Li Shimin

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Li Shimin came from the Guanlong military aristocracy. His eighth-generation ancestor Li Gao was Emperor Wuzhao, founder of Western Liang. His great-grandfather Li Hu was one of the Eight Pillars of Western Wei, held the title Duke of Longxi, and was posthumously made Duke of Tang under Northern Zhou. His grandfather Li Bing served Northern Zhou as commander of Anzhou and Pillar-of-State General and inherited the title Duke of Tang. His father Li Yuan was Duke of Tang under the Sui and successively served as governor of Qiao, Qi, and Long prefectures. His mother, Lady Dou, was a niece of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Yong, and came from the Xianbei Hedouling clan.

Li Shimin was born at the Li family residence in Wugong, present-day Wugong, Shaanxi, on January 23, 599, the wuwu day of the twelfth lunar month in the eighteenth year of the Kaihuang era. The *Old Book of Tang*, volume 2, Basic Annals II, states: "At that time two dragons played outside the gate of the residence and departed after three days." This was clearly a later supernatural embellishment, but the source uses it in describing the Li family's roots in Guanzhong at the time of his birth. The *Old Book of Tang* describes him as "intelligent and perceptive from childhood, with deep foresight, decisive when confronted with events, unconstrained by minor matters, and unfathomable to contemporaries."

Li Yuan, himself from the Guanlong group, placed importance on the education of his children. As a boy, Li Shimin received an introduction to the Confucian classics, studying the *Classic of Filial Piety*, *Analects*, and the Five Classics, as well as poetry, prose, and calligraphy, while also training in horsemanship and archery. In 606, the second year of the Daye era, Li Shimin fell ill. Li Yuan went to Caotang Temple in Chang'an to pray for him and commissioned a Buddhist image after his recovery. Li Shimin later wrote a poem praising Kumarajiva, patriarch of Caotang Temple.

In 613, the ninth year of the Daye era, Li Shimin's mother Lady Dou died in Zhuo Commandery, whose seat lay southwest of present-day Beijing. He later married Lady Zhangsun, a niece of Gao Shilian, a protocol official of the Court of State Ceremonial; she later became Empress Zhangsun of Emperor Taizong.

Early Military Service and the Jinyang Rising

In 615, the eleventh year of the Daye era, Emperor Yang of Sui was surrounded at Yanmen by Shibi Qaghan of the Turks. Li Shimin responded to the call for recruits and served under Yunding Xing, General of the Tunwei Guard. Li Shimin advised him to create the appearance of a large relief force: "We must carry flags and drums to create a deception. Shibi Qaghan dares to surround the Son of Heaven with the forces of his whole realm because he must think that no relief can arrive in such haste. If we greatly magnify the appearance of our army, extend banners for dozens of li, and have gongs and drums answer one another at night, the northern barbarians will surely believe that a mass relief army has assembled and will flee at the sight of our dust." Yunding Xing adopted the plan, and the Turks indeed lifted the siege and withdrew. This account appears in the *Old Book of Tang*, while the *Diary of the Founding of the Great Tang* instead records that Li Yuan led the relief forces. Scholars have therefore disputed Li Shimin's precise role in the campaign.

In 616, the twelfth year of the Daye era, Li Yuan became garrison commander of Taiyuan and Li Shimin accompanied him. The Gao Yang rebel leader Wei Dao'er, who called himself Lishanfei, attacked Taiyuan. Li Yuan entered deep into the enemy lines and was surrounded. Li Shimin broke through with elite cavalry and rescued his father from an enemy force numbering in the tens of thousands.

In 617, the thirteenth year of the Daye era, Sui rule was collapsing. Li Shimin secretly planned an uprising, frequently lowering his own status to honor scholars and spending his wealth to support retainers, so that "among bandits and great knights, none were unwilling to risk death for him." He urged his father Li Yuan to rebel against the Sui, leading to the Jinyang Rising. Historical sources differ over who took the leading role. The *Old Book of Tang*, *New Book of Tang*, and *Zizhi Tongjian* emphasize the advocacy of Li Shimin, Liu Wenjing, and others and at times portray Li Yuan as being pushed into the uprising by outside forces. The earlier *Diary of the Founding of the Great Tang*, however, stresses Li Yuan's own planning and decisions. Modern researchers have argued that later histories were influenced by political narratives from Emperor Taizong's reign and magnified Li Shimin's role in the founding of the Tang.

After the Jinyang Rising began, Li Shimin led forces against Xihe and issued orders there. After Xihe fell, Li Yuan made Li Shimin Duke of Dunhuang and Grand Commander of the Right Army, giving him command of the three right-wing armies. When the rebel army attacked Jiahu Fort, the Sui general Song Laosheng stationed twenty thousand elite troops at Huoyi to block them. Prolonged rain caused food shortages, and Li Yuan and Pei Ji discussed temporarily returning to Taiyuan and resuming the enterprise later. Li Shimin firmly opposed retreat. He wept outside the tent and persuaded Li Yuan to continue, arguing that "if we advance to fight we will surely win, but if we withdraw the army will certainly collapse." When the rain stopped in the eighth lunar month, the army attacked Huoyi. Li Shimin led two thousand cavalry down from the heights of the southern plain, split Song Laosheng's formation, killed Song in battle, and secured Huoyi.

Li Shimin then proposed advancing through the passes, seizing the Yongfeng granary to relieve the poor, and winning over the various rebel groups before moving against Daxing City, Chang'an. Li Yuan approved. Li Shimin crossed the Yellow River with the vanguard and first secured the area north of the Wei River. Officials, commoners, and prominent men of the Three Capital Districts came to join him by the thousands each day. Li Shimin accepted talented men into his staff, and by the time he camped at Jingyang he had ninety thousand elite soldiers. He later went personally to Sizhu and joined the rebel leaders Li Zhongwen and He Panren, gaining another 130,000 troops. Military discipline was strict and the army committed no offenses against the population. Soon afterward it joined the main force in securing Daxing City. After Li Yuan took charge of the government, he appointed Li Shimin as chief administrator of the Tang fief, changed his title to Duke of Qin, and granted him a fief of ten thousand households.

In the twelfth lunar month of 617, the first year of the Yining era, Li Shimin was appointed Right Marshal and led one hundred thousand troops against the eastern capital, Luoyang, but failed to take it and withdrew. On the return march he set three ambushes at Sanwangling and decisively defeated a pursuing force of more than ten thousand under the Sui general Duan Da. He was then transferred to the title Duke of Zhao.

Commander in the Wars of Unification

In the fifth lunar month of 618, the first year of the Wude era, Li Yuan proclaimed himself emperor and founded the Tang. He made Li Shimin head of the Department of State Affairs, General of the Right Wuhou Guard, and Prince of Qin, and additionally appointed him governor of Yongzhou. Over the next several years, Li Shimin served as a principal Tang commander and successively defeated the forces of Xue Rengao, Liu Wuzhou, Wang Shichong, Dou Jiande, and Liu Heita, making the leading military contribution to Tang unification.

Defeat of Xue Rengao: In the seventh lunar month of 618, Xue Ju invaded Jingzhou and Li Shimin led an army against him. Li Shimin fell ill and entrusted the troops to Liu Wenjing and Yin Kaishan, who disobeyed orders and fought, suffering a major defeat at Qianshuiyuan. Xue Ju died in the ninth lunar month and his son Xue Rengao succeeded him. Li Shimin again took command, maintained deep defensive works around Zhezhi City for more than sixty days, and waited until the enemy was exhausted. When Xue's army ran out of provisions, the officers Mou Juncai and Liang Hulang surrendered. Li Shimin sent Pang Yu south of Qianshuiyuan to lure the enemy, then unexpectedly brought the main army over northern Qianshuiyuan and personally led several dozen elite cavalry into the enemy formation. Attacked from inside and outside, Zong Luohou's army collapsed. Li Shimin pursued with just over twenty riders to the walls of Zhezhi. The next morning Xue Rengao surrendered, together with more than ten thousand elite troops and fifty thousand men and women. When asked how he had won, Li Shimin explained that he had used an expedient method to deny the enemy time to act and then pursued immediately so that the defeated Longxi soldiers could not scatter back beyond Longshan, leaving Zhezhi exposed and causing the defenders to surrender from fear.

Defeat of Liu Wuzhou: In 619, Liu Wuzhou allied with the Eastern Turks, and his general Song Jingang captured Taiyuan, causing a crisis in Hedong. Li Shimin was ordered east across the Yellow River. Against Song Jingang he adopted a strategy of prolonged confrontation and exhaustion of enemy supplies, avoiding premature battle. In 620, with his provisions exhausted, Song Jingang withdrew. Tang forces pursued, Yuchi Jingde and other commanders surrendered to Tang, Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang fled to the Turks, and Hedong was recovered.

Defeat of Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande: In 620, Li Shimin led an army against Wang Shichong's regime at Luoyang and gradually took control of the surrounding region. Wang Shichong sought aid from Dou Jiande, who controlled Hebei. In 621 Dou Jiande led troops west to relieve Luoyang. Li Shimin left part of his army to continue the siege while leading the main force east to meet Dou at Hulao Pass. Dou Jiande was defeated and captured. Wang Shichong, deprived of outside aid, then surrendered. The Zheng and Xia regimes collapsed in succession, and the Tang obtained the key Central Plains regions of Henan and Hebei. This was the largest and most consequential engagement of the early Tang wars of unification and enabled Li Shimin to secure the Central Plains in a single campaign.

Defeat of Liu Heita: In 622, former followers of Dou Jiande under Liu Heita again rose in Hebei. Li Shimin and Li Yuanji led forces against them, dammed water in the Mingshui area, and released it during battle to strike Liu Heita's army, severely damaging his main force. Liu fled to the Turks after defeat, later returned with Turkic support, and was ultimately defeated by forces under Crown Prince Li Jiancheng.

