The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 942 The truth of history

The directors own shares and will never tolerate the general manager stealing their ownership of the company. The only way out they left for Li Yuan was to choose Li Shimin instead of anyone else. If Li Yuan did not abdicate, they would not mind getting rid of the traitor Li Shimin who "killed his brother".

It is not impossible to choose Li Yuanjing, Li Yuanchang, Li Yuanxiang and other illegitimate sons of Li Yuan, or even a young emperor to take the throne. There are also Li Xiaogong, Li Daozon and other members of the Li family. If the situation becomes desperate, even another family can be replaced.

Logically speaking, after the tragic palace coup at Xuanwu Gate, Li Yuan would soon fall ill due to depression after abdicating.

The last one to die is the normal operation.

But Li Yuan did not do that. Not only did he not die suddenly, he lived for another eight years and had more than ten sons. Finally, he died of illness in the front hall of Chuigong at the age of 69.

This fact is enough to show that there was actually no particularly big conflict between the father and son. Li Yuan did not hate Li Shimin's behavior; Li Shimin was not afraid of his father. On the contrary, after Li Yuan abdicated, the relationship between father and son was very harmonious.

why?
Because both father and son knew that Xuanwu Gate was just an effort to preserve the Li family's kingdom. If the aristocratic families needed it, even if Li Shimin did not take action, others would. Relatively speaking, Li Shimin was more in line with the common wishes of the imperial power and the aristocratic families.

This is also the escape route left for Li Yuan by the aristocratic families. Only on this basis can Li Yuan exit with dignity.

Li Yan had such doubts a long time ago, but it was not until he traveled to the Tang Dynasty and lived in the core of power for so long that he began to have some clues. And some time ago, after meeting Wei Mingshan, he suddenly understood why something like Xuanwu Gate happened?

After guessing the root cause behind it, and thinking back to the entire Sui and Tang Dynasties, and even throughout history, Li Yan couldn't help but feel shuddering and felt a fear from the bottom of his soul. He came to a terrible conclusion that if he were a member of a noble family, he would do the same.

Ultimately, it is about the struggle between the royal family and the aristocratic families for power over the world.

When the aristocratic families put forward a family or surname to rule the world, they naturally had to guard against the royal family, who had turned their family into a country, to retaliate against the aristocratic families.

The moment the imperial family separated from the aristocratic family and became the royal family, the positions of both sides became different, and naturally they would engage in an endless struggle over power, either overtly or covertly, round after round.

The imperial power was constantly weakening and suppressing the aristocratic families, and the same was true for the aristocratic families.

Although the royal family was elected by them, it does not mean that they will not restrict the imperial power. On the contrary, suppressing and weakening the imperial power is not only necessary for the aristocratic family to grow and develop, but also an inevitable choice for their safe survival.

As an imperial family admired by all people, image and face are not only the emperor's business, but also the business of the people of the world. It is a symbol of whether the power is stable.

Things like personal character are by no means unimportant.

During the Tang Dynasty, all kinds of dirty and scandalous things happened constantly. Moreover, after the Tang Dynasty came the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, which was second only to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. This was a step backward in history, which showed that the Tang Dynasty did not do a good job in establishing benevolence, righteousness, and morality.

This resulted in the Tang Dynasty becoming soulless.

In order to eliminate the hostility caused by the hundreds of years of fighting and killing among the princes before the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty advocated the Huang-Lao philosophy, ruled the country with filial piety, and ruled the world with benevolence. It was necessary to inject soul into the dynasty and win people's hearts.

This is also the reason why until a thousand years later, the people in the Central Plains considered themselves Han people, rather than Qin people, Tang people, Song people, or Ming people.

This is the irreplaceable role of the soul.
A country without benevolence and virtue may be strong for a while, but will eventually collapse, leaving nothing behind, and may even be in a state of turmoil throughout its entire generation.

Once you understand this, you will realize that when the royal family is in turmoil, the aristocratic families will be stable.

Observe from this perspective, combined with some clues Li Yan found in Chang'an.

Li Yan then knew why something like Xuanwu Gate happened in the early Tang Dynasty.

The former Crown Prince of Sui, Yang Yong, and the former Crown Prince of Tang, Li Jiancheng, were both replaced and died violent deaths.

In ancient times, people emphasized the importance of moral principles and the order of seniority. The ritual system passed down from the Zhou Dynasty was precisely to ensure the smooth inheritance of the country.

These are especially important for the royal family and the image of the royal family among the people of the world.

If the royal family sets an example for the world, the people will support them, and the power of the imperial authority will be strengthened and consolidated. However, the increase of imperial power will undoubtedly bring threats to the aristocratic families.

The aristocratic families want to make it impossible for their spokespersons to speak legitimately and win the hearts of the people.

Replacing the eldest son with the second son, inheriting the throne by means of treason, even fathers and sons forcing each other, brothers killing each other, moral principles being corrupted, and ethics being distorted, these extremely bad things happened frequently.

This will undoubtedly lead to the royal family losing the sacredness and legitimacy of their divine right in the hearts of the people.

The royal family cannot establish the kind of solidity that relies on the hearts of the people, so it has to rely on the aristocratic families, and the two can live in peace. They are both spokespersons, how similar the early Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty are.

