On August 11, 1626, the 11th year of the Later Jin Mandate of Heaven (1626), Nurhachi, who established the Later Jin, died of illness, and did not designate who was the heir before his death.
In all fairness, in the Houjin, which advocated force, Huang Taiji's military exploits were far inferior to those of Daishan and Mang Gurtai.
Huang Tai Chi
In terms of the order of succession, Huang Taiji is only the eighth son of Nurhachi.
In terms of mother's status, Huang Taiji's mother Meng Gu Zhezhe was only a side concubine, not only was she not favored but also died young, far inferior to the now favored Abahai, not to mention that Meng Gu Zhezhe was also the sister of Nurhachi's sworn enemy Yehebe Jintaiji.
It can be said that no matter how you look at it, Huang Taiji's inheritance qualifications are the highest priority.
However, Huang Taiji stood out in a group of brothers in this situation of not dominating, and even brought the Houjin out of the predicament, repeatedly defeated the Ming Dynasty, and laid the foundation for the future entry into the Central Plains.
But no one is a natural king, Huang Taiji can be like this, and he really has to thank himself for having a good mother: Meng Gu Zhezhe.
Menggu Zhezhe was born in the Yehe tribe, the head of the four Jurchen tribes in Haixi, and the Yehe tribe was a fierce rival on Nurhachi's road to unification of the Jurchens, which also made Menggu Zhezhe's position very embarrassing.
Yehebe is the head of the four major tribes of the Jurchen in Haixi
Soon after giving birth to Huang Taiji, Yehebu and the other three tribes of the Haixi Jurchens formed a nine-part alliance to crusade against Nurhachi, and Menggu Zhezhe was caught in the middle, and he was in a dilemma.
Worried about Nurhachi's safety and his brother Jin Taiji, it can be said that Menggu Zhezhe lives such a life every day.
Moreover, Menggu Zhezhe is just a side concubine, and his status is very unstable, far inferior to Hahana Zaqing, Gundai and Abahai in the future.
Huang Taiji is not to mention compared with Dai Shan and Mang Gurtai, and even the Derge, Azig, Dolgon, and Duoduo people who grew up in the future may have a status that surpasses him.
Therefore, Meng Gu Zhezhe is very worried about his son's future, after all, Yehebe and Nurhachi are mortal enemies, will her husband be angry with his son one day?
His son was his only hope, and he was killed by Nurhachi because of the blood of Yehebe.
Meng Gu Zhezhe is just a side concubine
The only way at the moment is to make Nurhachi value him, as long as Huang Taiji is weighty, Nurhachi will naturally not do harm.
But how can Huang Taiji stand out among the many brothers? Thinking about it, he only has the ability to govern, after all, Nurhachi's sons are all reckless men and first-class in war, but their strategies are all last.
In terms of fighting, they are more courageous than the other, but they are really a mess in terms of civil governance, and they are serious partial students.
Of course, I don't blame them, after all, Nurhachi himself is also a serious person, even if he saved his family business and unified the Jianzhou Jurchens, but he didn't know how to govern it, and all the political principles stayed in the era of the primitive tribal alliance system, and he never thought of institutionalizing or even centralizing the Houjin.
Not to mention the consideration of the future, the economy of the Later Jin Dynasty basically relied on looting, and the system basically relied on imagination, and the ability to unify the Jurchens depended on the ability to fight against the sky, and the war depended on feeling, and there was almost no strategic planning.
In this atmosphere of enthusiasm for military exploits, most of Nurhachi's sons and nephews are illiterate, let alone Chinese, and even Mongolian may not be able to read and write, after all, Nurhachi can teach war, but his cultural level is not good, so he can only let them go.
Nurhachi's education for his sons was free-range
Therefore, before Huang Taiji, the one who looked like a slight heir was probably Dai Shan.
Needless to say, Daishan's ability to fight has made great contributions to the establishment of Nurhachi, especially the battle of Sarhu.
But he is slightly better than other brothers in that he knows a little cultural knowledge, and his cultural level is much higher than that of other brothers, so he can unite people, has a good prestige in the Eight Banners, and can also coordinate the contradictions between brothers, and treats people more benevolently and righteously, and does things more well, but that's all.
After all, Daishan's shortcomings are also obvious, that is, the lack of strategic planning, the most in terms of future planning can only think of gnawing Liaodong and then looting everywhere, although the cultural level is higher than that of other brothers, but they don't know how to absorb the Central Plains culture for their own use, and they lack the idea of centralization, and they don't know anything about the production and governance of agricultural areas.
Daishan was once appointed as the heir, but because of the ambiguity of the Harmony Dynasty and the abuse of his son, he lost his position as the prince
Looking at it this way, Dai Shan is just a weakened version of Nurhachi, of course, this is also a microcosm of the problems of the Houjin ruling group, all of which are seen by Meng Gu Zhezhe.
