In my long period of historical creation, there are many people about the prince being forced to rebel, such as Emperor Wu of Han's crown prince Liu Zhao was forced to rebel, Tang Taizong's crown prince Li Chengqian was also forced to rebel, and so on, almost can be summed up in a historical law, that is, Ming Jun's prince is difficult!
To a large extent, these princes may not have had any major problems in themselves, but the emperors had great problems that led to this tragedy. Especially the prince of the Ming Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty, it can be said that it is even more difficult!
Li Shimin is recognized as a relatively enlightened emperor in Chinese history, but there is some controversy about Li Shimin's evaluation, because Li Shimin's path to the throne is not glorious, and it was only by killing his brother that he forced his father to ascend the throne, which was a great rebellion in ancient times.
Because of this, Li Shimin attaches great importance to the cultivation of heirs and hopes that historical tragedies such as the change of Xuanwumen will not be repeated.
However, contrary to wishes, Li Chengqian's historical performance is not as good as Li Jiancheng's and Li Shimin's generation, so there are still certain problems in Li Shimin's education.
This article uses the rebellion of Li Chengqian, the crown prince of Tang Taizong, to see the problems of imperial education in the Tang Dynasty.
Why did Li Chengqian, who had been the crown prince for seventeen years, rebel?
In order to publicize Li Shimin's wisdom, many people attribute all the problems to Li Chengqian, believing that li Chengqian's stubbornness is the result, "The foolishness of Chengqian, the Holy Father cannot move."
In fact, this is inappropriate, Li Chengqian was made crown prince for seventeen years, and finally embarked on a road of rebellion, it is impossible to say that Li Shimin has no responsibility at all, or that royal education has no responsibility at all.
Tang Taizong had a total of 14 princes, and in the early Tang Dynasty, the distinction between concubines was very serious, of which the 3 sons born to Empress Changsun were the most valued by Tang Taizong and the sons who were most likely to inherit the throne, they were the eldest son Li Chengqian, the fourth son Li Tai, and the ninth son Li Zhi.
Tang Taizong was very optimistic about Li Chengqian, and when he took the throne, he made Li Chengqian the crown prince, hoping that Li Chengqian would not become Li Jiancheng's second, and when Li Chengqian was just crown prince, history recorded that he was "intelligent and sensitive in nature, and Emperor Taizong loved him very much."
If Empress Changsun did not die, it was estimated that the imperial throne would be properly taken by Li Chengqian, but when Empress Changsun died ten years after Zhenguan, it was a blow to both Tang Taizong and Li Chengqian, and had a profound impact on the internal relations of the imperial family.
It was precisely because of the death of Empress Changsun that Li Shimin's favor for Li Chengqian gradually decreased, and the negative news about Li Chengqian was increasing.
The negative news about Li Chengqian has the greatest impact, first of all, the life style is not good, there are records that Li Chengqian", "selfish luck is too often happy children to be happy, and lie down with the same bed", to put it bluntly, there is a tendency to like boys;
Secondly, Li Chengqian often imitated the Turkic way of life, "Buchen shouted at war, stabbed and bled, and thought it was entertainment", probably playing more openly, and the scale was a bit large.
Of course, these are not the most important, the most important thing is that Li Chengqian has repeatedly made suggestions to the teacher, and even said that he wanted to harm the teacher, which caused Li Shimin's great dissatisfaction.
In fact, these manifestations of Li Chengqian, in today's terms, belong to adolescent rebellion, and may also be caused by Li Chengqian's inner inferiority, Li Chengqian is a lame, seriously speaking, a cripple, in Chinese history, many princes have permanently lost the possibility of inheriting the throne because of physical disability.
It is impossible for Li Chengqian not to feel inferior, under these pressures, but also in a period of rebellion, it is naturally easy to make some out of line moves, and even be used by others.
In the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Chengqian, who was only 24 years old, colluded with Li Yuanchang, the king of Han, Du He, Hou Junji, and others, and planned to start the battle to force the army to force the palace, and the matter was exposed and the rebellion failed.
Among them, especially Hou Junji, they were all human spirit level, and Li Chengqian rebelled with them, obviously being deceived.
It can be said that Li Chengqian became the crown prince from the early years of Zhenguan, became the crown prince for seventeen years, and as a result, he will eventually embark on the road of rebellion, not his own pot, from which we can see the problems in the imperial education of the Tang Dynasty.
How was the imperial education system of the Tang Dynasty structured?
Li Shimin, a monarch who had experienced the succession of the Sui and Tang dynasties, was well aware of the importance of royal education, and once said to his attendants: "The ancient emperors, born in the palace, and their adults, are all arrogant, overthrow each other, and rarely can help themselves." "I have to say that Li Shimin is still very good at education theory.
In view of the brief and rapid demise of the Sui Dynasty, Li Shimin immediately invested a huge amount of information into the imperial education after he ascended the throne.
When the crown prince was young, the enlightenment education was completed by the concubines of the harem themselves, to put it bluntly, it was in a state of sheep herding, but do not think that this shows that the Tang Dynasty did not pay attention to "early education", in the Tang Dynasty period was the door valve politics, can be named as a concubine level of women, who themselves were born from the rich family, with a good education, this can be seen from the eldest grandson empress, Wu Zetian.'
When the crown prince is older, he will go to the "primary school" for primary study, which is a royal educational institution established during Li Yuan's time.
After the completion of the primary education stage, it begins to study in the middle and high education institutions, the intermediate education stage is the HongwenGuan, in the Hongwenguan, there are many bachelors to tutor the teaching of the princes, the advanced education stage is the Chongxian Pavilion, which is also the Tang Dynasty Royal Library, mainly selecting 20 people to study here.
