In China's more than two thousand years of feudal history, the founding kings of successive dynasties have been very famous, from Qin Shi Huang to Ming Taizu, and even those dynasties that are not unified, all the founding emperors occupy a certain position in history. However, the two emperors of the Qing Dynasty, Nurhaci and Huang Taiji, seemed to be slightly inferior.
Strictly speaking, the Qing Taizu Nurhaci was the founder of the Qing Dynasty, not the founding emperor, and the regime at that time was still called Houjin. After Emperor Taiji succeeded to the throne, he changed his title to Emperor and set the name of the country Daqing. Therefore, Emperor Taiji was the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the founding emperor.
Among the twelve emperors of the Qing Dynasty, Huang Taiji was definitely an excellent emperor, and he did not lose to the later Kangxi and Qianlong. He pacified Mongolia, conquered Korea, and attacked Daming, laying a solid foundation for the Qing Dynasty to enter the Customs and unify the Central Plains, so to speak, without the Emperor Taiji, there may not have been such a dynasty in history as the Great Qing, and it will be replaced by Li Zicheng's Great Shun Dynasty.
Since Emperor Taiji had such a great merit, why in history his fame was not as good as that of Han Gaozu Liu Bang, Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, and Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang? Analyzing, several reasons are important.
First, the life expectancy is not long, and the death is sudden
Emperor Taiji ruled for a total of 18 years, divided into two stages. The first stage was from 1626 to 1635, during which he was the Great Khan of Houjin, with the era name tiancong; the second stage was from 1636 to 1643, when The Emperor Taiji was officially called Emperor, the name of the country was Daqing, and the era name was Chongde.
In the first stage, the power of The Emperor Taiji had not yet reached its peak, and the three great Baylors (Daishan, Amin, and Mang Gultai) still had a lot of influence. Moreover, during this period, the Later Jin regime also faced many challenges, the Mongol tribes were not completely annexed, the Joseon did not submit, the Manchu-Han contradictions became increasingly fierce, that is, the Ming Dynasty army, which had repeatedly suffered defeats, also greatly increased its morale after the First World War in Ningyuan, and the call for recovering the lost land in Liaodong was very high.
In the second stage, the Emperor Taiji sat alone in the south, gradually disintegrating the power of the three baylors, and also pacifying Mongolia and Korea, and the only fierce enemy was the Ming Dynasty. Although the Chongde dynasty was only a short period of eight years, Emperor Taiji fully demonstrated his political and military ability, and with the defeat of the Ming army, the entry into the Central Plains was just around the corner.
Unfortunately, because of the death of his favorite concubine Hai Lanzhu, Huang Taiji's sleeping and eating were wasted, coupled with his fat body and cardiovascular diseases, Emperor Taiji died in the eighth year of Chongde at the age of 52.
Only a year later, in 1644, Dorgon led the Eight Banners iron horse into the pass, and the capital was Beijing. Although Huang Taiji worked hard and worked hard, he did not wait for this day, it can be said that the predecessors planted trees and the people after the people cooled down, so that the six-year-old Fu Lin picked up a big bargain.
Second, there was no real establishment of a unified dynasty
Although Huang Taiji was officially called emperor, there was actually no difference between him and the Later Jin Khan, the area he ruled during his lifetime was limited to Liaodong, and the Ming Dynasty and even the Han people did not recognize him as an "emperor", which meant that the name was not justified, and even in the minds of the Han people, his status was not as good as Li Zicheng.
The emperor who did not establish a unified dynasty naturally carried a much lighter weight. It is conceivable that if Zhu Yuanzhang did not wait until the time to unify the Central Plains and establish the Ming Dynasty, but died, but his son completed the great cause of reunification, then Zhu Yuanzhang's fame would not be so great.
Some people may dismiss this statement, believing that the Northern Song Dynasty is actually a completely unified dynasty. In fact, the concept of the Post-Jin regime and the Northern Song Dynasty is completely different. The areas ruled by the Northern Song Dynasty were the "ham hearts" on the map of China, and these areas had always been the political, economic and cultural centers of China, so the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty was not large, but it was the center of Chinese civilization, and there was not much difference between it and the great unified dynasty.
The regime ruled by Emperor Taiji did not cross the Great Wall, and in the hearts of the Han people, it was always a "barbarian", and like other minority regimes, it could not talk about Chinese orthodoxy at all. If it were not for the later Qing Dynasty's dingding of the Central Plains, then Emperor Taiji would undoubtedly be like Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji and Xia Jingzong Li Yuanhao, who was nothing more than a leader of an ethnic minority regime.
Third, there is more than enough martial arts and insufficient civil rule
The Later Jin regime outside Guanwai was still in the transition period from slavery to feudalism, and the system lagged far behind the Ming Dynasty. Nurhaci and Huang Taiji were both wizards in military terms, and the Eight Banners Army was also invincible, but slightly deficient in civil rule.
Although Emperor Taiji was superior to Nurhaci in governing the country, when he ruled, he emphasized martial arts and light literature, although he studied the Ming Dynasty's vigorous reform of the official system and reused Han intellectuals such as Fan Wencheng and Hong Chengzuo, he was still a military general in his bones.
In the evaluation of an emperor, Wenzhi martial arts are two indispensable and important factors. Even the Qin Emperor Han Wu was considered by later generations to be slightly inferior to WenCai, a generation of Tianjiao, Genghis Khan, but he only knew how to bend the bow and shoot the big eagle, let alone the Emperor Taiji.
History cannot be assumed, but sometimes it can be properly imagined. The author believes that Huang Taiji has the quality of an excellent emperor, if he lives a little longer, even if he is given another five years, then he is not only the founding emperor of the Qing Dynasty, but also the first emperor to enter the Central Plains, with this capital, he can compete with Song Taizu and Ming Taizu.