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In 1086, Li Bingchang died of grief and anger, and his son Li Qianshun succeeded him, with Empress Dowager Xiao Liang as regent. This Empress Dowager Xiao Liang was the niece of Empress Dowager Daliang and the sister of Prime Minister Liang Yibu.

Compared with her aunt, Empress Dowager Daliang, Empress Dowager Xiaoliang was more belligerent and frequently attacked the Song Dynasty's borders. In 1089, the Northern Song Dynasty returned the four forts seized during Emperor Shenzong's reform to Western Xia in exchange for peace on the border due to the struggle between the old and new parties.

However, only three years later, Western Xia sent troops to plunder again. Although Empress Dowager Xiao Liang was warlike, she was not good at fighting. After killing her brother Liang Yi's entire family, Empress Dowager Xiao Liang led troops to attack the city several times but returned empty-handed.

The then Liao Dynasty emperor Liao Dao Zong saw that Empress Dowager Xiao Liang had lost the support of the people, so he sent an envoy to poison her to death with poisoned wine, and ordered the 10-year-old Emperor Li Qianshun to take power after 16 years.

At this time, the Liao Dynasty had declined and the Jin Dynasty rose, but Li Qianshun was very loyal to the Liao Dynasty. Not only did he marry Princess Ancheng of the Liao Dynasty, but he also repeatedly sent troops to rescue the Liao Dynasty when it was attacked by the Jin army.

In 1123 AD, the Jin Dynasty sent envoys to Western Xia, promising that as long as Western Xia could respect the Jin Dynasty as it respected the Liao Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty would cede the northwestern area of ​​the Liao Dynasty to Western Xia.

Seeing that the demise of the Liao Dynasty was inevitable, Li Qianshun agreed to rely on the Jin Dynasty, and when the Jin army attacked the Song Dynasty, he sent troops to capture the border counties that originally belonged to the Song and Liao countries.

In 1127, the Jin Dynasty and the Western Xia Dynasty demarcated the border, and the Jin Dynasty ceded thousands of miles of land in northern Shaanxi to the Western Xia. Later, the Jin Dynasty ceded the Huangshui River Basin to the Western Xia.

Taking advantage of the demise of the Song and Liao dynasties, the territory of Western Xia was greatly expanded, and the territory was unprecedentedly vast. In 1139 AD, Li Qianshun died and his son Li Renxiao succeeded him.

Li Renxiao admired Confucian culture very much. During his reign, Western Xia's cultural undertakings achieved unprecedented development.

Li Renxiao imitated the system of the Song Dynasty and set up schools in various parts of Western Xia, established the Imperial Academy, revered Confucius, revised music and law, established the imperial examination system, and printed and published Buddhist and Confucian classics.

Li Renxiao was the longest reigning and longest lived emperor of the Western Xia. During his reign and that of his father, Li Qianshun, the power of the Western Xia reached its peak. In 1193, Li Renxiao died at the age of 70, and was given the temple name Renzong.

Crown Prince Li Chunyou succeeded to the throne. Li Chunyou followed the political and diplomatic principles left by his father, attached importance to culture and education, and generally maintained peaceful relations with the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty.

The Western Xia also maintained friendship with the Kereyid tribe in the northern desert. However, with the rise of Temujin, the leader of the Kereyid tribe, the Western Xia, which had been established for 165 years, encountered unprecedented threats. A country that rose in the yellow sand will eventually be buried in the yellow sand by the Mongolian cavalry.

In 1205, Temujin launched his first attack on Western Xia and invaded Hexi. The Western Xia army attacked with the help of Mongolian cavalry, but they had no power to fight back and allowed the Mongolian army to plunder Hexi.

After Temujin withdrew his troops, Li Chunyou changed the capital Xingqingfu to Zhongxingfu, hoping that Xixia would be revived after this disaster. However, the Queen Mother Luo conspired with Li Anquan, a member of the royal family, to depose her son Li Chunyou.

Li Anquan's accession to the throne was not legitimate, but he was eventually recognized by the Jin Dynasty through the intercession of Empress Dowager Luo. It was also in this year that Temujin unified Mongolia and established the Great Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan.

