The story of Li Jiqian
About Li Jiqian, the founder of the Western Xia Dynasty, there are some stories about him circulating among the people in Yinchuan and northern Shaanxi, some of which are obviously legendary appendages, but considering that there are always some exaggerated records of the founding emperor in history, Li Jiqian's story is still very pragmatic.
Li Jiqian was the son of Li Guangyu, the defense of Yinzhou at that time, but at that time his family was already a side branch of the Yinzhou Li clan, not a prominent one, the real power was his clan brother Li Jipeng this branch, but his mother Guangmu clan was born prominently, it is said that when Li Jiqian was born, there was a gorgeous rainbow in the sky, which may be true, because no one can verify, the history books also record that he was "born with teeth", which obviously does not conform to scientific laws, may be invented by posterity in order to highlight the genius of Li Jiqian. This is not surprising that there is a precedent in history. He was born on the banks of the Wuding River in northern Shaanxi, and later became a great hero of the Dangxiang clan, and people called the place where he was born Li Jiqianzhai, and hundreds of years later, this place gave birth to a peasant rebel leader - Li Zicheng.
Li Jiqian's mother has been strict with him since he was a child, and he himself is also intelligent and courageous, good at riding and shooting, very wise, so at the age of twelve, he came to the fore and served as an official who managed the affairs of Tubo, which can be described as a young fame, not only that, Li Jiqian was also very brave, legend has it that once he took more than a dozen people up the mountain to hunt, unexpectedly encountered a tiger that has always been fierce, others were shocked, only the young Li Jiqian was very calm, he was not afraid, but chased after the tiger and shot arrows continuously. In the end, he shot the tiger in the eye and successfully captured the tiger, and from then on, the clan members were impressed by Li Jiqian.
Li Jiqian Li Jipeng
Li Jiqian and Li Jipeng were both xiazhou people, that is, the dangxiang nobles of yinchuan in ningxia today, and they were brothers of the same ethnic group, but the two of them embarked on two completely different paths of life.
At first, Li Jipeng's prestige was greater than that of Li Jiqian, but he was short-sighted and had no great ambition, because he was not satisfied with the problem of his father establishing an heir, and therefore had a conflict with his brothers, he actually led a part of his loyal clan to submit to the Song Dynasty, and announced that he would unilaterally hand over a large area of land originally belonging to Western Xia to the Song Dynasty. In fact, Zhao Kuangyin was trying to annex the land of the Dang Xiang people in a peaceful way. Li Jipeng saw that the Northern Song Dynasty was good to him, and he accepted it with peace of mind.
However, Li Jiqian was very opposed to Li Jipeng's decision, and he saw very clearly that Xia Prefecture was the place where their Dangxiang people had lived for generations, how could they easily give it to others, and the land was the most reliable only in his own hands. So Li Jiqian sought the help of the Liao Dynasty, and the Emperor of the Liao Dynasty decided to help Li Jiqian in order to oppose the Northern Song Dynasty, so that there was a split within the party and the nobility, but Li Jiqian was obviously skilled, and he himself not only firmly controlled the control of Xia Prefecture, but also gained the right to manage it, and he also sat in the position of a high-ranking official.
Li Jiqian was very angry at Zhao Kuangyin's attempt to annex the land of the Dangxiang people, and Zhao Kuangyin's decision was undoubtedly a failure, this policy directly led to the hatred of the Western Xia against the Northern Song Dynasty, and later Li Jiqian's grandson Li Yuanhao finally directly tore his face with the Northern Song and directly became the founding emperor of the Western Xia.
How Did Li Jiqian die
It is said that Li Jiqian, the lord of the Western Xia Kingdom, could not help but feel proud because of his successive victories in the battle against the Great Song Dynasty, and this year he captured Lingzhou, but the officials below reported to him that Xia Prefecture had been in drought one after another, that there was no harvest of grain grain, and that the people were miserable. Li Jiqian thought that the world was stable now, and it was time to think carefully about the issue of handling grain, after all, grain is the foundation of a country.
So Li Jiqian ordered the Tubo people to build the, but the sky was unlucky, the embankment had just been built, the sky suddenly began to rain heavily, the river broke the embankment, and there was a flood, Li Jiqian was exhausted by the Lord, and the monks around him said that this matter was because the king had been fighting for years, and the heavens were punishing you. Li Jiqian was panicked when he heard this, so he used the Sandu case, which had a clever mouth and was good at managing the granary, to raise grain.
He was also responsible for transporting grain from Xiliang Province to Xia prefecture, but unexpectedly encountered harassment by Tubo cavalry on the way, because Li Jiqian also launched several wars against Tubo and mistreated Tubo's prisoners, so the Tubo army hated him. So the three capitals immediately fought and repelled the Tubo cavalry, but found that a bag of grain was missing. The Sandu case was afraid of being rebuked by Li Jiqian after returning to Xiazhou, so he went alone to grab grain, but unexpectedly fell into the enemy's ambush and was hacked to death by the enemy's knife.
When Li Jiqian learned of the death of sandu, he immediately rushed to support him, but was attacked by the Western Liang tribe. He himself was seriously injured in the eye, fainted several times, and before he died, he felt that his successive years of conquest had indeed displaced the people, and how he could calm the people's hearts without enough to eat, so he personally went to pay tribute to the Sandu case, and soon after, he himself died of serious injuries, at the age of forty-two.