Speaking of the legendary emperor in Chinese history, most people will think of Liu Bang, the head of the Surabaya Pavilion at the end of the Qin Dynasty, who was the first to claim the title of emperor. Of course, some people will think of zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Taizu who was born a beggar and had no family background but created the world for 300 years. Yes, compared to other emperors in Chinese history, these two are indeed extremely legendary. However, if compared to the one below, it is slightly inferior. He was the only Later Zhao emperor in Chinese history, Shi Le, who had been a slave and single-handedly created a dynasty.
According to historical records, this Later Zhao Kaiguo emperor was not of Han chinese descent, but a descendant of the Qiangqu tribe of the Xiongnu. The reason why I came to the Central Plains was because of the failure of the Southern Xiongnu and the Northern Xiongnu in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty and were forced to enter the Background of the Han Dynasty on a large scale. At that time, after Shi Lezu came to Hansai, his residence was the Han Dynasty's Hezhou, which is today's Shanxi. It has always been the first line of confrontation between the ancient Central Plains Dynasty and the Mongolian steppe peoples, and coupled with the continuous raids of the Northern Xiongnu and later the Rulers of the Mongolian Plateau, the Xianbei People, the situation in this area was often turbulent. By 300 AD, Shi Le had reached adulthood, and the situation had not changed. However, although the turbulent society did not give Shi Le a stable environment for growth, it made him train a strong martial art. Later, it was with this tall and strong martial art that Shi Le stood out from many competitors. Of course, in the extremely chaotic years of the Western Jin Dynasty, only good martial arts were not enough, and social experience and the ability to treat people and things were also hard indicators of success. In addition, the ability to perceive the situation is also indispensable. In other words, this is more important than high martial arts and rich social experience. In the New Language of the World, there is such a record of Shi Le's ability to perceive the situation. The gist is that Shi Le once listened to others read the Book of Han, and when he heard that Liu Bang, who had been defeated many times in battle, had heeded the advice of the strategist Li Shiqi in order to reverse the situation, and was ready to follow the practice of supporting the descendants of the Six Kingdoms in the early days of the Chen Sheng Uprising to disperse the qin army strength, to support the descendants of the Six Kingdoms to disperse Xiang Yu's troops, he actually shouted loudly, "Liu Bang can rise up because of the strong support of the fierce generals of different nationalities." Once the descendants of the Six Kingdoms were restored, Liu Bang's men were homesick and eager to return home with their monarchs. In this way, its power will inevitably collapse rapidly, and how can it achieve great achievements? Later, the storyteller told him that because of Zhang Liang's obstruction, Liu Bang did not listen to Li Shiqi's advice. Shi Le listened, and only then did he put his mind at ease. So, who is the person he admires the most, such an unborn tyrant? The Book of Jin says that the person Shi Le admired most was Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao. The original text reads:
Le Yin feasted on Goguryeo and Yuwen Wu's lonely envoys, drunk, and said Xu Guangyue: "What kind of lord has been the Kaiji since ancient times?" "Your Majesty's Divine Martial Arts are slightly superior to Emperor Gao, and his majestic skills are superior to Wei Zu, and since the Three Kings have come, they are incomparable, and their Xuanyuan yahu!" Le smiled and said, "Don't people know it, and qing's words are too much." If emperor Gao is in the north, he competes with Han Peng for the first ear. When he encountered Guangwu and drove to the Central Plains, it was unknown whose hand the deer had died. When the eldest husband acts as if the sun and the moon were falling, he could not be like Cao Mengde and Sima Zhongda's father and son, who deceived him as an orphan and widow, and who was charming to take the world. When the ear is between the two Liu, Xuanyuan is not what he wants! ”
In this passage, Emperor Gao refers to Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, and Guangwu refers to Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Cao Mengde and Sima Zhongda refer to Cao Cao and Sima Yi, respectively. Translated, it is Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao whom Shi Le admires the most, and if he is at the end of Qin, he will lead the horse for Liu Bang like Han Xin and Peng Yue. However, if he traveled to the end of the Western Han Dynasty and met Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor, Shi Le was not afraid at all and dared to duel with him. Finally, Shi Le also belittled Cao Cao and Sima Yi, who bullied orphans and widows. To be honest, Shi Le's evaluation of Liu Bang, Cao Cao and Sima Yi was still quite pertinent. However, the evaluation of Liu Xiu, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, was biased. Famous ancient historical books, such as the "Century of Emperors", "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", "Book of Continuation of the Han Dynasty", "Reading the Theory of The Classics", etc., agree that the journey of emperor Guangwu's achievement of great causes was even more difficult than that of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao. The reason why I say this is mainly because Liu Bang's situation when he was fighting for the world was much better than that of Emperor Guangwu.
