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How did the Song Dynasty drag down the Liao Kingdom with an annual compensation of 100,000 silver

Speaking of the Song Dynasty, there was actually such a thing that I found very interesting. The Song Dynasty actually gave Liao 100,000 taels of gold every year. This is actually a very good thing in the eyes of normal people. , but in fact, the Song Dynasty dragged down the Liao Kingdom step by step in this way, so what kind of mystery is there? Let’s uncover and analyze this question together!

The Chanyuan Alliance, a major event full of historical significance and quite controversial, is called the alliance between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao State for the sake of peace. Regardless of the original intention of the covenant, the final outcome of this alliance is beneficial to Song: the stronger the Song, the weaker the Liao.

This is very different from the situation at the beginning of the alliance, because since the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, it has been fighting with the old enemy Liao for more than 40 years, and in these confrontations, the Northern Song Dynasty has always been on the weak side. Even if a covenant was concluded and a peaceful coexistence was decided, the Northern Song Dynasty negotiated as a younger brother.

The scene at that time was like this: Empress Dowager Xiao of the Liao Kingdom and Liao Shengzong personally led the army to the south, invaded and rebelled deep into the Song Dynasty, intending to wipe out the Northern Song Dynasty in one fell swoop; For the sake of my emperor, I swear to fight bloody battles with the enemy.

Both sides are flammable bombs. If there is a real fight, the war will be extremely tragic, but an unexpected scene was staged to end the upcoming bloody: the Song army used the eight-ox crossbow to shoot and kill Xiao Talan, a general of the Liao army, was depressed and grieved, and her fighting spirit was no longer there, so she decided to negotiate peace. Of course Song Zhenzong said: Good!

But the covenant is conditional. The two parties agreed: Song and Liao take the Baigou River as the border, and they are about a country of brothers (Liao is the elder brother and Song is the younger brother).

Judging from the content of the treaty, it is obvious that the Song Dynasty suffered a disadvantage, which is equivalent to buying peace with money, so the Chanyuan Alliance was also criticized by later generations as an unequal treaty. But in terms of effect, the Song Dynasty has made great achievements: after they called each other brothers, the Liao and Song Dynasties made more than 380 mutual envoys, and the border was peaceful for a hundred years.

However, what is puzzling is that as the two sides advance together in the peaceful era, the national strength of the Liao Kingdom is getting weaker and weaker, which is manifested in the overall collapse of the economy, so that in the later period, the Liao Kingdom was directly dragged down by the economy. The once powerful prairie dynasty was destroyed by gold.

This is very strange. Why did the Liao Kingdom, which had the upper hand in the peace treaty and received 100,000 silver from the Song Dynasty every year, collapsed? Obviously, this was not a premeditated plan by the Song Dynasty, but a windfall. This requires the introduction of a modern term called currency war. Although the original intention of the Song Dynasty was not for this, it can still be explained by this principle.

As we all know, the economy of the Song Dynasty was at the forefront of the world at that time, and its commerce and trade were quite developed, while the Liao Kingdom was only strong in marching and fighting, and was weak in the way of survival of money making money with interest. So even though Song gave Liao Baiyin, Liao used the money to buy Song’s advanced products.

Over time, many products of the Song Dynasty became the necessities of the Liao people, and one hundred thousand silver was not enough at all, so they had to put it upside down. Moreover, from the royal family down to the common people, they have developed a concept that they are all waiting for Song to send money to the past, and they can enjoy their achievements. The popularity of Song Dynasty currency in Liao is also far beyond our imagination.

With the dissemination of actual objects, the culture of the Song Dynasty gradually penetrated into the culture of the Liao Kingdom. The rulers of the Liao Kingdom also accepted the fate of being Sinicized, and psychologically accepted the concept that the culture of the Song Dynasty was the mainstream. That’s why Liao’s economy was emptied by itself, and it was unable to recover, and was destroyed by gold.