The Tang Dynasty was an unprecedentedly vast and culturally open and tolerant dynasty in Chinese history, but at the same time it was also a dynasty with frequent coups. At the beginning of the founding of Li Tang, he experienced the Xuanwumen Revolution: Emperor Taizong Li Shimin killed his brother Li Jiancheng, and his younger brother Li Yuanji forced his father Li Yuan to give way to himself. The historical curtain of frequent coups d'états of the Li-Tang Dynasty thus began: in addition to Li Shimin's Xuanwumen coup, there were also Shenlong coups and Tanglong coups, and failed Li Chengqian's rebellion, Li Xian's rebellion, Princess Taiping's rebellion, and Ganlu coup...
The Xuanwumen Revolution, which opened the history of the Tang Dynasty coup, was not an accidental event. Since the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the Eastern Han Dynasty, China has entered a period of frequent chaos: the rise of the masses, the three-legged rise, the rebellion of the eight kings, the five hu chaos, the confrontation between the north and the south... Morality, order, etiquette, and ideology are all on the sidelines in a world of great strife. After experiencing the turmoil of the Five Hu Sixteen Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the original social system has been broken. The Li royal family of the Tang Dynasty itself mixed with many fresh and humble bloodlines in the process of the integration of the southern and northern dynasties, so the traditional primogeniture system had a relatively small impact on the Li family.
In the course of Tang Gaozu's li yuan's rebellion and founding of the country, the contradiction between the eldest son Li Jiancheng and the second son Li Shimin was further intensified. As a father, Li Yuan is undoubtedly lucky: there are dragon-like sons like Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin guarding the Tang Dynasty of the old Li family. In the process of Li Yuan's military entrepreneurship, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin brothers have made great achievements. However, as an emperor, Li Yuan will not be at ease with anyone - family affection is often fragile in the face of imperial power. Li Yuan was both a father and an emperor at the same time, so the ability of his sons was not necessarily a good thing for him.
As emperor, Li Yuan had to find a way to strike a balance between his sons—using courtiers to restrain each other. It was based on this concept that he established Li Jian as the crown prince, and at the same time let Li Shimin command the army to fight outside. In the process of conquest of the world, Li Yuan fully authorized each son, which gave them the right to recruit their own troops. This greatly improved the combat efficiency of the Tang army in the process of fighting the world, but it also led to the princes having a private armed force that only obeyed the orders of their masters.
In the founding war of the Tang Dynasty, such a pattern gradually formed: the crown prince Li Jiancheng assisted his father Li Yuan in governing the country, and the second prince Li Shimin led the army to conquer the four sides. In the process of fighting the world, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin brothers were still able to work together in the face of the common enemy, but as the world became more stable, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin became more and more deeply contradictory in the process of mutual containment for a long time: Li Shimin collected a large number of talents and people's hearts in the process of conquest, so he actually threatened Li Jiancheng's position as prince.
Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin both made great achievements in the founding of the Tang Dynasty, but only one of them was destined to ascend to the throne. The person who succeeds in ascending to the throne can not only enjoy the whole world himself, but also his subordinates and descendants can ascend to heaven with the chicken dog; the person who fails to sit on the throne can only be an idle prince for a lifetime, and his descendants can only be the subjects of others. At this time, not only did Li Shimin himself have the idea of replacing him, but all his soldiers did not want to support their own masters to ascend the throne in exchange for their own glory and wealth.
At this time, Li Shimin had actually become a spokesman for a political interest group. Li Jiancheng, on the other hand, will naturally not be willing to sit still. Li Jiancheng's threat is bound to rebound strongly in the face of Li Shimin's threats, whether they come from Li Shimin's subjective intention to replace them or simply Li Shimin's status has constituted an objective potential threat. In such a situation, neither Li Jiancheng nor Li Shimin actually has any way to retreat, because once the other party ascends the throne, it is bound to liquidate itself.
At this time, the wives, children and subordinates of the two are bound to stir up trouble on the side, because once the other party ascends the throne, the liquidation action is bound to implicate them. Since the final victor of the Xuanwumen Revolution was Li Shimin, many people may subconsciously think that Li Shimin was on the strong side in the struggle for the throne of the crown prince, but in fact, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin each had their own advantages and disadvantages in the battle for the throne: Li Jiancheng's advantage as the crown prince of his father Li Yuanmingli was that it was justified to be succeeded by him in terms of legal system.
Li Jiancheng's disadvantage is that he is relatively lacking in popularity (note that it is relatively lacking - in fact, Li Jiancheng's supporters are not in the minority, but they are not so strong compared to Li Shimin's); Li Shimin's advantage is that he has won a large number of talents and people's hearts in the long war of founding the country, but with the increasing stability of the national situation, this advantage has gradually weakened - after all, in peacetime, Li Shimin's popularity is not enough to compete with Li Jiancheng's legal system. Before the Xuanwumen Incident, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin's dispute over the throne was originally a court political struggle.
