Throughout the history of the Tang Dynasty, the Xuanwumen revolution in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China can be said to be a topic that cannot be circumvented, and this coup can be said to reflect the bloodiest side of the struggle for concubines in Chinese history. Li Shimin, the King of Qin, killed his elder brother Li Jiancheng, the crown prince, and li Yuanji, the fourth brother of qi, and then forced his father Li Yuan to become the crown prince, and three months later Li Yuan "took the initiative" to take the throne, and Li Shimin thus began his 23-year imperial road.
More than a thousand years later, looking back at the changes in Xuanwumen, I think many people will have doubts, tang gaozu Li Yuan's sons are as many as 22, why only the eldest Li Jiancheng, the second oldest Li Shimin, and the fourth li yuanji three sons participated in the conquest of the concubine, why the other sons did not participate in the conquest, have not yet taken sides, today Song Anzhi came to talk specifically about this problem.
In fact, why this situation occurs, mainly because The tang gaozu Li Yuanzao children have a huge watershed, and this watershed is the founding of the Tang Dynasty in 618 AD. Before the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan had 5 sons, and after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan, as the emperor, wanted something and something, so he worked hard to create children after ruling the country, so he had 17 sons.
Let's look at the time of the Xuanwumen Revolution, which occurred on the fourth day of the first month of June in the ninth year of Tang Gaozu Wude (626 AD), that is to say, the 5 sons born before the founding of the country were not counted at that time, and the remaining 17 sons, some of which had not yet been born, and the eldest sixth son, Li Yuanjing, was only 9 years old at the time.
Therefore, the huge age gap directly divided the trio li jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Yuanji into 17 younger brothers led by the old sixth Li Yuanjing. Because these younger brothers are too young, not to mention the younger brother who was not born at the time of the Xuanwumen Revolution, that is, the oldest brother who has been born is 9 years old, and he can't do anything, let alone participate in the conquest, even if he doesn't take sides.
So the huge age gap has ruled out 17 little brothers, and two brothers were born before the founding of the Tang Dynasty with the trio of concubines, why did not participate in the conquest of the concubine, in fact, the reason is very simple, because both of them died early.
These two men were Li Yuan's third son, Li Xuanba the Prince of Wei, and li Zhiyun, the fifth son of the King of Chu, who was also Li Yuan's first son, because the first four brothers were all born to Li Yuanzheng's wife Dou Shi.
Li Xuanba died ten years before the Sui Dynasty, and did not live to the founding of the Tang Dynasty.
Li Zhiyun's death is somewhat intriguing, and the history books record: "When the righteous master will rise, Prince Yin will be built and sneaked back to Taiyuan, and when Zhiyun is young, he will be entrusted to go away." Because the officials were arrested and sent to Chang'an, they were victimized by the Yin Shishi, in the fourteenth year."
That is to say, at the time of Li Yuan's rebellion, Li Jiancheng and Li Zhiyun were together, and as a result, Li Jiancheng thought that Li Zhiyun was young and simply did not care about him, so he quietly returned to Taiyuan by himself, and soon Li Zhiyun was arrested and later executed.
Why did Li Jiancheng do this, it is possible that Li Zhiyun is just his half-brother, it may be that he deliberately borrowed a knife to kill people, and wanted to solve potential competitors in advance. In any case, Li Jiancheng is really a pit brother, and the reincarnation of the Heavenly Dao, the retribution is not happy, after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Jiancheng of the pit brother finally died at the hands of the second brother Li Shimin in the Xuanwumen Change, which is still somewhat ironic to say.
So to sum up, Tang Gaozu Li Yuan had 22 sons, why only 3 sons participated in the conquest, mainly two brothers who were similar in age to the trio of concubines, who died early for one reason or another before the founding of the country.
The other 17 brothers, at the time of the change of Xuanwumen, the eldest was only 9 years old and could not take the wife, so naturally did not participate.
Looking at this bloody coup d'état, it can be said that the most important turning point in the life of Tang Taizong Li Shimin was also the beginning of his truly brilliant, laying the foundation for his 23 years of imperial road, with the later rule of Zhenguan, and with a series of great deeds belonging to Tang Taizong Li Shimin.
However, judging from the great history of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin's bloody seizure of the concubine by force in the early days of the founding of the Country was undoubtedly a very bad precedent, so since then, the bloody struggles within the Tang Dynasty royal family can be said to be common. For example, during the Tang Taizong period, the eldest son Li Chengqian, imitated his father Li Shimin's attempt to seize the concubine by force because of the seizure of the concubine, and the result ended in failure.
It was not until the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Li Longji that he began to change this cruel struggle, began to deliberately limit the power of the crown prince, and established the "Ten King's Residence" to facilitate the centralized control of the prince, which brought the prince's cruel struggle to take the concubine to an end. In the nearly forty years between Kaiyuan and Tianbao, there was no turmoil in the princes, let alone the incident of armed conquest.
However, the crown prince did not have the strength to take the concubine, and Tang Xuanzong Li Longji was somewhat indulgent, and even executed his three sons in one breath, which was rare in the past. The Anshi Rebellion that broke out in the last year of Tang Xuanzong's reign even more impacted Tang Xuanzong's changes in the imperial struggle to pieces. Because after the Anshi Rebellion, the biggest problem faced by the Tang Dynasty was no longer the cannibalism and power within the imperial family, but the feudal towns that were entrenched in various parts of the empire, as well as the eunuch forces that arose later.
Therefore, the Tang Dynasty after the Anshi Rebellion can be said to have survived for nearly 150 years, and there was a major problem of feudalism outside the central imperial court, a disaster of eunuchs inside, and finally the subjugation of the country.
Thank you for watching Song Anzhi's exclusive original article, focusing on the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties and its great history of China, like to talk about those immutable histories from a different perspective, I think friends can remember to like and pay attention to Ha.