In 621, the fourth year of the Wude era, Emperor Gaozu appointed Li Shimin Heavenly Strategist General and also gave him the posts of Grand Minister over the Masses and head of the Branch Department of State Affairs for the Shandong Circuit. The Tiance Office became an important political and military institution of the Prince of Qin's household, enabling Li Shimin to recruit civil and military talents such as Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Zhangsun Wuji, Yuchi Jingde, and Qin Shubao. The source also notes, however, that the Tang wars of unification were not accomplished by Li Shimin alone. Li Jiancheng, Li Yuanji, Li Xiaogong, Li Jing, Chai Shao, Princess Pingyang, and other imperial relatives, generals, and local forces that joined the Tang played important roles in different theaters, while many southern separatist regimes were defeated mainly by other Tang commanders.

Xuanwu Gate Incident and Accession

As the Tang gradually unified the realm, Li Shimin's political and military prestige continued to rise, and his rivalry with Crown Prince Li Jiancheng over the succession grew increasingly intense. Li Jiancheng allied with Prince of Qi Li Yuanji to consolidate the Eastern Palace, while Li Shimin relied on the civil and military group around the Prince of Qin's household. The two factions gathered their own advisers and commanders: Wang Gui, Wei Zheng, Xue Wanche, and others supported Li Jiancheng, while Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Zhangsun Wuji, Yuchi Jingde, Qin Shubao, and others supported Li Shimin.

In the sixth lunar month of 624, Li Jiancheng secretly recruited brave men as Eastern Palace guards. Officer Erzhu Huan and commandant Qiao Gongshan went to Renzhi Palace, where Emperor Gaozu was spending the summer, and reported him. Gaozu was furious and detained Li Jiancheng. Yang Wengan, governor of Qingzhou and an associate of Li Jiancheng, became afraid and rebelled. Gaozu sent Li Shimin to suppress Yang and promised to make Li Shimin crown prince after the rebellion was defeated. After Li Shimin departed, however, Li Yuanji, Chancellor Feng Deyi, Consort Yin, Lady Zhang, and others interceded for Li Jiancheng, and Gaozu ultimately changed his mind.

In 626, the ninth year of the Wude era, the struggle reached its climax. Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji intensified their efforts to remove key members of the Prince of Qin's household. Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were expelled, and Yuchi Jingde was nearly executed. On the fourth day of the sixth lunar month, Li Shimin struck first, set an ambush at Xuanwu Gate, and shot Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji dead. Yuchi Jingde then entered the palace in armor and, under the pretext of protecting the emperor, compelled Li Yuan to accept the accomplished fact. On the seventh day of the sixth lunar month, Li Shimin was made crown prince. On the ninth day of the eighth lunar month, Li Yuan abdicated and Li Shimin ascended the throne as Emperor Taizong of Tang. The following year he adopted the era name Zhenguan.

The Xuanwu Gate Incident was the most controversial event of Li Shimin's political career. Emperor Taizong later attempted to beautify his actions by revising the Veritable Records, but early sources such as the *Diary of the Founding of the Great Tang* retained parts of the earlier account. Later historians differed in their assessments. Objectively, however, the Zhenguan era of good government inaugurated after Li Shimin's accession gave the coup a measure of legitimacy in later historical narrative.

Zhenguan Era of Good Government

After taking the throne, Li Shimin treated the fall of the Sui as a warning and governed energetically. He often discussed the lessons of the Sui collapse with his ministers and held that "water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it," emphasizing that rulers had to restrain personal desires and care for popular livelihoods. He reduced corvée and taxes and pursued recuperative policies to ease burdens on the people; perfected the Three Departments and Six Ministries system to improve administrative efficiency; placed importance on law and ordered Fang Xuanling and others to revise the *Zhenguan Code*; and recruited talented officials broadly rather than according to a single standard.

Many celebrated ministers served during the Zhenguan era. Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were chancellors and became known for "Fang's planning and Du's decisions." Wei Zheng was famed for outspoken remonstrance and submitted more than two hundred remonstrances. Li Shimin both respected and relied on him. After Wei Zheng died, Li Shimin lamented: "Using bronze as a mirror, one can straighten one's cap and clothes; using antiquity as a mirror, one can understand rise and decline; using people as a mirror, one can see gains and losses. I have always preserved these three mirrors to guard against my own errors. Now that Wei Zheng has died, I have lost one mirror!"

In relations with surrounding peoples, Li Jing and others destroyed the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in 630, the fourth year of the Zhenguan era, and captured Illig Qaghan. Leaders from the Western Regions and northern frontier honored Li Shimin as "Heavenly Qaghan," greatly expanding Tang influence in the north and west. Li Shimin adopted a policy of "loving them as one," allowing surrendered Turks to move within Tang territory and appointing Turkic nobles to office, promoting ethnic integration.

In 643, the seventeenth year of the Zhenguan era, Li Shimin ordered Yan Liben to paint portraits of twenty-four meritorious officials, including Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng, and Yuchi Jingde, at Lingyan Pavilion, creating the Twenty-four Meritorious Officials of Lingyan Pavilion. In the same year, Crown Prince Li Chengqian was deposed after plotting rebellion, and Li Shimin made Prince of Jin Li Zhi crown prince.

In 645, the nineteenth year of the Zhenguan era, Li Shimin personally campaigned against Goguryeo and captured Liaodong and other places, but cold weather and inadequate supplies forced him to withdraw. The campaign failed to achieve complete success and remained a major regret of his later years.

Later Years and Death

In the later Zhenguan years, Li Shimin gradually became less diligent than earlier, his lifestyle grew more luxurious, and his receptiveness to remonstrance changed. He nevertheless remained attentive to state affairs and wrote the twelve chapters of *Difan* as instruction for Crown Prince Li Zhi. In 649, the twenty-third year of the Zhenguan era, Li Shimin became seriously ill and died on the jisi day of the fifth lunar month, July 10, at Hanfeng Hall in Cuiwei Palace, aged fifty-two. The officials conferred the posthumous name Emperor Wen, his temple name was Taizong, and he was buried at Zhaoling, northeast of present-day Liquan County, Shaanxi.

Li Shimin was the second son of Li Yuan, founder of the Tang, and belonged to the Guan-Long aristocracy. His father, who had inherited the title duke of Tang at seven, was at the end of the Sui the commander of Taiyuan; his mother, née Dou, a niece of the Northern Zhou emperor Yuwen Yong and daughter of Dou Yi, was versed in letters and history and strict in the schooling of her sons. Li Shimin, his elder brother Li Jiancheng and his younger brother Li Yuanji were all her children, and a further brother, Li Xuanba, died young. He read widely in the histories as a boy, was fondest of military works, and was a fine horseman and archer; at Taiyuan his father let him act on his own in dealings with the northern nomadic powers, an experience that shaped his later judgment of cavalry mobility and intelligence.

In 615, when Emperor Yang of Sui was besieged at Yanmen by the Eastern Turks under Shibi Khan and called for volunteers, Li Shimin enlisted under the garrison general Yun Dingxing. He advised that Shibi would never have surrounded the emperor with his whole army unless he judged the state unable to send relief quickly, and that they should therefore make a great display — banners strung out for tens of li, gongs and drums answering one another by night — so that the Turks would think a host of relief troops had arrived and withdraw; otherwise, with the enemy many and themselves few, they could not withstand a general attack. Yun Dingxing took the advice, camped at Guoxian, and the Turkish scouts reported that the Sui host had come, whereupon the besiegers broke off and fled. This use of a show of force to make an enemy retire on his own is the first recorded instance of Li Shimin's military judgment. The next year, when the bandit chief Wei Dao'er, calling himself Lishan Fei, attacked Taiyuan, Li Yuan went deep into the enemy formation; Li Shimin cut his way in with light cavalry, shooting as he went, and brought his father out from the midst of the host, and when the infantry came up the two of them broke the enemy utterly.

In the collapse of the Sui, Li Shimin was the driving force behind the rising at Jinyang. He made friends with Liu Wenjing, magistrate of Jinyang, and Pei Ji, overseer of the Jinyang palace, secretly gathered braves and enrolled fighting men, and used Pei Ji to bring his father to the decision to rise. In the fifth month of 617 Li Yuan had Wang Wei and Gao Junya killed on the charge of conspiring with the Turks and rose in arms; in the sixth month he left Li Yuanji to hold Taiyuan and marched south with Li Shimin in his train. In the seventh month the army reached Jiahubao, where the Sui general Song Laosheng held Huoyi with twenty thousand picked troops to block them; with long rain, broken roads and dwindling supplies, Li Yuan and Pei Ji proposed to fall back on Taiyuan and try again later. Li Shimin argued that they had risen to save the people, that they should enter Xianyang first and there give law to the empire, and that to turn back at the first small enemy would dissolve the following they had gathered; to hold one city of Taiyuan would make them mere bandits, with no way to preserve themselves. Li Yuan would not hear him and ordered the march. Li Shimin then wept bitterly outside the tent until his father heard and asked why; he answered that an army acting on righteousness wins if it advances and disperses if it retires, and that with the troops scattered in front and the enemy pressing behind, death would be upon them in a moment. Li Yuan saw the point and halted the withdrawal — a remonstrance decisive for the founding of the Tang.

When the rain stopped in the eighth month, Li Yuan marched straight on Huoyi. Fearing that Song Laosheng would not come out, Li Shimin rode to the wall with a few horsemen, waving his whip as if about to besiege the place, and stung him into opening the gates and drawing up with his back to the city. Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng formed on the east, Li Shimin and Chai Shao on the south. Song Laosheng charged hard, first at Li Yuan; Li Jiancheng fell from his horse and both were driven back, whereupon Li Shimin led his cavalry down the slope from the south, broke the enemy formation and counterattacked, and the enemy broke and threw away their arms. The city gate was dropped: Song Laosheng, clutching the rope to climb the wall, was overtaken and killed by Li Shimin, and Huoyi was taken.

