. Fighting the rebels required not punitive expeditions, but a systematic war in all provinces at once. Therefore, Lingdi was forced to give the provincial governors emergency powers and allow the recruitment of volunteers. This permission and the unification of military and civilian power in one hand immediately made each governor the master of his province. Instead of fighting the rebels, the governors did everything in their power to strengthen their positions. They found support in the large landowners, wealthy, but deprived of participation in political life. The names of Yuan, Sunyei, Xiahou entered the political arena and stood on a par with the serving nobility like Ma Teng, Gongsun Zan, He Jin and the princes of the blood from the Liu clan. The Taoist uprising was drowned in blood and finally died out by 205.

Soldiers.

In the summer of 189, while still in the midst of the pacification of the "yellow bands", Emperor Lingdi died. He left two young sons - Byanya and Xie. The struggle immediately began: for Bian was his uncle, the commander He Jin, who relied on his troops, and Xie was supported by the empress mother and eunuchs. He Jin won first. The Empress Mother was exiled and poisoned, but He Jin did not have time to deal with the eunuchs. They got ahead of him: they lured him into the palace and killed him. Then the army's hatred of bureaucracy broke through. The troops in Luoyang took the palace by storm and killed all the eunuchs, i.e. the whole government. The next day, regular troops from Shaanxi appeared in the capital, and the commander Dong Zhuo seized power. To strengthen his position, Dong Zhuo removed Bian from the throne and imprisoned him; soon the unfortunate boy was killed, and Xie was enthroned under the name of Hsien-di. Thus, the domination of the palace clique was replaced by a military dictatorship, and the Confucian Legitimists again found themselves in the position of persecuted. General Ding Yuan's attempt to restore order ended with Ding Yuan being killed by one of Lü Bu's officers. In outrage and unbridledness, the soldiers surpassed the eunuchs. For example, once Dong Zhuo led his army to the villagers celebrating a holiday. The soldiers surrounded innocent people, killed the men, and divided the women and property among themselves. It was announced to the population of the capital that a victory over the robbers had been won, but this did not deceive anyone.

If the government of eunuchs generated discontent in the country, then the soldier's arbitrariness caused an explosion of indignation. Large landowners and provincial nobility rose to fight Dong Zhuo and the army. This class of the population managed to form into a political force during the suppression of the uprising of the "yellow bands". Now he began to fight the government under the slogan of protecting the emperor and restoring order. But the slogan did not reflect the essence of the matter: the Zemshchina fought against the unbridled soldiery for their heads, land and wealth. The uprising was led by Cao Cao, a serving officer from the Xiahou Shandong landowning family; he was joined by the brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, wealthy landowners, members of the noble and influential Yuan family, the governor of the Beiping district Gongsun Zan, the governor of Changsha Sun Jian and many others. The provincial wealthy financed the militia. However, the fight against the regular army turned out to be very difficult. Military operations focused on the approaches to Luoyang. Until the aristocrats attracted and used professional equestrian archers, condottieri like Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, they did not win, but the numerical superiority and sympathy of the population saved them from defeat. Dong Zhuo was forced to purge Luoyang. Before leaving, he executed 5,000 rich Loyang people and confiscated their property; the rest of the population was withdrawn and driven to Chang'an, where Dong Zhuo decided to move the capital, and Luoyang was burned.

The Zemsky militia occupied the ruins of the capital and disintegrated. There was not even a shadow of unity between the commanders - each thought of himself and hurried to his own area, fearing his friends. Cao Cao alone rushed to pursue Dong Zhuo. But the militias were not equal to the regular army: Dong Zhuo lured Cao Cao into an ambush near Rongyang and defeated him completely. After that, the militia collapsed completely, and the generals entered into a struggle among themselves, trying to round off their possessions. Thanks to this, Dong Zhuo became entrenched in Chanan and, having the emperor at his disposal, sent out decrees on his behalf. True, these decrees were not obeyed. The empire began to disintegrate. Terror reigned in Chanan. Dong Zhuo was more terrifying to his entourage than to his enemies. The grandee Wang Yun made a conspiracy, and with the help of the already known to us Lü Bu Dong Zhuo he was killed. Power was seized by Wang Yun, but since he began to punish the closest officers of Dong Zhuo, they rebelled with their units. The rebels took Changan and killed Wang Yun. Lü Bu broke through with a hundred horsemen and fled to Henan.

Now generals Li Jue and Guo Si were at the head of the army. They continued Dong Zhuo's case. The rulers of the northwestern regions, Ma Teng and Han Sui, opposed them, but they were defeated and driven away from Chanan. Dong Zhuo's death proved to be a watershed moment in Chinese history. Not a single ruler of the region wanted to obey the rebels holding the emperor captive. But not a single one rose to defend the throne, and the army, which had managed to demoralize and turn into a bandit gang, calmly devoured the stocks collected in Chanan. Soon the generals quarreled and entered into a struggle among themselves. It could not be otherwise, because the soldiers drunk with blood and wine could not and did not want to restrain their instincts and give up the habit of killing. In the streets and in the vicinity of Chanan, bloody battles broke out and complete disorder reigned. Taking advantage of this, the emperor, with several close associates, fled from his army to the east. There he was met with honor by the ruler of Shandong Cao Cao. Li Jue, Guo Si and other officers chased the emperor, but were met by the already trained troops of Cao Cao and utterly defeated in 196. Thus, the second stronghold of the Han dynasty, the army, disappeared. Li Jue and Guo Si remained in Changan for another two years, until they were disturbed there. In 198, their heads were delivered to Cao Cao, who during this time became cheng-hsiang, i.e. head of government. Let's see how this happened.

Ambitious.

Let's go back to 191, when the army cleared the capital and the country, freeing the hands of the zemstvo militia. The militia collapsed, since the generals who represented it were by no means prepared for political activity. They were closely connected with their land holdings and with their numerous clients, but the idea of ​​statehood was alien to them. As soon as the threat from the central government passed, the rulers began to round up their holdings. In the north, in Hebei, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan clashed. In the south, Sun Jian, the master of the lower Yangtze, tried to conquer the possessions of Liu Biao, located between the Yangtze and Han rivers, but was killed in the battle. His son Sun Ce entered into an alliance with the ruler of Henan and Anhui Yuan Shu and with his help subdued many counties south of the Yangtze. In Shandong, a new uprising of the "yellow bands." he was pacified by Cao Cao in 192 and included the surrendered rebels in his troops. As a result, his army turned out to be one of the strongest, and this prompted him to strive for further conquests: he attacked Xuzhou. The ruler of Xuzhou, unable to organize resistance, invited a specialist - the famous warrior Liu Bei.