Attacked Xixia and Jin Dynasty. Li Anquan initially helped Jin Dynasty fight against Mongolia. However, when Mongolia attacked Xixia Zhongxingfu, Jin Dynasty refused to help, which made Li Anquan very resentful. After Mongolia withdrew its troops, Li Anquan attacked Jin Dynasty, and both sides suffered losses.

In 1211, Li Zunxu, the King of Qi of Western Xia, launched a coup, deposed Li Anquan, proclaimed himself emperor, and was regarded as the Emperor Shenzong of Western Xia.

Li Zunxu is the only emperor in Chinese history who was the number one scholar in the imperial examination. Needless to say, his cultural level is high, but his political and military abilities are far inferior to the former.

Seeing that the Jin Dynasty was unable to resist Mongolia, Li Zunxu adopted a strategy of fierce attack and seized territory while the Jin Dynasty was attacked by Mongolia.

However, as a vassal of Mongolia, the Xia army was frequently summoned by Mongolia and was exhausted. The soldiers and civilians in Western Xia were dissatisfied and were unwilling to follow Mongolia to fight again.

In 1217, the Mongols attacked the Xixia capital Zhongxingfu. Li Zunxu fled in a hurry, leaving his son Li Deren behind to deal with the Mongolian army. After the Mongolian army retreated, the Xixia sometimes made peace with the Southern Song Dynasty, sometimes made peace with the Jin Dynasty, and sometimes cooperated with Mongolia. It wanted to survive under the pressure of Mongolia.

In 1223, Genghis Khan forced Li Zunxu to abdicate because he considered him erratic. Li Zunxu was forced to pass the throne to his second son, Li Dewang, who tried to unite the Jin Dynasty against the Mongols.

However, the Jin Dynasty was about to be conquered by the Mongols and could not provide any assistance to the Western Xia. In 1226, Genghis Khan personally led an army of 10 to attack the Western Xia. Li Dewang died of depression when he saw that his country was about to be destroyed.

After Li Dewang died, Li Yu succeeded to the throne. Xixia was at the end of its rope. In 1227, Genghis Khan died of illness. Before his death, he left a will, keeping his death a secret and waiting for Xixia to surrender. Soon Li Yu was forced to open the city and surrender. The Xixia royal family was killed by the Mongolian army, and Xixia was destroyed.

[Understand the history of the Yuan Dynasty in one go. Trivia about the Yuan Dynasty]

Great is the Qianyuan Dynasty, which was the dynasty with the largest territory in Chinese history. It stretched from the Sea of ​​Japan in the east to the South China Sea in the south, from Yanshan Mountain in the west to Lake Baikal in the north. It inherited the legal system of the Mongol Empire, was established in the midst of civil strife, and fell in the midst of civil strife.

From the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271 to the escape of Emperor Shundi of the Yuan Dynasty from the Central Plains in 1368, the Yuan Dynasty lasted for 98 years. In this video, let us walk into the turbulent history of the Yuan Dynasty for a hundred years.

In 1206 AD, Temujin convened the Kurultai Assembly on the Onon River and established the Great Mongol State, also known as the Mongol Empire, and began the process of conquering Eurasia.

The rise of Mongolia is a miracle in the history of Eurasia. In less than a hundred years, Genghis Khan's descendants swept across the Eurasian continent and established an unprecedentedly vast territory.

In 1218, Mongolia destroyed the Western Liao Dynasty. The following year, Genghis Khan marched westward to Khwarezm and fought all the way to the Volga River Basin. In 1227, Mongolia destroyed the Western Xia Dynasty and Genghis Khan died of illness.

Genghis Khan's third son, Ogedei, succeeded him. In 1233, the Mongols destroyed the Eastern Zhen Kingdom, and the next year destroyed the Jin Kingdom. Then the second Western Expedition, known as the Eldest Son's Western Expedition, the Mongol expeditionary force occupied Moscow and defeated the Holy Roman Empire coalition forces.

Soon, Ogedei died of illness and the expeditionary army returned. Genghis Khan's grandson Batu founded the Golden Horde. Ogedei's eldest son Guyuk succeeded him, but Guyuk died suddenly during the Western Expedition.

The Mongolian nobles elected Mongke, the son of Genghis Khan's fourth son Tolui, to succeed him. In 1254, the Mongols conquered Dali. Four years later, they conquered the Arab Abbasid Dynasty. In 4, Mongke died of illness while attacking Diaoyucheng in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Mongke's two brothers, Kublai and Ariq Boke, competed for the throne. Kublai Khan proclaimed himself Khan first, and Ariq Boke was not to be outdone and proclaimed himself Khan with the support of the kings of western Mongolia.

