There were many coups in the Jin Dynasty. This was the background and tone set at the founding of the country. Yuan Xi succeeded and failed.
The White Horse Incident was one of the most unbearable events in the history of the Jin Dynasty. So after thousands of years of turmoil have dissipated and the fog of history has penetrated, how should we view the core protagonist of the incident, Emperor Taizong Xuanwu, Yuan Xi?
Emperor Taizong Xuanwu Yuan Xi, his eldest brother Yuan Tan and younger brother Yuan Shangben were brothers of the same father. They had also experienced the entrepreneurial stage in the late Han Dynasty. How could Yuan Xi embark on the road of killing his brothers and killing his brothers and forcing his father to abdicate. Woolen cloth?
Let’s analyze them one by one.
1. Luoyang raised troops, Taizu Wu Emperor Yuan Shao, and the disputes among the disciples under the background of excessive decentralization of power
It is said that brothers fight like brothers, and father and son are soldiers in battle.
Emperor Taizu Wu Yuan Shao was very lucky. His sons Yuan Tan, Yuan Xi, and Yuan Shang were all talented. It can be said that God blessed the Yuan family. In particular, the second son Yuan Xi played a very important staff role since the founding of Luoyang, which was also the root of everything.
Yuan Shao relied on and loved his sons very much. At the beginning of his army in the north, Yuan Tan was ordered to win the support of aristocratic families in his hometown of Runan, while Yuan Xi commanded his troops and went out with his father, while Yuan Shang stayed in Puyang.
If the main force of Yuan's army were all gathered in one place, or if Yuan Shao personally led the army to fight, and Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi were both under his command, then there would be nothing that happened later, that is, Tian Feng's strategy.
However, at the end of the Han Dynasty, the situation in the world was in chaos, and the four parties were in a state of fragmentation. There were Gongsun Zan and Liu Yu in the north, Zhang Yan in the west, Tian Kai, Liu Bei, and the Yellow Turban Army in the east, Gongsun Du in the northeast, Tao Qian in the southeast, and Cao Cao and other separatist forces in the south. Moreover, the Eastern Han Dynasty was an era when powerful ministers were in power.
Yuan Shao himself did not have the talent to be a general, and the land of Jizhou was coveted by all parties, and he did not trust his foreign ministers. After all, too many foreign ministers eventually became powerful ministers, so he had to entrust Yuan Xi with the important task of leading troops to attack everywhere. war.
After that, Yuan Xi successively commanded the wars against Tian Kai and Liu Bei in Qingzhou, Qingxu Huangjin, Tao Qian in Xuzhou, Sun Jian, Sun Ce and his son in Jiangdong, and Cao Cao in Yanzhou.
After a series of conquests, the prestige of the second son Yuan Xi was unparalleled in Hebei. Emperor Taizu Wu Yuan Shao was also extremely happy. Since Yuan Xi's official title has reached the limit, the emperor can only grant the highest reward that Yuan Shao can grant, so Yuan Shao came up with an ingenious idea and asked Yuan Xi to open a palace and establish a family to manage affairs.
So Yuan Xi became the highest chief executive in Qingzhou and the top military and political leader. Yuan Xi's orders could pass through Jidong without hindrance. Not only were the orders of various departments of the imperial court unable to restrict them, but sometimes even Yuan Shao's edicts were not as good as Yuan Xi's orders. make.
Yuan Xi also secretly recruited scholars and created cliques.
They are Guo Jia, Jia Xu, Liu Ye, Gao Rou, Tian Feng, Gu Yong, Wang Xiu, Guoyuan, Mi Zhu, Chen Deng and others.
Most of the famous officials in the Taishi period came from this small group.
It has always been a taboo to open a house to gain wealth and form cliques for personal gain. The rapid expansion of Yuan Xi's power aroused Yuan Shao's dissatisfaction. One time, Yuan Shao and his close confidant Xu You discussed his second son, Yuan Xi, and complained:
"This son has been a military officer for a long time. He is authoritarian outside and has been taught by scholars. He is not the same as before." (Book of Jin·Biography·Biography of Yuan Tan) Some truths can only be found from other people's biographies.
Even the father can't stand it anymore, and the eldest son Yuan Tan, who is the main competitor, can't stand it anymore. If Yuan Xi's power is allowed to develop like this.
There is no doubt that Yuan Tan's status will be shaken. The officials of the eldest son Yuan Tan all suggested that Yuan Tan take measures to restrict the development of Yuan Xi Group.
2. Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi fight openly and secretly
The Yuan Tan Group believes that the reason why Yuan Xi is so powerful is because he has led troops into battle many times and gradually gained popularity. They suggested that Yuan Tan should not always live in Jizhou, but should look for opportunities to lead troops and make achievements.