Liu Bei appeared with his retinue and brothers-in-arms Zhang Fei and Guan Yu; the latter was a talented commander. Liu Bei's entry into the political arena marked a new shift in Chinese public relations. Liu Bei belonged to a completely impoverished nobility, in fact he was declassified and became a condottieri. The same, with the exception of the origin, were his "brothers" - Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. The era has come when the sword trade began to bring huge profits. Liu Bei and his detachment broke through Cao Cao's army and saved the day. At this very time, another adventurer, already known to us the conspirator Lü Bu, struck in the rear of Cao Cao and forced him to lift the siege from Xuzhou. Lü Bu's fate is even more revealing than Liu Bei's career. Lü Bu fled from Chanan with a hundred horsemen and wandered around China for some time, offering his services to everyone. The noble Yuan rejected the upstart, but Liu Bu still found the owner - Zhang Mo, the ruler of the Chenglu province, and with his help formed an army of 50,000. Taking advantage of Cao Cao's difficulties, Lü Bu tried to carve out a property in Shandong. The motivation behind the adventure launched by Lü Bu is extremely curious: "The Celestial Empire is falling apart, the soldiers do what they want. ... Lü Bu is now the bravest man in the Celestial Empire, and with him you can win independence." A similar opinion was expressed by the prominent politician Lu Su. The idea of ​​a community of China and the idea of ​​a dynasty could be considered lost. In the battle of Puyang, Lü Bu defeated Cao Cao, but did not build on his success, confining himself to seizing a small inheritance for himself. By this he put himself on an equal footing with the aristocrats. In Xuzhou, Liu Bei did the same, taking over from an old and languid local ruler.

The emergence of new rivals made the aristocrats feel class solidarity, and Yuan Shao sent an army of 50,000 against Lü Bu. But even before that, Cao Cao, having gone over to the offensive, defeated the Shandong "yellows" and Lü Bu, in front of whom the people of Puyang had locked the gates. Lü Bu fled to Liu Bei, who accepted him. All these events took place before 196. When the emperor fled from Changan and fell into the hands of Cao Cao, the latter became cheng-hsiang and began to send out decrees on behalf of the emperor. By cunning diplomacy, he managed to embroil Liu Bei with Lü Bu and Yuan Shu. Yuan Shu defeated the troops of Liu Bei, and Lü Bu captured his inheritance. Liu Bei and his retinue came to the service of Cao Cao and was accepted, for all applicants needed condottieri.

Yuan Shu was narrow-minded but ambitious. Seeing that his neighbor Cao Cao had reached the highest position in China. Yuan Shu decided he was no worse. However, it was impossible to take away the person of the emperor from Cao Cao, there was another way - Yuan Shu declared himself emperor. But he hastened: none of the rulers, actually independent, entered into an alliance with him. With his great powers, Yuan Shu could cope with any neighbor individually, but not all together. He fell out with Lü Bu and tried to capture Xuzhou, but a talented warrior defeated him, and Sun Ze's southeastern neighbor got in touch with Cao Cao and also opposed the usurper. The Allies swept Hunan from all sides and took the capital Houchun in 198. It was not possible to bring the war to an end in one campaign, since other rulers - Liu Biao, Zhang Xiu, and the "yellow bands" hit the rear of Cao Cao. Yuan Shu got a break, but it was not he who took advantage of it, but Cao Cao. In the same year, 198, Cao Cao, bribing right and left, managed to capture and execute Lü Bu and deal with Zhang Xiu, and in the next year, 199, his troops under the command of Liu Bei finished off Yuan Shu. The latter's brother, Yuan Shao, could do nothing to help him, as he was busy with the war with Gongsun Zan. Yuan Shao defeated and became the ruler of all Hebei.

Suni behaved quite differently than Yuan. Sun Ce, nicknamed "the little hero", subdued all the lower reaches of the Yangtze. He led a policy that strengthened his principality so much that it became a real impregnable fortress. Sun Ce began to gather the Confucian intelligentsia and distribute posts to them. The kingdom of Wu inherited from the Han Empire the healthiest contingent of the learned elite, least touched by general decay.

This selection of people determined the capabilities of the Wu principality: it became a stronghold of resistance to the general progressive movement of the history of China, which at that time was heading for disintegration. Therefore, in the kingdom of Wu there was more order than in other possessions, and this, together with natural conditions, created a natural fortress from Wu. However, this same circumstance limited the possibilities for its expansion, since the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people at that time were "yellow," and Taoist ideology could not be tolerated in a strictly Confucian state. Indeed, Sun Ce carried out executions of the Taoists and smashed the idols. His heir Sun Quan - "blue-eyed youth" - somewhat weakened, but did not change the policy of his older brother, and this prevented him from mastering the entire Yangtze course. Not talentless Liu Biao, but popular hatred limited the Wu principality to the lower reaches of the Yangtze (Jiangdong). But this will be discussed in more detail below.

Royalists.

Having fallen from Li Jue's camp into the hands of Cao Cao, Emperor Xiangdi did not feel any freer. True, here he had decent food and peace, but they absolutely did not reckon with him. At the court moved to Xuchang (in Shandong), there were several courtiers who remembered the splendor of the Han house. The emperor conspired with one of them, Dong Cheng, and he conspired to kill Cao Cao and restore the Han Dynasty. The ruler of Xiliang (Gansu) Ma Teng and Liu Bei joined the conspiracy. Ma Teng went to his inheritance, and Liu Bei with an army crushed Yuan Shu, when the conspiracy was revealed thanks to the betrayal of Dong Cheng's domestic slave, and all the conspirators were executed. The emperor was again under arrest, and this time finally. But success cost Cao Cao dearly: his enemies received an ideological basis to fight him. The charm of the House of Han had not yet disappeared, and, hiding behind it, Liu Bei raised his troops and captured Xuzhou. Yuan Shao entered into an alliance with him, declaring that he stands "for a mighty trunk and weak branches", i.e. for a strong central power and limitation of the power of appanage princes. Liu Bei and Yuan Shao's sincerity was more than questionable, but Cao Cao was caught between two fires.

