How to deal with the founding heroes is a difficult problem that the founding monarchs of all generations will worry about. In the minds of many monarchs, this problem is often easy to go to extremes: if they do the same thing, the scholars will be chilled, and in the end it may directly affect the people's hearts and minds and lead to the collapse of the regime; if they are too generous and favored, they will inevitably abuse power and violate the law, resulting in a lack of rules and order, and may even lead to a change of regime.
In between, monarchs tend to make an either/or choice, and only a handful of people can find the best of both worlds. During the Spring and Autumn Period, after more than ten years of lying on the salary and tasting courage, enduring humiliation, Goujian, finally completed the counterattack, defeated Wu Wangfucha, and Xingyue destroyed Wu.
However, as the so-called people will change, after completing the counterattack and turning over as the master, Goujian, the king of Yue, also changed his previous composure and calmness, and became a faint king with a heavy suspicion - began to suspect that the ministers around him were going to rebel and become king.
And among them, the most reassuring thing that Gou Jian doubted was Gou Jian's "right-hand man" literature and Fan Li. The reason is very simple, these two people have helped the most in their counterattack and have the most outstanding ability, which makes Gou Jian feel afraid.
Feeling this seemingly innocent killing intent, the resourceful Fan Li also understood Gou Jian's thoughts at that time, in line with the idea that I can't afford to provoke and hide, Fan Li chose to resign and go into business.
But in this way, Gou Jian still did not intend to let him go, and then used the excuse that he had a lot of money to be rich and invincible to order him to be killed.
In fact, when Fan Li "ran away", he was reminded to remember to cook rabbits and dead dogs, but he didn't listen to a word about this kind of literature, or he was greedy for glory and wealth, or he still had illusions about King Yue, but he just "called himself sick and didn't leave" and didn't leave in time.
As a result, some people slandered that the literary species were going to rebel, and Gou Jian listened to the slander and gave the literary species to death. Obviously, slander is just an excuse, if the king of Yue does not want to kill him, how can he easily believe such slander? The death of Wen Chong can be described as a regrettable thing for the ages.
In the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, a generation of male lords, also did this kind of thing. Han Xin, the founding hero, made great contributions to Liu Bang, attacked the city and plundered the land, was omnipotent, and finally ended up in a different place, which is also sad. When Liu Bang detained Han Xin, Han Xin sighed: "If someone said: 'The cunning rabbit dies, and the good dog cooks'" Later, many heroes were also killed. It can be said that although Liu Bang has opened the heroic style of the Han generation, this big stain cannot be erased.
And Zhu Yuanzhang, who also got mixed up from the grassroots level, is even more unsurpassed, and he killed many heroes under his hands one by one without blinking an eye, which is really emotional.
Generally, the founding monarch could not treat the heroes well, and there were two reasons. From the monarch's point of view, "you can share hardships and hardships, but not joys", crossing the river and demolishing bridges, and narrow-minded. The extermination of heroes also eliminated future troubles such as political interference for future generations.
From the perspective of meritorious heroes, some meritorious heroes think that the country is defeated by themselves, and even have the desire to sit in the country and become powerful ministers and disrupt the government, or the high position of power is inevitably self-proud, unable to control, and chaotic discipline. In this way, it is often the hero who does not die well.
From the perspective of historical development, meritorious heroes must not die well, and the factors of the monarch and the factors of the heroes themselves are the key. But history often records more about the ruthlessness of the monarch and ignores the arrogance of the hero. In fact, the arrogance of the heroes is also very violent, not to mention the fact that the heroes become powerful ministers and then disrupt the government, just say that the heroes are complacent, and their anger is also terrifying.
For example, the founding general of the Tang Dynasty, Wei Chi Jingde. He made outstanding meritorious contributions and was loyal to Li Shimin, but he was conceited of his merits and was pampered and arrogant, which led to an incident.
In 632 AD, Tang Taizong held a banquet to entertain the heroes of the court. At that time, Wei Chi Jingde, who had already served as the assassin of Tongzhou, saw that someone's seat was actually above him, so he said angrily: "You are what merit, sit on me!" This question is really arrogant and domineering enough.
It just so happened that Li Daozong, the king of Rencheng, sat under him and repeatedly persuaded him not to worry about it. Unexpectedly, this old man not only did not listen to persuasion, but also became angry with Li Daozong, and swung a chaotic punch, so that Li Daozong almost went blind in the eye.
A feast that everyone was happy with ended gloomily. At that time, Tang Taizong was very unhappy, and after the resignation, he said to Wei Chi Jingde: "I saw that Han Gaozu killed the heroes, and I often wanted to protect the wealth and ...... with Qing and others" It means that Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, killed the heroes, and I was very unaccustomed to it before. When I became emperor, I wanted to share the wealth with the heroes. But there are some heroes who are extremely arrogant in their own merits, so far I can see why Liu Bang killed those heroes.