After Gongsun Zan's Northern Expedition failed, Zhang Yan of Bingzhou raised troops to rebel against Yuan for the second time. Guo Tu, Yuan Tan's staff, immediately suggested that Yuan Tan go on an expedition to gain military glory. The great ancestor Yuan Shao also believed that he should take this opportunity to balance the power of his two sons, so he approved Yuan Tan to lead troops to attack the Black Mountain Army.
Moreover, taking advantage of the opportunity of the expedition, Yuan Shao also transferred some of his military duties to Yuan Tan. This greatly weakened Yuan Xi's power.
Cutting off Yuan Xi and benefiting Yuan Tan actually exposed the contradiction between Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi. Since then, both Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi have begun to intensify their political competition and recruit troops secretly.
Since Yuan Tan lived in Jizhou for a long time, he had more contact with Yuan Shao's ministers and won their support. Xin Ping, Yuan Shao's number one adviser, publicly supported Yuan Tan. Xun Chen had two ends in mind, sometimes leaning towards Yuan Tan, sometimes falling towards Yuan Xi.
Fengji and Shenpei firmly supported Yuan Xi and repeatedly stated Yuan Xi's great achievements to Yuan Shao. They must not restrain him to avoid resentment between father and son.
In order to appease Yuan Xi, Yuan Shao had a wild horse, which was tall, strong and violent. It was often knocked off the horse when riding, and most people did not dare to ride it.
So Yuan Shao planned to give this good horse to Yuan Xi to express his debt to Yuan Xi. Yuan Xi and Xu Chu worked together to subdue the horse, which was Jueying.
But later it was rumored that Yuan Xi said that he had the destiny of heaven, so he could subdue it. When Yuan Tan heard this, he made a false accusation to Yuan Shao, saying that Yuan Xi claimed to have the destiny of the emperor. Yuan Shao was furious when he heard this, but he didn't know why. Because of this, Yuan Shao gave up his plan to reprimand Yuan Xi.
It can be seen that the fight between the two sons has become quite fierce.
At the same time, the two of them spared no effort to gain local power. Based on Xin Ping's suggestions, Yuan Tan actively cultivated and won over private forces in various places. He colluded with Zang Hong, Zhu Ling, Jiao Chu and others to constantly recruit elite soldiers to meet emergencies and consolidate his Youzhou.
Yuan Xi used Qingzhou as his base to lure the heroes of Shandong to prepare for change. "("Book of Jin·Biography No. 19·Biography of Zhang He"). His confidant Xu Huangze has been in Qingzhou all year round, constantly recruiting Shandong heroes with gold and silver treasures.
Yuan Tan drew Yuan Shang with him because of his interests, and they dealt with Yuan Xi together. Yuan Shang's talent and strategy are inferior to his two brothers. He saw his elder brothers fighting for the throne, and gradually started to compete for the throne. What's more, Yuan Shao and Mrs. Liu both preferred him.
He knew that in terms of strength, he was no match for his two older brothers, and seeing that Yuan Xi was too strong, he adopted a strategy of uniting the weak to resist the strong, and turned to his eldest brother Yuan Tan.
The two sides, who were fighting fiercely, even reached out to each other's stronghold. Yuan Tan tried to use his property to bribe the powerful generals Xu Chu, Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao and others in Yuan Xi's palace, but he made a mistake and was rejected by these people.
Yuan Xi also did not show weakness. He used various inducements and other methods to instigate Yuan Tan's generals Chang He, Wang Hao and others to turn against him and become his spies.
On the eve of the Battle of White Horse, the competition between Yuan Xi and Yuan Tan has become irreconcilable. It is a life-and-death struggle, and it is time to decide between life and death. Known as the White Horse Incident in history.
The Jin Dynasty people's attitude towards the White Horse Incident was that they did not dare to speak out at first. Officials in the early Jin Dynasty were very secretive when compiling the actual records of the emperor. Emperor Taizong Xuanwu of Jin Dynasty Yuan Xi was very unhappy when he saw it, insisting that what he did was a good thing to "secure the country and benefit all the people".
So the historians were asked to write straightly and without any concealment. Since then, official history books have written about this matter with an attitude of derogating Yuan Tan and praising Yuan Xi.
It was not until Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, asked Fang Xuanling and others to compile the "History of Jin" that he proposed that Yuan Xi's practice of killing his brothers and slaughtering his brothers was indeed contrary to traditional morality. This became an important source of criticism for the White Horse Incident in later generations.
The reason why some people are right and others are wrong is simply because their starting points are different. Those who are right think that Emperor Taizong, Xuanwu and Yuan Xi came to power to start the rule of the world, and the result is good, so there is no need to worry too much about the process; those who are wrong think that it is based on human nature. No matter what the reason is, killing biological brothers goes against human nature and basic social justice, no matter what. Nothing can be tolerated.
Perhaps this is the essential attribute of political events. If the benchmark is not established accurately, it will be difficult to judge right and wrong. From this perspective, history is sometimes written by the victors and sometimes by the survivors. On the contrary, the tracing and discussion of objective historical facts have more practical significance today.
