How did the Assyrian Empire perish?

Although the Assyrian empire was in its heyday on the surface, it was weak in essence. Because this great empire does not have a solid and unified economic foundation, there is only a forced alliance relying on military administration. Without force, it is difficult to survive for a day. With the increasingly sharp class contradictions within the empire, the infighting of the ruling class intensified, and Assyria's military strength was weakened and soon declined and disintegrated.

In the late Assyrian Empire, the domestic class struggle became increasingly acute. The living conditions of the slave-owning class and the working people are quite different. Slave owners and nobles lived a luxurious and corrupt life of enjoyment. They live in a deep house with cloth or felt hanging on the indoor wall. The sofas, tables, chairs and stools in the room are carved with patterns and inlaid with exquisite ornaments made of ivory or precious metals. They are not only wearing luxurious tights, but also wearing an embroidered knotted wool fabric. They wear collars around their necks, earrings in their ears and bracelets on their wrists. These decorations are all made of copper, silver or gold. Noble women have thin veils on their faces. On their dining table, there are bronze and silver tableware. The nobles drank Urato or Mesopotamian famous wines and other high-grade drinks in large cups, ate delicious food and game, and chewed grapes, pomegranates, apples, peaches and other fruits. However, the life of poor farmers and slaves is very difficult. They go out early and come back late. After a hard day's work in the fields or pastures, they dragged their tired bodies home and got into a humble hut, which was almost no different from the poor Sumerian houses earlier. No matter whether it is hot or cold in winter, all they have is their shabby clothes. They only have poor food and often don't have enough to eat! As for prisoners and immigrants who are far away from their homeland, the situation is even more tragic. Some prisoners have to wear fetters at work and are supervised by armed soldiers. Heavy taxes and heavy labor put pressure on farmers and slaves, making them almost breathless.

The Assyrian empire's foreign aggression and expansion brought only endless disasters to its working people. Years of battles need to be constantly replenished, and the vast majority of those enlisted in the army are free peasants. Free peasants are the main source of Assyrian troops. At first, there were a large number of free peasants in Assyria, so there were enough soldiers to organize a powerful army. However, at the end of the empire, the casualties caused by the long-term campaign, especially the class division, made many free peasants go bankrupt and the number of free peasants was greatly reduced. Therefore, the ruler of the Assyrian empire must recruit new soldiers from the residents of the conquered areas at this time. Therefore, the composition of the Assyrian army has undergone major changes. These foreign soldiers have to be influenced by their own nation and other oppressed nations. They hated the Assyrian ruling class and the war of aggression, which weakened the fighting capacity of the Assyrian army to some extent.

There are also many contradictions within the Assyrian imperial ruling group, and the struggle for power and profit has intensified. It turns out that there have been two groups in the ruling class of Assyria. One is the industrial and commercial slave owners and priests, who occupy many granges and slaves, and their grange production has obvious commodity nature. Therefore, they focus on developing commodity production and commerce. They were closely related to the big slave owners in Babylon, and advocated expanding the rights of the ruling class in the alliance and giving the city more privileges and autonomy. Demands to reduce the number of troops and even stop further expanding foreign wars. This proposition and demand will inevitably lead to sharp contradictions and conflicts with another group, namely the aristocratic group of military slave owners. The military aristocratic group believes that only the army is the only pillar of the empire, and only by relying on the army to continuously conquer the war can we get rich and maintain the strength of the empire. Therefore, everything in the country should be subordinated to military needs. They actively followed or encouraged the king to plunder abroad. Inconsistent interests and opinions within the ruling group often lead to open conflicts. Salma Nashar V, the son of Tigray Parashar III, canceled the privileges of Babylonia, Nipur, Hybal, Assyria and other cities because he represented the interests of the military aristocracy. The result was overthrown by a court coup organized by industrial and commercial slave owners, nobles and priests. Sinna Hrib was killed in a palace coup because of the opposition of industrial and commercial slave owners, nobles and priests. Because of this, his son Sahadong had to make some concessions to the priest group after he succeeded to the throne. Judging from these historical facts, the struggle within the slave owners' ruling group of Assyrian Empire was fierce. With the development of slave society and economy, the power of non-military slave owners and nobles is growing, and their contradiction with military slave owners and nobles is more acute. The infighting of the ruling clique greatly weakened the power of the Assyrian slave-owning class.

Assyrian slaves, poor peasants and people in conquered areas all hated Assyrian slave owners and nobles. They always curse angrily, hoping that the "Lion Cave" will collapse and the "Blood City" will be destroyed as soon as possible. Sometimes they rebelled by fleeing or killing individual slave owners in large numbers, and even more powerfully, they constantly held large-scale uprisings and attacked the reactionary rule of the empire. According to the official chronology published by Assyria, a national uprising lasted for six years in the late period of Salmanasha III's rule, that is, from 829 BC to 824 BC. In the 8th century BC, uprisings also occurred constantly. Among them are Assyrian Uprising in 763-762 BC, Alpha Uprising in 76 1-760 BC, Guzana Uprising in 759 BC, Karas Uprising in 746 BC and so on. All these uprisings dealt a heavy blow to the Assyrian rulers. The reason why Tigray Parashar III, who ascended the throne in 745 BC, changed his ruling policy and curbed the fierce flames of burning, killing and looting in the past was obviously closely related to the fact that the empire suffered so many uprisings.

It was a measure taken by Assyrian rulers to prevent their uprising, that is, forcibly relocating residents in conquered areas, leaving them far away from their hometown and mixing with residents in other places, but it did not achieve the expected goal. The people's resistance struggle in the conquered areas continues. During the reign of Sargon II, Syria and Phoenicia held an uprising with the support of Egypt, which was suppressed in 720 BC. In 7 17 BC, the Kemi uprising was suppressed by Sargon II. During the period from 7 17 BC to 7 14 BC, the northeast of Assyria was also in turmoil. In addition, during the reign of Sinatra Hareb and Sargon II, Babylonian resistance came and went. When ashur barnabas, son of Asa Hadong, ruled, the Assyrian Empire was already a spent force.