Although these words are a bit of a repudiation for Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, it does tell the truth that the heroes are lawless, and it also makes the heroes wake up. Tang Taizong Li Shimin is one of the monarchs who can treat meritorious heroes well. His beating of Wei Chi Jingde was still very severe, and it could be regarded as a warning to the heroes.
This kind of beating is also very effective, and when Wei Chi Jingde saw that the saint blamed himself, he was frightened, and began to restrain his words and deeds. This shows that if the heroes are not bound by rules and disciplines, they will inevitably become lawless, and only by stating the laws and regulations and showing no mercy can they be made known.
In fact, it is not uncommon to see similar situations of arrogance and pampering and arrogance today. Some people think that there are people behind them and the support of superior leaders, so they do not take others in their eyes, and they are superior in their words, and they are arrogant to others.
Some people have made a little achievement, and then they their tails, feeling that they can lie down on the merit book, and even have to enjoy it, and even cross the bottom line and red line, and do things that violate the law and discipline. It is inevitable that all these will eventually be punished by party discipline and state law.
Relatively speaking, Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, is worthy of praise and reference in treating meritorious heroes.
In 37 AD, Liu Xiu made an important decision on how to place the heroes. At that time, since the pacification of Longyou and Shu County, if it was not a particularly urgent situation, Liu Xiu no longer talked about military affairs.
Liu Xiu's change made Deng Yu and Jia Fu keenly captured. The two figured out that Liu Xiu wanted to "fight hard, cultivate literature and morality, and don't want meritorious heroes to support the Beijing division", so they took the initiative to hand over the military power and devoted themselves to studying Confucianism.
This move is undoubtedly in Liu Xiu's arms. In fact, Liu Xiu is thinking about it. What he thought was that "if you want to complete the land of meritorious officials, you should not let the officials be wronged", that is, not only to protect the titles and fiefs of meritorious heroes, but also not to let them make mistakes in the performance of their duties, so he dismissed the left and right generals from their official positions.
At this time, Geng Yi and others also handed over the seals of the generals and generals, and all went home as lieges, but they all made special advances and participated in the court proceedings.
As it turned out, Liu Xiu's approach was a wise move. On the one hand, he restricted meritorious heroes from participating in politics, and on the other hand, he was generous and tolerant of them, "forgiving them for small mistakes". At the same time, they are very preferential in terms of material. The treasures and delicacies that come from afar must be rewarded to the princes first. Therefore, the meritorious heroes were able to enjoy the blessings in peace, the title and property were preserved, and they were not killed or degraded.
The essence of this practice is to let the meritorious heroes enjoy honors and blessings, and they can also make suggestions on political affairs, but they cannot hold real power, so they cannot interfere in government affairs or disrupt politics. It can be said that this move is far better than destroying the heroes, and Zhao Kuangyin's cup of wine is the same as the reason for releasing military power.
More than that, Liu Xiu went on to carry out systematic reforms in the system. "The three princes are responsible for the officials, so the heroes are not used", that is, let the three princes reform the official system and not appoint the heroes.
In fact, this is a new system of bureaucratic selection and appointment to select and promote talent. In the face of this new system, those who have the ability to govern among the heroes can be re-selected.
At that time, the founding general Zhu You and others recommended Jia Fu as the prime minister, so among the marquis' heroes, only Deng Yu, Li Tong, and Jia Fu "participated in national affairs with the minister".
After Jia Fu returned to his mansion, the door was closed, and he did not go out to socialize, nor did he receive guests. From beginning to end, Jia Fu has always received special courtesy from Liu Xiu, because he knows that it is very difficult for a person to move forward bravely when fighting, and it is even more difficult to give up indifferently after becoming famous.
Liu Xiu's method solves the problem of treating meritorious heroes well from the system, and also conforms to the historical logic of "winning the world immediately, but not ruling the world immediately". To conquer the world, the main thing is to use force, and to rule the world, we cannot use the same set of methods to fight the world, and of course we cannot use all the people who fight the world. After all, some people are good at conquering cities, but not good at governing places. To govern the world, when "both civil and military use, long-term art".
To govern the country, it cannot be said that all military generals and heroes are not good, after all, some people can be said to be both civil and military, such as Deng Yu, martial arts are actually weaker, and the ability to govern is the strength.
However, if all the generals who fight the world are used in various positions of power, and everyone "sits in a row and divides the fruits", in fact, the positions of power are regarded as bargaining chips for rewarding meritorious deeds, then there will definitely be problems in the governance of the country. Therefore, the best way is to establish a new system for the selection of officials, like Liu Xiu, so that everyone can use a ruler and appoint qualified meritorious personnel as well.
It must be said that Liu Xiu's approach was very advanced and modern at that time.
In fact, such a system is not only beneficial to the governance of the country, but also helps the monarch to establish a harmonious and orderly relationship with the meritorious heroes. The system pioneered by Liu Xiu was unfortunately less used by later monarchs. In the final analysis, it is the monarch who has a strong sense of "Son of Heaven" and has failed to keep pace with the times on the basis of learning from the achievements of his predecessors.