Chapter 33 The Death of Liu Wenjing: Cracks and Foreshadowing

The autumn of the second year of Wude was destined to be an eventful year for the Li Tang Dynasty, because before the fall of Bingzhou, something very unpleasant happened to Li Yuan in the court of Chang'an. Someone is going to rebel and lose his head because of it.In this ever-changing world, head loss is common, but this time it was unusual. Because this head fell from the body of an important court official. To be precise, this person is the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Tang Dynasty, the founding father of the country, and the hero of the first uprising in Jinyang.He is Liu Wenjing.

Liu Wenjing actually rebelled?is it possible? Yes, this thing sounds unbelievable.But Li Yuan and the imperial court indeed beheaded Liu Wenjing on this charge. Why did a dignified founding father and first hero come to this point?What does Liu Wenjing's death mean to the new Tang Dynasty? Everything has to be said from the beginning. Both Liu Wenjing and Pei Ji were the main planners of the Jinyang uprising, and they were Li Yuan's right-hand men from the very beginning, and their contributions to the founding of the Tang Dynasty can be said to be indistinguishable.But in terms of personal relationship, Li Yuan and Pei Ji are good friends, while Liu Wenjing has a closer relationship with Li Shimin.Therefore, in Li Yuan's mind, Pei Ji's importance is naturally slightly higher than Liu Wenjing's, so Pei Ji's status is naturally higher than Liu Wenjing's.When Li Yuan opened the Grand General's Mansion, Pei Ji was appointed as the Chief History Officer and Liu Wenjing was appointed as the Sima; when Li Yuan entered the customs and became the Prime Minister, Pei Ji was transferred to the position of the Chief Minister of the Prime Minister's Mansion, and Liu Wenjing was also transferred to be the Sima of the Prime Minister's Mansion; Shangshu Youpu shoots, Liu Wenjing worships Nayan... Basically, in Li Yuan's political and military group, apart from Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin, Pei Ji has always been the number one figure, while Liu Wenjing has always been second.

Will Liu Wenjing be convinced? He refused to accept. Of course he refuses to accept it!He has always believed that his talent and courage are superior to Pei Ji's, and he has made more military achievements than Pei Ji, so why does Pei Ji always overwhelm him?As the saying goes, if there is injustice, there will be a cry, and of course Liu Wenjing will also cry!In the first year of Wude, when Li Yuan came to the throne, he often sat and ate with Pei Ji.Liu Wenjing immediately seized the opportunity to play Li Yuan and said: "Your Majesty's king came to Yizhao, and he led the land. In the past, the emperor of Jin and Yuan ordered Wang Dao to sit on the throne. Wang Dao declined and said: 'If the sun bows down to all things, how can all living things look up!' Now that the noble and the humble have lost their position, I think it is not a long-term way."

Li Yuan immediately heard the sourness in Liu Wenjing's words.He smiled, since you, Liu Wenjing, have learned to insinuate and dropped the book bag with me, then I might as well drop it with you.He smiled and said to Liu Wenjing: "In the past, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu slept with his old friend Yan Ziling. Ziling pressed his feet on the emperor's stomach. Emperor Guangwu just laughed it off. Now all the princes are highly respected, and they are all my old friends. The joyful reunion in the past should not be forgotten anyway! Please don’t mind it.” Emperor Li Yuan protected Pei Ji everywhere, and ignored Liu Wenjing's advice at all, and even retorted a bit. How could Liu Wenjing not mind?In the following days, Liu Wenjing began to openly sing against Pei Ji in the court hall.Whatever Pei Ji agrees with, he must oppose, and whatever Pei Ji opposes, he must agree with.From then on, the two broke openly and turned against each other.

After the defeat of Qianshuiyuan, Liu Wenjing was dismissed as the main responsible person. Although he later followed Li Shimin to level Xue Renguo and was promoted to Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs due to his meritorious service, his status was not as good as before.He was at least a prime minister when he was Na Yan before, but now he has a very different status compared to Pei Ji.The more Liu Wenjing thought about it, the more angry he became, and he often drank his sorrows with his younger brother, Liu Wenqi, who was then the regular attendant of Tongzhi Sanqi.Once drunk, Liu Wenjing actually drew a knife and slashed at a pillar, cursing angrily: "One day I will cut off Pei Ji's head!"

However, before Liu Wenjing chopped off other people's heads, her own head fell off first. Speaking of it, it happened by accident, and it can only be said that Liu Wenjing had bad luck.Just when he was full of complaints and depressed, some weird things happened in his family for no reason.Liu Wenjing suspected that it was a demon, so he asked Liu Wenqi to help him find a wizard to dispel the demon.It's not a big deal to ask people to get rid of demons, but this wizard likes to pretend to be ghosts. For several days in a row, he did it in the middle of the night under the half-bright and half-dark starlight, with disheveled hair and a sharp knife in his mouth. Demon, in fact, he himself is more like a demon.It's no big deal for wizards to pretend to be gods and ghosts, but yet another family member reported on Liu Wenjing, and gave some embellished descriptions and ulterior motives for his request for wizards to get rid of demons.The ultimate goal of all depictions and explanations is—rebellion.

Things suddenly became serious.Originally, Pei Ji was worried about not being able to catch Liu Wenjing's pigtails, but this time, it was his own family who sold him, so who else could Liu Wenjing blame? The informer was a concubine of Liu Wenjing, who fell out of favor because of jealousy with other concubines, so she simply falsely accused Liu Wenjing of treason and punished him to death.All the accidental factors that were most unfavorable to Liu Wenjing seemed to come together suddenly.So we can only say that Liu Wenjing has suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck this time - it is impossible not to die!

