Comparing Tang Dynasty Emperor With his ancestor Li Shimin, it is definitely incomparable. However, this comparison itself is a recognition of the Tang Dynasty Sect by later generations, at least he is qualified to compare with a male lord like Li Shimin.
The life of Emperor Tang dynasty can be described in four words.
The Lord of ZTE.
It was precisely because of the existence of Li Yu that the Tang Dynasty later survived for more than a hundred years. If there was no Tang Dynasty Emperor, it is estimated that the Jiangshan that Li Yuan and Li Shimin father and son worked so hard to lay would have come to an end for more than a hundred years. But at the same time, Li Yu's ability is relatively limited. Although the integrity of the Tang Dynasty was temporarily maintained, it did not fundamentally change the many ills of the Tang Dynasty at that time. As a result, for more than a hundred years, the name of the Tang Dynasty is still there, but it has little sense of existence in history.
Li Yu was born in the fifteenth year of the New Century. When he was born, the Tang Dynasty was at its peak in the Kaiyuan heyday. At that time, it was his grandfather Li Longji who was in power, and this year Li Longji was 43 years old, which was the time when he was rich and powerful. But who would have thought that just over a decade later, during the reign of Li Longji, a chaos in an anshi would completely destroy this prosperous world.
When Li Yu was born, his father Li Heng was not yet a prince, but was only crowned as the King of Zhong. It was not until Li Yu was 11 years old that his father was crowned prince for various reasons. However, this did not affect Li Yu's favor, Li Yu has been very popular with his grandfather Li Longji since he was born. When he was 15 years old, he was given the title of King of Guangping County.
But in 755 AD, Li Yu's good days came to an abrupt end. In this year, with The Rebellion of An Lushan at Fanyang, the An Shi Rebellion broke out. This year, Li Yu was 18 years old. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had been in peace for a long time, so after the Anshi Rebellion broke out, it quickly affected the interior. Coupled with a series of riotous operations by Tang Xuanzong himself, the rebels broke through Tongguan and threatened Chang'an in just a few months. As the Son of Heaven, Li Longji also had to leave Chang'an at this time and flee to Shudi to make other plans.
As the emperor's grandson of Li Longji at that time, Li Yu naturally escaped from Chang'an City with his grandfather. However, after the team left Chang'an, Li Yu's father, Li Heng, the crown prince at the time, launched a mutiny with the forbidden general Chen Xuanli, forcing Tang Xuanzong to execute Yang Guozhong and Yang Yuhuan' brothers and sisters.
This is the famous Ma Songyi Mutiny in history.
After the Ma Songyi Mutiny, although Tang Xuanzong was still emperor, he had already lost real power in the mutiny, and was forced to appoint his son Li Heng as the Grand Marshal of the Terracotta Army and preside over the counter-rebellion. The family parted ways from then on, with Li Longji continuing to enter Shu, while Li Heng took his son Li Yu and some loyal generals to the north to fight the rebellion in Lingwu. Soon after lingwu, Li Heng established himself as emperor, and Yaozun's father Li Longji was made emperor taishang, and the history was called Tang Suzong.
When Dad became emperor, it should be a good thing. However, for Li Yu at that time, this position was more of a responsibility than glory. Because at this time, the Tang Dynasty is the time when the wind and rain are fluctuating, and it may be overthrown by the Anshi rebels at any time.
Then came the years-long counterinsurgency war.
In this counterinsurgency war, Li Yu, as the crown prince, took the lead. On the contrary, it is the old father Li Heng, who has always been in the rear, in the middle of the dispatch. Objectively speaking, to quell the chaos of Anshi, if we look at it from the perspective of military merit alone, Li Yu, who is a son, is indeed stronger than Li Heng, who is a Laozi. From this point of view, the situation of Li Heng and Li Yu's father and son is very similar to that of Li Yuan and Li Shimin when the Tang Dynasty was founded.
In the course of the battle against the rebels, his prestige increased as Li Yu regained Chang'an and Luoyang. In 758, three years after the Outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, Li Yu was made crown prince. In 762, Emperor Suzong of Tang died of illness, and Li Yu ascended the throne, known as Emperor Tang of Tang. In the same year, Shi Chaoyi was killed, and the Anshi Rebellion was finally put down.
Emperor Tang of The Tang Dynasty can be said to be the greatest contributor to the suppression of the Anshi Rebellion. Of course, this is mainly due to the full efforts of his powerful subordinates, such as Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi, and Gugu Huai'en and others. However, although the Anshi Rebellion was put down, it left a huge hidden danger for the country. It was this hidden danger that led to the Tang Dynasty, although it lasted for hundreds of years, but its ability to control the local area became lower and lower.
