Chapter 13 A Genius Politician: Li Yuan's Generosity

On June 18th of the thirteenth year of Daye, the Turkic Minister Kang Shanli came to Taiyuan under the order of Shibi Khan.In addition to bringing the Khan's condolence letter, he also brought a thousand horses. The Taiyuan officers and soldiers were so excited that their eyes lit up. But they soon lost their excitement. Because these horses were not given away for free, they were specially brought by Kang Jiaoli to sell them. This situation is somewhat similar to our international affairs today.Every war-torn hotspot in the world usually has some political powers active in front of the stage and behind the scenes. On the surface, they all claim to maintain world peace and regional stability. From time to time, they will urge the United Nations Food Program to distribute However, their enthusiastic meddling purposes are nothing more than two: first, to expand their country's influence in international affairs and seek political interests; second, to secretly peddle arms and seek economic interests.

Because political powers are usually also armed powers, every hotspot is their coveted arms market. Now Kang Siaoli is here to sell arms.In the era of cold weapons, the Turkic warhorse was undoubtedly the most advanced F-22 fighter jet in the world at that time. Looking at these sturdy fighter jets, Li Yuan's eyes couldn't help but shine. But the price of this batch of goods is really high, and it will take a huge sum of money to buy them all. Of course Li Yuan has the money, so it's not a problem to buy it all. But Li Yuan didn't do it. Because there are still many places to spend money in the future, Li Yuan doesn't want all his money to become Turkic profits.

For this reason, he thought of a way - credit. This is what we call installment payment and credit consumption today.Li Yuan only picked the 500 strongest horses among them, paid the money, and then made a shy look to Kang Jiaoli.Seeing this, the officers and soldiers under him thought that Mr. Tang was short of military expenses, and all asked to buy the remaining 500 horses out of their own pockets.Li Yuan waved his hands at them with a smile, and said privately: "The barbarians have a lot of horses, and they are greedy. After we buy a batch, they will bring another batch. Can you finish the purchase? The reason why I only want half is because Show them that money is tight, and the other is to prevent them from feeling that our needs are urgent. Don't worry, I want the 500 horses too, but instead of paying in cash, I will pay on credit instead of you. "The officers and soldiers suddenly realized.

Only 50% of the turnover has been completed, and Kang Shanli is in trouble.Would it be impossible to pull the remaining five hundred horses back all the way?Not only would it be troublesome, but people would laugh at them when they went back.Kang Jiaoli hesitated for several days, and finally had no choice but to ask Li Yuan to keep all 1,000 horses with a down payment of 50% and credit for the balance. Li Yuan laughed secretly in his heart, saying that half of the payment was paid first and the balance was owed on credit, but in fact the balance must be nothing in the end.What a deal! At the end of June of this year, Li Yuan's troops were already strong and ready to move south at any time.

But before going south, Li Yuan must ensure the safety of the rear, that is, prevent the Turks and Liu Wuzhou from attacking Taiyuan.For this reason, Li Yuan specially sent Liu Wenjing to the Turks. The ostensible purpose was to ask the Turks for military support, but in fact it was to observe the attitudes and movements of the Turks, and at the same time prevent and contain Liu Wuzhou.Before Liu Wenjing left, Li Yuan specially told him: "Huqi's entry into China is a great disaster for the people. The reason why I want to borrow troops from the Turks is to prevent Liu Wuzhou from invading the border. So you have to remember that joining forces with the Turks is just It’s just a bluff, as long as a few hundred people are enough, more is useless.”

Liu Wenjing comprehends it - the alliance with the Turks is just to stabilize them, not to really rely on them! In order to achieve the goal of stabilizing the Turkic people, after Liu Wenjing arrived at the Turkic royal court, he offered Shibi Khan very favorable cooperation conditions. He said: "Once your army assists our army to enter Chang'an, the land of the people will belong to Tang Gong. The gold, silver, jade and silk belong to the Turks." Shibi Khan was overjoyed. What a deal!As long as you give Li Yuan a few hundred people in exchange for a lot of wealth in Chang'an, why would the Turks not do it?