The rebel forces, even Yuan Shao's alone, were larger than the government's forces. Border troops, veterans who did not lose discipline, were concentrated in Hebei. Wuhuang was Yuan Shao's allies, so his rear was protected. There was no shortage of combat officers and experienced advisers, but with all of this, Yuan Shao was not fit for a leader. He was brave, decisive, knew military affairs, but did not understand anything in politics and human psychology. Aristocratic arrogance prevented him from listening to the words of his subordinates, courage turned into stubbornness, decisiveness into impatience and lack of restraint. He often pushed away the right people, which predetermined the result of the collision. On the other hand, Cao Cao was by no means an accidental person at the post of Cheng Hsiang. He was also an aristocrat, but without a trace of arrogance. Cao Cao was defeated more than once, but thanks to iron restraint, he managed to benefit from them as from victories: he lost battles and won wars. He could easily sacrifice the life of a friend or brother if he needed it, but he did not like killing in vain. He widely practiced lies, betrayal, cruelty, but also paid tribute to nobility and loyalty, even directed against him. He attracted and cherished people. These were, of course, not the people who made their way to Wu, to Sun Quan: itinerant knights, adventurers, careerists - people of this century - flocked to Cao Cao. Cao Cao kept pace with the times, and fate smiled at him.

The war began in the fall of 199. Cao Cao set up barriers, hesitating to attack the superior forces of the enemy himself. Liu Bei defeated the army sent against him, but, not supported by Yuan Shao, could not build on the success. Winter suspended hostilities, and in the spring of 200, Cao Cao went on the offensive and utterly defeated Liu Bei, who fled to Yuan Shao.

Gathering all his strength, Cao Cao rushed to the north and defeated the vanguard of the northerners at the Battle of Baima, but in his rear, in Zhunan, a new uprising of the "yellow bands" broke out, and, pacifying him, he lost the pace of the offensive. In the fall of 200, Cao Cao renewed his offensive and defeated Yuan Shao's forces at Guandu, and in the summer of the following year, at Canting. In the meantime, the restless Liu Bei moved to Runan and led the defeated "yellows" who, in 15 years of incessant forest war, turned into robbers. He wanted to strike in the rear of Cao Cao and take the defenseless Xuchang. Cao Cao with light troops forced a march to Runan and defeated Liu Bei. With the remnants of his gang, Liu Bei went to Liu Biao and entered his service. The Condottiere changed the owner once more.

In the spring of 203, Cao Cao again headed north. Yuan Shao died, and his sons got into bloody feuds. The capital of Hebei, Jizhou, fell, Yuan Shao's children fled to the Wuhuans, and then further to Liaodong. The Liaodong ruler, seeking to please the victor, beheaded the fugitives and sent their heads away to Cao Cao. The walled allies of Yuan-wuhan were defeated by Cao Cao's troops in 206, and some of them were brought to Inner China and settled there. The Huns voluntarily obeyed and sent many horses as a gift to Cao Cao. Finally, the uprising of the "yellow bands" ended: the commander of the "Black Mountain" Chang-Swallow surrendered and brought in his supporters.

Cao Cao's army increased to 1,000,000 people due to the inclusion of surrendered northerners and "yellows" into his ranks. The main force of this army were men at arms and horse archers; both Cao Cao were attracted by his generosity and the possibility of a quick career. There was no army equal to it in China, and it seemed that Cao Cao's hegemony was a matter of the near future. Cao Cao himself thought so and, having pacified the north, rushed south to, firstly, put an end to Liu Bei, and, secondly, bring Wu into submission, which had become an independent principality during this time.

Hermits.

The strengthening of Cao Cao for certain groups of the Chinese population promised serious complications. First of all, the fragments of the House of Han were worried: the princes Liu Biao in Jingzhou (the area between the Han and Yangtze rivers) and Liu Zhang in Yizhou (Sichuan). Highborn, but talentless, they did not know how to prevent trouble. Liu Biao supported Liu Bei, but a strong party arose in his palace, demanding an agreement with Cao Cao, for which it was necessary to send Liu Bei's head to Cheng-hsiang. There was no unanimity in Wu: civil officials stood for peace and submission, since in this case they would have remained in their places. The military wanted to resist, because at best they were expected to serve as a private in the victor's army. The swords were in the hands of the military, and Wu decided to resist, using the Yangtze River and his magnificent fleet for cover.

The inspirers and ideologists of the "yellow" movement - the Taoist hermits - found themselves in the most difficult situation. Cao Cao could forgive and accept the Black Mountain robbers, pardon and release the rioting Rongan peasants to their homes, but there could be no mercy for the preachers of the Great Tranquility teachings who had raised a bloody civil war, and they knew it. The Taoist stake on the mass, i.e. peasant movement turned out to be a bat. Against the army, an army was also needed - a professional, qualified and obedient one. Such was Liu Bei's squad pressed against the wall. Although Liu Bei began his career with punitive expeditions against the Yellow Bands, the common danger brought the Anchorites and Condottieri closer together. In 207, people sent to Liu Bei called his advisers "pale-faced scribes" and advised him to turn to truly talented people. This is how Zhuge Liang, who bore the Taoist nickname "The Slumbering Dragon", introduced himself. Liu Bei confided in him, and events took an unexpected turn.

First of all, Zhuge Liang drew up a new program. He abandoned the struggle for hegemony in China as an unbearable task. He yielded to Cao Cao in the north, Sun Quan in the east, with whom he considered it necessary to conclude an alliance, and Liu Bei offered to seize the south-west, especially the rich Sichuan. There Zhuge Liang hoped to sit out a difficult time. What was fundamentally new in the Taoist program was that the dismemberment of China turned from a sad necessity into a goal. This aristocrat of the spirit saw the means for achieving the goal in demagoguery, in "agreement with the people." Zhuge Liang had very little time to prepare for the inevitable war, but he made good use of it. Liu Bei began to be turned into a national hero (which skillful propaganda would not do!), And this made it easier to recruit warriors from the people. The results were immediate. In the spring of 208, Liu Bei defeated the enemy's screen and captured the city of Fancheng. Cao Cao was concerned about this and launched an offensive with large forces, but Zhuge Liang defeated his vanguard at Mount Bowan. In the fall of 208, the main forces of Cao Cao set out on a campaign, and at the same time Liu Biao died. Power in the capital of his region was seized by supporters of the government.

