The Study Of Warlord Politics In The Later Stage Of The Northern Dynasties

The later stage of the Northern Dynasties witnessed the establishment of two separatist dynasties with the backbone of six garrisons’armed forces:the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Western Wei Dynasty, which were respectively replaced by the Northern Qi Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty. Because of the existence of the so called social relationship "Dengyi" in the historical materials generated by barbarian people customs, the supremacy of the Gao Clan and the Yuwen Clanwas based on the approval of warlord generals, thus the political status in the later period of theNorthern Dynasties can be explained in the "stratocracy" point of view. In the two political powers, namely the regime ofEastern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty, and regime of the Western Wei Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the supreme governors relied more on the approval of the noble group with the background of warlord in order to sustain the domination. Also, they relied more on the military, and tried to sustain domination through directly leading the army to win military exploit. On the other hand, because the Gao Clan and the Yuwen Clan were both from warlord groups, in order to enable their families to have a higher status than the warlord nobles, they took measures to strike and exclude the warlord nobles inevitably, which caused a series of thrilling political struggles within the ruling circles. In the Northern Qi Dynasty of Gao Clan, the rising political status of the Han scholars posed certain threat to the military noble groups; however, as they could hardly control the military powers, and as the politics of the Northern Qi Dynasty were badly dependent on the approval of the armed forces in every aspect, the Han scholars had to suffer from a series of frustration and hits. Even thoughthe force appreciated by the emperor appeared in the later period of the Northern Qi Dynasty was the result of decay tendency of the imperial authority politics, those appreciated by the emperor had some military talents and held the military power tightly, which helped the Northern Qi Dynasty conduct the stable domination. In the Northern Zhou Dynasty of Yuwen Clan, the Yuwen Tai family did not have overwhelming advantage over other Guanlong military nobles, and at the same time, the Northern Zhou Dynasty was confronted with great military pressure from the Northern Qi Dynasty, so the military identity of imperial authority in the Northern Zhou Dynasty was stronger than that of the Northern Qi Dynasty. From the macro-point of view, the politics state with strong military identity in the Western and Eastern Wei Dynasties, as well as the Northern Zhou and Northern Qi Dynasties played an important role in removing the old and building the new.The essay was divided into five parts:The first part was the introduction which looked back on the past history research of the Northern Dynasties and the research trend ofacademic history. It pointed out that there were several paradigms about the history research on the later stage of the Northern Dynasties, and that it was reasonable for the author to analyze the politics of the later stage of the Northern Dynasties with the "Military Politics" paradigm.The second part analyzed the unrest of the last year of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the formation of the GaoHuan Warlord Group and Yuwen Tai Warlord Group. It looked back on the forming process of the ErZhuRong Warlord Group, GaoHuan Warlord Group and Yuwen Tai Warlord Group and revealed the complicated political conflicts in their formation. Through the study on the interaction of the Imperial authority politics and stratocracy in the later stage of the Northern Wei Dynasty, it revealed the historical process of the changing from the rotten civil official aristocracy to the Imperial authority politics controlled by newly-emerged warlord groups in the later stage of the Northern Dynasties.The third part analyzed the political transformation and final collapse of the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Regimes, and pointed out that the Eastern Wei Regime established by Gao Huan was built on the support from the warlord noble group of Beizhen, therefore, Gao Huan and his descendants had to take strict precautions against the Beizhen warlord noble group when they made use of it. The author used the military capacity factors of the emperor to reveal the contradictory and abnormal phenomenon generated from the imperial inheritance issues in the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties.At the same time, the author believed that due to the considerable significance of military affairs in the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties, the Gao Clan hierarchy had to sacrifice the interests of Han scholars to satisfy the interest needs of the warlord nobles when it was necessary. This was a red line that went through the many important historical events in the history of Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties, therefore, the author made a unique explanation to the fall of the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties with the help of the "Military Politics" paradigm.The fourth part analyzed the formation and collapse of the Western Wei and Northern Zhou Regimes. Through the sorting and analysis of the Western Wei and Northern Zhou hierarchies, the author pointed out the inaccuracy of previous scholars’dividing the Western Wei and Northern Zhou hierarchies according to the regions. It was claimed that the division should be made according to their political attitudes towards the Yuwen Tai Family and whether they were able to help the Yuwen Family get the monopoly position. Through further analysis to the military attainments of Yuwen Hu and Yuwen Yong, the successors of Yuwen Tai, and their interactive relationship with other military officials, the author uncovered the military factors and military power factors that controlled the internal political struggle of the Western Wei and Northern Zhou Regimes, and tried to reinterpret the fall of the Northern Zhou Regime through the revelation of the rise and decline of Imperial military attainments.The fifth part was the conclusion. It summarized the content of the whole article, and put forward the ideas that the polities of the Western and Eastern Wei Dynasties and the Northern Zhou and Northern Qi Dynasties were transitive, and that the prosperity of the Sui Empire and the Tang Empire was inseparable from the transition roles of Western and Eastern Wei regimes and the Northern Zhou and Northern Qi regimes.