The Tang army then moved west into Guanzhong. Li Shimin asked to lead the advance into the passes, to seize the Yongfeng granary for relief of the poor and to gather the bandit bands for the taking of the capital, and Li Yuan approved. Crossing the Yellow River with the forward army he first pacified the north of the Wei: officials, commoners and local strongmen came to his gate to offer service at the rate of a thousand a day, the old and the young in tow, filling the ground beneath his banners; he took the able among them into his staff, and men came from far and near to attach themselves to him. When the army camped at Jingyang it had ninety thousand effective troops; he destroyed the Hu bandit Liu Yaozi and absorbed his men. Li Zhongwen, He Panren and Xiang Shanzhi then came in with their troops, and at A-cheng his force grew to a hundred and thirty thousand. The elders of Chang'an brought cattle and wine to his camp in numbers beyond counting; he thanked and dismissed them, accepting nothing, and his orders were strict and his troops took not a hair — in sharp contrast to the plundering of the other armies abroad. Chang'an was soon taken, Li Yuan took over the government, and Li Shimin was made minister of the Tang princedom and enfeoffed duke of Qin. When Xue Ju pressed on the Wei with a hundred thousand tried troops, Li Shimin met him in person, broke his host, pursued and killed more than ten thousand and took the country as far as Longdi.

In the twelfth month of 617 Li Shimin was made marshal of the right with a hundred thousand men to take the eastern capital, Luoyang, and returned unsuccessful. Judging that the enemy would follow, he laid three ambushes; the Sui general Duan Da came after him with more than ten thousand men and, crossing the Sanwang tumulus, was set upon from all sides, heavily defeated and pursued to the city walls. The Tang then set up the two prefectures of Xiong and Gu at Yiyang and Xin'an, garrisoned them and returned, and Li Shimin was transferred to the dukedom of Zhao. The next year Li Yuan took the abdication and founded the Tang, and Li Shimin, as prince of Qin, began the years of unification: Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang in the north, Xue Ju and his son in the west, Wang Shichong in the east, Dou Jiande and later Liu Heita in Hebei, Fu Gongshi in the Huai region — most of them subdued under his command.

After the founding of the Tang, Li Shimin's energies went chiefly to subduing the rivals on every side. In the seventh month of 618 Xue Ju invaded Jingzhou and Li Shimin, sent against him, was at first beaten back; Xue Ju died in the ninth month and his son Xue Rengao succeeded, and Li Shimin, again made marshal, faced him at Zhezhe city for sixty days. The enemy had more than a hundred thousand men and a sharp edge; they challenged repeatedly and he held his deep ditches and high walls, wearing their ardor down, until their grain failed and their commanders Mou Juncai and Liang Hulang came over to him. Judging that their spirit was spent and the time had come, he sent Pang Yu to form south of Qianshui plain to draw them, and when Zong Luohou took the bait and pressed Pang Yu hard, Li Shimin himself brought the main army suddenly against the north of the plain, drove into the enemy with a few dozen picked horsemen, and shattered Zong Luohou's army from within and without, killing thousands and drowning countless more in the gullies. With some twenty riders he pursued without pause to the walls of Zhezhe; Xue Rengao, terrified, shut himself in, and when the Tang army came up and surrounded the place he surrendered the next morning, yielding more than ten thousand picked troops and fifty thousand men and women. Asked why, having won in the field, he had not waited for siege engines before riding to the walls, he answered that he had used a stratagem to force the issue before the enemy could think: Zong Luohou's men were all from Longxi and, once broken, scattered homeward without looking back, leaving Zhezhe empty — which was why fear had brought the surrender.

In 619 Liu Wuzhou sent Song Jingang south, Jinzhou and Huizhou fell one after another, Li Yuanji abandoned Taiyuan and fled to Chang'an, Guanzhong was shaken, and Li Yuan even ordered the abandonment of Hedong to hold only the west of the passes. Li Shimin memorialized against it: Taiyuan was the seat of the dynastic enterprise, the root of the state, and wealthy Hedong was what the capital depended on; to cast both away was intolerable to him, and with thirty thousand picked troops he would pacify Liu Wuzhou and recover Fen and Jin. Li Yuan gave him all the troops of Guanzhong and saw him off in person from Changchun palace. He crossed the Yellow River on the ice at Longmen and camped at Baibi facing Song Jingang; he first sent Yin Kaishan and Qin Shubao to ambush and shatter the enemy at Meiliangchuan, where Xun Xiang barely escaped and Yuchi Jingde was taken. When his generals asked to fight he refused: Song Jingang was an army a thousand li from home, wanting a quick decision, and Liu Wuzhou in Taiyuan relied on him as his shield; the troops were many but the state was hollow within, so the thing to do was to sit tight, husband strength and blunt his edge until grain and stratagems alike ran out. In the second month of the next year Song Jingang indeed withdrew for want of grain; Li Shimin pursued him to Jiezhou, where the enemy drew up seven li north to south. He set Li Shiji, Cheng Yaojin and Qin Shubao against their north and Zhai Changsun and Qin Wutong against their south, and when his own lines gave a little he led picked cavalry against the enemy's rear and broke them, chasing them for tens of li. Yuchi Jingde and Xun Xiang came in with eight thousand men, and he let Jingde keep command of them, intermixed with his own; warned that they might turn, he answered with the old saying about a king who put his own heart into other men's breasts and was served to the death. Liu Wuzhou fled to the Turks, and the lands of Bing and Fen were recovered.

In the seventh month of 620 Li Shimin took command against Wang Shichong. He posted Shi Wanbao, Liu Dewei and Wang Junkuo to hold the key points and cut the enemy's supply roads, and sent Huang Junhan by night to storm the Huiluo fort, after which the fortresses south of the Yellow River came over one after another. Wang Shichong drew up thirty thousand picked troops at Cijian; Li Shimin provoked them with light horse and, being outnumbered, was surrounded, his men afraid, so that he sent them back to camp and held the rear alone, shooting so that every arrow brought a man down and taking the enemy general Yan Qi. In the ninth month, reconnoitering with five hundred horse, he met more than ten thousand of the enemy and broke them again, killing three thousand and taking the general Chen Zhilüe; he then advanced to Qingcheng palace, where he fought Wang Shichong's twenty thousand at the Gu river and on Mangshan from morning to afternoon until they fell back, taking eight thousand prisoners and dead, and sat down to a long siege before the city.

In 621 Dou Jiande came to the rescue with more than a hundred thousand men as far as Suanzao. Xiao Yu, Qutu Tong and Feng Deyi, fearing an enemy front and rear, asked to retire to Guzhou and wait; Li Shimin judged that Wang Shichong, his grain gone and his household divided, could be left to rot without a blow, while Dou Jiande, fresh from beating Meng Haigong, had proud officers and idle soldiers: to seize Wulao and hold the throat of the position would break him if he risked battle and would see Wang Shichong collapse within ten days if he did not; to delay until Dou entered Wulao, with the newly submitted cities unable to hold, would be to face the two together. He left Qutu Tong with the prince of Qi, Li Yuanji, to continue the siege and rode with three thousand five hundred horse and foot to seize Wulao. After more than twenty days facing each other he learned that Dou meant to fall on Wulao while the Tang horses were grazing north of the river, and turned the trick about by grazing them there as bait. Next morning Dou came on with his whole force and drew up along the Si river in a line several li long, drums and shouting, and the Tang generals were much afraid. Li Shimin climbed a height to look and said that men risen in Shandong had never seen a great enemy, that crossing a defile in an uproar showed no discipline and forming close to the city showed contempt for them, so that if he held still their spirit would fail and, standing long in ranks, hungry and weary, they would withdraw of themselves — and he undertook to break them after noon. By afternoon the enemy were sitting in their ranks, quarrelling for water and edging backward. He gave the word, led light horse out to pursue and draw them, and the army followed; he charged in first, and as Shi Danai, Cheng Yaojin, Qin Shubao and Yuwen Xin waved the banners and burst out behind the enemy line, the enemy saw the Tang colors at their backs and broke utterly. They were chased thirty li with three thousand killed, fifty thousand taken, and Dou Jiande himself seized in the field. Brought before the walls of Luoyang, Wang Shichong in terror came out with more than two thousand of his officials and surrendered, and Shandong was pacified. In the city Li Shimin set Xiao Yu and Dou Gui to seal the treasuries, took nothing, had his secretary Fang Xuanling collect the Sui registers and maps, put to death fifty-odd men who had shared in the crimes, released the unjustly imprisoned and sacrificed to those wrongly killed, and feasted and rewarded his troops by rank. Returning in triumph in the sixth month, he wore golden armor himself at the head of ten thousand armored horse and thirty thousand mailed men with bands before and behind, presenting the two false rulers and the Sui regalia at the ancestral temple; in the tenth month Li Yuan, finding no old office adequate to his service, created him generalissimo of the heavenly strategy with the great headquarters of Shaandong, above all princes, with thirty thousand households, a gilded carriage, robes and crowns, bands and a bodyguard of forty swordsmen.

In the twelfth month of 621 Liu Heita, an old officer of Dou Jiande, rose in Hebei and took Mingzhou, and Li Shimin was sent east. In the first month of 622 he advanced to Feixiang and detached troops to cut the enemy's grain roads, and the two sides stood off for two months. Liu Heita, pressed, came out to fight with twenty thousand horse and foot, crossing the Ming river at dawn against the Tang camp; Li Shimin led picked cavalry against their horsemen, broke them, rode down their infantry and routed them, killing more than ten thousand. He had already had the river dammed upstream to make it shallow, letting Liu Heita cross; in the battle he had the dam broken, and the water, more than ten feet deep, drowned the beaten men as they fled. Liu Heita escaped north to the Turks with two hundred riders and his army was taken; Hebei was pacified, and Li Shimin turned back to destroy Xu Yuanlang, who held Xu and Yan, after which the commanderies of the He, Ji, Yangtze and Huai regions all submitted.

His Family, His Early Years and the Rising at Jinyang

Li Shimin was a man of Chengji in Longxi, that is Qin'an in Tianshui of Gansu, his ancestral home being Didao in Longxi, the present Lintao in Gansu, and he was born at Wugong, the present Wugong in Shaanxi, as the second son of Li Yuan, the founding emperor of the Tang. He served in the army from his youth and once went to the Yanmen Pass to rescue the Sui emperor Yang. In the thirteenth year of Daye, that is 617, Li Yuan rose at Jinyang, and Li Shimin, as Duke of Dunhuang and commander of the right guards, led the right of the three armies and took Chang'an with the army. After the founding of the Tang, Li Yuan enfeoffed Li Shimin as Prince of Qin, and he led troops to pacify the separatist forces of Xue Rengao, Liu Wuzhou, Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong, winning great merit for the unification of the empire, being enfeoffed as Grand General of the Heavenly Strategy and opening the Heavenly Strategy Office at Luoyang. To be the son of a great house and to bear the work of founding a dynasty, his early years ran together with the rise of the Tang house.