The natural contest in the political struggle of the court is political capital, not to see who is strong and strong. As the legitimate crown prince, Li Jiancheng had far more political resources than Li Shimin. Li Jiancheng's political strength was far superior to that of Li Shimin in the Tang Dynasty ruling circles at that time and even in the entire Guanzhong ruling core area: Li Jiancheng, as the crown prince, was to assist in handling some major affairs of the dynasty in peacetime. If the emperor came from a conquest or inspection, then the prince would have to act as a representative of the state. At that time, Li Jiancheng also controlled part of the army in the capital.
Li Shimin did gain a lot of literary and martial talents in the process of fighting the world, but these people were logically first and foremost courtiers of the Tang Dynasty. Although these people had a special personal relationship with Li Shimin, at least in theory, these people were assigned by Emperor Li Yuan to the Qin Dynasty. Since these people were assigned by the emperor to the Qin King's palace, the transfer power of these people was naturally also in the hands of the emperor. Although the direct allegiance of these people in their hearts was Li Shimin rather than Li Yuan, it would be impossible to resist if Li Yuan, as emperor, had to make a holy order to mobilize these people.
In 622, when Li Shimin broke Liu Heimin and pressed Xu Yuanlang, Li Yuan issued an edict asking him to hand over the command of the army to Li Yuanji and return to the dynasty alone to report on the situation, and soon after these men and horses completely swept away Liu Heimin's forces under the command of Li Jiancheng. When the Turks attacked in 626, Li Yuan transferred many military generals of the Qin Dynasty to Li Yuanji's command at the first order. Li Shimin did have Wei Chi Jingde, Qin Shubao, Changsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruyi and other strategists under him, but not all of the strategists of the Li Tang Dynasty were concentrated in the Qin Dynasty.
On this side of the Prince's Mansion, there were Wei Zheng; there were Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche brothers. Because Li Jiancheng had long been in charge of grain and military resources in the rear, there were not many times when he really went to the front line to fight in the war. As a result, the Crown Prince's Mansion was indeed inferior to the Qin Royal Palace in terms of the number of talents, but people like Wei Zheng and the Xue brothers were still able to get their hands on it. Moreover, the two most powerful generals of the Tang Dynasty at that time, Li Jing and Li Jike, were not from the Qin Dynasty—they were more neutral in the dispute between Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin for the throne.
These people, who remained neutral between Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin, were still essentially subject to emperor Li Yuan, so Li Yuan's attitude was a key factor in determining the outcome of the battle for the throne. Li Yuan's choice to make Li Jiancheng crown prince itself explains his attitude. Before the Xuanwumen Rebellion, Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin used various common court political means to carry out various rounds of fighting methods, but in this series of fighting methods, Li Shimin was always in a state of being suppressed by the crown prince Li Jiancheng. Facts have proved unrealistic to use court political means to shake Li Jiancheng's status as a legitimate prince.
At this time, Li Shimin had only one way left in front of him - that is, to use his remaining prestige to quickly launch a coup backed by military force. If li shimin really waited for the time when the world was decided, he would completely lose the capital to confront the crown prince Li Jiancheng. In fact, at this time, Li Shimin was forced to make a desperate bet when he was cornered, but Li Jiancheng, as a legitimate prince, would naturally not be so eager to launch a coup d'état - after all, the risk of doing so was too great, and no one dared to try it easily unless he was cornered.
As a legitimate prince, Li Jiancheng did not seem to need to take the risk of launching a coup d'état. Although Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin are both outstanding contemporary masters, their abilities are actually manifested in different aspects: Li Jiancheng has more yang plots, while Li Shimin is good at conspiracy. Li Jiancheng, who was trained as a crown prince, was mainly used to assist his father in governing the country, so he was better at governing the country. As for the conspiracy for power and profit, it cannot be said that he will not, but he is still more inclined to use traditional court political struggle methods.
Li Jiancheng never thought of using force to solve the problem, and he did not expect that the other party would use force to solve the problem. In contrast, Li Shimin was initially in a disadvantageous position in the battle for the throne: under normal logic, he could not be an emperor, so only by engaging in a conspiracy to kill Li Jiancheng could he reverse the situation. The biggest mistake of Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng was that they forgot that the era they lived in was a period of transition from chaos to prosperity. Li Jiancheng's legal superiority as the legitimate prince was increasingly dominant at this time, but the popular advantage accumulated by Li Shimin in the long war could not be ignored.
However, Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng, and Li Yuanji all underestimated Li Shimin's determination to take decisive measures at a critical juncture, so they were always keen to deal with Li Shimin through the means of court politics that contained balance. At this time, Li Shimin knew very well that if he played according to the rules of the game set by the other party, he was doomed to be played to death, so he simply launched the Xuanwumen Incident with his heart. It should be said that this big move released by Li Shimin was completely unexpected by Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng, so Li Shimin's move can be said to have caught his opponent off guard.
In li yuan and li jiancheng's plan, it was never conceived that Li Shimin would launch a coup d'état, and it can be said that they were not prepared for this. Li Shimin exploited this loophole: he asked the crown prince Li Jiancheng and his younger brother Li Yuanji to go to see his father Li Yuan together by forging an edict, while he himself led the private soldiers and horses of the Qin Dynasty to ambush at Xuanwu Gate in advance. In fact, the army that directly intervened in the xuanwumen rebellion was not the regular army of the Li Tang Dynasty, but the private soldiers and horses of the Prince Donggong, the Qin Wangfu, and the Qi Wangfu.
These private soldiers and horses were not provided by Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Yuanji themselves. Therefore, these soldiers and horses directly obeyed their masters, rather than being responsible to the current emperor Li Yuan. This is of a completely different nature from the regular army of the Li Tang Dynasty. Although Li Shimin did not control the military power of the world at the time of the Xuanwumen Rebellion, he had absolute command control over his own private soldiers and horses. Similarly, the crown prince Li Jiancheng and the Qi king Li Yuanji also each had a private army of soldiers and horses who were only their own masters.
At that time, the ratio of the strength of the three brothers Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Yuanji was roughly as follows: the crown prince Li Jiancheng had about 2,000 Changlin troops under his command, while the number of private soldiers of Li Shimin, the King of Qin, and Li Yuanji, the King of Qi, was about 700 or 800 people. Obviously, Li Shimin, who only possessed these seven or eight hundred private soldiers and horses, did not have the strength to challenge his father Li Yuan. At this time, Li Shimin had no advantage even in the face of the crown prince Li Jiancheng and the Qi king Li Yuanji, in fact, the change of Xuanwu Gate was actually a helpless move that the arrow had to send on the string.
It was precisely because Li Shimin did not have the certainty of victory and absolute superiority, so he decided to set up an ambush at Xuanwu Gate to catch Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji by surprise. But here's a question: Why did the Tang officials guarding Xuanwu Gate let Li Shimin's private armed forces set up an ambush here? Was it because Li Shimin hid well that they failed to find out? Or did they simply deliberately indulge Li Shimin in setting up an ambush here? To explain this problem clearly, we may wish to first see who the Xuanwu Gatekeeper was at that time.
In fact, at that time, the Tang Dynasty had a set of supervision and restraint mechanisms in the management of the city gate: the city gate of the Tang Dynasty was jointly managed by three officials, the city gate lang, the general of the gate and the middle lang, and the city gate could only be opened after all three officials checked that the survey was correct, and the purpose of this was to prevent one of the officials from smuggling foreign enemies, so as to threaten the security of the palace. At that time, the gate lang of Xuanwu Gate was Chang He, Zhonglang would be Lü Shiheng, and the general of Jianmen would be Jing Junhong. It was these three people who sided with Li Shimin at the crucial moment, thus locking li Shimin's victory in the change of XuanwuMen.
Among them, Chang He joined Li Mi's Wagang Army in his early years, and the first to follow him after defecting to the Li Tang Dynasty was Li Shimin, the King of Qin. When the crown prince Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin fought, both sides dug each other's corners, and Chang He was dug up by Li Jiancheng in the process, but from the performance of Chang He in the change of Xuanwumen, Li Jiancheng dug a time bomb for himself, in fact, Chang He is likely to have been playing the role of Li Shimin's confidant around the prince. At the same time, the general Jing Junhong was also on Li Shimin's side.
Originally, no one who entered the Xuanwu Gate was allowed to carry weapons, but Jing Junhong openly allowed Li Shimin's men and horses to enter the Xuanwu Gate with weapons. On the day of the Xuanwumen Incident, the crown prince Li Jiancheng and the Qi king Li Yuanji entered the palace, Chang He closed the Xuanwu Gate. This was tantamount to blocking the reinforcements of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace, thus ensuring that Li Shimin's men and horses, who had been ambushed at Xuanwu Gate in advance, had enough time to eliminate the people and horses that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji had brought into the palace. The number of men and horses brought into the palace by Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji was quite limited and they did not carry any weapons.