Li Yuan immediately arrested Liu Wenjing and ordered Pei Ji and Xiao Yu to be the presiding judges.Knowing that Pei Ji and Liu Wenjing are not in common, Li Yuan's intention is self-evident when he asks Pei Ji to try the case. During the interrogation, Liu Wenjing made this confession: "At the beginning of the first righteousness, the minister served as Sima, and his status and prestige were similar to that of the chief minister Pei Ji. Now Pei Jigui is a servant and owns a mansion; but the official position and rewards of the minister are different from those of ordinary people. It's no different. When the minister was fighting east and west, the old mother and her family stayed in the capital, and the minister didn't have time to take care of it. So the minister is really dissatisfied, and he complains when he is drunk."

Li Yuan took Liu Wenjing's confession and said to the officials at the court meeting: "Guan Wenjing's words clearly mean rebellion." In fact, all civil and military officials in the Manchu Dynasty knew that Liu Wenjing fell into this situation not because he wanted to rebel, but because he offended the emperor Pei Jipei, who was a big celebrity in front of the emperor, and he also offended the emperor. .In other words, he is purely the loser in the power struggle.That being the case, who would dare to speak for him?So the vast majority of people remained silent, only Xiao Yu and Li Gang spoke out for Liu Wenjing.They all insisted that Liu Wenjing had absolutely no intention of treason.

In the end Li Shimin stood up and defended Liu Wenjing repeatedly. Li Shimin said: "When I was in Jinyang, it was Liu Wenjing who first proposed the strategy of raising righteousness, and then told Pei Ji. When they conquered the capital, the trust and treatment they received were too different. Liu Wenjing may have been disappointed. But never dare to rebel!" Why did Li Shimin defend Liu Wenjing? The superficial reason is, of course, that Li Shimin speaks out of public interest and righteousness, but the deeper reason is that Liu Wenjing is now the number one assistant minister under King Qin's account, and Li Shimin's most effective political assistant.As early as the eve of Jinyang's rise of troops, Liu Wenjing and Li Shimin had cherished each other, and their relationship was extraordinary; in July of the first year of Wude, when Li Shimin was appointed as the marshal to conquer Xue Ju, Liu Wenjing was the long history of the marshal's mansion; When he was Wei and concurrently Shangshu Ling of Daoxingtai in Eastern Shaanxi, Liu Wenjing once again served as the left servant of Daoxingtai in Eastern Shaanxi.To put it bluntly, Liu Wenjing is not only the Minister of Civil Affairs of Emperor Li Yuan, but also the best friend of Qin Wang Li Shimin.

It is impossible for Li Yuan not to be aware of this, and of course it is even more impossible to remain indifferent. Therefore, the favor and reuse of Pei Ji and the alienation and belittling of Liu Wenjing are not simply due to the depth and depth of old friendship in Li Yuan's case. A small group, even if the leader of this small group is his own son Li Shimin; furthermore, Li Yuan will never allow any of his subjects to transfer the loyalty that should have been dedicated to him to other places, even if this subject is Neither can Liu Wenjing, the founding father! Based on the above reasons, Li Yuan will never let Liu Wenjing go. Therefore, Li Shimin came forward to defend Liu Wenjing, not only would it be impossible to save Liu Wenjing, but it would strengthen Li Yuan's judgment on these matters and his determination to make an example of others. In order to help Li Yuan make his final decision, Pei Ji said to Li Yuan repeatedly in private: "Liu Wenjing's talent and wisdom are indeed beyond ordinary people, but he has a mild and dangerous temperament, and his rebellious words are well known. , if you forgive him now, it will cause trouble later!" Although Li Yuan had already made a decision in his heart, the imperial edict to kill Liu Wenjing was suppressed in his hands for many days.Judging whether a founding hero should be killed is not only testing the wisdom of the emperor Li Yuan, but also testing his emotional intelligence. Because the emperor is also a human being, if he wants to kill a hero, he will inevitably feel a lot of intolerance deep in his heart. But no matter how much he couldn't bear it, the edict to let Liu Wenjing's head fall was finally issued from Li Yuan's hand. On the sixth day of September in the second year of Wude, Liu Wenjing and Liu Wenqi were beheaded together, and their family property was confiscated. Before the execution, Liu Wenjing looked up to the sky and sighed: "The high bird died, and the good bow was hidden, so it is worthwhile!" In fact, Liu Wenjing's last words were nothing more than an angry sigh.As we have said before, the reasons for his death were by no means so simple.The truth is—Liu Wenjing's existence seriously threatened the political interests of the two most powerful people in the Li and Tang Dynasties. First of all, the emperor Li Yuan, when he realized that the wings of a small group were gradually growing under his nose, he certainly couldn't just sit idly by. The second is the chief prime minister, Pei Ji. In the face of Liu Wenjing, a political opponent whose talent and achievements are not inferior to his, of course he will not do nothing. Therefore, when the two most powerful people in the Li and Tang Dynasty decided to let a person die in the third watch, he would definitely not survive the fifth watch! The death of Liu Wenjing was the first event in which a hero was killed since the founding of the Tang Dynasty.This incident undoubtedly cast an ominous shadow on the Tang Dynasty, which was full of sunshine.At the same time, this incident also carved a deep rift within Li Yuan's ruling group—more precisely, between Li Yuan and Li Shimin's father and son. Once this political rift appears, it will never be smoothed over.As the Li and Tang Dynasties wiped out all the heroes and unified the world, this rift continued to expand; when Li Yuan and his sons completed their mission of eradicating foreign enemies and consolidating the political power, this invisible rift turned into a terrible abyss In the end, the family relationship between Li Yuan and his son was completely broken.In this sense, the death of Liu Wenjing in the second year of Wude has actually laid a subtle and far-reaching foreshadowing for the "Xuanwu Gate Change" in the ninth year of Wude.