Breaking the Enemy by Expedience: His Own Account After the Battle of Qianshuiyuan

When the generals had offered their congratulations they asked Li Shimin how the victory had been won. The Zizhi tongjian records the exchange: that at first the prince had broken the enemy in the field but the enemy still held strong cities, and that he had no siege engines, and with light cavalry had fought and pursued without waiting for the foot, pressing straight to the enemy's wall, so that they had doubted he could win, and yet he had taken the city, and why? Li Shimin said that he had pressed them by an expedient, giving their plans no chance to unfold, and so had won; that Zong Luohou, relying on his victories of former years and having long nourished his keenness, had despised him when he would not come out; that when the enemy saw him take the field they were delighted and came on with their whole army, and though he had broken them, few had been taken or killed; and that had he not pursued at once, the enemy would have returned into Zhezhe city and Xue Rengao, gathering and comforting them, could never have been beaten. He said also that the enemy's soldiers were all men of Longxi, and fleeing scattered they had no time to look back, so that fleeing beyond Long they left Zhezhe empty, and his army pressing on, the enemy surrendered out of fear; and that these had been settled plans, and could the generals not all see them? The generals answered that this was beyond the reach of ordinary men. This passage is his own account of his art of war, to see the moment and decide, without waiting to form the array.

The Four Methods of Reconnaissance Before the Battle of Hulao

Li Shimin gave the greatest weight to the discovery of the enemy's condition, and his methods were four. First, he led light cavalry to look at the enemy himself: he would ride out with a few horsemen to spy on them, as at the battle of Cijian, where he went forward with light cavalry to look at Wang Shichong, and in attacking the outlying posts of Luoyang took five hundred horsemen over the ground of battle; all of which shows that he gave weight to reconnoitring the enemy at the front and to knowing precisely how the field stood. Second, he climbed high to look out on the enemy: this way of reconnoitring was of long standing and of great military value, and in the battle of Hulao he took several horsemen up a high mound to look about, and so learned Dou Jiande's dispositions fairly accurately. Third, he used the method of testing the enemy's array: at Hulao, when the Tang army faced Dou Jiande, and to discover the truth of his array, Li Shimin ordered Yuwen Shiji to lead cavalry in a probing attack, warning him that if the enemy did not move he should bring his troops back but if they did he should lead toward the eastern hill; and when he saw the enemy's array waver he knew their ranks were unsteady and their orders confused, and so ordered the whole army to attack. Fourth, he went himself into the enemy's camp to learn the circumstances, which was of course a course of considerable risk and only occasionally taken.

After the Xuanwu Gate and the Government of the Eastern Palace

After the change at the Xuanwu Gate Li Shimin's measures were swift and orderly. The Jiu Tang shu, in the annals of Taizong, records that on the fourth day of the sixth month, the jiazi day, he was made heir apparent with all government decided by him; that he then released the falcons and hounds kept in the forbidden park and stopped the rare and strange things presented from every quarter, governing with simplicity and restraint so that all the empire rejoiced; and that he ordered the officials each to send up sealed memorials setting out fully the essentials of settling the people and ordering the state. On the jisi day he decreed that by the rites the two characters of a name were not to be avoided separately, that in recent times both had been avoided and much had thereby been spoiled, and that such practice was contrary to the classics; and that in official titles, personal names and public and private documents, where the two characters Shimin did not occur together no avoidance was needed. He abolished the metropolitan command of Youzhou; on the xinwei day he abolished the eastern Shaanxi grand commission and established the Luozhou metropolitan command, and abolished the Yizhou circuit commission and established the Yizhou metropolitan command; on the renwu day the metropolitan commander of Youzhou, the Prince of Lujiang, Yuan, plotted rebellion and was reduced to commoner; and on the yiyou day the Heavenly Strategy Office was abolished. On the renchen day of the seventh month the left common attendant of the heir apparent, Gao Shilian, was made palace attendant, the right common attendant Fang Xuanling chancellor of the Secretariat, the right vice director Xiao Yu left vice director, the minister of personnel Yang Gongren governor of Yongzhou, the left common attendant Zhangsun Wuji minister of personnel, the right common attendant Du Ruhui minister of war, the household manager of the heir apparent Yuwen Shiji chancellor of the Secretariat, and Feng Deyi right vice director. By abolishing the Heavenly Strategy Office, ending the circuit commissions and changing the order of the hundred officials he gathered the power of the empire into the eastern palace, which was the government of the days before and after his accession.

His Accession and the Oath at the Bian Bridge on the Wei

The Jiu Tang shu, in the annals of Taizong, records that on the guihai day of the eighth month Gaozu abdicated in favour of the heir apparent and Taizong took the throne in the Xiande Hall of the eastern palace; that Pei Ji, minister of works and Duke of Wei, was sent to announce it at the southern suburb and a general amnesty was proclaimed, those exiled for their sentiments since the first year of Wude being released; that civil and military officials of the fifth rank and above without rank were given one grade and those of the sixth and below one turn of merit; that the whole empire was exempted from taxes and service for one year; and that on the guiyou day more than three thousand palace women were released from the side courts. On the jiashu day the Turkic Khans Xieli and Tuli raided Jingzhou; on the yihai day the Turks raided Wugong and the capital was put under martial law; on the bingzi day his consort, the lady Zhangsun, was made empress; on the jimao day the Turks raided Gaoling; on the xinsi day the marching commander Yuchi Jingde fought the Turks at Jingyang, breaking them utterly with more than a thousand heads taken; and on the guiwei day the Turkic Khan Xieli reached the north of the Bian Bridge on the Wei River and sent his chief Zhishi Sili into the court as a spy, making a show of his strength, and Taizong had him imprisoned. He went out of the Xuanwu Gate in person and rode with six horsemen to the bank of the Wei, and speaking to Xieli across the ford reproached him for breaking faith; and presently the armies came up, and Xieli, seeing the strength of the array and learning that Zhishi Sili was imprisoned, was greatly afraid and asked for peace, which was granted by edict, and the emperor returned to the palace that day. On the yiyou day he went again to the Bian Bridge and swore an oath with Xieli by killing a white horse, and the Turks withdrew. To meet the threat of the Turks within days of his accession and turn them back by riding to the Wei with six horsemen and reproaching them with breach of faith was the daring of his early government.

The Shelving of Arms and the Cultivation of Letters, and "Stilling the People to Comfort Them"

After his accession Li Shimin shelved the use of arms, cultivated letters, stilled the people and attended to farming, restoring and developing the economy as a chief part of governing by civil means. He told his ministers that he had just come to the throne and that those who govern a state must be quiet; and again that with the state not yet at peace and the people not yet comforted, they must for the present be stilled and comforted. To still and comfort them meant to lighten the burden of military and labour service so that the people might rest and recover. The core of this policy, under the principle that the state is founded on the people and the people on food and clothing, was to let the people live, the farmers farm and agriculture be restored and developed as the basis of settling society and governing the state. In the second year of Zhenguan, in 628, Li Shimin told his attendants that in all things one must attend to the root; that the state is founded on the people and the people on food and clothing; that in gaining food and clothing the essential is not to miss the season; and that not to miss the season could only be achieved if the ruler were simple and still, for with wars repeatedly stirred and building never ceasing how could the farming seasons be spared? He said also that to settle the people and quiet the state lay only with the ruler; that when the ruler did nothing the people were glad and when he had many desires the people suffered; and that the state was founded on the people and the people on food, so that if the grain did not ripen the multitudes would no longer belong to the state. He made the letting of the people farm the centre of settling the people and quieting the state, and therefore held that the ruler should carry out the Daoist spirit of doing nothing and oppose having many desires.

The Tripartite Tax, Remissions and the Ransom of Captives

The three chief exactions on the equal-field peasants of the Tang were: the land tax of two piculs of millet a year from every able-bodied man; the household levy of two bolts of silk and three ounces of floss, or two and a half bolts of cloth and three catties of hemp; and the labour service of twenty days a year, commuted where unpaid at three feet of silk or three feet seven inches and a half of cloth a day, called the commutation. Because of the shock of the peasant wars of the end of the Sui, the early Tang relaxed the ages for commuting service compared with the Sui and made the reckoning of the commuted time stricter; Li Shimin on his accession followed the regulations in the main, making no great change. The working of commutation gave the peasants more time for production. To lighten the burden and let more peasants farm, in the Zhenguan years Li Shimin issued formal edicts remitting the taxes and service of the whole empire more than once: in the summer of the first year of Zhenguan, when the prefectures of Shandong suffered a great drought, the year's taxes were remitted; in the first month of the thirteenth year the taxes of Sanyuan county were remitted for a year; in the fourth month of the fifteenth year those of Luochuan for a year; and in the third month of the seventeenth year those of Qizhou for a year — twelve times in all. Though the newly founded state had a very weak economic base and the scope of the remissions was limited, they did lighten the peasants' burden and helped restore and develop production. Of the recovery of population there is also this to record: at the end of the Sui, when the central plain was in chaos, Chinese fled north while the Turks raided and carried off great numbers, so that the Chinese in the north were said to be very many, gathered and holding the mountain defiles, and would answer when the royal armies came; and Li Shimin on his accession, to increase the labour force, did not grudge gold and silk to ransom those captured by the Turks, in the fifth year of Zhenguan, 631, ransoming eighty thousand Chinese held by the Turks with gold and silk, and in the twenty-first year, 647, ransoming those in the Tie-le country; and when ransoming Chinese from the raiders of the northern desert he found that people of the Shiwei, Mohe and Wuluohu had also been carried off, and ransomed them as well with the same relief. In the old Turkish lands, when the Khan Xieli surrendered he offered the sheep and horses of the northern grasslands, and Li Shimin, considering the state of recovery, not only refused the tribute at once but required him to release the Chinese in his territory so as to gain more labour for the war-worn agriculture. He also made the increase or decrease of households an important standard in assessing local officials, decreeing that where prefects and magistrates could see that marriages were timely and few widows and widowers remained, and where the households had increased, they should be advanced in their assessment, and that where they had advised men ill and failed to see them married and the households had decreased, they should be ranked lowest.