Liu Bei had enemies in the rear, and it was pointless to resist. Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang began to retreat, and behind them - an unprecedented case - the entire population rose: old men, women with children, abandoning their property, left their homeland for a foreign south. Cao Cao did not expect this; in the north he was greeted as a liberator, here he also wanted to appear as a humane ruler, but they did not want to talk to him. Meanwhile, Liu Bei and his generals fought rearguard battles and detained the enemy, saving the fleeing population. In the end, Liu Bei's troops were defeated at Changfang, but most of the refugees managed to cross to the southern bank of the Yangtze, where Zhuge Liang managed to organize a defense. Cao Cao acquired territory, but did not win.

The Yangtze is a wide river, up to 5 km in places, and Cao Cao did not dare to force it without proper preparation. True, with the surrender of Jingzhou, he received a fleet, but the newly conquered southerners were unreliable, and the northerners did not know how to fight on the water. While Cao Cao was pulling up reserves, Wu's fleet came up from the lower Yangtze under the command of the experienced Admiral Zhou Yu. The war has entered a new phase. At the Battle of Chibi (Red Cliffs), Cao Cao's fleet was burned by southerners' fire-ships, but their counteroffensive to the north was drowned out as the northerners had excellent reserve cavalry. The only winner was Liu Bei, who managed to seize Jingzhou and Nanjiang (the region south of the Yangtze) in the turmoil and found an independent principality.

It is unlikely that Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang would have held on to a small triangle between the Han and Yangtze rivers, especially since the alliance with Wu was broken immediately after the victory. Sun Quan himself claimed the lands captured by Liu Bei, and even arrested the latter when he came to negotiate. True, the arrest was veiled: Liu Bei was married to Sun Quan's sister, but in fact it was an arrest, and Liu Bei had to flee. Deprived of an ally, Liu Bei could not have fought off Cao Cao, but he was unexpectedly lucky. At a time when the northerners were preparing to march and even concluded an alliance with U, in 210 the north-western princes came forward, keeping in the shadows for a long time. The ruler of Xiliang (Gansu) Ma Teng - the last undisclosed member of the royalist conspiracy - came to Xuchang to introduce himself to the ruler, and along the way organized an attempt on his life. The assassination attempt failed; Ma Teng and his entourage paid with their lives for failure. Then the son of the slain Ma Chao and friend Han Sui raised troops and took Changan. Cao Cao opposed them with his entire army, but the Chinese men at arms had a hard time fighting the Kiang spearmen - Ma Chao's allies. Only by winning over Han Sui to his side, Cao Cao achieved victory. Ma Chao fled to the Kians, repeated the attack in 212, but was again defeated and went to the Taoist leader Zhang Lu in Hanzhong.

Twin brothers.

In 210 AD, Liu Zhang, the ruler of western Sichuan, turned to Liu Bei with a request to help him get rid of the Zhang Lu Taoists who held themselves in eastern Sichuan and in Shaanxi. On the advice of Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei led troops into Sichuan. He could easily grab Liu Zhang and this was demanded by his Taoist advisers, but he did not, explaining his refusal by the fact that Liu Zhang was a member of the Han imperial family and his relative. On the contrary, he went into a military conflict with Ma Chao, then serving with Zhang Lu. Ma Chao did not get along with the Taoists and went over to Liu Bei. It cost a lot of work to Pan Tong, Liu Bei's Taoist adviser, to cause a conflict between Liu Bei and Liu Zhang, as a result of which Liu Zhang was taken prisoner, and Sichuan went to Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, who came to him. Thus, the basis for the kingdom of Shu was created.

Zhuge Liang had to not only fight against obvious enemies, but also overcome the opposition of his closest associates. From that time on, he did not leave Liu Bei, influencing the weak-willed leader, and entrusted the management of Jingzhou to the talented warrior Guan Yu, but the latter was as far from understanding politics as Liu Bei.

The situation in the new kingdom was very tense. Sun Quan demanded that Jingzhou be handed over to him, and Cao Cao went to war against Zhang Lu and in 215 liquidated the last stronghold of Taoism. Zhuge Liang succeeded in pushing Song Quan into a war against Cao Cao through partial concessions, but Cao Cao defeated the southerners under Hefei (215). However, this sabotage thwarted the attack on Sichuan and enabled Liu Bei to strengthen himself.

The internal situation in North China was also turbulent. The puppet emperor Xiangdi in 218 made another attempt to get rid of his commander. Several courtiers conspired and rebelled in Xuchang. The city caught fire. The troops stationed outside the city, seeing the glow, approached and suppressed the rebellion. Even earlier, Cao Cao ordered the execution of the empress involved in the conspiracy and married Hsiang-di to his daughter. The unfortunate emperor, even on the bed of sleep, was under observation. In 215, having strengthened, Cao Cao took the title of Wei-wang, thereby legalizing his position, and moved against Liu Bei.

In the spring of 218, Sichuan became the target of the northerners' offensive. Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei came out of the mountains and launched a counteroffensive. Thanks to the strategic talent of Zhuge Liang and the combat experience of the junior commanders he selected, Cao Cao's army was defeated by the fall, and Hanzhong - the former lands of Zhang Lu - went to Liu Bei. Emboldened by his success, Liu Bei assumed the title of Wang in 219.

The rise of the Shu kingdom worried Sun Quan, and he formed an alliance with Cao Cao. In 219, the war continued in a different sector: Guan Yu with a surprise attack took the Xiangyang fortress (on the banks of the Han River) and laid siege to Fancheng, a fortress on the road to Xuchang. The northerners' troops, who had come to Fancheng's rescue, perished from the flood, and Cao Cao's position became critical. But here again the origin of the three brothers was revealed: during the management of Zhuge Liang, the population of Jingzhou stood up for him; after his departure for Sichuan, this alliance was broken, and the masses fell into political apathy, for Guan Yu was not their man. Sun Quan took this into account. His troops attacked Guan Yu from the rear, from the Yangtze River. At the same time, security was promised to the population, and amnesty to the Guan Yu soldiers. Guan Yu's army fled, and he himself was captured and executed. The winners divided the captured area in half. This victory strengthened Wu so much that from that time on, a political equilibrium was established in China for a long time.

