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How important are the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun to the Song Dynasty?

After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin set up a special “encapsulation warehouse” in the inner government treasury in order to take back the Sixteen States of Youyun, intending to redeem the Sixteen States of Youyun with money.

“Changbian” Volume 19, in October of the third year of Taiping Xingguo, it is recorded: “At the beginning, Taizu set up a pile of sealed piles, and tasted secrets and said that he was close to the ministers: “Shi Jin Gou benefited himself, cut the secluded thistle to bribe Khitan, and made people on one side It is only limited to foreign countries, and the alliance is very sympathetic. If you want to save 300,000 to 500,000 yuan in the Sku, you will send an envoy to make an agreement with Khitan, and if it can be returned to our land and people, you should use up the gold and silk as a redemption. If the day fails, the alliance will disperse stagnant wealth, recruit warriors, and try to attack the ear’. There will be a banquet, but it will not work. ”

It’s a pity that Zhao Kuangyin’s approach still failed. Money can’t impress the Liao people. Of course, such a single benefit condition will not make them give up Yanyun Sixteen States.

So since it can’t be solved with money, it needs to be solved with force. So in the fourth year of Taiping Xingguo, Song Taizu Zhao Guangyi moved to Youzhou, trying to recover the Yanyun area in one fell swoop.

“Sixteen States of Yanyun” is an area inhabited by Han people, known as “millions of Chinese”. The people here have long opposed Khitan’s oppression and exploitation, and opposed ethnic discrimination, so Zhou Shizong’s Northern Expedition army came here At that time, the local people gave great support.

At this time, Zhao Guangyi, who was personally conquered by the imperial driver, was fighting fiercely with the Liao army on the Gaoliang River, but what happened? The Song Army was defeated, Song Taizong was hit by an arrow, and fled in a donkey cart. Finally, he formed the Chanyuan Alliance with the Liao State in Chanzhou to “defeat power and humiliate the country”. After that, the border between Song and Liao was relatively stable for a long time.

And the great plan of recovering the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun has come to nothing.

In the fourth year of Xuanhe, Song and Jin signed the “Sea Alliance”, and agreed that after the joint destruction of Liao, the Jin Dynasty would return the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun. Later, after Wanyan Aguda drove Emperor Tianzuo of the Liao Kingdom to Yanshan Mountain, in February of the fifth year of Xuanhe, Yanjing, Zhuozhou, Yizhou, Tanzhou, Shunzhou, Jingzhou, and Jizhou in the south of Taihang Mountain were arranged as promised. return.

But this situation did not remain calm. After Wanyan Aguda passed away, the Jin Dynasty began to crusade against the Song Dynasty. These lands, which had just been acquired for two years, were taken back in December of the seventh year of Xuanhe. In the end, the Jin Dynasty also captured Song Huizong and Song Qinzong of the Northern Song Dynasty as prisoners. This is what we know as the “Jingkang Change”.

The Northern Song Dynasty declared its demise, but what about the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun? It was gone forever, and the Song Dynasty never took it back.

The above is a general overview of the development of the Yanyun Sixteen States, so why was the Yanyun Sixteen States so important to the Song Dynasty? In fact, this mainly comes from two aspects.

The first is the military level : the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun have a very important strategic position, and the loss of Yanyun will affect the Central Plains. According to “Song History Geographical Records”: “The lost Lingbei (in Wang Wei’s poems are protected in Yanran’s Yanran’s Protectorate) will bring disaster to Yanyun, and losing Yanyun will bring disaster to the Central Plains.”

After the loss of the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, the northern part of the Great Song Dynasty lost a barrier, and the Khitan people could march into the Central Plains at any time, which was a great blow and damage to the Song Dynasty.

The second is the spiritual and cultural level : the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun originally belonged to the inherent territory of the Central Plains, and they were a substantive symbol of the unity of a country. It is said that it is extremely detrimental to its own development.

This is about 600 kilometers from east to west, and about 200 kilometers from north to south. After the 16th Yanyun Prefecture was ceded from Shi Jingtang, it was not until Zhu Yuanzhang’s period that Xu Da, a general of the Ming Dynasty, returned to the Central Plains. This is a total of 430 two years. The strategic significance of the sixteen states also made the Northern Song regime in the Central Plains feel threatened for more than 160 years.

To sum up, it is very reasonable for the Song Dynasty to take back the Yanyun Sixteen States.