The Reorganisation of the Military System and the Establishment of the Protectorates

The Tang, following the Sui, divided the empire into military regions so as to govern the many as the few. In the first year of Zhenguan, 627, Li Shimin divided the empire into ten circuits, the court stationing troops by circuit, each circuit containing both the local troops and frontier forces of the circuit and the mobilisation offices directly under the centre; and the basic principle of the dispositions was to make the metropolitan region and the regions of serious danger the chief points, stationing troops by region so as to form a system of defence heavy within and light without, with central and local armies interlocking and both defending the empire. By incomplete statistics Li Shimin established more than six hundred mobilisation offices in the Zhenguan years with a total of some six hundred thousand troops, distributed over ten circuits, seven commands and seventy-seven prefectures; and of these the Guannei circuit, in which the capital Chang'an lay, had more than two hundred and eighty offices and some two hundred thousand troops, more than a third of the whole, forming the disposition of bringing the host of the passes against the four quarters. Afterwards the empire was rearranged into twelve circuits, and in point of disposition the forces of the Hexi, Longyou and Jiannan circuits guarding against the Tibetans and of the Hedong, Fanyang and Pinglu circuits guarding against the Turks, the Xi and the Khitan were markedly strengthened, while the circuits with lighter frontier duties, such as Jiangnan and Henan, had fewer troops; and this disposition was of great importance for maintaining the unity of the state. To strengthen the military and political management of the remote regions, from the fourteenth year of Zhenguan, 640, the Tang court established one after another six protectorates on the frontiers, whose chief duty was to comfort the various peoples and quiet outer enemies, to record merit and punish fault, and to decide all military and political affairs within their jurisdiction.

The Honour to Confucius and the Flourishing of the National Academy

At the founding of the Tang, on the wuxu day of the sixth month of the second year of Wude, 619, Gaozu decreed that the national academy should set up temples to the Duke of Zhou and Confucius with sacrifices at the four seasons and should seek out their descendants widely; in the seventh year of Wude, 624, Gaozu went to the national academy and made the offering to the former sages and teachers; and in the ninth year of Wude, 626, the descendants of Confucius were enfeoffed as the Marquis of Baosheng. After his accession Li Shimin honoured Confucian learning and its founder above all: in the second year of Zhenguan, 628, on the advice of Fang Xuanling and others he set aside the Duke of Zhou and raised Confucius to be the former sage, establishing a hall of Confucius with Confucius as the former sage and Yan Hui as the former teacher; and the Zhenguan zhengyao records that in the second year of Zhenguan an edict stopped the Duke of Zhou as the former sage and first established the hall of Confucius in the national academy, following the old statutes with Confucius as the former sage and Yanzi as the former teacher, so that the vessels and the shields and axes of the sacrifice were first complete from that time; and that in that year the Confucian scholars of the empire were gathered in great numbers, given silk and post carriages and summoned to the capital, advanced out of the ordinary and placed in numbers in the courts; and that students who had mastered one of the great classics were all given office. In the eleventh year of Zhenguan, 637, Li Shimin further decreed that Confucius should be honoured as the Declared Father and a temple hall specially established at Yanzhou with twenty households to maintain the offerings. As for the schools: in the fifth month of the first year of Wude, 618, Gaozu decreed the establishment of the schools of the sons of the state, the great learning and the four gates with more than three hundred places, and the commandery and county schools each with their students; and in the seventh year of Wude he decreed schools in every department, county and district. After his accession Li Shimin gave the more weight to schooling, and the system of schools became daily more complete, the three levels of central, provincial and county schools all attaining considerable scale; the central school was the Directorate of Education, also called the national academy, which in the Wude years had already added more than four hundred rooms; and Li Shimin several times inspected the academy and had the libationer, the vice director and the erudites lecture, giving them bundles of silk, so that the Confucian scholars of the four quarters came with their books in numbers reckoned in the thousands. In the sixth year of Zhenguan, 632, the Directorate, as the highest seat of learning in the empire, added the school of law to the schools of the sons of the state, the great learning, the four gates, calligraphy and mathematics already established under the Sui; the students of the six schools numbered three hundred, five hundred, thirteen hundred, fifty, thirty and thirty respectively, the first three admitting the sons of officials of the third, fifth and seventh ranks and above and the last three taking the sons of officials of the eighth rank and below and of ordinary landlord families. At that time within the academy the Confucians from the four quarters numbered in the thousands, and with the students sent from the surrounding states, those who opened their book boxes and ascended the lecture mats in the academy came to nearly ten thousand, so that the flourishing of Confucian learning had not been seen since antiquity.

Selecting and Employing Generals: Four Ways of Gaining Talent

Li Shimin gave great weight to the selection and employment of generals and from the beginning of his enterprise attended to gathering talent on every side; he collected counsellors and bold commanders in numbers and knew men and used them well, having many successful methods. First, he made good use of those recommended by his subordinates: when Li Shimin was Prince of Qin and his power newly risen, not yet a match for the heir apparent Li Jiancheng, some in his household who were apt to trim their sails took the occasion to leave for new masters; and then Fang Xuanling strongly recommended Du Ruhui, holding him a man of intelligence and understanding, a talent to assist a king, of no use if the prince meant only to hold his fief and fold his hands, but indispensable if he meant to order the four quarters. Li Shimin, giving great weight to Fang Xuanling's recommendation, at once employed Du Ruhui, who played a great part in governing the state and settling the empire. Second, he made good use of the talent of the opposing camp: in employing men he raised only the able, avoiding neither kin nor enemy, and could take into service the men of former adversaries, which the more showed his breadth of mind, his eye for talent and his boldness in using it. Wei Zheng had served Li Jiancheng as libationer of the household and served him faithfully, and when Li Shimin and Li Jiancheng became enemies Wei Zheng strove to devise plans for Li Jiancheng; and after the failure Li Shimin, who had long admired his name, forgot the former enmity, summoned him at once, gave him office and rank, trusted him greatly and laid weight upon him, so that the two became the model of an enlightened sovereign and a good minister. Third, he made good use of surrendered commanders: in his campaigns Li Shimin took in many officers and men after victory, giving particular weight to choosing commanders of outstanding ability; in the wars of unification he took into service one after another such bold commanders as Qutu Tong, Yin Kaishan, Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin and Yuchi Jingde. Qutu and Yin were surrendered Sui generals, while Qin and Cheng were cavalry commanders of the Wagang army who afterwards came over to the Tang; Li Shimin made Qin Qiong commander of the cavalry and Cheng Yaojin commander of the left third army, and the two won great merit at the battle of Hulao and elsewhere. Yuchi Jingde, bold and skilled in war, had followed Liu Wuzhou and fought the Tang armies several times; after his surrender Li Shimin made him commander of one of the guards and trusted him wholly, so that Yuchi Jingde, grateful, fought bravely and won repeated merit against the forces of Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande. Fourth, he held Chinese and barbarian as one and used Chinese and barbarian commanders together, as has been told above. Moreover, his bold employment of Li Jing was another successful example: Li Jing had been an official of the Sui and after coming over to the Tang was taken into Li Shimin's staff; and after his accession Li Shimin, having made several years of military preparation, began a policy of active defence, first striking at the eastern Turks who threatened the northern frontier, and Li Jing, much relied upon, was ordered out and broke the Turkic armies; and some years later, when the Tuyuhun in the northwest rose swiftly and threatened the western frontier, Li Jing, then advanced in years, was again laid under weight by Li Shimin and led a great army west with complete success and outstanding merit.

The Recompilation of the Register of Clans and the Dispute Over Family Rank

Li Yuan and his sons, as members of the Longxi military aristocracy, held political rank far above that of the Shandong and Jiangnan aristocratic landlords after taking the state; yet the old great Shandong houses, such as the Cui, Lu, Li, Zheng and Wang, still enjoyed great social repute. In the making of marriages, some of the chief ministers of the early Tang, to raise their social standing, were willing to send great wealth with their daughters to marry into the declining Shandong clans, while toward marriage with the imperial house they were often passive; Gaozu had complained that the men of the east of the pass married with the Cui and Lu and still boasted, and Li Shimin and his ministers, when they spoke of the men of the passes and of Shandong, held differing views. Some of the commoner landlords who entered the upper ruling group in the early Tang, though high in political status, being without family repute, sometimes had to bear the mockery of officials of old clans. It is recorded that in the sixth year of Zhenguan, 632, Li Shimin told the left vice director Fang Xuanling that the four Shandong surnames, Cui, Lu, Li and Zheng, though their generations had declined, still relied on their old standing and loved to give themselves airs, calling themselves the great officers; and that when they married a daughter into another clan they always demanded a great bride-price, valuing it the more the greater it was and making the contract by number like a market huckster, which much harmed the manners and disordered the ritual. He therefore decreed that the minister of personnel Gao Shilian, the censor-in-chief Wei Ting, the vice minister of the Secretariat Cen Wenben and the vice minister of rites Linghu Defen should revise the surnames, calling in the genealogies of the empire generally, relying also on the histories and traditions, cutting away the showy and settling the true and the false, advancing the loyal and worthy and degrading the rebellious, and compile a Register of Clans. But in the register compiled by Gao Shilian and the others the Shandong surname Cui was placed in the first rank, at which Li Shimin was much angered; for Gao Shilian and the others had not grasped his purpose in ordering the recompilation and had not compiled it as he directed, and were sharply reproached; and Li Shimin required Gao Shilian to revise it anew, judging rank solely by the offices of the present dynasty. Under this principle the recompiled register placed the imperial house in the first rank and the relatives by marriage in the second. To judge rank solely by the offices of the present dynasty was to fix family standing by contemporary office and title, the purpose being to press down the social repute of the old Shandong clans and establish that of the imperial house and the newly risen officials.

