In the fourth year of Wei Jingyuan (A.D. 263), in the battle to destroy Shu initiated by Cao Wei Group, general Deng Ai, the conqueror of the West, made a splash. At that time, the army led by General Zhong Hui of Zhenxi was stubbornly blocked by Jiang Wei in Jiange area, and the progress was not smooth. In order to break this deadlock, Wargo led his troops to weave along the path from level tone, crossed hundreds of miles of no-man's land with steep terrain and harsh environment, bypassed the frontal defense of the Shu army, and attacked Fucheng County, Mianzhu and other places to force Chengdu, eventually completely disintegrating the defense line of the Shu army and eliminating the Shuhan Group.
In this battle, Wargo not only won the first prize with his outstanding courage, strategy and outstanding performance, but also became a famous star of the Three Kingdoms in later generations. This battle has also become a classic example of circuitous surprise attack by the ancient army in China. And Wargo led an ancient road from Gansu to Sichuan, which was called "Yinping Road" by later generations, and became famous and well known with this battle. So, is Yinping Road really an ancient road from Gansu to Sichuan? What historical evolution has it experienced? Based on the relevant historical records, the author makes a simple introduction to the origin and reform of Yinping Road.
"Yinping Road" was a county-level administrative region during the Han and Three Kingdoms periods. According to Hanshu? According to the records in Geography, Yinping Road is one of the thirteen counties under the jurisdiction of Guanghan County. Yan Shigu, a geographer and historian in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, clearly pointed out in the annotation of Hanshu that the imperial court in the Han Dynasty was divided by the composition of the people living in the county, and the county with ethnic minorities as the main body was called "Dao". According to "Han Guan Jiu Yi", the county is called the county, and the border is called the road. From the above records, we can know that Yinping Road was a county-level administrative region set up by the imperial court in the Han and Three Kingdoms periods, and it can also be called "Yinping County", which is located in the northwest of Wenxian County in Longnan City, Gansu Province.
However, in the Song Dynasty, there was a turning point in the history of Yinping Road. Because before the Song Dynasty, "Tao" always refers to administrative areas, and since the Song Dynasty, "Tao" has become synonymous with "road". Therefore, in the eyes of Song people, the level tone road became the name of a road. Zhu Mu, a writer in Song Dynasty, marked Yinping Road as an ancient road in and out of Shu when compiling Fang Yu Sheng Lan. Influenced by the Song people, Wang Wei, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, made a further sublimation. In his Memorabilia Sequel, he clearly pointed out that Deng Ai dug a level tone road and defeated Zhuge Zhan, the general of Shu Hanwei, in Mianzhu.
The conclusions of scholars in the Song and Ming Dynasties were continued and affirmed in the Qing Dynasty. In his book "Notes on Reading Historical Places", Gu Zuyu, a geographer in the early Qing Dynasty, called Yinping Road an ancient road to and from Sichuan. The Tongzhi of Gansu during the reign of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty and the Territorial Records of the Three Kingdoms during the reign of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty both agreed with the predecessors' statements, which made the "Yinping Road" completely far away from its original intention and became a circuitous ancient road-Yinping Road in the present sense. This is the origin and evolution of "Yin Ping Dao".
At that time, the ancient road was circuitous and interspersed by Wargo, and its actual name was "Zuodan Road". According to Shu Ji compiled by Li Chong, a scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the path from Miangu to Jiameng in Shushan is extremely steep and narrow. Pedestrians from north to south can only carry their shoulders with their left shoulders, and there is no way to change their shoulders during this period. Therefore, this road is called the left shoulder road. In Guang Ji in Shu compiled by Cao Xuequan, a geographer in Ming Dynasty, a passage in Yi Zhou Ji in Jin Dynasty was quoted. There is a left shoulder road from Yinping County to Chengdu, and the road is extremely narrow and dangerous. The burden can only be picked on the left shoulder, and "the right shoulder is not allowed". It is also clearly pointed out that "Wargo thus cut Shu".
In addition, although the meaning of "Tao" changed in the Song Dynasty, the region was confused with the road, which had a great influence on scholars in the later period. However, Wang Wei, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, not only admitted that Deng Ai's way of cutting Shu in Song Dynasty was Yinping Road, but also clearly pointed out that Yinping Road was Zuodan Road. There is a record in the book that Deng Ai selected elite people in Yangping, wanted to enter Zuodan Road of Jiangyou from Deyang, and made a surprise attack on Mianzhu, pointing to Chengdu. From this, we can know that whether it is Yinping Road in the present sense or Zuodan Road in the Han and Three Kingdoms periods, it is actually a different name for the same road.
knowing the origin and evolution of the level tone road, what is the specific route of the level tone road? Modern scholars have reached a relatively unified conclusion based on historical materials and on-the-spot investigation. The level tone road is composed of many parts, among which the most important one is the distinction between the right way and the wrong way.
The level tone path, also known as "Baishui Road", was named after it passed through Baishui County in the Han and Three Kingdoms periods. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Baishui County was renamed Jinggu County, so the road was also called "Jinggu Road". Yinping Zhengdao is a land and water passage into Shu, which has very important military value. Its route is from Wudu County (now west of Chengxian County, Longnan City, Gansu Province), along Bailong River (now 7 miles southeast of Wudu County, Longnan City) to Yinping County (now northwest of Wenxian County, Longnan City), along Baishui River to Yinping Qiaotou (now east of Yulei Township, Wenxian County, Longnan City), and through Baishuiguan (now Yingpan Township, Qingchuan County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province) to Baishui County (now).
The level playing field is deviant, that is, Deng Ai's way of cutting Shu. This ancient road was originally an obscure mountain road, steep and narrow, with hundreds of kilometers of no-man's land in the middle. In those days, Wargo led the troops to cut a mountain, bridge a river and detour to the hinterland of the Shu army, which dealt a fatal blow to the Shuhan Group. This deviant road is also famous for its wargo, and it has become a passage into Shu that military strategists in past dynasties attach great importance to.
The route of this road starts from Wenxian County, Longnan City, Gansu Province, turns southwest after crossing Yinping Bridge Head along Baishui River, crosses Motianling at the junction of Wenxian County and Qingchuan County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, passes through Yinping Mountain in Qingchuan County, Yinping Village and Qingxi Town in Qingxi Town, then turns southwest, passes through Majianguan at the junction of Qingchuan County and Pingwu County, and then passes down Fujiang River. This deviant road was very steep and tortuous in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, which can be seen from the records of the Three Kingdoms.
With the passage of time and the development of the times, Yinping Road has evolved from an administrative region to a road name that goes in and out of Sichuan, and has finally replaced Zuodan Road and been widely recognized. Since modern times, scholars have continuously enriched the connotation of Yinping Road through data research and on-the-spot investigation, making it a complete concept of Shu Road system, which is composed of right path, deviated path, branch line and extension line.