In 626, in order to protect himself, Li Shimin was forced to launch the "Xuanwumen Rebellion" to kill his brothers Li Jiancheng, the crown prince, and Li Yuanji, the Prince of Qi. Tang Gaozu Li Yuan had no choice but to appoint Li Shimin as crown prince and entrust him with all the major affairs of the military state. Two months later, Li Yuan simply passed the throne to Li Shimin and retired to the throne himself as Emperor Taishang. When Li Shimin ascended the throne, history says that Emperor Taizong of Tang took the second year as the first year of Zhenguan.
After Emperor Taizong ascended the throne, he worked hard and made great efforts to create a prosperous era. He regarded the Sui Dynasty as a mirror, taking history as a mirror, and concluded that the demise of the Sui Dynasty was mainly because the rulers were so happy and meritorious that they did not know how to sympathize with the people. Therefore, he said to his ministers: "The king depends on the state, the state depends on the people, and exploits the people to feed the king, just like cutting off the flesh of the body to fill the hunger, and the stomach is full and the person dies." When the monarch is rich, the country will perish. ”
After gaining a clear understanding of the current situation, Emperor Taizong began to implement his own governing strategy. He successively adopted a series of positive measures in the political, economic and cultural aspects, thus creating an unprecedented prosperous situation in the Tang Dynasty, which is the famous "rule of Zhenguan" in history.
Tang Taizong's people-oriented and agriculture-oriented administrative program promoted the vigorous development of agriculture in the early Tang Dynasty and brought room for survival and development to other economic industries. In the past, the tradition of market trading was to be a market in japan, but during the Zhenguan period, due to the frequency of trading, this tradition was broken, and night markets appeared in the cities and morning markets were held regularly in the countryside. At that time, people who were engaged in business were all over the sea, and there were many big merchants with rich families, and medium merchants and small traders were even more brilliant, and the Hu merchants at that time were like stars. It has left a high reputation in history, and we can now glimpse the development of commerce and the prosperity of the people in the Zhenguan period from Tang legends, paintings and poems.
History records that in the early years of Zhenguan, the national population was less than 3 million households, when a horse of silk could be exchanged for a cow, but in the fourth year of Zhenguan (630), a bucket of rice was only worth four or five cents, only four years, social wealth increased sharply, life order was stable, people did not need to bring dry food for thousands of miles, taverns and hotels even if opened in remote areas, there was no worry about the source of customers. The emergence of this situation of prosperity and stability is inseparable from the rule of Emperor Taizong and Li Shimin.
Li Shimin's biggest feature is that he is good at attracting and using talents. The imperial examination system was founded in the Sui Dynasty, and Emperor Taizong inherited, developed, and perfected this system, making it one of the main ways to select talents during the Zhenguan period. At that time, the scientific examination took the promotion of the world's talents as the first priority, and an examination often could not test the true ability of each person, and the new examination system allowed candidates to self-recommend before the examination, and allowed people with prestige to recommend talents to the examiner.
This gives many people with real talent and practical learning the opportunity to enter the official arena and give full play to their talents. The soundness of the imperial examination system not only makes it unnecessary for talented people in the people to enter the official field by virtue of their doors, but also has the opportunity to hold important positions such as Shangshu and Prime Minister. The new imperial examination system broke the monopoly of the official field by the nobility and recruited many talented people for the country, resulting in a large number of Talents in the Tang Dynasty during the Zhenguan Period, and a large number of literary and martial elites gathered around Emperor Taizong, who made important contributions to the prosperity of the rule of Zhenguan.
According to the "Tang Dialect" written by Wang Dingbao of the Fifth Dynasty, Tang Taizong went to inspect the Yushi Mansion (the place where the Jinshi examination was held, and when he saw many newly adopted Jinshi fish coming out, he said triumphantly: "Heroes of the world, enter the middle of my life!" Once, Emperor Taizong ordered the chancellor Feng Deyi to recommend talents, but after waiting for a long time, there was no news, and Emperor Taizong was dissatisfied, and Feng Deyi said with grievance: "The talents of the world have all entered His Majesty's palace.
Li Shimin immediately corrected him: "Gentlemen use people like instruments, and each follows his own strengths." Since the ancients ruled, can they borrow talents from different generations? Suffering from the fact that you can't visit yourself, why weigh the world lightly?"
Tang Taizong's appointment of the virtuous can be as good as a stream, change as soon as they have been heard, and love the people as a son, which is the fundamental reason for creating the "rule of zhenguan".