In Chinese history, Li Jiancheng has always been a very peculiar existence.
The reason why he is peculiar, on the one hand, this historical figure is almost a household name. Anyone who knows a little about history, after seeing this name, will be associated with the change of Xuanwumen. But on the other hand, unlike many of us who imagine, in real history, whether it is the history of zhengshi or the history of the wild, there are actually very few records about the first prince of the Tang Dynasty.
There are only a few records of Li Jiancheng in the Old Book of Tang, the New Book of Tang, and the Zizhi Tongjian. In the history of the wilderness, there are also not many accounts of Li Jiancheng.
Of course, in the novel, there are many stories about the character of Li Jiancheng. After all, the things in the novel are just stories, and cannot be regarded as history. However, in this way, there is a very strange phenomenon: there are not many records about Li Jiancheng in the history books, but the image of this character often appears in novels or some contemporary film and television dramas.
This makes many viewers or readers think that they know a lot about Li Jiancheng. But in fact, even many historians still have a lot of doubts about Li Jiancheng.
So, what kind of person is the real Li Jiancheng in history?
According to historical records, Li Jiancheng was born in 589 AD, the ninth year of the Sui Dynasty. In the first month of that year, Yang Guang, the Sui Emperor who was still the crown prince at the time, led an army to attack jiankang (present-day Nanjing), the capital of the southern Chen state, and the Sui Dynasty completely unified the Central Plains.
In this year, Li Yuan, the Emperor gaozu of Tang, was 23 years old and had already inherited the title of Duke of Tang. According to historians, when Li Jiancheng was born, Li Yuan should have served as an assassin in Qi Prefecture (岐州, in modern Fengxiang, Shaanxi).
There are two important reasons why Li Yuan was able to occupy a high position in his early twenties. First, because Li Yuan was born into the Guanlong family, the ancestor Li Hu was one of the famous Western Wei Eight Pillar States, and the Li family was the core family in the Guanlong family. The second reason is that Li Yuan's mother was the sister of Empress Wen of Sui. In other words, Li Yuan was the nephew of Emperor Wen of Sui, and the later Emperor Yang Guang of Sui was a cousin.
Therefore, when Li Jiancheng was born, in today's terms, he was absolutely born with a golden spoon.
However, unfortunately, there is no record of Li Jiancheng's youth in the history books. Even in the history of the wild, it is a blank.
This is not difficult to understand. After all, Li Jiancheng did not become an emperor later, and his youth did not do anything too important, which naturally will not be recorded by historians. But from some of the things that happened later, we can still gradually infer the character of Li Jiancheng.
Relatively generous and benevolent.
After recording the birth year, the record of Li Jiancheng in the history books is almost unanimous, and it jumps to the thirteenth year of Daye at once. In this year, When Li Jiancheng was twenty-eight years old, Li Yuan began to raise troops in Taiyuan.
In the impression of many posterity, the Tang Dynasty is a dynasty that is very different from other dynasties. Because other dynasties, such as the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, were founding monarchs who immediately won the world and then let their sons do the world. But the Tang Dynasty is very different, the Tang Dynasty is Lao Tzu's army, and the son's peace of the world.
In the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan raised an army and then quickly pacified Guanzhong. In the next few years, the army led by Li Yuan's second son Li Shimin gradually swept the world.
Therefore, many people in later generations feel that most of the Tang Dynasty was fought by Li Shimin, and the emperor should be made by Li Shimin. Especially in some novels, Li Jiancheng was seriously smeared, becoming the eldest son who was only born a few years earlier than Li Shimin, greedy and promiscuous, without any virtue, and did not make any contribution to the establishment of the Tang Dynasty.
But in real history, this is by no means the case, and Li Jiancheng's contribution to the Tang Dynasty is actually not inferior to Li Shimin at all.
First of all, before Li Yuan decided to raise an army, Li Jiancheng had already begun to secretly make friends with local warriors in the area east of the Yellow River and accumulate strength. Later, after Li Yuan raised an army in Taiyuan, Li Yuan himself sat in Taiyuan, and then Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin's brothers led the army to take Chang'an little by little, and then pacified the entire Guanzhong region.
A year later, the Sui Emperor was killed by Yuwen and Yu Wenhe during the coup d'état in Jiangdu. In the same year, Li Yuan declared himself emperor in Chang'an and made Li Jiancheng crown prince.
From the beginning of Li Jiancheng's becoming the crown prince, a gap began to appear between him and Li Shimin.
What Li Yuan actually thought at that time was very simple: as a prince, Li Jiancheng was not suitable for rushing to the front line and leading his troops to fight. Therefore, in the next few years, Li Jiancheng's role was mostly to hold out in the rear, and then Li Shimin led the troops out to fight.
For example, in the third year of Wude, Li Yuan ordered Li Shimin to lead an army to recruit Wang Shichong, and Li Jiancheng led an army to defend Puzhou to prevent the Turks from attacking. In the subsequent battles, Li Shimin also fought a hard battle, and then Li Jiancheng defended in the rear.
But in this way, Li Jiancheng encountered a very difficult problem.
Although he was a prince, his own military merit was far inferior to That of Li Shimin.
In fact, the biggest tragedy in Li Jiancheng's life is that he has a younger brother like Li Shimin. Because Li Shimin is really capable of fighting, Li Jiancheng is insignificant in comparison.