After four years of civil war, Ariq Böke surrendered in 4. Kublai Khan moved the capital to Dadu. According to the Mongolian system, Kublai Khan had to convene the Kurultai Assembly and obtain the nomination of the Mongolian nobles before he could legitimately become the Great Khan of Mongolia.

However, at that time, the Ilkhanate, the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, and the Ögedei Khanate, which were established by the descendants of Genghis Khan, were already independent of each other, and Kublai Khan was only the nominal overlord of the four khanates.

Kublai Khan appointed Han officials to govern the Central Plains, strengthened central power, restored agricultural production, welcomed the entry of Dadu, renovated Shangdu, and used Dadu and Shangdu as the two centers for ruling the Central Plains and the grasslands.

In 1271, Kublai Khan changed the name of the country to Great Yuan, taking the meaning of "Great Qian Yuan" from the Book of Changes, and officially established the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, only the Southern Song Dynasty remained in China, and after stabilizing the domestic affairs, Kublai Khan put the destruction of the Song Dynasty on the agenda.

In 1274 AD, Kublai Khan launched an attack on the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty was already on the decline, having exhausted its last financial and military resources in the long years of war. Two years later, the Yuan army arrived at the gates of Lin'an, and Empress Dowager Xie Daoqing opened the city and surrendered with the young emperor in her arms.

In 1279, the remaining exiled regime of the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed in the Battle of Yashan. Since the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, China's 300 years of division was completely ended in the hands of Kublai Khan.

However, the Yuan Dynasty's rising momentum also came to an end. After destroying the Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty's wars against Japan and Southeast Asia mostly ended in failure. After conquering the world on horseback, the Yuan Dynasty needed to rule the world from horseback. Unfortunately, the Yuan Dynasty did not do well in this regard.

The Yuan Dynasty lasted nearly a hundred years, with 11 emperors and fierce political struggles. Kublai Khan originally wanted to make his eldest son Zhenjin the crown prince in accordance with Han tradition, but Zhenjin died early.

Kublai Khan did not designate a crown prince, so the next emperor was still elected by the Kurultai Assembly in accordance with Mongolian tradition. This resulted in the throne of the Yuan Dynasty rarely changing normally.

The Mongolian nobles suppressed the Han people, the bureaucrats rejected Han laws, and used laws to divide the people into Mongolians, Semites, Han people, and southerners, stipulating different political treatments, which led to increasingly intense ethnic conflicts.

At the same time, the status of Neo-Confucianism continued to rise, and eventually became an official school of thought. Neo-Confucianism arose in the Southern Song Dynasty, and although it was suppressed by the powerful prime minister Han Tuozhou, after Han Tuozhou's fall, Neo-Confucianism became a prominent school of thought in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Kublai Khan employed Neo-Confucian scholars, revered Confucius, and opened schools to teach Neo-Confucianism, so that Neo-Confucianism spread from its homeland in the Southern Song Dynasty to all parts of the country and became the official school of thought.

However, the imperial examination system of the Yuan Dynasty was abolished and revived from time to time, resulting in many talented scholars not having the opportunity to shine, and the upper class was still controlled by the Mongolian nobles.

In 1320 AD, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan, Shuodebala, succeeded to the throne and implemented the policy of governing the country with Confucianism. He recruited a large number of Han bureaucrats, carried out reforms, rectified the administration of officials, cut redundant officials, reduced the burden on the people, and eased social contradictions.

These new policies aroused strong opposition from the conservative Mongolian nobles. In 1323, during the Nanpo Incident, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan was assassinated. Taiding Emperor Yesun Temur succeeded to the throne. Taiding Emperor died young, and the powerful minister Daolasha supported Taiding Emperor's crown prince Asujiba to ascend the throne.

Because Toghon Temur supported Emperor Wuzong's son Toghon Temur to succeed him in Dadu, there were two emperors in the Yuan Dynasty at the same time. After two months of fighting, Toghon Temur won, but he did not become the emperor. Instead, he gave the throne to his brother Heshi, who was regarded as Emperor Mingzong of the Yuan Dynasty.

