People in ancient Chinese society have a ladder dream, namely the dream of Ming Jun, the dream of Qing Guan, and the dream of chivalry, that is, if you want to balance the world and the people live and work in peace and contentment, the most hope is to produce a Ming Jun, and in fact, the real Ming Jun in ancient times is really rare.
Qin Shi Huang unified China, but he practiced a tyrannical government, can only be regarded as a king, the Han Dynasty did have the rule of Wenjing called a prosperous world, and then the later unification, Jin is miserable, the five hu chaos, Sui is too short, the real Ming Jun is Tang Taizong Li Shimin, but he also has a stain that can not be erased in his life, that is, killing his brothers to force his father to abdicate. So what did Li Shimin do to cover up this stain?
We can see some hints through the tomb of Li Jiancheng excavated in Xi'an and the 55 characters engraved on the tombstone, and we can also interpret Li Shimin's personality from the side.
Generally speaking, the inscriptions of the tombs of the tang dynasty royals will be engraved with information such as names, titles, identities, and merits, but when it comes to Li Jiancheng, his life and merits are not there, that is to say, his tombstones are incomplete, and this incompleteness is caused by Li Shimin, after all, history and merits are written by the victors.
Precisely because we can't see Li Jiancheng's exploits on the tombstone, we will look for it again from the history books and talk about Li Jiancheng in combination with some wild history miscellaneous records.
1. Li Jiancheng in the history of Yanyi Ye
In the Sui and Tang Dynasties that we are familiar with as children, Li Jiancheng is a clumsy image of jealous of xianxian ability and no battle achievements. However, whenever he led his troops to fight, he basically could not win the battle, and then waited for Li Shimin to clean up the mess, and he often disregarded state affairs and repeatedly used tactics to frame the generals of the Qin Royal Palace on the battlefield, resulting in a critical battle, the most obvious one was to let the famous die-hard loyalist of the Qin Royal Palace, "Cold Face Cold Gun Pretty Luo Cheng", be pierced by ten thousand arrows.
Seeing that many people here strangled Luo Cheng's wrists and hated Li Jiancheng's behavior to the bone, in fact, Luo Cheng's character was fictional, and the war in which Luo Cheng participated in the conquest of Liu Heimin was won by Li Jiancheng's army personally, and Li Jiancheng did not depose the public for personal gain. Therefore, later generations are not only the history of the right history, but also the novel's interpretation has been greatly influenced by Li Shimin's successful performance in suppressing Li Jian.
Second, Li Jiancheng in the main history
Next, let's look at the Li Jiancheng described in the main history, these may not be all, but at least Li Jiancheng's life and achievements. In the main history, Li Yuan's rise to the army was Li Shimin's suggestion, and at the same time, with Li Jiancheng's strong support, Li Tang was established, and Li Jiancheng's military achievements were indeed inferior to Li Shiming's, but things such as taking charge of government affairs, raising military supplies, and sitting in the rear can be said to have been completed beautifully, at least Li Yuan was very satisfied.
In terms of recruiting talents, whether it was a civilian or military general, those who were loyal to Li Jiancheng were not much less than those who were loyal to Li Shimin, and the famous advisor Wei Zheng was once a loyal staff member of the Crown Prince's Palace. At the time of the change of Xuanwu Gate, the strength of the Prince's Mansion also once had the upper hand under the leadership of Xue Wanche and other generals, and if It were not for Li Shimin's capture of the thief and the king to capture Li Jiancheng, it was really difficult to say who would die.
In general, Li Jiancheng's ability to govern government affairs is not weak, and his ability to lead troops may not be as good as Li Shimin's, and as far as his life is concerned, it is not completely devoid of remarkable points.
Third, Li Shimin's personality
It may be that Li Shimin also realized in his later years that the throne should be fought for, but family affection is still precious. When giving Li Jiancheng a nickname, he rejected the "戾" suggested by his subordinates, and also denied the "spirit" that had been set for Li Jiancheng before, after all, these two titles were undoubtedly evil, and the last "hidden" word became Li Jiancheng's theory of covering the coffin.
From here, we can also see that Li Shimin's exploits for this elder brother can not be known to the world, but he himself does not deny it, nor does he think that Li Jiancheng is a completely evil person.
In the matter of fixing the number, in fact, we can still see Li Shimin's guilt for his brother's family, but in the face of imperial power, not arguing means losing everything.
Throughout the Tang Dynasty, his conquest was not a bad thing for the people of the world, because his coup d'état did not shake the foundation of the country, and during his reign he also reused many talents who had once been the prince's mansion, which did not cause political chaos, and the rule of Zhenguan was praised through the ages, so we say that Li Shimin is a flawed emperor of the ages.
Looking back, Li Jiancheng's tombstone, the entire stele did not smear Li Jiancheng's description in the slightest, if Li Shimin only hated him, just blindly falsified history, then it is conceivable that this stele is likely to leave Evidence of Li Jiancheng's absurdity and jealousy, obviously all this does not exist. From this, we infer that the good side of Li Shimin's personality is actually greater than the desire for power.
Summary: Since ancient times, the regime and politics involved have been extremely dark, but often the emperor who just blindly pursues power is not a Ming Emperor. Because this kind of emperor's attention to the people of Li min is far from enough, and Li Shimin has done both, the author believes that he is still a good emperor.