The Compilation of Histories and of the Book of Jin

Among Li Shimin's literary works the compiling of histories is also to be recorded. He decreed the compilation of the histories of the former dynasties, giving particular weight to the Book of Jin; and he wrote the discussion of the life of Wang Xizhi in that book, praising his achievement in calligraphy, which went with his own love of the art, as will be told below. As for the discussion of the classics and histories, in the Zhenguan years he often went to the Wenhua Hall to discuss the meaning of the classics with the scholars and had the Correct Meaning of the Five Classics and other works compiled to unify the interpretation of the classics. For a sovereign in his dignity to take part in the discussions and praises of a history and to settle the acceptance or rejection of interpretations himself was one side of his civil government.

Calligraphy: The Purchase of Famous Works and the Discussion of Wang Xizhi

The highest achievements of Tang culture are represented by its calligraphy and its poetry, and Li Shimin was one of the sowers of that culture. The copying of models is the first and most important step into the temple of the art, and the choice of models is of the greatest moment; yet at that time it was very hard to obtain good models of famous steles and marvellous traces: first, though there were steles, they were scattered throughout the empire and travel was inconvenient, so that not everyone who wished to learn had the means to wander among the famous mountains and great rivers and see the famous traces of the empire; second, though the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern dynasties had many epitaphs, they lay deep underground and could not see the light; third, many famous traces were the drafts of patents or letters, kept in the imperial treasury or held privately, passed down from father to son or given as dowry to kin, so that even between friends at most they could be shown about; and fourth, frequent wars, changes of dynasty and poor keeping had destroyed or scattered many famous works. To solve the problem of gaining first-hand material for study, Li Shimin issued edicts throughout the empire and brought out gold and silk from the inner treasury to buy in great quantity; and partly through the emperor's authority and the administrative means from above down, and partly through purchase at high prices, there arose for a time throughout the empire a fever of seeking out, presenting and selling, and many genuine and spurious traces of Wang Xizhi and others of the Wei and Jin were obtained. To distinguish the true from the false he appointed Chu Suiliang specially to examine the traces of the two Wangs closely and arrange them in a catalogue; and where the owners would not sell he sought by every means to obtain them. Of special note is that Li Shimin wrote a discussion especially for the life of Wang Xizhi in the Book of Jin, that is, a commendation of Wang Xizhi's achievement in calligraphy: that Zhong You, though he excelled for a time and was indeed peerless, might yet be doubted as to complete excellence, since his forms were ancient and not modern and his characters long and beyond measure, which must be counted his blemish in point of scale; that Xianzhi, though he had his father's manner, was yet not novel or skilful; that his characters, looked at in their leanness, were like a withered tree in deep winter, and his brush tracks, cramped, like a starving servant in a severe house; and that therefore, examining ancient and modern, studying the seal and the plain, the wholly excellent and wholly beautiful was Wang Yishao alone; that the skill of his dots and sweeps and the wonder of his cutting and forming were like mist gathering and dew congealing, as if broken and yet joined, like the soaring of a phoenix and the coiling of a dragon, in force as if slanting and yet straight; that to play with them one never wearied and to look on them one could not find their ends; and that to copy him in heart and pursue him in hand this was the one man, and the rest of that petty kind were not worth speaking of. By the method of comparison Li Shimin affirmed Wang Xizhi's calligraphy as wholly excellent and wholly beautiful; and though he was unjust to Zhong You and Wang Xianzhi, his view that Zhong You was ancient and not modern and Xianzhi not novel or skilful set out the principle that calligraphy must innovate on the basis of inheritance. Through the gathering and arrangement of Wang Xizhi's traces and Li Shimin's full affirmation of him in the discussion, Wang Xizhi's position as the sage of calligraphy was in the main established, with an influence on the Tang and later ages that was very deep.

Poetry and the Court Circle

Looking over Li Shimin's surviving poems, one may see that as the central figure of the court poetic circle and the founder of a dynasty he had, for practical political need, to regulate his conduct by orthodox Confucian ideas, showing a marked political intent; and that the life of the court and his taste for southern fashions led him to lose himself in the aesthetic charm of ornate language. The political unification of north and south moved him to reconcile the soft and languishing manner of the south with the stern and plain temper of the north, so as to express the grand and solemn air of the new dynasty; yet Li Shimin was more a man of practical affairs, and the press of daily business left him little energy to study and feel deeply the essence of southern poetic art, so that his assimilation of it could only be a swallowing whole, his own work following step by step in imitation. More important still, the narrow enclosure of the court circle left him without the inner feeling that quickens inspiration, the fixed range of subjects — the praise of victory, the joy of peace, the celebration of good government — left him without deep emotional experience, and the happy words that reproduce the banquets and hunts of court life dulled his artistic sensibility; and all this determined that he could hardly reach a higher literary achievement. In Li Shimin's poems one may see everywhere the imitation of earlier writers in word and phrase, giving a mixture that is blended and not fused; and even in the so-called frontier poems, praised for their recollection of his former life in arms, one may see everywhere the piecing together of the conceptions and even the phrases of earlier writers, showing an artistic immaturity.

The Return of Xuanzang and the Audience at the Luoyang Palace

In Li Shimin's time the flourishing of Buddhism and the return of Xuanzang were a chief matter of letters. Chapter 6 of the Life of the Master of the Law of the Great Ci'en Temple records that in the first month of the spring of the nineteenth year of Zhenguan the Master Xuanzang had audience with the Civil and Martial Sage Emperor at the Luoyang Palace; that on the jihai day of the second month he was received in the Yiluan Hall, where the emperor welcomed and comforted him with great warmth; and that when they were seated the emperor asked why he had not reported his going. The Master apologised, saying that when he went he had memorialised again and again but that his sincere wish being slight he had not been permitted, and that unable to bear his longing for the way he had gone privately, and that for the offence of acting on his own authority he was deeply ashamed and afraid. The emperor said that though a monk was separated from the world, yet to have given his life for the law and brought benefit to living things was something he much admired, and that he need not be ashamed; but that he had wondered how the Master could reach those distant mountains and rivers and those peoples of different customs. He then asked much of those matters. The Master said further that from the western regions he had obtained more than six hundred Sanskrit works not one word of which was translated; and that he understood that south of Mount Song and north of Mount Shaoshi there was the Shaolin Temple, far from the market and with clear springs and quiet rocks, built by the Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei, where the Tripitaka master Bodhiruci had translated the sutras; and that he hoped for the state's sake to translate there, awaiting the imperial order. The emperor said that he need not be in the mountains, for after the Master had gone to the west he had, in honour of the Empress Dowager Mu, built the Hongfu Temple at the western capital, whose meditation court was very still, and the Master might translate there. On the jisi day of the third month the Master returned from Luoyang to Chang'an and took up residence in the Hongfu Temple to begin the translation. That a sovereign in his dignity should inquire personally into his journey and have a translation hall built for him gave Xuanzang's work of translation the help of the court, which was one side of the civil government of the Zhenguan reign.

His Illness in Later Years and His Words of Trust

In the twenty-third year of Zhenguan Li Shimin's illness grew daily worse, and his words of trust are recorded in the histories. It is recorded that Li Shimin suffered from dysentery and his illness daily worsened, and that the heir apparent Li Zhi never left his side day or night, sometimes going for days without eating or drinking, so that some of his hair turned white; and Li Shimin said with tears that if he could be so filial and fraternal he had nothing to regret in dying. On the dingmao day Li Shimin's illness became grave and he summoned Zhangsun Wuji into the Hanfeng Hall; and Li Shimin, lying on the bed, reached out and stroked Zhangsun Wuji's cheek, and Zhangsun Wuji wept bitterly and could not master his grief, and Li Shimin in the end could not utter a word and dismissed him. On the jisi day, the tenth of July, Li Shimin summoned Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang into the sleeping chamber and told them that he now entrusted the affairs after his death wholly to them; that the heir apparent was humane and filial, as they both knew, and that they should support and teach him well. He told the heir apparent also that with Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang there he need not worry about the affairs of the empire. And he told Chu Suiliang that Zhangsun Wuji had served him with utter loyalty, and that it was in great part by his strength that he held the empire; and that after his death they should not let petty men slander and divide the relations of sovereign and minister. He then had Chu Suiliang draft the testamentary edict, and before long Li Shimin died. With the words that the heir apparent was humane and filial and that with Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang there he need not worry about the empire as his last words, the government of Zhenguan passed into the hands of Emperor Gaozong and Zhangsun Wuji.

The Campaigns Against the Four Quarters in the Zhenguan Years

Besides the personal campaign against Koguryo, several other campaigns of Li Shimin's reign may be recorded. The Jiu Tang shu, in the annals of Taizong, records for the first month of the eighth year of Zhenguan the death of the right guard general Ashina Tubi; that on the xinchou day the right garrison general Zhang Shigui campaigned against the rebellious Liao of the eastern and western five caves and pacified them; that on the renyin day the left vice director Li Jing, the retired grand master Xiao Yu, Yang Gongren, the minister of rites Wang Gui, the censor-in-chief Wei Ting and others were sent as envoys to the four quarters to inspect the customs; that in the tenth month of winter the right swift guard general and Duke of Bao, Duan Zhixuan, attacked the Tuyuhun, broke them and pursued them more than eight hundred li; that on the xinwei day of the eleventh month the right vice director and Duke of Dai, Li Jing, resigned office on grounds of illness and was given the title of retired grand master; that on the dinghai day the Tuyuhun raided Liangzhou; that on the jichou day the Tuyuhun detained our envoy Zhao Daode; that on the xinchou day of the twelfth month Li Jing, the minister of war Hou Junji, the minister of justice the Prince of Rencheng, Daozong, and the commander of Liangzhou, Li Daliang, were made commanders-in-chief with orders to lead troops by separate routes against the Tuyuhun; and that on the yimao day the emperor accompanied the retired emperor in reviewing troops west of the city. Afterwards, when the Xueyantuo of the north were destroyed, the tribes of the Tie-le asked that he be given the title of Khan; and the battle against the Xueyantuo was fought with Li Shiji as commander-in-chief, destroyed in a single engagement, the peoples formerly subject to them submitting to the Tang. The order of his military achievements was thus: the breaking of the eastern Turks in the fourth year of Zhenguan by Li Jing's merit; the campaign against the Tuyuhun in the eighth and ninth years; the pacification of Gaochang, Karashahr and Kucha after the fourteenth year; and the destruction of the Xueyantuo about the twentieth year, the whole management of the northwest going together with the systems of the mobilisation offices and the protectorates.

