Chapter 19 Li Shimin Wins Hearts

One emperor and one courtier. The alternation of political power is bound to be accompanied by a complete reshuffle of the imperial political arena. As the date of Li Shimin's enthronement approached, Li Shimin's confidantes quickly entered the power core of the Tang Empire, and all the generals under his command also entered the top ranks of the army. On July 3rd, Qin Shubao was appointed as the general of Zuowei, Cheng Zhijie as the general of Youwuwei, and Yuchi Jingde as the general of Youwuhou. On July 6th, Gao Shilian was appointed as the servant, Fang Xuanling was the official secretary, Xiao Yu was the left servant, Changsun Wuji was the Minister of the Ministry of Officials, and Du Ruhui was the Minister of the Ministry of War.

On July 7th, Yuwen Shiji was appointed as the order of Zhongshu, and Deyi was appointed as the right servant to shoot; Du Yan, a soldier of the former Tiance government, Cao Canjun, was the royal doctor, and Yan Shigu and Liu Linfu, who were members of Zhongshushe, were the servants of Zhongshu. The deputy of the left guard Hou Junji is the general of the left guard, Duan Zhixuan, the marquis of Zuo Yu, is the general of Xiaowei, Xue Wanche, the deputy guard, is the general of the right leader, Zhang Gongjin, the deputy of the right internal guard, is the general of the right Wuhou, and the leader of the right prison gate, Sun Anye, is the right The general of the prison gate, the right inner deputy led Li Keshi as the general who led the left and right armies.

In this long list of promotions, one person in particular deserves our attention.He is the last one on the list: Li Keshi.The reason why I want to mention this person in particular is because he is the younger brother of Li Jing (Li Jing's word pharmacist). As we know, Li Jing did not participate in the Xuanwu Gate Change, but now his younger brother actually appeared in Li Shimin's promotion list for meritorious deeds, what does this mean?Does this prove that both brothers participated in the Xuanwumen Incident? Many people agree with this.Based on this list, they determined that Li Keshi was Li Shimin's subordinate and one of the "thugs" of the coup, and then inferred that Li Jing was also involved in the Xuanwumen coup.

In fact, such an inference is very unreliable.First of all, based on the official order alone, it is not possible to draw the conclusion that Li Keshi was the thug of the King of Qin and participated in the Xuanwu Gate Change, and of course it cannot be concluded that Li Jing was also involved.The reason is simple. Xue Wanche, the former general of the East Palace, was also promoted on the same day, but he happened to be the one who fought against Li Shimin on the day of the coup. Can we think that he is also Li Shimin's thug? Furthermore, according to the "Old Tang Book·Records of Officials", the post of "Deputy Leader of the Right Nei" that Li Keshi held before he was promoted was not established by the Tiance Mansion, but by the Eastern Palace.In other words, Li Keshi was either Li Jiancheng's subordinate, or Li Shimin served in the East Palace after he became the crown prince, and was not originally a member of Tiance Mansion.

Finally, behind the biography of Li Jing in the two "Books of Tang", there is a biography of Master Li Ke attached, which does not mention the change of Xuanwu Gate at all.If he did make meritorious service in Xuanwumen, why was there no mention in his personal biography?As far as we know, the 10 or 20 people who followed Li Shimin to participate in the coup were mentioned in both "Book of Tang" and "Tang Shu". The guest teacher was missed? It can be seen from this that there is no solid evidence that Li Keshi acted as Li Shimin's thug in the coup; therefore, it is even more nonsense to think that Li Jing also participated in the Xuanwumen change.

Since none of the Li Jing brothers participated in the Xuanwu Gate Change, how could Li Keshi appear on the list of promotions together with other heroes? We believe that this should be a means for Li Shimin to win over Li Jing.From a large perspective, this is also a further continuation and deepening of Li Shimin's leniency policy.Because the current Li Shimin is no longer the King of Qin, but a person who is about to become the emperor, so what he faces is not only the old supporters, but also people from all over the world.In other words, no matter the original supporters, the original opponents or neutrals, Li Shimin must treat them equally, which is called "Zebei Tianxia".

Therefore, the promotion list thrown out by Li Shimin at such a moment cannot be simply equated with the list of heroes of the Xuanwu Gate Change. Of course, most of the people who appear in it must be consistent supporters, but in addition to supporters, there must be two other types of people on this list, that is-the original opposition and neutrals.Only in this way can we truly show the sincerity of the new emperor Zebei and win the hearts of the world. It is in this sense that we find that Xue Wanche, the former general of the East Palace, is a typical representative of the opposition.Because he is a person who does not hesitate to meet Li Shimin and fight with his life in order to avenge Li Jiancheng. Such a person is not typical, who else can be more typical?We can even say that he is definitely more qualified to appear on this list than Wei Zheng, Wang Gui and others.