In 220, Cao Cao died, and his son, Cao Pei, forced Xiang-di to abdicate and founded a new dynasty, Cao Wei. In response, Zhuge Liang elevated Liu Bei to the throne in Sichuan and gave the name to the Shu Han dynasty, i.e. adopted a program to rebuild the Han empire. Zhuge Liang was an experienced politician, he knew that the ghost of a lost dynasty could be used as a banner to fight the enemy, but in essence Shu was as little like Han as Wei. Both empires were new phenomena and fought for life and death.

Cao Pei's usurpation was unpopular, and Zhuge Liang wanted to use the moment to strike quickly. The plan promised success, but was thwarted by Liu Bei. Liu Bei did not understand politics, but sought to avenge his brother and, instead of going north, set out with a huge army on a punitive expedition against the kingdom of Wu (221). At first he was successful, but the talented young general Lu Sun managed to delay the advance of Liu Bei, push him back into the forests south of the Yangtze and destroy the warehouses and camps of the Shu people with a forest fire. The demoralized army of Liu Bei was defeated at Ilin in 222. Liu Bei with the remnants of the army went to Sichuan and in 223 he died of grief. The third brother, Zhang Fei, was killed at the beginning of the campaign by two officers, whom he whipped. This is how the three named brothers, who are still revered in China as the guardian spirits of warriors, ended their lives. Liu Bei was succeeded by his son, but all power in Shu was concentrated in the hands of Zhuge Liang.

Three kingdoms.

The momentum of the popular upsurge that had destroyed the Han empire was drying up. The era of crystallization has come. The heavy defeat at Yilin jeopardized the existence of Shu: if Lu Sun had followed up on his success, he could have conquered Sichuan. But for this he needed all the available military forces, and Cao Pei did not doze. He decided to take advantage of the absence of troops in the east and capture Wu. However, Lu Sun stopped the offensive, returned in time with the troops to the east, and in 222, at Ruxue, defeated Cao Pei's army. Zhuge Liang, having received full power, entered into an alliance with Wu in 223, due to which Cao Pei's new offensive to the southeast was bogged down.

Preparing to continue the fight against Wei, Zhuge Liang had to provide his rear. In the south of Sichuan, in the Yizhou region, in 225, local rulers and Man forestry rebelled. Zhuge Liang made a campaign to the south, dealt with the rebels and pacified the warlike "savages" with the generous treatment of the captive leaders of the Mann tribes. Since 227, Zhuge Liang began a war against the Wei kingdom.

All three Chinese kingdoms had a different structure, as noted by the Chinese themselves. The principle of the Kingdom of Wei was declared "Time and Heaven", i.e. fate. Cao's surname kept pace with the times, and time worked for her. Cao Cao stated that "ability is higher than behavior" than he rejected Confucianism. Courageous and unprincipled people could make a quick career, and since the growing demoralization kept increasing the number of adventurers, there was no shortage of personnel. The strength of the northerners was cavalry and, bordering on the Steppe, they could replenish it. Rejecting the warlike designs of the Han dynasty, the Wei emperors established peace on the northern border and an alliance with the Qiang.

The kingdom of Wu became an empire in 229. It continued the Han tradition by providing advantages to the Confucian scholars and a hereditary bureaucracy. Like any conservative system, Wu's policy was doomed. Under the successors of Sun Quan, temporary workers came to power, for example Zhuge Ke, who was killed in 253. A struggle of court cliques and intrigues developed. The government did not take into account the people, for it hoped for the might of the police and the army; taxes increased, but the funds went to court luxury. As a principle, the kingdom of Wu proclaimed "Land and Convenience", i.e. the advantage of the territory covered by the great Yangtze River, for the time being protected it from capture, but even more saved the Wu kingdom of Shu.

The kingdom of Shu was the most interesting and remarkable phenomenon. His principle - "Humanity and Friendship" - has not been embodied. Shu arose from the combination of Zhuge Liang's high intelligence and the courage of Liu Bei's thugs. By capturing wealthy Sichuan together, they received material opportunities to accomplish "great deeds." To understand the situation, you need to take into account the geography. Sichuan is like an island inside China. The fertile valley is surrounded by high cliffs, and access to it is possible only along mountain paths and suspension bridges over precipices. The population of Sichuan was isolated from the general Chinese political life and lived by subsistence farming. Anything that worried Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei was alien to the Sichuan people, so their support was passive. Zhuge Liang understood this and strove with all his might to break out to the Middle Plain, where he wanted to find echoes of the teachings of the "yellow" and the knightly concepts of Han supporters; and with those and with others, he could find a common language. For this, he undertook six campaigns from 227 to 234, but the talented Wei commander Sima Yi paralyzed all his attempts. Meanwhile, Liu Bei's son and his court plunged into the commonplace and bog of provincial life. In Chengdu, the capital of Shu, the actual power passed to the eunuchs, and while the brave men died in the war, the country and the capital were complacent. Zhuge Liang had no successors in Sichuan, and he turned over his business to Jiang Wei, a defector from North China. Jiang Wei tried to continue Zhuge Liang's work, but did not have half of his talent. Shu troops in 249-261 began to suffer defeat, their spirit fell. Finally, the northerners went on the offensive. In 263, two armies moved to Sichuan to end the kingdom of Shu. The first, under Zhong Hui's leadership, tied Jiang Wei's nimble army; the other, under the command of the talented Deng Ai, made its way through the cliffs, without roads. The warriors, wrapped in felt, rolled down the rocky slope. Many of them were smashed, but before the rest a rich country was opened, devoid of leaders and military spirit. The improvised militia was easily defeated, and the capital Chengdu in 264 surrendered without a fight along with the emperor. However, talented commanders paid with their heads for their victories. By order of Sima Zhao, the Wei cheng-hsiang, Zhong Hui arrested Deng Ai, but realizing that he himself was facing the same fate, he negotiated with Jiang Wei and rebelled. However, the troops did not follow him and killed the rebellious commanders. Deng Ai was released from arrest, but in the confusion he was killed by his personal enemy. Sima Zhao came with an army to Sichuan and established complete order there. The principles of "Time and Heaven" defeated the ideals of "Humanity and Friendship".