The name of this hidden danger is called the feudal town division.
At the time of quelling the Anshi Rebellion, the top brass of the Tang Dynasty gave great power to the generals everywhere in order to quell the rebellion as soon as possible. And for those rebel generals, as long as they surrender, they are basically not pursued. This caused many local generals to quickly grow larger in their respective domains and form independent small kingdoms. Moreover, in this process, Li Yu reused eunuchs, especially Cheng Yuanzhen and Yu Zhao'en, two courtiers, who were all cultivated by Emperor Tang Dynasty.
A feudal town was divided, and a eunuch's tail was not broken, and these two headaches that later accompanied the Tang Dynasty for a hundred years began here with Li Yu.
The practice of reusing eunuchs and serving as military supervisors was not initiated by Emperor Tang Dynasty. It already existed during the period of Tang Xuanzong and Tang Suzong. After all, this situation of An Lushan was in front of him, and it was beyond reproach for the emperors to limit the power of the military generals. However, during the Tang Dynasty, Li Yu began to make the eunuchs more and more powerful. By the late Tang Dynasty, eunuchs even had the ability to depose emperors.
In addition, Li Yu also reused the adulterous Xiang Yuanzai. Although in the end he killed Yuan Zai, these examples were enough to show that Li Yu was such an emperor who was not very good at using people.
The evaluation of Li Yu in the main history is very different, and the evaluation of Li Yu in the Old Book of Tang is quite high. Li Yu was evaluated as "the sage of the ancients, who failed to reach this". However, the Evaluation of Li Yu in the New Book of Tang is more objective. This evaluation is in Mandarin, that is, he can only be regarded as a qualified emperor, but if he wants to pull the Tang Dynasty out of this chaotic world and return to prosperity and strength, his ability is still far from enough.
Objectively speaking, Li Yu can indeed be called a lord of ZTE, and he has contributed greatly to the continuation of the Tang Dynasty. However, during Li Yu's reign, although he put an end to the Anshi Rebellion, he failed to change some of the fundamental problems of the Tang Dynasty. For example, li yu failed to make breakthrough changes on the issue of the feudal town, the problem of the military system, the problem of taxation, the problem of the administration of officials, and so on.
The An Shi rebellion, ostensibly because of Tang Xuanzong's Li Longji's credulous belief in adultery, made An Lushan rebel with heavy troops. But in fact, the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion was actually a problem with many systems in the Tang Dynasty at that time. For example, the army system, at that time, the border generals of the Tang Dynasty, almost most of them were foreign. Moreover, because the territory of the Tang Dynasty was too large at that time, Tang Xuanzong had to change the conscription system originally implemented by the Tang Dynasty to a conscription system, so that the power in the hands of the border generals quickly expanded, and they had the opportunity to have their own concubine army.
In this kind of bad army system, even if there is no An Lushan, in the future, Zhang Lushan and Li Lushan will jump out and rebel, giving The Tang a fatal blow.
Compared with the damage caused by the Anshi Rebellion, these institutional problems were actually the fundamental problems of the Tang Dynasty at that time. But unfortunately, Li Yu, the lord of the Tang Dynasty's Zhongxing, did not cure the symptoms but not the root causes. Although the Anshi Rebellion was put to rest, there was basically no change in these fundamental issues. This also made after Li Yu's death, the situation in the Tang Dynasty not only did not improve, but worsened.
If compared with Tang Taizong Li Shimin, Li Yu is indeed a lot different. From the perspective of military merit alone, Li Shimin is definitely more capable of fighting than Li Yu, and Li Yu's military merits are mainly based on his few powerful subordinates. Li Shimin was very good at fighting himself, and he was able to fight better than all the generals of his time.
From the perspective of appointing talents, Li Shimin is much stronger than Li Yu. During the reign of Li Shimin, there were basically no particularly famous courtiers in the court. However, during Li Yu's reign, the number of traitors was relatively large. This is enough to show that Li Yu's vision of people is indeed not good.
From a governance point of view, the two sides are even less comparable. During Li Shimin's reign, he pioneered a series of new systems. It was these systems that laid the foundation for the Tang Dynasty's strength. On the other hand, although Li Yu quelled the Anshi rebellion, he basically did not touch on the most fundamental institutional reform of the country, but left a mess for future generations.
In general, Li Yu is a qualified ZTE lord. Without him, the Tang Dynasty would never have been able to extend the State Zuo for another hundred years. But if compared with Li Shimin's level of male lord, Li Yu is still too much worse.