"So when the house collapses, new people will come to rebuild it. At the end of the Qin Dynasty, it was Liu Bang; at the end of the Sui Dynasty, it was Li Yuan and Li Shimin; at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, it was Zhao Kuangyin; and at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, it was Zhu Yuanzhang. For thousands of years, this cycle has formed, and this is how reshuffles were born."
After Zhao Jun finished speaking, he felt dry mouth and drank the water in the cup in one breath.
Everyone fell into deep thought.
Only Fan Zhongyan keenly noticed a problem and asked, "What's the matter with the three changes back to the river?"
Zhao Jun was puzzled and asked, "Didn't you all study the History of the Song Dynasty? You didn't even know about the Three Changes Return to the River?"
It's getting weirder and weirder.
Yan Shu casually replied, "We are certainly not as good as you in speaking."
"All right."
Zhao Jun said: "The Three Changes to the Yellow River refers to the three major engineering changes made to the Yellow River during the reigns of Emperor Renzong, Emperor Shenzong and Emperor Zhezong of the Song Dynasty."
"Can you tell me more about that?"
"The specific situation is that starting from the Tang Dynasty, the Yellow River began to accumulate silt, the riverbed became higher, and flooded both banks. Then, in the first year of Jingyou, the Yellow River changed its course, flowing eastward from its old path to form the Henglong Road. The Song Dynasty, out of military preparedness against the Liao Kingdom and to address flooding issues, began large-scale Yellow River control projects."
"What was the result?"
"The results were far from ideal. This plan was essentially a spur-of-the-moment idea conceived by the Song Dynasty's ruling class and a bunch of incompetent ministers. After its implementation, the flooding worsened. After three revisions, the entire Hebei province and most of Henan were nearly submerged, leaving millions homeless. Even Su Shi, in Xuzhou, was nearly drowned."
"It actually caused such a huge disaster!"
Yan Shu was shocked and asked quickly, "Why did this happen?"
Zhao Jun sneered: "Song Renzong is stupid!"
Zhao Zhen widened his eyes.
here we go.
It started again.
You must feel uncomfortable if you don't scold me for a day.
"Another thing is that those ministers who serve as prime ministers are stupid!"
Zhao Jun continued with a sneer, "How could bastards like Fu Bi and Wen Yanbo be prime ministers? The Song emperor and his ministers didn't care about the people's livelihood at all. They were just terrified of the Liao, so they made several ruthless changes to the Yellow River. Although the Yellow River was indeed in a serious state at the time, their memorials were all about border raids and national defense. They didn't care about the lives of the people at all. They are truly a bunch of bastards."
Everyone looked at each other, and Zhao Zhen couldn't help but shrink his neck. Zhao Jun just called him stupid, and he should not be counted among the beasts here.
"Can you tell me the details?"
Yan Shu quickly changed his target, for he was afraid that Zhao Jun would continue to scold the emperor.
Zhao Jun calmed down a bit before saying, "It's very simple. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, there was a man named Li Chui who early on discovered that the Yellow River would have serious problems. He wrote a petition requesting repairs to the river, but his advice was ignored. As a result, decades later, in the first year of the Jingyou reign, the Yellow River burst its banks and changed its course for the first time, from its old route to the Henglong Road."
"Everything was relatively peaceful, but fourteen years later, in the eighth year of the Qingli reign (1048 AD), the Yellow River burst its banks again, flowing north and forming the Shanghu Road. This Shanghu Road flowed north from Puyang all the way to the Liao Kingdom, and emptied into the sea at the Liao-Song border in Cangzhou, which is today's Tianjin."
"This development immediately shocked the Song Dynasty's rulers and ministers, because Li Chui had predicted decades earlier that the Yellow River would change its course, and that the Liao army might be able to move upstream and attack Bianliang directly. This scared the idiots of the Song Dynasty half to death."
"Now that Li Chui's prediction has come true, who knows if the Liao army's advance southward will also come true. So they're trying to divert the Yellow River back to its original course, Henglong Road. They've failed three times in diverting the river, meaning it's three times back to the original course."
"These three attempts to divert the river back to its original location not only caused serious flooding, but also brought immense suffering and burden to the people of the Song Dynasty. Those idiots in the court, with a single snap of their fingers, wanted to kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. It's no different than the bald man who bombed Huayuankou. They are truly the eternal sinners of the Chinese nation!"
By the end of his speech, Zhao Jun was extremely angry.
Some people in later generations whitewashed the situation by saying that the Song Dynasty had no choice but to repair the Yellow River because the river was flooding and they had to repair it.
But in fact, many of the memorials submitted to the court at that time mentioned border bandits and national defense security. In essence, they were still worried that the Liao Kingdom would go upstream along the Yellow River and attack Bianliang.
The key is that if they repair it well, it is not impossible to repair it. Wang Jing managed the Yellow River and ensured peace for 800 years. If there was a Wang Jing in the Song Dynasty, it would also benefit future generations.
Unfortunately, this group of short-sighted emperors and ministers did not care about the future at all. They only cared about whether they could divert the Yellow River back to its original shape and prevent the Liao army from having the opportunity to use the Yellow River to move south. Therefore, they were eager for quick success and instant benefits, and they ended up courting disaster, which dealt a heavy blow to the people of the Song Dynasty.
Therefore, it can be said that the reason why the Song Dynasty is one of the three most unpopular dynasties in history, along with the Jin Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, is not only because it was "submissive to the outside world and aggressive at home", but also because the poison left by the Three Yi Huihe River for a thousand years is a major factor!
Seeing Zhao Jun so angry, Yan Shu quickly asked, "Is there no way to deal with it?"
"It's difficult. Without industrial dredgers, it's impossible to remove the accumulated silt. If you rely on manual dredging, you can't even dig out as much as others can haul away. Zhao Da and Zhao Er have recognized the problem of soil erosion. On the one hand, they ordered the planting of trees upstream to protect the soil and on the other hand, they installed a large number of bank dredging in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. But to no avail, it led to the great flood in Chanzhou in the first year of Jingyou!"
Zhao Jun pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "After that, the Yellow River flooded three or four times a year, causing great losses to the Chinese people. After the Northern Song Dynasty fell, Zhao Gou fled south and established the Southern Song Dynasty, which severely damaged the Jin Dynasty that occupied the north. After the Yuan Dynasty unified the country, it was still helpless against the Yellow River. It even provoked rebellion throughout the country because of the Yellow River, leading to the demise of the Yuan Dynasty. It was not until the continuous governance of Jia Lu of the Yuan Dynasty and Pan Jixun of the Ming Dynasty that the country was able to recover."
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