Chapter 11 Li Shimin vomited blood when his brother was poisoned

Before the final PK came, the first thing Li Shimin realized was that he had to stabilize his rear. For this reason, he chose the famous place in Kanto - Luoyang. That is the base he has been operating for a long time.Prior to this, Li Shimin had already dispatched his direct descendant Wen Daya, Shangshu of Shandong Daoxingtai Ministry of Industry, to Luoyang.But right now, in order to meet this life-and-death PK, Li Shimin specially ordered Zhang Liang, the chariot general of King Qin's Palace, to lead more than a thousand guards to Luoyang.Li Shimin gave Zhang Liang a large sum of gold and silk, and asked him to secretly make friends with heroes from Shandong (east of Xiaoshan) and make preparations for any contingencies.

In case of defeat in the struggle in Chang'an, Li Shimin planned to retreat to Luoyang and fight against the imperial court; if the situation deteriorated again and again, he had no choice but to fight against Li Jiancheng. However, this secret operation did not escape the eyes of Qi Wang Li Yuanji. He has been secretly monitoring every move of Prince Qin's Mansion, and now the sudden large-scale mobilization of more than a thousand armed personnel will of course arouse his high suspicion and vigilance.Li Yuanji immediately entered the palace and accused Zhang Liang of conspiracy to rebel.Li Yuan immediately ordered the arrest of Zhang Liang and ordered the relevant departments to investigate and prosecute.

The situation is very dangerous.If Zhang Liang's mouth is pried open, Li Shimin will be in big trouble. Fortunately, Li Shimin did not use the wrong person, Zhang Liang can be regarded as a hero.No matter what methods the interrogators used to extract a confession, they still could not get a single word from him.In the absence of evidence, the court had to release him.Zhang Liang then led his troops to Luoyang according to the original plan. The "Zhang Liang Incident" was finally safe and sound, but the following incident almost killed Li Shimin. This is a weird dinner party.

It was at this night banquet that a confusing and controversial "poisoned alcohol incident" occurred. According to the "Old Tang Book: The Biography of Prince Yin Jiancheng" ("New Tang Book", which contains similarities and minor differences): "(Jianjian) and Yuan Jimou committed poisonous poison, and introduced Taizong (Li Shimin) to the palace for a night banquet, and Taizong was violent. Pain, vomiting blood for several liters." Huaian Wang Li Shentong hurriedly sent Li Shimin back to the Qin Palace.Hearing the news, Li Yuan immediately issued an edict to Li Jiancheng, saying: "The king of Qin has never been allowed to drink alcohol, and from now on no more night banquets are allowed." Qin Wangfu visited Li Shimin.

Li Yuan must have realized that the Prince and the King of Qin were no longer compatible, so he proposed to Li Shimin a way to resolve the dispute.He said: "It was your credit for the establishment of the grand plan at the beginning, and the pacification of the country later. At that time, I wanted to make you the prince, but you resolutely refused, so I had no choice but to fulfill your wish. Besides, Jiancheng was old, and when he was the prince It's been a long time, and I don't have the heart to deprive him of his inheritance. It seems that you brothers are incompatible. You all live in the capital, and conflicts are bound to arise. I want you to regain control of Daxingtai, Shandong Road, live in Luoyang, and come from Shanzhou. (Today's Sanmenxia City, Henan Province) The land to the east is up to you, and you are allowed to build the banner of the Son of Heaven, and everything is modeled on the practice of Liu Wu, King Xiao of Liang in the Western Han Dynasty."

