Text/Kingdom Building
If someone tells you that the King of Yan Luo in the Underground Palace and Li Jing, the King of Tota in the Heavenly Court, are the relationship between your uncle and your nephew, it is estimated that few people will believe it. However, this is indeed a very true thing, and the parties involved are the Sui and Tang generals Han Huhu and Li Jing, who are among the 72 generals of ancient China.
First, let's talk about the famous Sui Dynasty general Han Huhu, who was crowned the King of Yanluo. Han Huhu was a native of Dongyuan, Henan, and was born in 538 to a family of warrior generals. His father originally named him Han Baobao, and the parable was that he would be able to capture the beast and become a brave general. Who knew that when he was 13 years old, the naturally brave Han Bao Leopard actually captured a fierce tiger, which impressed his father and renamed it Han Huhu. When Han Hu became an adult, he entered the military camp and followed Yang Jian, a foreign relative of northern Zhou, in his southern expedition to the north, without any defeat, and became his confidant general.
In 581, Yang Jian declared himself emperor of Zhou and established the Great Sui. He ordered Han to be the vanguard of the rebellion against the Chen Dynasty, and followed Yang Guang, the King of Jin, in the war to unify China. As a result, Han Huhu made a great deal of power in this battle, personally led 500 strange soldiers to sneak into the capital of the Chen Dynasty, captured Chen Shubao, the lord of the Chen Dynasty, and forced more than 200,000 soldiers from Jiangnan to land, becoming the first hero of the Sui Dynasty to unify China. He was awarded the title of Shangzhu Guo (supreme commander of the ancient military armed forces, originally a military general defending the safety of the capital, and later the highest military attaché of the central government) by Emperor Wen of Sui, and was awarded the title of Duke of Shouguang County. After his death, the Tang and Song dynasties listed it as one of the 72 generals in ancient times.
How did Han Huhu become the King of Yan Luo? It's bizarre to say. One evening in December 592, an old woman near Han Huhu's house saw a group of people and horses standing at the door of Han Huhu with the honor guard of the emperor, and she asked these people what they were doing? Answered, the king of the receiving mansion was inaugurated. The next day the old woman told the story to the people in Han Hu's mansion, and the soldiers were furious, blaming him for his nonsense and beating the old woman. Han Baohu stopped, "I have achieved the Shangzhu Kingdom before I was born, and I can become the King of Yan Luo after I die, which is very satisfying." As a result, only three days later, Han Huhu died. Therefore, later generations honored Han Huhu as the king of YanLuo, built a temple for him, and worshipped him at four o'clock.
Let's talk about Li Jing again. Born in 571, Li Jing was a native of Sanyuan (present-day northeastern Shaanxi), and his mother was the sister of the famous Sui Dynasty general Han Huhu, so he was related to Han Huhu as a brother-in-law.
Li Jing not only looks like a talented person, but also has both culture and martial arts. As an adult, he relied on the power of his family to enter the official field and became a local official in Chang'an County during the Sui Dynasty. Although Li Jing was only a petty official of the Seven Pins, he had lofty ambitions and was tireless in learning. Yang Su, the prime minister of the Sui Dynasty, once held Li Jing's back and said, "My position now will be yours in the future." As a result, in the Tang Dynasty, Li Jing did indeed become the prime minister.
In 605, Li Jing served under Li Yuan, the Duke of Tang. Because of his resourcefulness and loyalty, he gradually became Li Yuan's confidant. When Li Yuan raised an army, it was precisely by adopting the strategy proposed by Li Jing and others to blackmail tianzi to order the princes, and supporting Yang You, the grandson of the Sui Emperor, as emperor (Sui Gong Emperor) in order to control the world, and finally established the Tang Dynasty.
In 618, Li Yuan accepted yang you's throne and established the Tang Dynasty, known historically as Tang Gaozu. At this time, Li Jing served under Li Shimin, the King of Qin, and served as the governor of Kaifu, assisting the King of Qin in quelling the rebellion at the end of the Sui Dynasty, and making great contributions to the unification of the Tang Dynasty. Tang Gaozu Li Yuan said happily to the ministers: "Li Jing is the anointing disease of Xiao Milling and Fu Gongyi, and the famous generals of ancient times ... none of them can compare with Li Jing!" "He was specially appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Lingzhou Road March to fight against the Eastern Turks."
In 630, Emperor Taizong of Tang appointed Li Jing (李靖), the head of the Army, as the commander of the Dao March, zhang vice-zhi, and led 160,000 elite troops to fight against the Eastern Turk regime, which often violated the tang border. Li Jing exerted his resourceful characteristics, won many battles, captured Jieli Khan, and the Eastern Turks perished in history. After the Return to the Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Tang made him the Right Servant of Shangshu (i.e., Right Phase).
In 649, Li Jing died at the age of 79. Before his death, Tang Taizong personally went to the sickbed to visit and comfort this old minister who had made countless contributions to the country.
How did Li Jing become King of Tota? It is said that after the death of the Duke of Weiguo (Li Jing's former knighthood), the people often saw his true body, and after the apparition of the Duke of Weiguo, the wishes of those who desperately wanted to be helped could be realized. Over time, the people of the world knew about it, and they deified it. In the late Tang Dynasty, even the emperor recognized Li Jing's status as a god and made him a great general guarding the Heavenly Palace. Later generations of writers have made some mythological descriptions of The Tota Heavenly King according to li Jing's prototype, forming the god we know now- Li Jing, the King of Tota.