In the long river of Chinese history, immediately after success, the hero turned his face, and there was an exclusive adjective called "rabbit dead dog cooking". But unlike the impression of ordinary people, there are not many emperors who have actually used this method, not even one-third of the founding emperors of all dynasties. Such a proportion can cause such a bad impact, and it is really speechless. Below we may wish to follow the main line of history to see who has used the "rabbit dead dog cooking" method in the end, and why it is used.
The beginning of the imperial dynasty: the Qin Dynasty, did not kill the heroes in vain.
The Qin Dynasty was the beginning of the era of the Chinese Empire and was an epoch-making dynasty. Although his founder, Qin Shi Huang, was very harsh on the people, he was very tolerant of those great generals who had beaten himself up, such as Wang Qi, Wang Ben, Meng Tian and Li Xin, and even Li Si, the minister who had monopolized power for a long time, and after gaining the world, he continued to give them trust: although Wang Qi and Wang Ben retired, Wang Li, the descendants of Wang Shi, still served in the army; although Li Xin was not prominent in the late period of the unification of the Qin Dynasty, he was not excessively punished, and he still lived peacefully, and later cultivated a generation of famous generals Li Guang Li Si had always been in the position of chancellor and had always influenced Qin Shi Huang with his own thoughts; not to mention Meng Tian, who had 300,000 Great Wall legions stationed at the border, was more favored than before. Therefore, although the Qin Dynasty held the title of "Violent Qin", it did not kill the heroes in vain.
The rise of the Han nationality: the Western Han Dynasty, killed some of the heroes.
The Western Han Dynasty is the source of the idiom "rabbit dead dog cooking". His founder, Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gaozu, within a few years of seizing the world, attacked Han Xin and Peng Yue, and forced away Han Wangxin and Lu Xie, the King of Yan, and forced Wang Yingbu of Huainan to rebel, seemingly killing the heroes. However, a closer look will find that Liu Bang's target has always been a king with a different surname, while other heroes have lived peacefully and have even been entrusted with heavy responsibilities by Liu Bang. For example, the military generals have Fan Duo, Zhou Bo, Guan Ying, and Cao Shan, and the Wenchen have Zhang Liang, Chen Ping, and Xiao He. Therefore, it is not comprehensive to say that Liu Bang killed the heroes. He purged the king with the surname of a different surname, just to have a stable Liu Clan Jiangshan.
The continuation of the Western Han Dynasty: the Eastern Han Dynasty, did not kill heroes in vain
Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was the top figure at that time, whether it was Wen Tao or Wu Luo, who could not surpass him at that time. The most famous battle of Kunyang, Liu Xiu dared to attack the enemy with an absolutely inferior force, which showed the strength of his military ability. After his conquest of the world, many famous generals who followed him got good results, such as Yao Qi, Ma Wu and others, who not only received official positions, but also gained trust, and could often persuade the emperor. There are also some meritorious families, such as the Geng family, which is famous and famous, and the Deng family, which is closely related to Liu Xiu, and have also become the descendants of Liu Xiu's family, and have been prominent for a whole era. In his later years, Liu Xiu also painted images of his heroes and hung them on the cloud platform of the Luoyang Southern Palace, known as the "Twenty-Eight Generals of the Cloud Platform". It can be seen that in the end, Liu Xiu's dynasty has never killed a hero in vain.
Discussed together: The Three Kingdoms, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, except for a very few phenomena, did not kill heroes
The Three Kingdoms, Wei, Jin, and Northern Dynasties were a period of reshaping the social structure after the Eastern Han Dynasty. During this period, the traditional clans almost monopolized the officialdom, whether it was a civilian or a military general, or even an emperor, almost all of them were born from the family clan. For example, the Cao clan and the Sima clan are all emperors from the clan. Therefore, the situation at that time was that the clan and the royal family ruled the world together, and the two relied very closely. Therefore, the emperor who wanted to kill the heroes did not have this strength. The nomadic regimes of the Northern Dynasty were mostly family-ruled situations, and it was not possible to kill heroes if they wanted to. So in that era, the heroes were still relatively safe.
Prelude to the summit: Sui Dynasty, the founding emperor did not kill the ministers, and the second generation of emperors is suspected of killing several
The Sui Dynasty was a Dynasty of Huhua Han Chinese that ended the great chaos of the Wei and Jin Dynasties. His founding emperor Yang Jian came to power by a coup, but soon after he ascended the throne, he began a unification war to destroy the Chen Dynasty, so he also had many famous generals in his hands. The most prominent of these are Han Baohu, He Ruobi and Yang Su. Among these three people, Han Baohu and He Ruobi both died of illness, while Yang Su was a general who had always been a top official of the Sui Dynasty. In the end, Yang Jian did not kill a hero. However, after the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang ascended the throne, Yang Su died inexplicably, and there are legends that he was killed by Yang Guang. If this is true, Yang Guang can be regarded as having killed the hero. One of Yang Guang's motives was to extinguish his mouth, because Yang Su was deeply involved in the dispute between Yang Guang and his brother Yang Yong for the throne, and he had a lot of secrets. If he didn't kill him, Yang Guang would never be at ease. Another reason is that Yang Su's talent is too superior, which causes the jealousy of the narrow-minded Yang Guang.