Li Keshi, Li Jing's younger brother, can be regarded as a representative of neutral people.There are three reasons for saying this.First, his brother Li Jing did reject Li Shimin's solicitation before the coup and chose to be neutral. There are certainly many reasons for this, but the most important point is that Li Jing did not believe that Li Shimin could succeed when he was at a disadvantage.However, later facts proved that Li Jing was wrong.The King Qin who was not favored by him not only succeeded in seizing the heir, but also would become the supreme emperor in a blink of an eye.In this regard, Li Jing will not feel at ease no matter what.If it is said that the emperor will ask him to "settle accounts after autumn" after he ascends the throne, that is entirely possible.Therefore, the more uneasy Li Jing felt, the more Li Shimin had to show his trust in him as before. This was not only for him to see, but also for other neutrals, such as Li Shiji and others.

Second, before the coup, there must have been many people who were wise enough to protect themselves and choose to be neutral, definitely not only Li Jing and Li Shiji, but the reason why Li Jing was finally recruited and his brother was included in this list was because Li Jing already had a high reputation at that time. Reputation.During the unification war, Li Jing strongly assisted Li Xiaogong to pacify half of the south of the Yangtze River. His outstanding performance in the war is well known, so Li Yuan, who had always looked down upon him, gave him a thumbs up and said: "The ancient famous generals Han, Bai, and Wei , How can Huo be able to reach it!" ("Old Tang Book · Li Jing Biography") received such a high evaluation from the emperor, which can be seen from its great reputation at that time.Therefore, Li Jing must be representative among many neutrals.

Third, since Li Jing was to be chosen as the representative of the neutral, why not just promote him to the official position, but pick out his younger brother instead?This is precisely the brilliance of Li Shimin.Because doing so can not only let Li Jing feel the sincerity of the new emperor to let go of the past, but also avoid stimulating the feelings of those die-hard supporters.If Li Shimin was directly promoted to Li Jing's official position, first of all, his official position may immediately rise above some heroes, which is obviously inappropriate; The jealousy and injustice of supporters.And choosing Li Keshi to be the representative of this neutral person can effectively avoid the above-mentioned troubles.That's why the person on the list is not Li Jing, but Li Keshi.