This made them inferior in the fire and horses of the Qin Dynasty. However, when the 70 cavalry of the Qin Palace led by Wei Chi Jingde arrived, the Xuanwu gate guards who had just blocked the reinforcements of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace just now were actually allowed to go. This is an obvious pull-off frame. It was the 70 cavalry brought by Lieutenant Chi Jingde who played a key role in the crucial moment. At that time, Li Shimin had already killed Li Jiancheng, but Li Shimin himself was snatched by Li Yuanji from the bow and arrow in his hand, and was almost strangled to death by Li Yuanji with a bow string.
It was the 70 cavalry brought by Wei Chi Jingde who shot and killed Li Yuanji, otherwise the dispute between Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin for the throne might end up cheapening Li Yuanji. By this time, Li Shimin had completely controlled the situation in the palace: although the courtiers and regular troops of the Tang Dynasty were still obeying Li Yuan's orders at this time, within the Forbidden Palace, Li Shimin had formed a partial superiority in strength in the palace due to his control over his own private soldiers and the Xuanwu Gate Forbidden Army. At this time, the soldiers and horses of Li Jiancheng's Eastern Palace and Li Yuanjiqi's palace, led by Feng Li and Xue Wanche, broke into the Xuanwu Gate after killing Jing Junhong of Laweijia.
Li Shimin's men could not help but panic when they saw the other side's large number of people. But Li Shimin himself was well aware of the current situation: despite the large number of opponents, the crown prince and the king of Qi were dead, so the soldiers and horses of the Eastern Palace and the Qi King's Palace were already a ragtag group that had lost their masters. Li Shimin asked Wei Chi Jingde to take out the heads of Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji and show them to the people and horses of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace. As soon as these people saw that their master was dead, they knew that the tide was gone. Feng Li, who took the lead, said to his subordinates, "We killed Jing Junhong and others to avenge the crown prince and the king of Qi." There is no point in continuing to fight now, so let's run for our lives now."
Xue Wanche originally wanted to lead people to attack the Qin King's Palace, but by this time, his men and horses were already scattered. In the end, most of the people and horses of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace chose to accept Feng Li's plan to escape for their lives. When Xue Wanche saw that few people listened to him, he had to flee into the mountains with a few of his men, and it was not until later when Li Shimin sat in the jiangshan and pardoned the old departments of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace that he led his men to submit to Li Shimin. This part of the men and horses led by Feng Li and Xue Wanche was not the regular army of the Li Tang Dynasty, but the private soldiers and horses of the crown prince Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, the prince of Qi.
They were mainly to save the crown prince Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji the Prince of Qi, but by the time they attacked Xuanwu Gate, Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji had already been killed by the people of the Qin Dynasty. The men and horses of the Eastern Palace and the Qi Palace scattered when they saw that the general trend had gone, and then Li Shimin asked his subordinate Chi Jingde to wear armor and carry a spear to see his father Li Yuan. At this time, even if Li Yuan wanted to summon the regular army to come to the rescue, he could not cross Li Shimin's encirclement, and there was no mobile phone to inform the outside world in that era, so what could Li Yuan do in the face of Wei Chi Jingde, who was already close at hand?
Of course, Li Yuan did not have any people around him at all--after all, no matter how much the imperial palace would arrange some troops to protect the emperor. According to the Old Book of Tang, Wei Chi Jingde went to see Li Yuan as a soldier and horse of the Southern Gate and the Second Palace. At this time, these emperors' personal guards were still ready to swear to die to protect His Majesty the Emperor. It is still unknown if the two sides really want to move their hands to win or lose, but at this time Li Yuan has no choice: although he still has some soldiers and horses in his hands, Li Shimin has formed a local military superiority in the palace.
If the two sides move their hands, it is nothing more than a lose-lose ending. At this time, the foundation of Tang Dynasty rule was not yet stable, and it would not be a good sign if there was a father-son dispute at this time. Although Li Yuan had other sons, they were all old and young enough to stabilize the Tang Dynasty; the three sons who performed prominently in the founding process were Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Yuanji. Now that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji are dead, Li Shimin is left with a great responsibility, and if Li Yuan and Li Shimin forcibly confront each other, it will be nothing more than a complete reversal of father and son.
If Li Yuan really wants to make a lose-lose situation with Li Shimin, then it is difficult to say whether this Jiangshan is still surnamed Li. In this situation, Li Yuan wisely chose to back down: Wei Chi Jingde asked Li Yuan to order the troops and give punishment to the King of Qin, and Li Yuan had to agree to hand over the command of the forbidden army of the palace that he finally held to Li Shimin, the King of Qin. Since Li Yuan, as emperor, himself acquiesced to Li Shimin's seizure of power, the courtiers and the army naturally would not say anything more. At this point, the Xuanwumen Incident ended with Li Shimin's total victory.