The pinnacle of the Imperial Era: the Tang Dynasty, which did not kill the ministers in vain
The founder of the Tang Dynasty, nominally Li Yuan, was Emperor Gaozu of Tang, but in fact it was Li Shimin of Tang Taizong who swept away the Four Yis. Emperor Taizong of Tang was a monarch with a fierce vision and strong strategic ability. Whether it is the understanding of the courtiers or the control of the courtiers, he has achieved the ultimate. Moreover, due to the lessons of the Sui Emperor, Tang Taizong would be careful in everything he did. The problem with the treatment of meritorious men was that Emperor Taizong of tang learned from the practices of Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, giving them rights and trust, and respecting them very much. Even he learned from Liu Xiu to make a "Ling Yan Ge Twenty-Four Heroes", which became a good story in the future. The only exception was Hou Junji, who was killed for plotting.
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms of the Complete Disintegration of the Clan: Always Beware of Ministers' Rebellion
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was an extremely chaotic era in history, with five dynasties replaced in just 57 years, while ten small separatist regimes appeared in the south. At this stage, the royal prestige was swept away, and almost all those who held military power wanted to be addicted to the emperor. Therefore, once the new emperor ascends to the throne, he will deal with his own heroes almost immediately. And the heroes naturally can't sit still, so rebellion happens from time to time. Let's roughly count these people: Later Liang Taizu Zhu Wen, who was once a rebel general under Huang Chao and was also a Tang Dynasty emissary; Later Tang Mingzong Li Siyuan, the banner of the rebels who killed Zhuangzong Li Cunxun; Shi Jingyao, the founding emperor of later Jin, who was forced to rebel by The Later Tang Emperor Li Congke; and Guo Wei, the founding emperor of Later Zhou, was also forced to rebel by the emperor of Later Han. Therefore, in this era, the emperor and the hero were suspicious of each other, but because each dynasty was too short, it always gave people a feeling of the following on the surface.
The golden age of the literati: the Song Dynasty, yue fei was killed in vain, but it was also limited to Yue Fei
The Song Dynasty inherited five generations of chaos, so the emperor was very careful about the handling of the heroes. In order to solve the problem thoroughly, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, adopted the practice of "releasing the military power with a cup of wine" and took back the military power of the military generals. Later, together with Zhao Pu, the prime minister, he formulated a series of policies that limited the ability of military generals to lead troops. In the era of Zhao Guangyi, Emperor Taizong of Song, he was even more spiritually "heavy on literature and light on martial arts", suppressing the military generals to the point of no dignity. But even so, the Northern Song Dynasty did not kill a single military general, and even the military general was defeated without punishment. However, the exception occurred during the Southern Song Dynasty, when Emperor Gaozong of song killed the great hero Yue Fei in exchange for peace with the Jin Dynasty, causing a thousand ancient injustices.
The Yuan Dynasty can be skipped, this is too pure nomadic dynasty, everything is different from the traditional dynasty, so we will not study it for the time being.
The last glory of the Han people: the Ming Dynasty, killed many heroes, but whether they were killed in vain is debatable.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was a man who never was soft on killing ministers. The bloody four major cases of the early Ming Dynasty beheaded more than 100,000 heads in total. But if you think about it carefully, you can also find Zhu Yuanzhang's helplessness. The Hu Weiyong case, the first of the four major cases, was caused by the fact that the Nobles of Huaixi, who were controlled by Hu Weiyong, were increasingly disrespectful to the emperor; the final case of the four major cases was caused by the increasing lawlessness of the great general Lan Yu, and even the ability to demolish the city gates of his own country. Zhu Yuanzhang's crown prince Zhu Biaoying died young, and the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty was the young Zhu Yunjiao. In order to suppress the Huaixi Xungui and the army, so that Zhu Yunjiao could have a stable country, Zhu Yuanzhang could only make this decision and slaughter the meritorious generals. Of course, this is excusable, but the practice is really too cruel. Zhu Yuanzhang's behavior was later deliberately processed by Qing Dynasty historians and became shocking, making people feel as if the emperor would raise a butcher's knife to his ministers.
The most important dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, has hardly killed heroes
The Qing Dynasty was a deeply Sinicized nomadic regime and the last dynasty in Chinese history. In the early days of his development, the generals in the army were almost all of the same tribe. Later, Wu Sangui let the Qing army enter the customs, and the power to conquer China suddenly became many Han generals who surrendered. With the folk customs of the nomadic people at that time, their rulers did not take the initiative to suppress the heroes. But there are exceptions, and that is Aobai and San Francisco. Ao Bai was "captured" by the Kangxi Emperor because of his arrogance in the court, while San Francisco was purged because of his plot. However, these people are also self-inflicted.
The above is just my personal simple statistics on the founding period of each dynasty. It can be seen that except for the Five Dynasties and the Ming Dynasty, almost no monarchs of other dynasties took the initiative to show their swords to the heroes. This may have upended some people's perceptions, but it is. It can be seen from this that our Chinese nation is a relatively tolerant nation, and there is no so-called "inferior root" imposed by many people.