Reunion.

The Wei Kingdom was elevated and strengthened by the ancient landowning nobility, to which the founder of the dynasty himself belonged, and the professional military who joined Cao Cao for personal gain. Representatives of both groups differed from each other in upbringing, habits, tastes, ideals, i.e. on all elements of the attitude. As long as there were constant wars and uprisings of the third group of court officials, the first two supported each other, but when the situation settled down, it turned out that it was difficult for them to live together.

Taking advantage of family ties with the dynasty, she began to know in power. This was manifested in the disgrace of the commander Sima Yi, and, although the matter was not without provocation from Zhuge Liang, it is important that the provocation was a success. However, it was impossible to repel the hordes of Zhuge Liang without professional troops, and Sima Yi was summoned from exile and reinstated in rights in 227. After the death of Emperor Cao Rui in 239, Sima Yi and Cao Shuang became the leaders of his young adopted son Cao Fang. The leader of the "nobility" Cao Shuang pushed Sima Yi out of control, he, in turn, staged a mutiny in 249, and most of the soldiers and officers supported him. From that time on, the surname Sima became in the same relationship to the Wei dynasty as the Cao surname to the fading Han dynasty. Sima Yi died in 251. His children Sima Shi and Sima Zhao continued his work.

The landowning nobility replied to coup d "etat revolts in 255 and 256, but 70 years of constant war bled the Chinese land and so reduced the elite that it no longer had a decisive voice. Power was now placed on the blade of the sword. Sima Yi himself was a military man of the old school; his children are typical "soldier emperors", like the Roman emperors of the same time, and the son of Sima Zhao, Sima Yan, threw away all constraints and, having deposed the last Wei sovereign, himself ascended the throne in 265 g. The dynasty he founded was named Jin. It is curious that shortly before the coup, a man in yellow clothes wandered through the bazaars, calling himself the "Prince of the people", and prophesied that the emperor would be replaced and "great prosperity" would come. This affected the attitude of the remnants of the "yellow" to events: they could not forgive the Wei dynasty for the victory over themselves, but were ready to reconcile with another dynasty with which they had no personal accounts. Fatigue has become a decisive factor in Chinese history.

Kingdom of Wu met the fate of the Eastern dynasties. In 265, Sun Hao came to the throne, who turned out to be suspicious, cruel and depraved. The luxury of the palace burdened the people, and the courtiers lived in constant fear, for those who fell into disfavor tore off the skin from their faces and gouge out their eyes. At the same time, Sun Hao, unable to assess the real situation, cherished a plan to conquer all of China and in 280 went into conflict with the Jin empire. To mobilize the people at that time was for Sun Hao "like extinguishing a fire by throwing brushwood at it." Sima Yan, on the other hand, showed excellent restraint and spoke only when his intelligence established that the unpopularity of the Wu government had reached a climax. Then he moved south 200,000 soldiers and the entire river fleet, trained in the headwaters of the Yangtze. After the first skirmishes, in which the northerners gained the upper hand, the southern troops began to surrender without a fight; the campaign turned into a military walk. Sun Hao surrendered to the victor's mercy, and in 280 China was once again united.

Jin was a soldier's empire. The "young rascals" of the Han era, after several setbacks, rose to power. By the end III v. the colossal potential of ancient China was exhausted. All energetic people during the Three Kingdoms showed themselves and died. Some (in yellow scarves) - for the idea of ​​"great tranquility", others - for the red empire of Han, others - because of loyalty to their leader, the fourth - for the sake of their own honor and glory in posterity, etc. After the terrible cataclysm, China in the social aspect represented ashes - an accumulation of unconnected people. After the census in the middle II v. about 50 million people were counted in the empire, and in the middle III v. - 7.5 million people Now the impersonal masses could be ruled by even the most mediocre government.

Yan's coup ended the Confucian legacy, if not de jure, then de facto. At all posts, there were completely unprincipled, immoral crooks, dividing their time between robbing subjects and depraved drinking binges. It was a time of such decay that China recovered from it only 300 years later, purged by the fires of barbarian invasions. All decent people with horror turned away from such a vile profanation of Confucian doctrine and turned to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. They defiantly did not wash, did not work, refused any hint of luxury and drank, contemptuously scolding the dynasty. Some smeared themselves with mud to show their contempt for order, but all this hysteria did not bring the slightest benefit to the opposition and not the slightest harm to the dynasty. But China was weakened, the number of talented people decreased with each generation, and those who appeared did not find application, and in IV v. the Jin dynasty suffered a well-deserved death from the Xiongnu swords, Qian long spears and Xianbei sharp arrows.

The era of the Three Kingdoms covers the period from 220 to 280 AD. e. It was a period of confrontation between three states that arose on the territory of the Chinese Empire:

• Wei (in the north - with the capital in Luoyang);
• Shu (in the southwest - with the capital in Chengdu);
• Wu (in the southeast - with the capital in Wuchang).

The emergence of the three kingdoms

By the beginning of the 3rd century, the powerful Han empire was in decline. After an era of prosperity and upsurge, there were dark times of chaos, civil strife and hunger. The military played the main role in the life of the country. Only the favor of one or another powerful military leader could guarantee relative peace not only for the peasant community, but also for the imperial court. Even in the Chinese chronicles of that period, the former ideals of Confucian scholarship gave way to the glorification of military valor and feats of arms, which, in general, is unusual for Chinese culture.

In 213, the Han emperor transferred vast territories in the basins of the Yellow and Huaihe rivers to his commander Cao Cao. This area was named "Wei". Although in 216 Cao Cao received the title of wang ("ruler") and actually ruled independently his lands with the rights of a dictator, he did not claim supreme power and formally recognized the supremacy of the emperor. After Cao Cao's death in 220, his son Cao Pei deposed the last Han emperor and declared himself the ruler of all of China.

Wei's rival was the kingdom of Shu, founded in 221 by the commander Liu Bei. Before settling on the territory of modern Sichuan, Liu Bei was affiliated with various political forces. Having founded his own kingdom, Liu Bei called it "Han", and himself - the successor of the traditions of the Han emperors. However, the borrowed name never caught on, the kingdom of Liu Bei remained in history as "Shu".