After Li Yuan finished speaking, the King of Qin was already weeping, and he declined on the grounds that he did not want to stay away from his knees. This is of course Li Shimin's posturing, but Gaozu's arrangement is exactly what he could have wished for.We know that the Tang Dynasty implemented the military system of "combination of soldiers and farmers". Otherwise, even a general of the Twelve Guards like Li Shimin would not have military power in his hands at ordinary times.In Chang'an, the combined power of the East Palace and Prince Qi's Mansion is much stronger than that of Prince Qin's Mansion.The East Palace once privately recruited more than 2,000 Changlin soldiers, and King Qi has been "recruiting strong men and hiding more sinners" ("Old Tang Book·Chao Wang Yuanji Biography"). The combined strength of the two should not be less than 3,000 people.Although the King of Qin also "raised more than 800 warriors in Susuo" (Volume 191), he was obviously at a disadvantage. Once the two sides started a war in the capital, the King of Qin would probably suffer a loss.Therefore, for Li Shimin, going out of the town of Luoyang is really the best strategy to attack and defend.This is why Li Shimin ordered Wen Daya and Zhang Liang to manage Luoyang.

Li Yuan finally said: "The world is one family, the east and the west are both very close to each other. When I miss you, I will visit you. You don't have to be sad." So the matter was settled like this. Hearing the news that Li Shimin was about to be stationed in Luoyang, the prince and King Qi felt bad.Once King Qin arrived in Luoyang, he would have the land, city and army in his hands.After an emergency discussion, the two came to a unanimous conclusion - if King Qin is controlled in the capital, it will be easy to settle him. Then the prince ordered people to hand over the secret memorial to Gaozu, claiming: "The king of Qin is all from Shandong (east of Xiaoshan). When they heard that they were going to Luoyang, they all cheered for joy. Observing their aspirations, I am afraid that they will not leave." I'm back." At the same time, he instructed his confidant ministers to constantly analyze the disadvantages of Gaozu, and persuade him to withdraw his order.What these people said to Li Yuan is not recorded in the history books, but according to the content of the above-mentioned secret memorandum, their lobbying words are nothing more than this: once the king of Qin occupies Luoyang, a place of great shape, the newly unified country will face the danger of splitting again; When you are alive, Your Majesty, the King of Qin and the Crown Prince may be able to tolerate it for a while, but once you pass through the ages, armed conflicts will inevitably break out between the two sides, and may even lead to large-scale wars. At that time, the family and the country will be disintegrated, and the consequences will be unimaginable!

Perhaps it was under such lobbying by his close ministers that Li Yuan felt that the matter was not trivial, so he temporarily suspended his plan to order King Qin to go to Luoyang. The above is the poisoned alcohol incident and its aftermath. Many scholars believe that there are too many doubts about the night banquet, and it is not credible, and it is probably based on the fiction of Zhenguan Shichen.According to skeptics, the main points are as follows: 1. At that time, the prince and the king of Qin had become incompatible with each other. The two sides were at war with swords and swords, and conflicts continued. How could it be possible to have a feast and drink?

2. Even if the crown prince deliberately set up a Hongmen banquet in order to murder the king of Qin, why did the king of Qin dare to go to the banquet and drink poisoned wine foolishly, knowing that the crown prince had evil intentions? 3. Even if King Qin went and drank the wine, why did he "vomit blood for several liters" and not die?Could it be that the poison carefully prepared by the majestic crown prince turned out to be a counterfeit and shoddy product? 4. According to the "Tongjian" records, the poisoned alcohol incident happened after the first day of June in "Taibai Jingtian".What is unbelievable is that the Xuanwumen Incident broke out on June 4th. Then, how could Li Shimin be able to stage a coup d'état and shoot the prince with all his might after just three days after he was poisoned and vomited blood?This is really unbelievable.

Since there are so many doubts, is the poisoned alcohol incident really a fiction? Our answer is: not necessarily. The above-mentioned doubts are not impeccable, and are worthy of scrutiny.Since there are no more historical materials to identify the authenticity of this matter except the two "Books of Tang" and "Tang Shu", we can only conduct relevant investigations and inferences from the perspective of common sense and logic. First, the Chinese are the most concerned about face. Even in life-and-death political struggles, things on the surface must be maintained; friendlier.This is not uncommon in the social life of Chinese people, and it is not surprising.Therefore, it was not impossible for Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin to have a banquet under the circumstances at that time.