Shibi Khan immediately sent an envoy to tell Li Yuan: This deal is done!His soldiers are on their way!Obviously, Li Yuan and Liu Wenjing are "generous to others".Because Chang'an's wealth does not belong to Li Yuan, but to Yang Guang. But this does not prevent Li Yuan from issuing it as a bad check. I don't know if it can be fulfilled, anyway, let's talk about it first. All worries about the future have been relieved, and Li Yuan can finally go south with all his strength. On the fourth day of July in the thirteenth year of Daye, Li Yuan appointed Li Yuanji as the general of Zhenbei and stayed behind in Taiyuan, and handed over all the military and political power to this young son to guard the rear base.On the fifth day of the lunar new year, Li Yuan swore an oath in Jinyang, issued a call to denounce Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty, and at the same time spread the call to the Sifang counties.Li Yuan denounced Yang Guang in his call-to-action, saying that he "decorated himself as a good sycophant, refused to advise and believe in slander", "excessive patrolling, poor soldiers and extremely martial arts", so he fell into the situation of "relatives and rebellions", and led to "ten world, nine for thieves" dire situation.In the end, Li Yuan declared that, as an important minister of the country "the forbidden soldier of Dian Xiaowei and the guard of Tang Zhi Da Yu", he could not bear to witness the perilous situation of "the waves of the four seas vibrate and the ice pan (pan), the dust of the five mountains flies and the land collapses". Instead of "promoting the teacher of the king of diligence" and "abandoning the faint and making the bright", he supported Yang Guang's grandson, the thirteen-year-old acting king Yang You as emperor, and then "released the queen (Yang Guang) in Jiangdu, and restored the former emperor ( Yang Jian)'s achievements". ("Datang Entrepreneurship Daily Note")

On the same day, Li Yuan personally led 30,000 elite soldiers to set off from Jinyang, officially embarking on the journey of God's career. Li Yuan arrived in Xihe County on the eighth day of the lunar new year.As soon as he arrived in Xihe, Li Yuan immediately did what he thought was the most important thing. That is - tidy up people's hearts. While comforting the people, he gave them a large number of officials.According to historical records, Li Yuan sealed more than a thousand officials on this day.This may have been the day he had the most appointments in his life. Until he later became emperor, all the directly appointed officials probably did not add up to this many days.

On this day, Li Yuan first granted all the local elders over the age of seventy official titles, that is, honorary official positions with official titles but no official power.Next, Li Yuan worked tirelessly to give official posts to all the young talents who flocked to him. How do you know that they are young talents and not thieves? It is said that Li Yuan's method is oral interview, that is, interview in person.While asking the other party what abilities he had, he swiped his pen and wrote down the official title corresponding to his ability on a piece of paper, and then this person was regarded as an official.In other words, as long as you are not mentally handicapped or dumb, and you can casually say what talents you have, you can get the corresponding official position.So in one day, there are more than a thousand officials, big and small, in this small Xihe City.

Everyone was overjoyed, never thought that being an official was so easy! So the atmosphere in Xihe City was very lively on this day, everyone was happy and smiling.After those more than a thousand young talents returned home with that flimsy letter of appointment, they must have been very proud, and they must have been quite ashamed of their predecessors. Using more than a thousand pieces of paper to buy the hearts of the whole city of Xihe, Li Yuan's move can be described as brilliant.To put it bluntly, he wrote more than a thousand bad checks.To put it more harshly, this is the generosity of others!You must know that the thirteenth year of Daye was still the year name of the Sui Dynasty, and Li Yuan himself still worshiped the Zhengshuo of the Sui Dynasty.Although Xihe County was occupied by Li Yuan at this time, it was still ruled by the Sui Dynasty in principle, so - Li Yuan's appointments were all officials of the Sui Dynasty.