The beginning of the kingdom of Wu at the end of the II century was laid by another Han commander - Sun Tse. He seized part of the imperial possessions and began to pursue his own policy here. In 222, Sun Tse's heir, Sun Quan, took the title of emperor. Unlike his rivals, he did not consider himself the successor of the Han and tried to create a different state.

Brief description of the three kingdoms

The most powerful state of the Three Kingdoms era was Wei. Thanks to Cao Cao's reforms, a strong vertical of power and a strong army were created here, as well as agriculture was restored. Wei willingly accepted refugees and allocated them land, but in return demanded the payment of huge taxes. Cao Cao also formed military settlements in his state: the soldiers who lived in them were obliged to cultivate the land in their free time from combat service.

Cao Cao's transformations allowed Wei to successfully fight political rivals and nomads. However, the heirs of the commander were not so perceptive and talented. Less than 20 years after the death of Cao Cao, the kingdom plunged into turmoil. Various cliques of the court nobility fought for power. In 249, the Sima clan won this struggle. Formally, representatives of the Cao clan remained in power, but they could no longer somehow influence politics.

In the kingdom of Shu, almost immediately after its foundation, reforms were carried out similar to those of the Wei. However, as in Wei's case, Shu soon plunged into internal strife. The result of internal strife was the split of the country into two parts: a prosperous south and a weak north. The state ceased to be combat-ready and soon became an easy prey for Wei.

A special situation developed in the kingdom of U. Because of its geographic location, it was isolated from its neighbors and at first took almost no part in civil strife. Friendship was even established with the kingdom of Shu at some point. The territories on which U was located were practically undeveloped, the population here was small, and the culture was poorly developed. However, refugees-northerners, fleeing from turmoil, moved here. They brought with them a developed culture and new ways of cultivating the land. The state began to grow rich, but in terms of population it was still seriously inferior to its neighbors, which, in the end, became the main reason for the vulnerability of W.

End of the era of the Three Kingdoms

Representatives of the Wei clan of Sima began an offensive against the southern kingdoms. In 263, Wei's forces invaded Shu. Split into two parts, Shu was practically unable to respond to the invaders. The last ruler, Shu, was stripped of his title, and the kingdom itself became part of Wei. As a sign of his victory in 265, the military leader Sima Yan deposed the last ruler from the Cao clan, declared himself the founder of a new dynasty - Jin - and adopted a new name "Wu Di". Historians mark the year 265 as the beginning of a new, albeit not the longest, stage in Chinese history - the Jin era, which lasted until 420. In 280, the Jin attacked the Wu kingdom. Despite stubborn resistance, the Wu forces were broken, and the territory of the state became part of the Jin empire.

For a time, Jin managed to reunite China. However, this period of unity did not last long either. Wu Di took all the necessary measures to strengthen the country and create a prosperous state. But after his death, China again plunged into chaos and anarchy. Due to the Great Migration of Peoples that began at this time, the state was subjected to an invasion of nomads, which seriously slowed down the process of unification.

History of the East. Volume 1 Vasiliev Leonid Sergeevich

Era of the Three Kingdoms (220-280) and the Jin Empire

End of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century took place in China under the sign of internal political strife, during which several of the most successful commanders came to the fore. One of them, the famous Cao Cao, ruled in the north, in the Yellow River basin, where in 220 his son Cao Lei proclaimed himself the ruler of the Wei state. Another, Liu Bei, who claimed kinship with the ruling house of Han, soon declared himself the ruler of the southwestern part of the Shu country. The third, Sun Quan, became the ruler of the southeastern part of China, the kingdom of U. events of the III century.

As mentioned, the military function at this time was practically the leading one in China. The country, ravaged by long decades of uprisings and civil strife, anarchy and violence, has long forgotten about a quiet life. Even in land use, the so-called military courts (in the Wei kingdom, according to some sources, they accounted for up to 80% of the taxable population) and military settlements became almost the main form. Clients of strong houses also turned into military squads - and how else could they protect themselves and their property in that troubled time? Coming to the forefront of the military function revived among the Chinese educated part of the population the phenomenon of knightly romanticism, which was so characteristic of the Chunqiu period, in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. and glorified in the historiographic Confucian tradition. The ideas of loyalty and devotion to the patron to the grave, the cult of knightly ethics and aristocracy, fighting brotherhood and solidarity of like-minded friends - all this, in the harsh conditions of the war years, not only revived, but also became for some time, as it were, the fundamental principle of real political life. And if all these not so much new, but re-blossoming institutions did not radically change the structure of Chinese society, then the reason for this was the long-established Confucian attitude towards the world and society and the appropriately oriented Confucian political institutions.

The fact is that in traditional Chinese society, the status of a military man was not honored - "nails are not made of good metal, a good man does not go to the soldier." Of course, sometimes you can't do without wars and military ones. But this is not a basis for considering military affairs a prestigious occupation. Unlike other Eastern societies, from Turkey to Japan, including Arabs, Indians and many others with their Iqtadars, Jagirdars, Timariots, Samurai and the like, the Chinese have never appreciated professional warriors. Their army was usually recruited from declassed elements (hence the above proverb) and was led by military leaders who were poorly educated in the Confucian sense and therefore not very respected by society. Only in those years when the military function was leading did the situation change. But even then, the status of a military man did not become too honorable, and as soon as the need for a large army disappeared, military yards and military settlements disappeared into the past.

And vice versa, in China, literate and educated Confucians, connoisseurs of history and connoisseurs of poetry, wise people and scientists, well acquainted with the high subtleties of normative ethics and magnificent, detailed Chinese ceremonial. Actually, we are talking about the same layer of service shi that formed back in Chunqiu and from which came the sages, ministers and reformers of ancient China. The gradual confucianization of this stratum in Han and the concentration of most of its representatives in the bureaucratic bureaucracy and strong houses led to the emergence of a new quality, i.e. to the transformation of the ancient servants of the Shi into a type of the country's spiritual elite, whose behavior and ideas were intended to reflect and formulate public opinion, usually in its most uncompromising and theoretically refined form ("pure criticism"). Thus, a tough stereotype was developed, a kind of Chinese Confucian genotype, carried by the aristocrats of the Confucian spirit and which with honor stood the test of time, each time contributing to the revival of the Confucian Chinese empire. And to achieve this in the III-VI centuries. it was not easy, because in addition to entering the forefront of the military and the general coarsening of life, some other moments arose at that time that directly provoked cardinal changes in the life of China - we are talking about the invasion of nomads, the penetration of Buddhism into the country, the assimilation of non-Chinese (culturally ) of the population of the south of the country.