Both of them were founding monarchs. The crown prince they carefully cultivated could not succeed to the throne in order and was replaced by the second son. Yang Guang had scandals of molesting his mother and murdering his siblings; Li Shimin even killed his brother and married his brother's wife.

The Zhenguan Reign was Li Shimin's later efforts, but in the early stage, Li Shimin did such things and was able to stabilize his regime, but the directors behind him were indifferent? This can only mean that all of Li Shimin's actions were planned by them.

Li Yan had no idea what kind of deal Li Shimin made with the aristocratic families in private. But what Li Yan knew was that after Xuanwu Gate, all the schemes of Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng against the aristocratic families were destroyed.

After the Xuanwu Gate Incident, the historical Li Shimin was not as averse to the aristocratic families as portrayed in film and television dramas, and he did not appoint commoner officials. Instead, he chose to rely heavily on the aristocratic families to maintain his rule.

There were many daughters of aristocratic families in Li Shimin's harem. Li Shimin's children married into aristocratic families. Important officials in the court were either members of aristocratic families themselves or married into aristocratic families.

People like Zhangsun Wuji, Feng Deyi, Xiao Yu, Wang Gui, Wei Ting, Cen Wenben and others were originally members of the aristocratic families; while ministers like Cheng Yaojin, Yuchi Gong, Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng and others were either sons-in-law of aristocratic families or wanted their sons to marry daughters of aristocratic families.

Almost all the famous officials in the Zhenguan period had close ties with the aristocratic families. This was the result that the aristocratic families wanted to see.

Looking at the subsequent history, Li Yan became more convinced of this judgment. No matter how dependent the royal family was on the aristocratic families, the aristocratic families never stopped suppressing, influencing, and destroying the royal family.

Li Shimin's crown prince Li Chengqian was deposed, and Li Zhi even committed the scandal of marrying Li Shimin's talented woman as his concubine. Wu replaced Queen Wang, several crown princes were deposed, Wu Zhou replaced Li Tang, and Xuanzong married her daughter-in-law, Princess Shou.

A series of events made the royal family's reputation extremely bad.

The emperor takes the world as his responsibility and is a role model for the world. His words and deeds should stand the test of history before he favors a woman.

If all the court officials opposed it, they would not have openly done such an immoral thing.

Women had a low status in ancient times. To the emperor, women were even more like playthings. Wouldn't it affect his enjoyment if he didn't marry her home openly?
In this series of moral corruption, the Li family lost the royal majesty in the hearts of the people, and also lost the control over the aristocratic families. As a result, in the late Tang Dynasty, the aristocratic families not only did not weaken, but became stronger, and a fierce backlash occurred.

More than 90% of those in power in the court come from aristocratic families.

Faced with such a complex and dangerous situation, neither Li Yuan nor Li Jiancheng could handle it. How could Li Chengqian, a legitimate eldest son with mediocre qualifications, cope with it?
No matter what he did, no matter how well he did it, his chances of successfully succeeding to the throne were very slim.

The complexity of high-level political struggles is far beyond the understanding of ordinary people.

It is not a clear-cut contradiction between the enemy and us, but a multi-party game involving three, four, five, or even more forces with different demands at different times. Some people can enter the game at any time, and some people will be eliminated.

It can be said that there is no limit to the difficulty.

Even with the most sophisticated computers of later generations, it would be impossible to fully calculate it.

No matter how prepared you are, the truth is more complicated and cruel than you imagine.

Thinking of this, Li Yan felt relieved. Fortunately, he had decisively left the vortex before entering the court. He did not give the aristocratic families a chance to take action. Instead, he turned to the periphery and developed in the Turks, seeking to break the situation by force.

Otherwise, there is a high probability that he will follow in the footsteps of the original owner.

If he stayed in Chang'an and was in the Eastern Palace, if Li Yan performed well, he would be feared by the aristocratic families and felt that he would be a threat to them; if he performed poorly, he would be looked down upon by Li Shimin and felt that he was not capable of shouldering the responsibility of fighting against the aristocratic families.

Both forces will affect his smooth succession, and the attitude of the aristocratic families may even be more important.

The main reason is that Li Chengqian is the eldest son and the crown prince, and he doesn't even have the chance to be chosen as a spokesperson. This is contrary to their usual operating methods, not to mention that Li Yan is destined to be their enemy. The difficulty of the matter will be far beyond Li Yan's imagination.

Even if he cheats, he won't win in the end.
Because Li Chengqian had to face the entire aristocratic family, which was an existence that even Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, Li Yuanba, Li Yuanji, Li Xiaogong, and Li Daozon, a group of heroes from the entire Li family, could not deal with.

Cheating can allow Li Yan to ascend to the top smoothly, but it cannot truly get rid of the aristocratic families. He may even be assimilated by the aristocratic families and become one of them.

As long as he is hostile to the aristocratic families, the world will eventually fall into war again and will not achieve the effect that Li Yan wants.

Li Yan was finally cornered, and all he could do was use the power of the system to kill people. But killing people could not solve all the problems, and it would make them worse. The aristocratic family was part of the power of the Tang Dynasty, and if things went wrong, he would end up with a tyrant who was seriously injured and destroyed himself, and his reputation would be recorded in history books.

Maybe he would be given an evil posthumous name like Li, Ling, or Yang, which would be a tragedy.

(End of this chapter)