First of all, the army led by Liu Bang had never fought a hard-hitting strategic decisive battle with the Qin army such as the Battle of julu. From peixian to the attack on Xianyang, Liu Bang's military clique has always been the only unit that has not suffered losses among the tyrants of the late Qin Dynasty. In addition, in the process of the fall of Qin, that is, in the military operation of entering Wuguan, Liu Bang also absorbed a large number of old Qin military forces, so that when the Tun soldiers were hegemonic, their troops reached 100,000 people, becoming the only military group that could compete with Xiang Yu. In addition, Liu Bang also determined that after the Three Qins, that is, in the early stage of the confrontation with Xiang Yu, there was a strategic rear area with rich products, such as the Bashu land irrigated by Dujiangyan and the Hanzhong region with rich natural resources. These lands, nominally under the jurisdiction of Liu Bang, were never affected by the wars at the end of qin and maintained a certain degree of wealth. When he rebelled against Emperor Liu Xiu, when he raised an army to fight for the world, he not only had no base area, but also did not even have a military armed force that could protect his own safety. Later, with his super strategic ability, although Liu Xiu absorbed many powerful and powerful, there were still countless strong enemies in front of him. For example, Wang Lang of Hebei, relying on Li Yu and Zhang Shan, who relied on the support of the Hao clan of Zhao Dihao, Liu Yong, the Han Sect's chamber of the Liang State, Kui Huan, who divided Tianshui and had the support of the Hao clan of "ten with six surnames", and Gongsun Shu, who divided Bashu and had more than 10,000 people in his wife clan alone. The teams they pull up are often thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands. In addition, there were a large number of rebel troops who were constantly threatening. In addition, because of the social ills left over from the Western Han Dynasty, when Liu Xiu took over the world, he also carried out a series of social reforms such as slave release, disarmament, and tax reduction in order to unite people's hearts and win the support of the people. In a word, Liu Bang's unification of the world is a kind of unification of military force; Liu Xiu's unification of the world is a two-pronged military and political approach. Moreover, there can be no big mistakes. The difficulties are conceivable. Compared with the two, Liu Xiu is more suitable than Liu Bang to use the idiom of "starting from scratch" to describe. However, no one expected that Liu Xiu could bloom such a dazzling light in Chinese history because of a very accidental event. Speaking of which, this goes back to Liu Xiu's ancestor, Liu Fa, the Ding King of Changsha, before he was born.
According to historical records, the mother of Liu Fa, the King of Changsha, was a maid of a concubine of the Han Palace who was of low status. This concubine, known as Cheng Ji. The Han Dynasty continued the system of the Qin Dynasty, and so did the system of the harem. Because of the title of Qin: the emperor's wife is called empress, and the concubines are called lady. Under the lady, there are also beauties, good people, eight sons, seven sons, long messengers, and young envoys. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he added palace relatives such as Jie Yu (婕妤), Concubine (娙娥), Rong Hua (容华), and Chong Yi (充依). Ancients Cloud: Harem Beauty Three Thousand. Although this number is not accurate, the number of palace dependents will certainly not be small. The emperors of the early Han Dynasty were very diligent, which led to only a small number of concubines in the harem who could meet the emperor. Therefore, some people who did not get the emperor's favor were eager to get together with the emperor to conceive heirs as a step forward. Looking through the historical materials, Cheng Ji and Emperor Jing conceived three sons, and his second son, Liu Fei, also participated in the military campaign to quell the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" at the age of 15. Based on this speculation, Cheng Jidang was a family member of Emperor Jing when he did not ascend the throne. Therefore, his age is no longer dominant over other concubines. Therefore, she was more eager for Emperor Jing's visit. It was also Cheng Ji's good luck, once for some unknown reason, Emperor Jing remembered this old man when the dragon was diving, and sent someone to summon him. Unfortunately, Cheng Ji was unwell that day. Perhaps not wanting to sweep away Emperor Jing's excitement, Cheng Ji boldly dressed up her maid Tang Shi. At that time, Emperor Jing was a drunk queen and did not carefully screen the people who came, "thinking that Cheng Ji was lucky." Who knows, it was this time that Tang Shi was pregnant. Later, the Tang clan gave birth to the crown prince Liu Fa. After Liu Fa became an adult, he was enfeoffed to Changsha and became a vassal. Although his mother, Tang, was not favored by Emperor Jing, she was also made a concubine for her merits in conceiving a prince. More than a hundred years later, a descendant of Liu Fa, the king of Changsha, appeared a man named Liu Xiu, who was the former Han Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu, who had continued the Han Dynasty for nearly 200 years.
References: Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Book of Jin