The vast majority of the founding emperors of successive dynasties were a generation of heroes with outstanding talents. In the chaotic world of sword and soldier disturbance and chaos, they can defeat many powerful opponents and ascend to the emperor's throne, they need to overcome many unimaginable difficulties, they must make the right choice at every critical juncture, and they must be impeccable in the way of employing people, the way of using soldiers, personal prestige and influence, etc., in order to reach the peak of success step by step, and their ability can be imagined.
However, Li Yuan, the emperor of Tang Gaozu, was an outlier among many founding emperors. Some people call it the founding emperor with the least sense of existence, and some people call it the most nested founding emperor. This is mainly because many people have the impression that the world of the Tang Dynasty seems to have been fought by his son Li Shimin, who only sat back and enjoyed his success, because of the success of people, he was able to become emperor by having a good son. In many historical film and television literature works, Li Yuan's image is also a vain appearance, hollow belly, and only pretending to be a nest of waste images.
In fact, this view is a complete misunderstanding. As a founding emperor, Li Yuan's talent and merits were comparable to those of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, and Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of Song Taizu. It is just that his son Li Shimin of Tang Taizong has long been the protagonist of the commentaries, which can be called radiant and brilliant, and his influence in the folk is far higher than that of Li Yuan, which has led to Li Yuan, the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty, becoming "black under the lamp" and being completely covered up in the shadow of Li Shimin's tall image.
To be fair, Li Yuan is no less than Li Shimin in terms of his personal ability, historical evaluation, and historical status. As the Cambridge History of China's Sui and Tang Dynasties says, Li Yuan's front is a Sui Emperor who is known for his insolence and ignorance, and behind him is Tang Taizong, who is known for his wisdom and divine martial arts, both of which are the two most eye-catching figures, and Li Yuan is "sandwiched between the reigns of the two most prominent figures in Chinese history", which is less noticeable.
In fact, the Tang Dynasty was founded in 618 AD, when Li Shimin was still a twenty-year-old hairy boy, regardless of seniority, prestige, influence, and talent were very limited, all relying on Li Yuan to support the overall situation, and driving the Tang Dynasty through the most difficult period. Li Shimin's ability is not as wise and divine as in the literary works, and in the first year of the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin took command and went out on a campaign, and was defeated by the Longxi warlord Xue Ju in the Battle of Shallow Water, and almost the entire army was destroyed. His military talents were also honed bit by bit through continuous study and practice.
A cultural relic left behind by the Tang Dynasty is enough to confirm that Li Yuan's talent is not inferior to Li Shimin. The Historical Numismatic Museum in the Shanghai Museum treasures a copper coin minted in the Tang Gaozu period of "Kaiyuan Tongbao", which was minted in the fourth year (621) of Tang Gaozu Wude. This cultural relic confirms that Li Yuan is a real historical great.
The promulgation of the "Kaiyuan Tongbao" was a major reform of the monetary system at that time by Li Yuan that had never been carried out before, and a major event of epoch-making significance in the history of China's monetary development. Before the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, successive dynasties have long followed the baht and two-baht monetary system since the Qin and Han Dynasties, with weight as the numismatic name and circulation standard. After the launch of "Kaiyuan Tongbao", the first decimal method of two, money, cents and centimeters was used as the measurement conversion standard, and this new system has been circulated for thousands of years, and today's monetary system is traced back to this.
At the same time, in order to cooperate with the issuance and application of the "Kaiyuan Tongbao", Li Yuan ordered the establishment of a special currency issuance management agency "Minting Supervision", the state unified control of the right to mint and issue money, the first concept of coin standardization, the establishment of coin weight, diameter, alloy ratio, named after "Tongbao", the unit is the text. These are unprecedented in the history of monetary development.
Through the issuance of "Kaiyuan Tongbao", Li Yuan reconstructed a scientific and reasonable currency circulation system that conformed to the actual situation at that time, and inserted a soaring wing for the economic take-off of the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin's future "Rule of Zhenguan" and other prosperous times actually depended on Li Yuan's reform of the monetary system, and also became a model for the issuance and circulation of currency in later dynasties, which can be described as "opening up peace for all the worlds", and with this alone, Li Yuan is a well-deserved historical great.
References: Old Book of Tang, A Brief History of the Development of Ancient Chinese Currency