There were countless wars in ancient China, but few wars changed the history of China. To understand whether a war has changed the history of China, we need to compare the changes before and after the war. For example, Qin Shihuang's unification of the six countries conformed to the historical trend of reunification at the end of the Warring States period, rather than changing history. To change history, we must break the normal evolution and general trend of history. This paper will take stock of the 10 wars that had the most profound influence on China in ancient history.
1, Battle of Red Cliffs
In 208 AD, Sun Liu's allied troops defeated Cao Cao's 200,000 troops in Chibi of the Yangtze River, laying the foundation for the tripartite confrontation among the three countries. The most promising person to unify China before the war was Cao Cao, who occupied a vast area in the north. At that time, the economy in the north was the most developed and the population was the largest. Coupled with the large number of soldiers in Cao Cao Group, Cao Cao's own military capabilities are outstanding. The unification of the world and Cao Cao is the general trend. However, Cao Cao's failure in Battle of Red Cliffs dealt a great blow to the national unification war. After this war, Cao Cao concentrated on managing the north, Sun Quan seized Jiangdong and Liu Bei seized Yizhou, forming a full-fledged trend. Battle of Red Cliffs delayed national unification for decades, but it was not Cao Shi who completed it, but Sima.
2. Battle of Surabaya
The Battle of Feishui is very similar to Battle of Red Cliffs. From 189 to 589, China was divided for about 400 years. During this period, only the Western Jin Dynasty achieved a brief reunification. The other closest thing to reunification is the battle between Battle of Red Cliffs and Feishui. Before the Battle of Feishui, Fu Jian had unified the Central Plains and conquered the desert and the western regions, except the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Unfortunately, Wang Meng had died at that time, and Fu Jian made a serious mistake in war strategy, which led to the defeat of 800,000 troops by the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After this war, the north fell into chaos again, and the time of reunification between the north and the south was postponed again.
3. Rebellion in Hou Jing
In 548, Hou Jing, a rebel of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, launched a rebellion in the south, quickly occupied Jiankang and starved to death in Liang Wudi. The Hou Jing Rebellion directly led to the demise of the Southern Liang Dynasty. The Hou Jing Rebellion had a far-reaching impact on later generations. In the short term, it destroyed the economy of Jiangnan, but in the long term, it promoted the development of China society. First of all, the Hou Jing Rebellion broke the balance of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, made the Yuwen family stronger than ever, and accelerated the reunification of the country. Secondly, a large number of gentry were eliminated, which provided conditions for the rise of the poor class.
4. Three symbols of North Korea
Yang Di made three large-scale expeditions to North Korea in his later period, but all ended in failure. Yang Di's three expeditions to Korea were unprecedented in scale, which seriously consumed the national strength, turned the Sui Dynasty from prosperous times to troubled times in an instant, and directly ruined the Sui Dynasty. If Emperor Yang Di hadn't expropriated Korea three times, the Sui Dynasty wouldn't have perished so quickly and the prosperity of the Sui Dynasty would have lasted for some time, so we don't know which dynasty was established later. In the history of China, Yang Di was the only monarch who destroyed a prosperous dynasty.
5. An Shi Rebellion
The Anshi Rebellion is not only a sign that the Tang Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline, but also the beginning of China Han Dynasty from prosperity to decline. The Anshi Rebellion could have been put down in one year, but it spread for eight years because of the wrong command of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty. In eight years, it seriously damaged the economy in the north and paralyzed the financial system in the Tang Dynasty. Since then, China's economic center of gravity has shifted to the south, and the north needs financial support from the south. At the same time, the Anshi Rebellion made the north fall into a separatist regime. Later, the Song Dynasty learned from the lessons of the Tang Dynasty and began to "guard against internal weakness", which led to the rapid growth of the nomadic regime in the north and the establishment of important dynasties such as Liao, Jin and Yuan.
6, the battle of quarrying
1 16 1 year, the civil servants in the Southern Song Dynasty defeated Yan Yanliang's army in quarrying, which laid a confrontation between Song and Jin Dynasties. Before that, Wan Yanliang came to power through a coup, and his goal was to unify the whole of China. However, his 600,000-strong army was defeated by the Southern Song Dynasty in the battle of quarrying, which failed to live up to his ambition of reunifying China and kept the Song Dynasty at peace for more than 100 years.
7. Mongolia's Western Expedition
After Genghis Khan unified Mongolia and destroyed Western Liao, he began to wage war against Jin Guo and Xixia in an attempt to enter the Central Plains and unify the world. However, Mongolian cavalry was introduced to the western world by Wala Mozi. Mongolia's three voyages to the Western Ocean formed the Four Great Khan States, which changed the development trend of the whole Eurasia. Mongolia's westward expedition also led to Russia's eastward advance, which eventually caused great losses to the territory of China. Therefore, the influence of Mongolian Western Expedition on China is negative.
8. Battle of Jingnan
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, China's economic, cultural and political center of gravity had shifted to the south, but the Jingnan Campaign forcibly pulled the political center of gravity back to the north, which also formed the pattern of "the emperor protected the country". According to the normal development: Judy rebelled and was pacified by the army, and Nanjing was still the capital. From then on, Mongolia in the north was difficult to deal with, and the north was gradually abandoned, and the Ming Dynasty became a dynasty to the southeast. However, after the war in the south of Beijing, Beijing became the capital, which was not only the center of controlling the world, but also the frontier of resisting Mongolia, so that the Ming Dynasty did not have the situation of defending the interior from the outside like the Northern Song Dynasty and became the longest dynasty to unify the mainland.
9. Battle of Salhu
Of all the wars in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Battle of Salhu was the most far-reaching one. In this war, there were hundreds of thousands of troops in the Ming Dynasty, far more than the latter Jin Dynasty. If the Ming Dynasty wins, the late Jin Dynasty will never recover, and the Qing Dynasty will never appear. However, the Nurhachi method brought Jurchen's military ability to the extreme and divided and annihilated the Ming army. After this World War I, the Ming Dynasty suffered a heavy blow and Liaodong continued to fall. Jurchen took advantage of the situation to unify the northeast, forming a situation in which two forces coexisted, which laid the foundation for the Qing Dynasty to enter the customs.
10, Qing-Zhun War
The Hundred Years' War between Qing Dynasty and Junggar is an epic war. During this century, three generations of emperors of the two great empires competed for mountains and rivers and pastures in the Mongolian Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Western Regions, and eventually Junggar failed. Through the tug-of-war in 100, the Qing Dynasty brought Outer Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet and Xinjiang into the territory, which basically unified the East Asian continent and laid the foundation for China's modern territory. If there were no such war, or the Qing Dynasty failed to destroy Junggar, then the vast territory in the north would have been occupied by Russia first, and the territory of China would be limited to the south of the Great Wall. Therefore, this battle is epic.