Second, since he has already attended the banquet, Li Shimin has no reason not to drink.Even if he suspected that Li Jiancheng would poison the wine, that was just a suspicion. Wouldn't it make people laugh if he didn't even dare to drink the wine that his brother treated him to?According to Li Shimin's stubborn and courageous personality, he must drink this wine.In connection with the previous Huma incident, with Li Shimin's proficiency in equestrianism, he may not fail to see that Li Jiancheng gave him a wild and untamed horse, but he still rode on it as if nothing had happened.It can be seen from this that "knowing that there are tigers in the mountains, but walking on the mountains with tigers" is Li Shimin's consistent character. Third, even if Li Jiancheng wanted to poison Li Shimin to death, he probably would not have dared to let him die at the banquet held by him, because it would be tantamount to blatant murder.At the time when Gaozu still wanted to level the bowl of water, Li Jiancheng's doing so was not good for him.Even if he really killed Li Shimin, the crime of poisoning his own brother is not a small one.It was the same reason why he prevented Li Yuanji from assassinating Li Shimin in the Qi Palace.For Li Jiancheng, who has always had an advantage in the struggle, he should not have made such a bad move.Therefore, a more likely situation is that Li Jiancheng was indeed poisoned, but it was not a counterfeit and shoddy product, but a slow-acting poison that could cause serious internal injuries to Li Shimin but would not kill him on the spot. poison.For Li Jiancheng, the best result is to let Li Shimin die after a few days or a longer period of poisoning. In this way, not only can the goal be achieved, but also the suspicion can be cleared to the greatest extent, and at least the murder charge can be downplayed. .The reason why Li Shimin was safe and sound in the end may be that this kind of slow-onset poison is relatively difficult to control in terms of medicine and dosage, so it is not enough to kill him. In addition, there is another possibility, that is, Li Shimin had already been wary of this Hongmen banquet, so he only drank a very small amount of wine.Moreover, it is also possible to prepare antidote in advance and take it immediately after poisoning, thus greatly reducing the symptoms of poisoning and saving one's life. Fourth, did this event really take place on the first day of June in the ninth year of Wude? In fact, this point has always been widely doubted.Because this incident was placed after "Taibai Jingtian", people used to think that this incident happened on the first night of June, but except for "Tongjian", the two "Books of Tang" did not record the specific date.Therefore, we believe that this incident may have occurred half a year before the Xuanwu Gate Incident, that is, at the end of the eighth year of Wude.There are three reasons: First of all, according to the two "Books of Tang", this incident was recorded directly after the "Yang Wengan Incident", and the "Old Book of Tang" appeared "Nine years, the Turks committed border crimes" just after the poisoned alcohol incident was described. " and other words, and the order of records in "New Book of Tang" is also the same.The key here is the time mark of "nine years".If the "Old Tang Book" also believes that this incident happened on the first day of June in the ninth year of Wude, then this "Nine Years" should be placed before the poisoned alcohol incident, not after the poisoned alcohol incident.Therefore, this gives us reason to believe that this incident is very likely to have happened nine years before Wude. Secondly, according to the records, from the "Taibai Jingtian" on the first day of June to the Xuanwumen Incident on June 4th, the Zhang Liang incident, the poisoned wine incident, and the prince and Qi king's buying, framing, repelling, and competing for the Qin Dynasty occurred successively. A series of incidents involving civil servants and military generals in the palace; then came the Wucheng battle report, King Qi’s annexation of the officers and soldiers of the Prince of Qin, and the attempted coup d’etat in Kunming Lake; The bloody coup d'état of the Communist Party of China...it seems unreasonable that so many major events happened in just three or four days. It's no wonder that many readers will exclaim while being dizzy and dazzled-these four days are too long! Here, we have no intention of verifying the exact date of occurrence of so many events, but this does not prevent us from making an inference.In other words, it is entirely possible that so many events were concentrated in the few days after the first day of June in the ninth year of Wude for the convenience of narration and the compactness of the plot.Here is just one example: In the event that