Soon after, the rebels successively occupied Huoyi, Linfen and other counties, and Li Yuan did the same wherever he went.Left and right couldn't help persuading Li Yuan, "Will it be too much to appoint an official?" Li Yuan replied: "The Sui court was too stingy with officials and titles, so they lost people's hearts. Why should we follow suit? Besides, using an official position to clean up people's hearts is not as good as Would it be better to use a knife or a gun?" Nine hundred years later, Machiavelli in the West said: "If you are seizing the king's power, it is very advantageous to be praised as generous... For those things that are neither yours nor your people, you can do whatever you want." Can be a very generous benefactor...Your generosity will only add to your reputation, not damage it." (The Prince) Obviously, at this point, Machiavelli is definitely Li Yuan's bosom friend across time and space. On July 14, Li Yuan led his troops to Jiahu Fort (now north of Fenxi County, Shanxi).Fifty miles to the south of this fort is Huoyi (now Huozhou City, Shanxi Province) where Song Laosheng was heavily guarded by Huyalang in the Sui Dynasty.Behind Huoyi, Qu Tutong, a famous general of the Sui Dynasty and Zuo Wuhou, was waiting in full force in Hedong County (now Yongji City, Shanxi) on the east bank of the Yellow River, echoing Song Laosheng. Li Yuan, his son, and the soldiers knew very well that what lies ahead will be a real test. It is absolutely impossible to beat Huoyi as easily as fighting Xihe. Therefore, Li Yuan, who was always cautious, was not in a hurry to launch an attack.It happened that it rained heavily for several consecutive days, which was not conducive to the siege operation. Li Yuan took advantage of this gap to replenish supplies and ordered people to go back to Taiyuan to escort a month's supply of food and grass.During these days of waiting for the rain to stop, Li Yuan did not rest.He made a comprehensive judgment on the strategic situation he was currently facing. Then Li Yuan thought of someone. A great man. A leader of the rebel army who was the most prominent among the separatists at the time. He is Li Mi. Li Yuan knew that if he wanted to go westward to Guanzhong smoothly, he had to stabilize Li Mi in the east of Tongguan, just like he had to stabilize the Turks in the north before going south from Taiyuan. For this reason, Li Yuan tentatively wrote a letter to Li Mi. He knew that Li Mi, a great man, had always regarded himself very highly, so he had already thought of a way to deal with Li Mi. Sure enough, Li Mi quickly replied with a coquettish letter.The letter said: "Although my brother and I are not of the same branch, we have the same surname Li. I know that I am not strong enough, but thanks to the love of heroes from all over the world, I have been promoted as the leader of the alliance. (Yang You) in Xianyang, and killing Shang Xin (Yang Guang) in Muye, wouldn’t it be a good thing?” The implication is, if you hit your Xijing, I’ll hit my Luoyang, we don’t offend the river! He also added in the letter: If you want to sign a non-aggression treaty, then you can only bring a few thousand steps and come to Hanoi County (now Qinyang City, Henan Province) in person, and you and I will sign the treaty face to face. Li Yuan was overjoyed when he saw the letter, and Li Mi's reaction was exactly what he wanted most.He smiled and said to the left and right: "Li Mi is self-inflated, and he regards himself as the boss. I am going to go all out to enter Guanzhong. If I break with him immediately, I will make another enemy. It is better to be humble and flatter him. Be more proud, help us guard the pass of Hulao, drag the army of the Eastern Capital, and let us concentrate on the westward expedition. When we have settled the pass, guarded the dangerous point, recharged our energy, watched the snipe and clam fight, and reaped the benefits of fishermen, when the time comes It's not too late to clean him up!" Li Yuan immediately ordered Wen Daya to reply a letter, saying: "The world is in chaos today, and we need a co-lord. Who else can this person be besides you! This old man is over half a hundred years old, and I don't have this ambition, but I am very happy to support you." Brother, climb the scales of the dragon, attach the wings of the phoenix, I hope that the brother will respond to the prophecy (chen) soon, and the people will be stable! You are the leader, I hope you will still seal me in the old place of Taotang because of our clan, so that I will be very happy Satisfied." When Li Mi saw the letter, his arrogance was beyond words, and he asked people to pass the letter to the generals, saying: "Even Duke Tang recommended me like this. It seems that the world will be settled soon!" From then on, Li Mi developed a good impression of Li Yuan, and the two sides exchanged letters frequently. Li Yuan smiled. Just between the swan geese going back and forth, and the exchange of pen and ink, he has successfully eliminated a potential rival with cheap sugar-coated shells.In other words, successfully turning an enemy into a friend. Real masters are often low-key, and never stingy to put a high hat on others. Real politicians are also often generous, never stingy with giving people empty promises. Li Yuan is such a master and statesman. Whether it is a high hat or a blank check, they all have the same feature-cheap. If you want to take it, you must first give it.Masters and politicians throughout the ages are very good at applying Lao Tzu's philosophical thought to practice and deepening it.Their deepening is reflected in the fact that the things they "give" are often cheap, such as high hats and empty checks; while the things they "take" are often of great value, even priceless, such as people's hearts and the world. At the moment when people are fascinated by the cheap gifts, the masters have won the hearts of the people, and the politicians have played around the world! In this sense, in the life-and-death game of heroes competing for the throne at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the reason why Li Mi was quickly eliminated and why Li Yuan finally won was no accident.As far as military capabilities are concerned, it is difficult to determine which is higher and which is lower.But in politics, Li Mi is definitely no match for the genius politician Li Yuan.