His Progresses, His Inspection of Customs and the Edict Delegating Power to the Heir Apparent

Of Li Shimin's progresses and his delegating of government there is also record. The Xin Tang shu's annals of Taizong record for the twentieth year of Zhenguan: that on the xinwei day of the first month the commander of Xiazhou, Qiao Shiwang, fought the Xueyantuo and defeated them; that on the dingchou day twenty-two envoys were sent to assess and promote or demote the officials of the empire by the six articles; that on the gengchen day Bingzhou was pardoned, the households registered at the time of the rising being exempted for three years and those who submitted later for one; that on the jiawu day of the second month those who had followed the campaign against Koguryo without merit were all given one turn of honorary rank; that on the gengshen day grain was given to the aged, widowers and widows of the places passed; that on the jisi day of the third month he returned from Koguryo; that on the gengwu day he fell ill and the heir apparent heard government; that on the jichou day Zhang Liang plotted rebellion and was executed; that on the first day of the intercalary month there was an eclipse; that on the yihai day of the sixth month the Prince of Jiangxia, Daozong, and Li Shiji campaigned against the Xueyantuo; that on the xinhai day of the seventh month he recovered; that Li Shiji fought the Xueyantuo and defeated them; that on the jiazi day of the eighth month his grandson Zhong was made Prince of Chen; that on the jisi day he went to Lingzhou; that on the gengchen day he halted at Jingzhou and gave grain and silk to the aged, widowers and widows; that on the bingxu day he crossed the Longshan Pass, halted at Wating and looked at the horse pastures; that on the dinghai day he permitted the descendants of those buried beside the imperial tombs to be buried with them; that on the xinmao day of the ninth month envoys were sent to inspect Lingnan; that on the jiachen day the tribes of the Tie-le asked that he be given the title of Khan; that on the xinhai day there was an earthquake at Lingzhou; that in the tenth month Xiao Yu was degraded to be prefect of Shangzhou; that on the bingxu day he returned from Lingzhou; and that on the jichou day of the eleventh month an edict provided that the sacrifices, the memorials, the foreign guests, the troops and horses, the palace guards with the fish tallies and post horses, the granting of offices of the fifth rank and above with their appointment and dismissal, and the deciding of capital cases should all be reported to him, and that the rest should be entrusted to the heir apparent. In the permission for the descendants of those buried beside the tombs to be buried there with them, and in the visit to the horse pastures, the reality of his progresses appears; and in the edict entrusting the rest to the heir apparent his gradual delegation of government to the heir in his later years.

The Rift Between the Brothers in the Wude Years

The rift between Li Shimin on the one hand and the heir apparent Jiancheng and the Prince of Qi Yuanji on the other began within the palace. The Zizhi tongjian records that when Shimin pacified Luoyang the emperor sent several consorts, including the Imperial Consort, to Luoyang to select palace women of the Sui and gather the treasures of the storehouses; and that the consorts privately asked Shimin for precious goods and for offices for their kinsmen, and he answered that the precious goods had all been registered and reported and that offices should be given to the worthy and meritorious, refusing them all, whereby they were the more resentful. Shimin, because the Prince of Huai'an, Shentong, had merit, gave him several tens of qing of land; and Zhang Jieyu's father asked the emperor for it through his daughter, and the emperor by his own hand granted it, but Shentong would not give it up since it had been assigned to him earlier; and the Jieyu complained to the emperor that the land granted by his own hand to her father had been taken from him by the Prince of Qin and given to Shentong; at which the emperor in anger reproached Shimin, asking whether his own handwritten command were not equal to Shimin's instruction. On another day he told the left vice director Pei Ji that this boy, long in command of troops abroad, had been taught by bookmen and was no longer the son he had been. Yin Defei's father, Ashu, was arrogant and overbearing; and when Du Ruhui, an officer of the Qin household, passed his gate, several of Ashu's servants dragged him from his horse and beat him, breaking a finger, saying: who are you, to pass our gate without dismounting? Ashu, fearing that Shimin would complain to the emperor, first had Defei memorialise that the Prince of Qin's followers had insulted her family; and the emperor again reproached Shimin in anger, saying that if even the household of his consorts was insulted by Shimin's followers, what of the common people? Shimin defended himself earnestly, but the emperor would not believe him. Afterwards the designs of Jiancheng and Yuanji grew daily more urgent, even to inciting Yang Wengan to rebellion and wishing to answer him from within, while Li Shimin too kept braves and bound the court officials to himself; and with the two sides unable to tolerate each other, the change of the fourth day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Wude came.

The Halt Before Anshi City and the Remonstrance of the Generals

The last engagement of Li Shimin's personal campaign against Koguryo was the siege of Anshi city. Later critics say that Taizong was a martial sovereign victorious in many battles, and that only in the eastern campaign against Koguryo did he halt beneath the walls of Anshi, as if at the end of a strong crossbow one could not pierce thin silk; and they ask whether it was not that the evening spirit had deepened and he would no longer venture as before; or they say that it was because Li Shiji and Zhangsun Wuji and the others remonstrated again and again, so that the army grew old without merit and withdrew in confusion; and they answer that they do not know that when the Son of Heaven campaigns in person authority is unified, so that one advances when one wishes and there is no need to hesitate, and that the ability of Li Shiji and Zhangsun Wuji to remonstrate was but a secret reading of the imperial mind and a taking of the occasion to speak; for otherwise, when Li Shiji and the others went against the Xueyantuo, how was it that they crossed the northern desert without a moment's lingering, sweeping away the tribes, bringing down their chiefs and reducing all the Tie-le, so that in a few months they levelled the northern waste and carried their power to the farthest seas? So the personal campaign is a fair name but has more harm than profit: a sovereign of ten thousand chariots cannot bear a single reverse, and his generals are all full of scruples, and who dares stake the imperial carriage as a last throw? This is why personal campaigns seldom achieve merit. Such an argument comes from later ages, yet the facts it cites — the halt beneath Anshi, the remonstrances of the generals and the speed of the campaign against the Xueyantuo — may be read together with the record in the Xin Tang shu of the battle on the hill southeast of Anshi city.

The Four Periods of His Life

Li Shimin's life may be seen in four periods. First, the period of rising and campaigning: from the rising at Jinyang in the thirteenth year of Daye, 617, when as Duke of Dunhuang he commanded the right of the three armies and took Chang'an, to the pacification in the Wude years of Xue Rengao, Liu Wuzhou, Dou Jiande, Wang Shichong and the other contenders, the chief battles being those of Qianshuiyuan, Baibi and Hulao; his methods of war being striking after the enemy had spent himself, counter-attacks on the enemy's rear, breakthroughs at the centre and charges by picked cavalry, and his methods of reconnaissance being looking at the enemy camp himself, climbing high to look out, testing the enemy's array and going into the enemy camp. The essence of this period was to build prestige by military merit and bind the officers to himself by battle, and the opening of the Heavenly Strategy Office became the means of his later contest for the succession. Second, the period of the contest for the succession and his accession: the change at the Xuanwu Gate on the fourth day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Wude, the killing of Jiancheng and Yuanji, his being made heir apparent and his receiving the abdication two months later with the era name changed to Zhenguan; and in the eighth month the Turkic Khan Xieli reached the Bian Bridge on the Wei and Li Shimin turned him back by riding to the Wei with six horsemen and reproaching him with breach of faith, and swore an oath with him by killing a white horse. Third, the period of the government of Zhenguan: within, the shelving of arms and cultivation of letters and the stilling and comforting of the people, the tripartite tax, remissions, the ransom of captives, the five reports, the Register of Clans, the academy and the school of law; without, the mobilisation offices, the protectorates, the ten and twelve circuits, the unity of Chinese and barbarian and the marriage alliance with Tibet; the famous ministers of the time being men such as Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Zhangsun Wuji, Wei Zheng, Li Jing and Li Shiji. Fourth, the period of the personal campaign and his last years: the deposition of the heir apparent Chengqian and the elevation of the Prince of Jin in the seventeenth year, the personal campaign against Koguryo in the nineteenth, the frontier affairs and the delegation of government to the heir apparent in the twenty-first and twenty-second, and the trust at his death and his death in the twenty-third. Of the four periods, the first two won the empire by arms and the last two kept it by civil government; and the eight words, to meet things with an open mind and injure the high to benefit the low, ran through the government of the last two.

The Years of His Reign and His Era Name

Li Shimin came to the throne in the eighth month of the ninth year of Wude and changed the era name to Zhenguan the following year; and from the first year of Zhenguan, 627, to the twenty-third, 649, was twenty-three years, so that later ages call his reign simply Zhenguan. The chief events of the years were these: in the first year the empire was divided into ten circuits; in the second the Duke of Zhou was set aside and Confucius raised to be the former sage; in the third Yuchi Gong went out as commander of Xiangzhou; in the fourth Li Jing broke the eastern Turks; in the fifth eighty thousand Chinese held by the Turks were ransomed; in the sixth the Register of Clans was compiled and the school of law added to the Directorate of Education; in the eighth envoys were sent to inspect the customs and Duan Zhixuan broke the Tuyuhun; in the eleventh Confucius was honoured as the Declared Father; after the fourteenth protectorates were established; in the fifteenth Princess Wencheng entered Tibet; in the seventeenth the heir apparent Chengqian was deposed and the Prince of Jin, Zhi, elevated; in the nineteenth he campaigned in person against Koguryo and Xuanzang came to the Luoyang Palace; in the twentieth the Xueyantuo were destroyed and the tribes of the Tie-le asked that he be given the title of Khan; in the twenty-first twenty-two envoys were sent to assess and promote or demote officials by the six articles; and in the twenty-third he died in the Hanfeng Hall. Seen in the singleness of the era name, never changed in his lifetime, and the order of his government, the politics of the Zhenguan reign were more settled than those of the reigns before and after.