Cheng Zhijie, the general of Qin Wangfu, was expelled from the capital by the prince and transferred to Kangzhou Governor, the "Tongjian" put it after the first day of June in the ninth year of Wude, but according to the "Old Tang Dynasty Book Cheng Zhijie Biography", but this incident clearly happened in the seventh year of Wude.It can be seen from this that the poisoned alcohol incident is very likely to be the same as the Cheng Zhijie incident. It did not happen in the ninth year of Wude, but Sima Guang implemented a great shift of the universe out of narrative needs, and he just moved it to a few days before the Xuanwu Gate. In the end, according to common sense, Prince Li Jiancheng had to have a reason to hold a banquet, not to mention that he and the King of Qin had already reached the point of incompatibility, so inviting him to the banquet required some grandiose reasons.So what could be the reason for this?We found that on November 13th of the eighth year of Wude, the imperial court "added Qin Wang Shimin Zhongshu Ling and Qi Wang Yuanji Shizhong" (Volume 191), and the two younger brothers were promoted to important positions on the same day. , isn't this the best reason to have a party?Isn't this worthy of the crown prince's congratulations for his younger brothers?And if the prince really used this as an excuse to invite King Qin, would Li Shimin have the nerve to refuse?Although there is no more historical data to support our speculation, this possibility cannot be completely ruled out. Therefore, based on the above reasons, we can draw the following conclusions - the banquet that almost killed Li Shimin may have happened before the ninth year of Wude; the exact date may be November 10th in the eighth year of Wude Three days and nights.That being the case, it is reasonable and reasonable for Li Shimin, who had recuperated for more than half a year, to launch a coup after he fully recovered, and it is not worth making a fuss about. To sum up, the incident of poisoned wine and the fact that Li Yuan wanted to send the King of Qin to Luoyang after that may not be a fiction of Zhenguan Shichen.We believe that this incident should be true on the whole, but we cannot rule out the possibility that some key details may have been embellished.Here are just two examples: First, King Qin's statement of "vomiting blood for several liters" cannot be true. "Hematemesis" may be true, but "several liters" is definitely false.According to medical theory, the blood in a healthy adult's body is 3.8-5.6 liters, and the limit of human blood loss is 1.9-2.8 liters, accounting for about 50% of the total blood.And how many liters is Li Shimin's "number of liters of vomiting blood"? The term "several liters" will not be used below 2 liters, so at least it should be more than 2 liters. It is obvious that the blood loss limit has been broken, so it is absolutely unbelievable. In addition to the fact that the details of vomiting blood are untrue, another example of detail embellishment is what Li Yuan said to Li Shimin, "Building the banner of the Son of Heaven".In the situation where the Crown Prince and the King of Qin were at odds, Li Yuan asked the King of Qin to avoid living in Luoyang temporarily to avoid further deterioration of the situation. This is completely credible and in line with Li Yuan's principle of maintaining balance, but it is obviously exaggeration for the King of Qin to "build the banner of the Son of Heaven". birthday words.Because even if Li Yuan is not a holy lord, he is definitely not a mediocre person.As an older founding king and a mature politician, Li Yuan would not fail to understand the truth that "there is no two suns and no two masters in the country", nor would he fail to understand that doing so would mean division and war. Therefore, the poisoned alcohol incident should be true in general, but details such as "vomiting blood for several liters" and "building the emperor's banner" are very likely to be fictionalized by Zhenguan Shichen.The purpose of such exaggerated embellishments is nothing more than to show the seriousness of Li Shimin’s persecution, thereby proving the legitimacy of his forced counterattack in self-defense, and providing more legitimacy for him to launch a coup and seize the throne in the future. No matter when this weird night banquet happened, and no matter how real the poisoned wine incident was, in short, before June 4th of the ninth year of Wude, it was a fact that was obvious to all—the relationship between the Prince and the King of Qin The struggle has reached the point where you die.Those civil servants and military generals who are in the political vortex, including the Emperor Li Yuan of the Tang Dynasty, will definitely feel great panic about this. An identical doubt must have swirled in their minds— What's next?