In ancient times, the emperor held the power of life and death, can decide the life and death of anyone, if the emperor is a benevolent person, will not kill innocents, then everyone as long as they abide by discipline and law, careful behavior will not bring the disaster of killing, but if the emperor faints and kills innocents indiscriminately, then the poor people are the people of the world.
The emperor we are talking about today is a famous Ming Emperor in history, although the means of seizing the throne have been criticized by posterity, but I have to say that the merits he made in his later generations are still admirable, and this person is Tang Taizong Li Shimin.
In the sixth year after Tang Taizong ascended the throne, once when he was idle, Tang Taizong went to the prison to inspect the prisoners in prison, and at that time, he looked at the simple prisoners on death row in prison with torn clothes and ragged clothes, their eyes were godless, and they looked like they were going to die or not live, which was very pitiful. Although they had all committed the crime of killing their heads, after all, they were also their own people, and Tang Taizong was very sad, so he touched his benevolent heart at this time, wanting them to reunite with their families before they died.
So after returning from prison, Tang Taizong ordered that the four hundred death row prisoners in prison be released to visit their relatives, and agreed with them that after the autumn of the following year, they would return to receive punishment. As soon as the holy will came out, it spread throughout the country. And these lucky death row inmates all return home, reunite with their families, and share the last good life.
Speaking of which, many people must be wondering, will these death row inmates really all come back to die in the end? The answer is yes, after the autumn harvest of the following year, four hundred death row prisoners returned to prison without exception to receive punishment, and Tang Taizong was so relieved to learn of the final result that he ordered all these people to be pardoned.
So why did Tang Taizong do this? We all know that Li Shimin's process of obtaining the throne is not glorious, and if the king of the world wants to gain the support of the people, he must sit upright, but he obviously cannot erase this stain. Therefore, after Li Shimin ascended the throne, he began to reshape his own image, wanting to let his people know that he was a good emperor who was kind and loving to the people and listened to the will of the people.
Re-image remodeling is not an overnight affair, and of all the efforts made, the release of death row prisoners to visit their relatives is one of them, which has proved to leave a very good impression on the hearts of the people. However, many people in later generations did not approve of Li Shimin's move, because once these released death row prisoners did not return to be tortured according to the original agreement, it was likely to cause greater security risks to the people, and Tang Taizong's move was just a conspiracy to only consider his own image.
There is nothing wrong with the emperor wanting to reshape his image, and as an emperor, how could he not think of what would happen if the death row prisoner did not return? We must know that the various localities in the Tang Dynasty were hierarchical, every household needed to go to the hukou, the address and family of these death row prisoners would naturally be on the list, and even if the death row prisoner wanted to escape, he should also consider the safety of his family, probably because his escape brought more severe punishment.
Therefore, Tang Taizong's move was still very successful, gradually winning the support of the people and diluting the initial stained image.