For a long period of time in history, whether it was family inheritance or the change of imperial power, the eldest son had always followed the line of succession. The eldest son is the legitimate son, or the eldest among the legitimate sons. The legitimate son must be born by the first wife, so even if the son born by a concubine is the eldest, he cannot be the heir. This leads to many people who are capable but unconvinced because they are not the eldest son.
If these people want to become heirs, they cannot wait for the eldest son to die. After all, if the eldest son dies, the successor will be chosen from the sons of the eldest son. For example, Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty, his father was the prince, so after his father died, he became the grandson of the emperor, which made many uncles unconvinced. In the end, the fourth uncle Zhu Di won the throne.
If you want to get the position of heir, you can only impress the old father with your outstanding abilities, or you are very popular with the old father and actively let the old father choose, or you can only seize the inheritance rights through violence.
The most famous thing about this kind of thing is the "Xuanwu Gate Change" initiated by Li Shimin. This is also the biggest stain in Li Shimin's life.
At the end of the Sui Dynasty , the princes from all sides separated themselves from each other. Through Li Shimin's southern and northern wars, the Li family unified all parties and established the Tang Dynasty. But he cannot inherit this country. So he killed his brother Li Jiancheng who was the prince at the time and another brother Li Yuanji, and put his father Li Yuan under house arrest and gave him the Zen position. He also killed all the sons of the two brothers before he finally felt at ease.
After Li Shimin became the emperor, he minimized all the prince's deeds. In the end, there were almost no stories about the prince in the history books. The most we know about this prince is the description in "The Heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", which describes the prince as a jealous and capable person. So what was the real Li Jiancheng like in history? Is he as incompetent as in romance novels? With more and more historical discoveries, the image of this Tang Dynasty first prince also began to change greatly.
According to the currently discovered historical records, Prince Li Jiancheng is not as incompetent as described in the novel. He can be the first heir of the Tang Dynasty not only because of his status as the eldest son, but also because of his own excellence. What is great about Li Shimin is his own military ability. Although Li Jiancheng is not as good as him, he is not without merit. On the one hand, Li Shimin's numerous military exploits overshadowed Li Jiancheng's glory. The second is that as a prince, he would definitely not fight everywhere like Li Shimin.
Li Shimin was able to achieve such military achievements not only because of his personal ability, but also because of Li Yuan's support. After all, almost all the important generals of the Tang Dynasty were given to Li Shimin. This also led to Li Shimin's power being too huge. After all, the main army became Li Shimin's direct descendants. With such a huge power, it can't be blamed that Li Shimin coveted the throne.
And what is Li Shimin like as a person? Putting aside everything else, just for his own brother, he really went too far. Although there are many incidents of fratricide in history, especially in the emperor's family. But there are really not many people who can not only kill each other, but also kill each other's family members. And it also caused history to downplay all records of this brother. And when Li Jiancheng's tomb was discovered, it was discovered that the first prince of the Tang Dynasty had a brief introduction of only more than 50 words.
These words only record Li Jiancheng’s name, date of birth, and time of death, without mentioning anything else. A Tang Dynasty prince had no record of his life and deeds. Such an epitaph was definitely ordered by Li Shimin. The reason is nothing more than that he doesn't want people to know about his brother's ability.
And Li Shimin not only downplayed Li Jiancheng's deeds, but even took away all the credit for establishing the Tang Dynasty from Li Yuan.Many times, people even think that the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty was Li Shimin. This has been rare in all dynasties. Surprisingly, not many people can remember the name of the founding emperor, and it was also the historical dynasty of the Tang Dynasty. This aspect also truly reflects what kind of person Li Shimin is. It can be seen that in some aspects, Li Shimin is indeed a bad person.