At that time, Li Jiancheng actually sensed this. Therefore, in the fifth year of Wude, when Liu Heimin, who had already been defeated by Li Shimin once, rebelled again, Li Jiancheng took the initiative to ask for help and went to recruit Liu Heimin.
But by this time, it was a little late.
Li Shimin, who gradually swept away Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong, and Liu Heimin, had already gained somewhat too much prestige among the low-level soldiers and the people.
For this situation, on the one hand, Li Jiancheng himself also participated in the war, on the other hand, he began to make friends with the traditional Guanlong aristocratic clique as a prince, and recruited a large number of talents. For example, Wei Zheng, Pei Ning, Wei Ting, Li Gang, Xue Wanche and others who later had a great influence on the Tang Dynasty were all under Li Jiancheng's command.
After gaining the support of the Guanlong nobles, Li Jiancheng's position as crown prince began to be completely strengthened.
Seven years after Wude, with the complete sweeping of the Central Plains, Li Yuan, in order to maintain Li Jiancheng's position as crown prince, began to consciously weaken the power in the hands of Li Shimin and gradually removed the military power in Li Shimin's hands.
At that time, the struggle between the Prince's Mansion headed by Li Jiancheng and the Tiance Mansion headed by Li Shimin had gradually become clearer. Although Li Shimin was more prestigious among the low-level troops. But inside the court, Li Jiancheng had an overwhelming victory. The traditional GuanLong family, out of the need for family continuation, basically bets at both ends. However, on the surface, most of them are on the side of Li Jiancheng. Then let some of his descendants go to li Shimin's side.
With the support of this group of traditional Guan Long family, Li Jiancheng's advantages are getting bigger and bigger. In fact, before the Xuanwumen Incident, the reason why Li Shimin launched this coup d'état was because Li Shimin had no hope of becoming crown prince at that time. At that time, Li Jiancheng not only had his own direct subordinate Prince Liu, but also a part of the defenders of Chang'an, and could control at least more than 5,000 troops. In Li Shimin's hands, there were only some relatives and followers of the Qin Dynasty Palace, and the total number was less than a thousand.
In this struggle for the crown prince's throne, Li Jiancheng used more orthodox means. For example, through party struggle to fight for military power in the city, through Li Yuan gradually disintegrated the Qin Dynasty. Before the Xuanwumen Incident, most of the backbone of the Qin Dynasty, such as Fang Xuanling and Du Ruqian, had actually been expelled from the Qin Dynasty.
But Li Jiancheng did not dream that his brother was really a cruel person. In the matter of taking the wife, he did not take the conventional road at all, and directly thought of killing people.
In the ninth year of Wude, on June 4, the Xuanwumen Rebellion broke out.
At that time, Li Shimin first let his wife, the eldest grandson, the later empress dowager, contact the harem and make friends with the harem concubines. Then Li Shimin used this channel to speak to Li Yuan, saying that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuan's concubines had an affair. After learning of this, Li Yuan was furious and planned to call Li Jiancheng to come and confront him. However, Li Jiancheng, who had come to confront him, had just reached xuanwu gate when he was intercepted and killed by the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty Palace who were ambushed here. In the end, Li Jiancheng was shot by Li Shimin with an arrow. Li Yuan's third son, Li Yuanji, was also killed by Li Shimin's Lieutenant ChiGong during this coup.
It can be said that the success of the change of Xuanwumen is simply a coincidence.
Of course, there are many reasons behind the success of coincidences. For example, Li Shimin himself is bold enough, and he is indeed brave and martial. Moreover, at that time, most of the people around Li Jiancheng were mainly civilian officials. Most of the people around Li Shimin are generals from the bottom who have come up step by step.
In addition, the attitude of the Guan Long family at that time was also an important reason. For those old Guan Long families, it didn't matter who became emperor, they just supported the more powerful side. Therefore, after Li Jiancheng was killed, these Guan Long family members who originally supported Li Jiancheng almost did not think about it and turned to Li Shimin's command.
Anyway, to lose is to lose. After this coup, Li Shimin basically took control of Chang'an and forced Li Yuan to take the throne to himself. At that time, Li Yuan had no other choice. Because in addition to the three sons of Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Yuanji, Li Yuan's other sons, the eldest of whom was only eight years old at the time, did not have the ability to compete with Li Shimin for the throne. Coupled with the fact that Chang'an was already under the control of Li Shimin at that time, Li Yuan had no choice but to honestly hand over the throne.
After Li Jiancheng's death, all five of his sons were killed by Li Shimin. Five daughters, on the other hand, were able to die well. And Li Jiancheng's crown princess Zheng Guanyin, ye shi records that Zheng Guanyin was finally accepted as a concubine by Li Shimin. However, in the main history, this poor prince later lived widowed in Changle Gate until the time of Tang Xuanzong, and lived for seventy-eight years.
For Li Jiancheng, the evaluation of mr. Chen Yinke, a modern historian, should be the most pertinent.
However, Gao zu raised an army in Taiyuan, and Li Jiancheng and Emperor Taizong each led an army. As well as the crown prince, the bureaucrats he used, such as Wang Jue and Wei Zhengzhi, who were later the famous ministers of the rule of Zuocheng Zhenguan, can be seen that Li Jiancheng was also a man of intelligence.