Hongwenguan and Chongwenguan adopted the same form of education as the official guozijian who should have dealt with the imperial examination at that time, and adopted the method of teaching in large classes, with a teacher speaking there and a group of students listening there, and the difference between imperial education was that the lecturers were all Confucians.
Of course, the fundamental purpose of royal education is not to improve the level of the entire royal family, but to serve the education of the prince, Li Shimin believes that the prince is "born in the deep palace, long in the hands of women, has never been worried, has no reason to be elegant", and the other princes are the accompaniment of the Education of the Eastern Palace.
It was not until these princes became princes that there were special supporting people responsible for education.
The crown prince has a special education system in the Eastern Palace, and usually he also has to go to the HongwenGuan and chongwenguan to enjoy the same treatment as the prince and "walk out of the deep palace".
In Li Chengqian's education, Li Shimin chose the teacher's mistakes
In fact, in the final analysis, Tang Taizong did not think of an education system that could be deepened into an institutional heir to the emperor, and in the end, the core of the prince's education was to find the emperor's teacher, and the training of the prince was completely pushed to the prince's teacher, which was a bit heavy.
Therefore, Tang Taizong was very attentive to the selection of the prince's teachers, and the selected teachers were carefully selected, either loyal old ministers or erudite Hongru, who had selected Xiao Yu, Li Gang and others as the prince's teachers for Li Chengqian in the early years.
In the early days of Li Chengqian's tenure as crown prince, he had great respect for the teachers of the Eastern Palace, for example, when Li Shimin appointed Li Gang as the young master of the crown prince, because of a foot disease, Li Chengqian also personally helped him to the temple, and the relationship between teachers and students was quite harmonious, and after Li Gang's death, Li Chengqian even personally erected a monument for him.
However, when selecting teachers in the Eastern Palace later, Li Shimin made a major mistake, and although many teachers had the talent to learn, they still carried private goods when they were educating the prince, and had a deeper purpose.
Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties of Wei and Jin, the literati have always been high and high, and they like to gain fame in the form of strong advice, and the most famous should be Wei Zheng.
Therefore, Wei Zheng was also once the prince's teacher, but at that time, Wei Zheng was relatively old, just a pseudonym, but this did not prevent some teachers in the prince's teacher team who liked to be strong, especially Li Shimin also appreciated this way of education, thinking that the prince's teacher could advise, which was a responsible performance.
Yu Zhining, the teacher who succeeded Li Gang after Li Gang's death, wrote to Li Shimin three times because of Li Chengqian's problems and made severe criticisms, which is the teacher that Li Chengqian wanted to kill as mentioned above.
After Yu Zhining, Li Baiyao, Du Zhenglun and others also advised Li Chengqian, but the most intense should be Kong Yingda and Zhang Xuansu, who saw that Li Chengqian's life style was constantly declining, and began to make strong advice, the so-called strong advice, in fact, under the guise of advice, to carry out severe criticism.
And this kind of criticism is often after the prince's teacher criticizes it again, And Li Shimin immediately carries out in-depth "repairing the knife", so that Li Chengqian, who is in adolescence, has resistance, and even says angrily, When I become the prince and someone advises me, I will kill him for hundreds of people, just fine.
It can be said that on the issue of selecting the prince's teacher, Li Shimin failed, and the teacher played a central role in educating the prince, and if the teacher failed, there was no hardcore!
As Li Chengqian's father, Li Shimin himself has major problems
In fact, from the selection of the prince's teacher, we can see that the emperor who once launched the Xuanwumen revolution and killed his brother and forced his father to deal with things still likes to solve problems in a rough form.
Li Shimin's education method does not take into account Li Chengqian's inner feelings, criticism of education is inevitable, but it is also necessary to teach according to aptitude, as mentioned earlier, Li Chengqian is a disabled person, and there is a sense of inferiority in his heart.
As an outstanding ruler, Li Shimin was able to accept criticism from the bottom of his heart, and his acceptance of the advice of Wei Zheng and others was actually to show his own image of a character who humbly accepted criticism.
As the crown prince, Li Chengqian had achieved nothing in the first place, and he was also criticized by Li Shimin everywhere for being simple, rough, and severe, which eventually led to Li Chengqian's self-abandonment.
However, can Li Shimin really tolerate the accusations of public opinion? In fact, he could not accept that in his later years, he wantonly revised the history books and beautified his own image, and finally left such a majestic monarch image.
From this point of view, Li Chengqian's education is still Li Shimin's own problem.
Fundamentally speaking, Li Shimin ascended to the throne in the image of killing his brother and forcing his father, which inevitably led to later generations to follow suit, and Li Shimin not only did not think of a way to avoid it, but also invisibly promoted the possibility of repeating the change of Xuanwu Gate.
Li Shimin liked Li Tai the King of Wei very much, and usually gave Li Tai a large reward, and in all aspects of the specifications were not inferior to the crown prince, at that time the ministers were a bit unable to look at it, and advised Emperor Taizong that you were too partial to the King of Wei, making him "more than the crown prince".
In fact, this is a very dangerous thing, think about the situation before the change of Xuanwumen, Li Shimin's practice is simply intended to make history repeat itself, Li Shimin's behavior, in fact, also made Li Tai have illusions, thinking that only by overthrowing the prince, the emperor is his.
Li Chengqian also thought that his father planned to make Li Tai the crown prince, which was why he was lured to launch a rebellion, if there was no such thing, why couldn't Li Chengqian wait for a few more years?
summary:
Li Chengqian, who was the crown prince for 17 years and finally embarked on the road of rebellion, was to a large extent inevitably related to Li Shimin's educational failure.
The Tang Dynasty's education of the crown prince can be said to be the most failed in all dynasties, and Li Chengqian is not the first, and definitely not the last, in this kind of palace coup for power.