Emperor Mingzong of the Yuan Dynasty died suddenly after only six months on the throne. Toghon Temur succeeded him and became Emperor Wenzong of the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, many people believed that Toghon Temur had killed his brother. Before his death, Toghon Temur regretted it very much and passed the throne to Toghon Temur, the eldest son of Emperor Mingzong.

However, the powerful minister Yan Temur claimed that Toghon Temur was not the biological son of Emperor Mingzong of Yuan. What Emperor Wenzong of Yuan never expected was that Toghon Temur would be the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty in Central China - Emperor Shundi of Yuan.

What is even more unexpected is that in the unofficial history of later generations, Emperor Shun of Yuan Dynasty turned out to be the illegitimate son of Emperor Gong of Song Dynasty, the last emperor of Southern Song Dynasty. In 1332 AD, Emperor Shun of Yuan Dynasty ascended the throne, and the government was controlled by the powerful prime minister Bayan.

In 1340, Emperor Shundi of the Yuan Dynasty joined forces with Tuotuo, Zhushabo, and Tokto, the last famous ministers of the Yuan Dynasty, to govern the country. With their efforts, they not only reopened the imperial examination system, but also completed the compilation of the history books of the previous dynasties - "History of Song", "History of Liao", and "History of Jin".

However, a wrong decision made by Tuotuo indirectly planted the seeds of disaster for the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, the Yellow River was flooding, and there was a fierce debate in the court about whether to repair the river.

Tuotuo advocated repairing the river and appointed the Minister of Works Jia Lu to mobilize 30 laborers to build the river embankment.

As corrupt officials withheld food and wages, the people complained, and professional rebels Liu Futong and Han Shantong took the opportunity to raise the banner of rebellion, firing the first shot of the Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. For a time, various places responded and raised the banner of rebellion.

However, the Yuan army no longer had the glory of its ancestors. Faced with the larger and more powerful Red Turban Army, the Yuan army turned around and fled, becoming a laughing stock among the world.

Although the Red Turban Army once approached Dadu, they soon became weak due to fighting on their own. Local landlord armed forces led by Chagan Temur and Li Siqi rose up one after another and gradually suppressed the Red Turban Army.

But in the process, the Yuan Dynasty also paid a painful price. Chagan Temur was eventually assassinated by a surrendered general. Yangzi Wang Baobao inherited Chagan's troops, captured Yidu, and pacified the north. However, in the south, there were even more powerful Zhang Shicheng and Chen Youliang, as well as the rising Zhu Yuanzhang.

In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Chen Youliang and proclaimed himself the King of Wu. Four years later, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Zhang Shicheng and swept across the south of the Yangtze River. Afterwards, he sent Chang Yuchun and Xu Da to lead an expedition to the north.

In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang officially proclaimed himself emperor and established the Ming Dynasty. The Ming army was unstoppable and reached the capital in August of that year. Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty fled in panic and the Yuan Dynasty fell.

[Understand the history of the Ming Dynasty in one go]

Start with a bowl, clear a country. No marriage, no compensation, no vassalage, no tribute, how did the Ming Dynasty, the last Han dynasty in Chinese history, rise under the iron hoof of its allies?

How did a dynasty founded by peasant uprisings end because of peasant flags? This WeChat video will help us understand the 276-year history of the Ming Dynasty in one breath.

In 1344, Zhu Chongba, a young man from Huaixi, became a monk at Huangjue Temple because his parents died. Fifty days later, due to a lack of food in the temple, he went out to travel and established the last Han dynasty in Chinese history with only a begging bowl.

When the young man Zhu Yuanzhang from Huaixi was traveling around begging for food, the Yellow River in the Yuan Dynasty was flooding. Emperor Shundi of the Yuan Dynasty ordered the Minister of Works Jia Lu to mobilize civilians to build the river embankment, but he did not expect that this would dig a grave for the Yuan Dynasty's rule.

Because of the corruption of officials and the withholding of food benefits, the people were outraged and sang a folk song: "Don't say the stone man has only one eye, he stirs up the Yellow River and the whole world rebels."

Soon, a one-eyed stone man appeared in the river. The atmosphere was so intense that Han Shantong and Liu Futong, two professional rebels, raised their flags and started the uprising of the Red Turban Army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Various places started to rise up against the Yuan Dynasty.