In addition, judging from Li Shimin's continuous promotion of Li Jing after he ascended the throne, it is enough to prove that he really intends to win over Li Jing.In the second year, that is, the first year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin immediately promoted Li Jing to the high position of Minister of the Ministry of punishment; To sum up, everything that Li Shimin did after the Xuanwumen Incident, whether it was implementing a leniency policy to appease the opposition, or finding ways to win over neutrals, was aimed at speeding up the transition from vassal king to emperor. There is one more thing that can fully demonstrate this point.It was not long after Li Shimin came to the throne, once Fang Xuanling said to him in private: "The old people in the Qin family were not promoted, and they all complained: "We are around the king of Qin, and we have followed for so many years. At that time, we fell behind the people from the former East Palace and Prince Qi’s Mansion, what’s the reason for that?’” Li Shimin said: "The king is selfless, so he can obey the hearts of the world. The food and clothing that I and my generation use every day are taken from the people. Therefore, the division of officials is based on the interests of the world and the people. How can we decide the priority of appointment based on the old and new relationship when we choose talents? If the newcomers are capable and the old ones are mediocre, how can we abandon the talented newcomers and take the mediocre old ones? , only ask 'new and old', how to build a fair political system?" On August 8, the ninth year of Wude, one of the most important historical moments finally arrived. Li Yuan, the first emperor of the Tang Empire, officially issued an edict—passed on Prince Li Shimin. On August 9th, Li Shimin ascended the throne in the Xiande Hall of the East Palace, officially sitting on the throne of the emperor he had dreamed of.On the same day, the whole world was amnesty, and the land tax and taxes in the Guannei and Pu, Rui, Yu, Tai, Shan, and Ding states were exempted for two years, and the remaining states were exempted for one year. The most exemplary era in ancient Chinese history kicked off on this day. While vigorously promoting the lenient policy and striving to achieve world reconciliation, in order to further win the hearts of the people, Li Shimin did three things before and after he took the throne, quickly establishing a glorious image of a new political leader in front of the world. In other words, these are the three fires for a new emperor to take office. The first fire was the abolition of the religious reform decree issued by Gaozu Li Yuan, ordering that "monks, nuns, Taoists, and women's crowns should remain the same" (Volume 191). In April of the ninth year of Wude, Emperor Gaozu adopted Fu Yi's advice and ordered a large-scale clean-up and rectification of Buddhism and Taoism. Only three temples and two Taoist temples were reserved in the capital; There is one Taoist temple each, and all the rest are demolished; all the monks, nuns, Taoist priests, and women's crowns they belong to are returned to the vulgar and returned to their hometowns.The reason why Li Yuan did this was because the monastery economy was over-expanded at that time, and the team of monks and Taoists was extremely large. There were more than 200,000 Buddhist monks alone, which indeed constituted a considerable burden on the society. It is said: "The monks and nuns are detrimental to the country; the temples and pagodas are extravagant and waste money and silk." It can be seen that Li Yuan's elimination order is beneficial to the country, but it is nothing less than a disaster for Buddhism and Taoism at that time. Religious figures must have strongly opposed this reform. On June 4th, the day of the Xuanwumen Incident, Li Shimin impatiently issued an order in the name of Gaozu to let all Buddhist and Taoist monks who were forced to return to secular life return to monasteries and Taoist temples, and everything returned to the old system.This move undoubtedly greatly won the hearts of the religious circles, and at the same time it was a categorical negation of Gaozu's policy.Although Gao Zu's religious policy was in the national interest, Li Shimin overthrew it at the first time, which is enough to show how urgently he needs the support of public opinion.As the largest non-government groups in society at that time, Buddhism and Taoism were undoubtedly a powerful force of public opinion. The second fire is to "persecute the falcons and dogs in the forbidden garden, stop contributions from all directions, and listen to all officials to govern the way", that is, to release all kinds of birds and animals raised in the palace, and to stop paying tribute to rare treasures; Officials provide a channel to speak freely and express their opinions, so that their ideas have the opportunity to be heard directly, and then they may be promoted by leaps and bounds; this is of course to let all officials contribute to the country's future policies, but in fact it also encourages them to criticize the old policies. , Boldly speak out about the gains and losses of Gaozu's reign. The third fire was to release more than 3,000 court ladies in Ye Ting, and let them "return to relatives and let them be suitable for others", that is, let them go back to their hometowns, either to join relatives or choose a husband to marry. The above-mentioned measures, whether it is "restraining the eagle dog", "dismissing contributions", or "relegating all officials" and "releasing the court ladies", have very clear political orientation, which is to draw a line with the emperor Gaozu and expose the previous one. The various extravagances and abuses of the government in its governance fully demonstrate the reform courage and power of the new emperor, and establish the new government's "clean and honest, simple and few desires, people-oriented, and open-minded". image. As the debut of Li Shimin at the beginning of his administration, the three fires of Li Shimin can be said to be quite beautiful. Each new policy has benefited the corresponding target audience, so it quickly won wide support from all walks of life.The history books commented on this: "The government order is simple and solemn, and the Chinese and foreign countries are happy." (Volume 191) At the end of August in the ninth year of Wude, just as Li Shimin was about to go all out to govern the world, the northern border ignited the flames again. Jieli Khan of East Turkic was overjoyed when he learned of the coup d'état in the Li Tang Dynasty. He immediately dispatched more than 100,000 cavalry with Tuli to march southward from the direction of Jingzhou (now Jingchuan County, Gansu), and quickly approached Wugong (now Wugong, Shaanxi) County West).Li Tang's court was terrified, and the capital declared martial law. On the 24th, the Turkic forward troops began to attack Gaoling (now Gaoling County, Shaanxi Province) north of Chang'an.Li Shimin immediately ordered Yuchi Jingde to go to the front to defend against the enemy. On the 26th, Yuchi Jingde fought against the Turks in Jingyang (now Jingyang County, Shaanxi Province), defeated the Turkic forwards, captured its general Ashi Dewu, and beheaded more than a thousand people. However, Yuchi Jingde's victory did not stop the Turks from invading southward. On the twenty-eighth day, Jieli Khan personally led a large army to the north bank of the Bianqiao on the Weishui River, and approached the city of Chang'an. The sudden cloud of war instantly shrouded the Li Tang Dynasty, which had just undergone tremendous changes...