Therefore, after Huang Taiji was born, Meng Gu Zhezhe began to pay attention to cultivating his cultural level, formulated a strict education plan, and asked the master to teach carefully, so that Huang Taiji could master the Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese languages from an early age, and learn various cultural classics on this basis.
Wen Hu is the only red guy in the middle of the red is only literate cloud - Li Minwei "Jianzhou Wenjian Record"
This is a passage in the Korean document that records the cultural level of Huang Taiji, and the red gang is also Huang Taiji.
Not only that, but Meng Gu Zhezhe also how Pope Taiji calculates accounts, after all, arts and sciences are not separated.
At that time, Huang Taiji, who was only eight years old, was already in charge of the family's accounting, which also showed that there were so many people in the entire Aixin Jueluo family, and there was no one who could settle accounts, so he could only hand over the family account book to an eight-year-old child.
In addition, Meng Gu Zhezhe also paid attention to cultivating good karma, and took Huang Taiji to deal with the relationship with the Daishan family early.
For example, Daishan's son Yue Tuo was often raised by Meng Gu Zhezhe because of the loss of his mother when he was a child, and he was the same age as Huang Taiji, named uncle and nephew, but he was actually a brother, which also led to Yue Tuo being closer to the eighth uncle Huang Taiji in the future.
And in addition to Dai Shan, Meng Gu Zhezhe also asked Huang Taiji to maintain a close relationship with all his brothers as much as possible, and let Huang Taiji have a very good relationship in Houjin in the future.
Although Dai Shan's popularity is also good, Dai Shan is purely the kind of popularity that makes friends, but Huang Taiji is indeed the kind of popularity that relies on communication to obtain resources.
For example, Erdeni, Erdeni is a person under Duoduo, but he always runs to Huang Taiji for nothing, and he has been repeatedly criticized by Nurhachi, but there is no way, who let him fall in love with Huang Taiji.
New Manchu
You must know that Erdeni is the inventor of the old Manchu language, belonging to the highest cultural level of the Jurchens at that time, he looked at the same clan, the cultural level is really poor, only Huang Taiji has a good cultural level, and he can speak, so he naturally fell in love with Huang Taiji.
To tell the truth, Huang Taiji's cultural level does stand out among the Jurchens, not only can he carry out normal correspondence with North Korea and the Ming Dynasty, but also use "Liutao" to denounce Mang Gurtai, maybe Mang Gurtai may not understand, it is completely a blow to other brothers to reduce dimensionality.
If you make an analogy, it is probably that today's college students are with a group of people who have not even graduated from kindergarten, which is completely culturally overwhelming.
In this way, Huang Taiji's early wisdom and Meng Gu Zhezhe's insight also made Nurhachi pay more and more attention to this son, and as a Jurchen, Huang Taiji is not bad at fighting.
Culture and war promote each other, can be literate and martial, read more books will be applied to the military, in turn the military can promote the improvement of the status of Huang Taiji.
For example, in the battle of the Hunhe River, Huang Taiji forcibly blocked the white pole soldiers who crossed the river, which bought precious time for the assembly of the Houjin army, and then crossed the river to kill and defeat the Liaoxi army and won a great victory.
Another example is the Battle of Liaoyang, against Nurhachi's opinion, he forcibly sent troops and defeated the Ming army in this most critical battle.
It can be said that these are all complementary cultures and martial arts.
Liu Dekai's version of Huang Taiji
Huang Taiji studied while exercising, and applied what he learned in Houjinli, which not only exercised himself, but also expanded his horizons, and his strategic vision far surpassed that of his brothers, not to mention other Jurchens.
In this way, although Huang Taiji is at the bottom of the four major Bellerries, his ability is far superior to the other three, not to mention that Huang Taiji has already enveloped Amin who has no inheritance rights, and is friendly with Daishan's family, it can be said that there is no suspense for Huang Taiji to inherit the throne.
And all of this stems from such a good mother as Meng Gu Zhezhe, without Meng Gu Zhezhe's cultural education, Huang Taiji is at most a martial artist, and his future status may be like Abatai.
After Huang Taiji ascended to the throne of Khan, he also knew the importance of culture, ordered people to translate various Chinese classics, and arranged for his nephews to study, whether to let the ministers tell the kings and Baylors about the "Golden History", so that they could know the rise and fall of history, among which the best is Dolgon, and Dolgon's culture is basically learned with Huang Taiji.
Therefore, it is really not a joke that a good daughter-in-law can prosper for three generations, a good mother can indeed benefit the child and the family for a lifetime, and indirectly benefit the entire family, not to mention that Meng Gu Zhezhe is not the third generation of Wang, but the foundation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty for the next two hundred years.
Of course, Huang Taiji did not forget his mother, and called the emperor and queen to respect his mother as Empress Xiaoci Gao, so Meng Gu Zhezhe became the first queen of the Qing Dynasty.