The short period of the Three Kingdoms, which led to the formation of two independent states in the previously poorly developed south of China, contributed to the development of the south. It is no coincidence that in the southern kingdoms, especially in the forest and mountainous regions of Shu, the military prowess of the generals Zhuge Liang or Guan Yu (later deified, who became the god of war Guan-di) had a special meaning and turned out to be glorified for centuries. As for internal political events, they had the most dramatic character in northern Wei, where the descendants of Tsao-Tsao were already in the middle of the 3rd century. lost power, which passed to the powerful clan of the commander Sima. In 265 g.

Sima Yan founded a new Jin dynasty here, which soon, in 280, managed to subjugate Shu and Wu, uniting all of China under its rule again, however, only for several decades.

The unification of the country in 280 was functionally the end of another dynastic cycle, which was reflected in the reforms of Sima Yan: according to the decree of 280, the entire population of the country received family plots (70th man, 30th woman); for the right to cultivate them, each family was obliged to cultivate other lands (50 mu men and 20 mu women), from which the treasury took tax. The conditions for the use of both plots, as set out in the sources, are not entirely clear and cause different interpretations of specialists. One thing is certain: the decree on the introduction of the allotment system was aimed at undermining the position of private land ownership of strong houses and providing the entire population of the country with the opportunity to receive land from the state on favorable terms.

At the beginning of the rule of the new dynasty, the interests of the centralization of power always demanded exactly this. However, in this case, the reform was apparently stillborn. First, because at the same time Sima Yan, acting according to tradition, had the imprudence to allocate large autonomous estates to his relatives, which soon turned into states within a state, which, after the death of the founder of the dynasty, caused a rebellion ("revolt of the eight wans"), suppressed only at the beginning of the IV century. Secondly, due to the fact that the rulers of the new dynasty practically had neither the time nor the energy to follow the implementation of the reform throughout the country, for from the beginning of the 4th century. nomadic northern tribes one after another began to invade northern China, as a result of which the Jin empire ceased to exist, and was replaced by the period of Nan-bei chao, southern and northern dynasties.

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The Jurchen (Jin) and the South Sung Empire The Jurchen tribes that lived on the territory of South Manchuria have been associated with China since ancient times, traded with it, and then entered the sphere of influence of the Khitan Liao Empire. Accelerated rates of their development in the process of tribalization - what

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THE TRINITY AND THE JIN EMPIRE The period of ancient dynasties in China came to an end at the turn of the 3rd-3rd centuries, when the Han dynasty perished in the fire of the Yellow Bands uprising that began in 184. The leaders of the uprising from the Taoist sect "The Path of Great Prosperity" promised that the "Blue Sky"

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EASTERN JIN The South China Eastern Jin dynasty protected itself from invasions from the North for a long time, but it could not take advantage of the fruits of military victories and unite the country due to a number of internal reasons. The core of this empire was formed by the lands on which in

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1. The period of the Three Kingdoms and attempts to unite China under the rule of the Jin Empire (III-IV centuries).

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Age of Three Kingdoms - Sango Is the result of the fall of one of the greatest dynasties in history, the Han Dynasty, which ruled for over 400 years. The inability of the last emperors of the Han dynasty to control the state led to the division of the country between the most influential people into three parts: the kingdom of Wei, Wu and Shu. This period of time in ancient China lasted from 220 to 280. AD

In the year 189 When Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty died, the young emperor Shao ascended the throne. Frustrated by the manipulations of the eunuchs, two generals - Yuan Shao and He Qin - decided to kill them. During the chaos caused by the fighting between eunuchs and generals, Dong Zhuo, an insidious courtier of the Eastern Han Dynasty, drove his army to Luoyang. With complete political power in hand, Dong Zhuo deposed Emperor Shao and enthroned Emperor Xian. .

This caused sharp protests from the courtiers and many local officials. Aggravatedthe political situation led to a large-scale civil war ... The period of unrest lasted until 196 AD. The fragmented regions were not formed, however, among them the most powerful were the Kingdoms of Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. In 196, Cao Cao overthrew Emperor Xian and ascended the throne, thereby strengthening his political and military power.

In 199, large-scale hostilities began between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao announced it was his goal to free Emperor Hsien Di, who was under Cao Cao's arrest. Yuan Shao possessed a larger army, however, his troops were defeated already at the Battle of Baima. Then the Yellow Turban Rebellion temporarily halted the advance of Cao Cao's troops. Yuan Shao seized the initiative and led his troops to the Guandu crossing. In 201, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guangdu.

In 209, Cao Cao sent his troops to southern China and captured Jingzhou. But when he wanted to expand his power further south, he was defeated by the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan at the Battle of Red Rock, after which he sent his army back to the central plains of China.

When Cao Cao died in 220, his eldest son Cao Pi declared himself Emperor of the Wei Kingdom , and made the capital city of Luoyang.

In the year 221 Liu Bei declared himself Emperor of the Shu Kingdom , and proclaimed the capital city of Chengdu.

In 229 C un quan proclaimed himself emperor of the kingdom of wu in the capital Wuchang (now Wuhan) and then moved the capital to Jiankang (now Nanjing).

The three kingdoms confrontation was formed. Wei occupied the north, Shu occupied the southwest, and the kingdom of Wu occupied the southeast. The era of the Three Kingdoms began.

Kingdom of Wei was the most powerful kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period in China, which existed from 220 to 266 AD. Its actual founder was Cao Cao, including him, the Wei kingdom had 6 rulers during its reign.

Even before the collapse of the empire Cao Cao was known as a talented military leader and poet , he was famous for his adherence to strict observance of the laws, cold, calculating mind and cruelty. He received his first significant promotion at court for suppressing the uprising of the Yellow Bandages.

During his reign, Cao Cao pays close attention to talented people in politics and economic development. He tries to recruit as many talented people as possible to convert and abolish the old political models of the Eastern Han Dynasty ... In addition, remarkable advances have been made in literature, philosophy, and technology. Numerous poets came from the Wei kingdom, including Cao Cao and his two sons, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi.

 

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