His Posthumous Name, Temple Name and the Zhaoling

Li Shimin died in the Hanfeng Hall on the jisi day of the fifth month of the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, the tenth of July 649, at the age of fifty-two, with the temple name Taizong; his posthumous name was at first Emperor Wen and was afterwards accumulated into the Civil and Martial Great Sage Great Broad Filial Emperor. His tomb was the Zhaoling, begun in his lifetime; and the institution of burial beside it appears in his own edict permitting the descendants of those buried beside the imperial tombs to be buried there with them, so that the tombs of the meritorious soldiers and ministers faced one another beside the Zhaoling, Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng, Li Jing and Li Shiji all being buried there. That a founding sovereign should begin his tomb in his lifetime and permit the meritorious to be buried beside it corresponded with the accord between sovereign and ministers in the Zhenguan reign; and later ages, discussing the tomb institutions of the Tang, have always taken the burials beside the Zhaoling as their type.

His Testament and the First Government of Gaozong

After Li Shimin's death the heir apparent Li Zhi came to the throne as Emperor Gaozong. Of the government he left behind several points were charged in his testament: first, that the heir apparent was humane and filial, and was entrusted to the support of Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang; second, that with Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang there he need not worry about the affairs of the empire, which laid the charge of assisting the government upon his old ministers; and third, that they should not let petty men slander and divide the relations of sovereign and minister, which made the keeping of that accord the essence of his last charge. The first government of Gaozong mostly followed the old ways of Zhenguan: in the Yonghui years Zhangsun Wuji was still chancellor and affairs were mostly as of old; afterwards, as the Wu family rose and Wuji was put to death, the legacy of Zhenguan began to fade. Hence later ages discussing Tang history have always treated the government of Yonghui as the continuation of Zhenguan and the years after Xianqing as its change, the turn lying in the removal of the old ministers of Zhenguan and Gaozong's taking of the government into his own hands.

The Essentials of His Government

Taking the government of Li Shimin's reign together, its essentials may be reduced to several: first, stillness, that is that the ruler should be simple and still so as to avoid wars repeatedly stirred and building never ceasing and so spare the farming seasons; second, the root, that the state is founded on the people and the people on food and clothing, so that in all things one must attend to the root; third, benevolence, in reducing taxes and service, remitting rents, ransoming captives and relieving the orphaned and widowed; fourth, law, in the systems of three reports and five reports and of the three days, so that punishments were handled with care and death not lightly given; fifth, remonstrance, in bearing Wei Zheng's plain words without punishing him and taking as his own aim that a man may be a mirror; sixth, frugality, in his repeated self-blame at calamities, his avoiding the main hall and reducing his meals and stopping the music; seventh, equalisation, in the recompilation of the Register of Clans judging rank solely by the offices of the present dynasty, so as to level the rivalry of family rank; and eighth, unity, in his words that from of old all had valued the Chinese and despised the Yi and Di while he loved them all alike, making the unity of Chinese and barbarian his watchword. These eight served one another, so that his government was founded in breadth and generosity yet never lost its order and severity.

A Summary of His Military Art

In Li Shimin's military art there were four methods of fighting: striking after the enemy had spent himself so as to wear out his army, counter-attacking on the enemy's rear so as to catch him between two forces, breaking through the centre so as to strike at his nerve, and charging with picked cavalry to decide the day. In reconnaissance there were also four: looking at the enemy's camp himself, climbing high to look out, testing the enemy's array, and going into the enemy's camp. And in employing generals there were four: making good use of his subordinates' recommendations, of the talent of the opposing camp, of surrendered commanders, and of Chinese and barbarian together. In the battles by which he won the empire, as at Qianshuiyuan against Xue Rengao, at Baibi against Song Jingang and at Luoyang and Hulao against Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, he always beat the many with the few and quelled movement with stillness; and in the battles by which he kept the empire, as in turning back the Turks at the Wei, in sending forces by separate routes against the Tuyuhun, in destroying the Xueyantuo and in pacifying Gaochang, he always moved after settling the plan. To make the plan within and accomplish the work without his rule of war, and to be never worsted in battle the root of his prestige in the army, was why the military achievement of his reign was so great.

The Order of His Titles and Offices

The order of Li Shimin's titles and offices may be set out by year: at Li Yuan's rising at Jinyang in the thirteenth year of Daye, 617, Li Shimin was Duke of Dunhuang and commander of the right guards, leading the right of the three armies and taking Chang'an with the army; after the founding of the Tang, Li Yuan enfeoffed him as Prince of Qin, and he led troops to pacify the separatist forces of Xue Rengao, Liu Wuzhou, Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong; for his military merit he was enfeoffed as Grand General of the Heavenly Strategy and opened the Heavenly Strategy Office at Luoyang with the right to appoint his own staff; after the change at the Xuanwu Gate on the fourth day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Wude he was made heir apparent with all government decided by him; and in the eighth month he received the abdication and came to the throne as Tang Taizong, changing the era name to Zhenguan the following year. Seen in the order from Duke of Dunhuang through Prince of Qin and Grand General of the Heavenly Strategy to heir apparent and Son of Heaven, each step came through military merit and political business together; and the opening of the Heavenly Strategy Office was a special case of a princely establishment in the Tang and the gathering place of the civil and military men of his generation.

The Essentials of His Conduct and His Own Aspiration

Of Li Shimin's conduct there is much in his own words: on government he said that the state is founded on the people and the people on food and clothing; on remonstrance he took as his aim that a man may be a mirror; on war he took as his aim the wonder of application; on the four quarters he said that he loved them all alike; and on the state he held that to die for the altars of state was the very rightness of righteousness. These were not empty words: his lightening of taxes and service, his ransoming of captives and his care in punishments were the practice of founding the state on the people; his hearing Wei Zheng's plain words and forgiving Yuchi Gong's faults were the practice of taking a man for a mirror; his battles at Qianshuiyuan and Hulao were the practice of the wonder of application; and his employment of such commanders as Ashina She'er and Qibi Heli was the practice of loving all alike. Reading his words with his acts, the essentials of his conduct may be seen.

The Government of Remonstrance and Wei Zheng

The receiving of remonstrance was the most notable mark of the politics of Li Shimin's reign. Wei Zheng had been a minister of Li Jiancheng, and after the failure he was summoned by Li Shimin and contended with him in plain words all his life without being punished; and Li Shimin's acceptance of his words appears in the systems of three and five reports, in the policy of lightening taxes and service and ransoming captives, in the recompilation of the Register of Clans, and in the debates on espionage and on using the barbarians. As to the general accord of sovereign and minister, Li Shimin took as his own aim that a man may be a mirror, and felt that Wei Zheng's death was the loss of a mirror; and the later saying that only with a sovereign like Taizong of Tang was there a minister like Wei Zheng is in fact a fair verdict on the accord of the Zhenguan court. Seen in his capacity to bear plain words and not to punish those who remonstrated, the temper of the government of the Zhenguan reign differed from that of the reigns before and after.

The Beginning and End of His Reign

Li Shimin came to the throne on the guihai day of the eighth month of the ninth year of Wude in the Xiande Hall of the eastern palace, and died in the Hanfeng Hall on the jisi day of the fifth month of the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, having reigned twenty-three years. At the beginning of his reign he released more than three thousand palace women from the side courts, freed the falcons and hounds of the forbidden park and stopped the rare and strange things presented from every quarter, taking government by simplicity and restraint as the rule of his first administration; and at the end he left as his last words that the heir apparent was humane and filial and that with Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang there he need not worry about the affairs of the empire. Beginning in simplicity and ending in trust, the twenty-three years of his reign were precisely the two ends of the essentials of his government.

The Outline of His Family

Li Shimin was a man of Chengji in Longxi, that is Qin'an in Tianshui of Gansu, his ancestral home being Didao in Longxi, the present Lintao in Gansu, and was born at Wugong, the present Wugong in Shaanxi, as the second son of Li Yuan, the founding emperor of the Tang; and as members of the Longxi military aristocracy, Li Yuan and his sons held political rank higher than that of the Shandong and Jiangnan clans. That the son of a Longxi aristocrat should in the end be the sovereign who brought the civil and military achievement of the Tang to its height is a matter often dwelt on by later ages in discussing the Longxi group and the politics of the early Tang.

His Years and the Length of His Reign

Li Shimin reigned twenty-three years and died at the age of fifty-two with the temple name Taizong; from the founding of the Tang to the government of Zhenguan, his life was precisely the first settling of the dynasty after its founding.

The Title of Heavenly Khan

After the tribes of the Tie-le asked that he be given the title of Khan, the northern peoples styled him the Heavenly Khan, which is the mark of the Tang policy toward the four quarters.

His Name and Zhenguan

Later ages, speaking of good government, say Zhenguan, using his era name for his government itself, an instance of an emperor's era name becoming the proper name of a good reign.

Major Activities

Military Achievements

Li Shimin was one of the outstanding military commanders in Chinese history. From the Jinyang Rising through the unification of the realm, he personally commanded numerous major battles and was almost continuously victorious. His military thinking emphasized victory through strategy, waiting at ease for an exhausted enemy, seizing the proper moment, and using cavalry for sudden attacks and pursuit. The Battle of Qianshuiyuan, Battle of Hulao Pass, and Battle of Mingshui are presented by the source as classic examples in Chinese military history.

At Qianshuiyuan, facing Xue Rengao's numerically superior army, Li Shimin used deep trenches and high defenses, waited until the enemy ran short of food and lost momentum, then personally led elite cavalry in a surprise attack that destroyed its main force. He immediately pursued with light cavalry and forced Xue Rengao to surrender. At Hulao Pass, Li Shimin defeated Dou Jiande's army of one hundred thousand with a smaller force, creating a model of besieging one position while defeating its relief force. At Mingshui, he exploited the terrain by damming water and then releasing it during the decisive battle to strike Liu Heita's main army.

Political Achievements

Li Shimin reigned for twenty-three years and inaugurated the Zhenguan era of good government. He perfected the Three Departments and Six Ministries system so that the Secretariat, Chancellery, and Department of State Affairs each had defined duties and checked one another; emphasized local administration and personally reviewed candidates for area commander and prefect; revised the *Zhenguan Code* and reduced punishments; implemented the equal-field system of land distribution and taxation and the zu-yong-diao system to promote agricultural production; and developed the imperial examination system to widen recruitment into official service.

During the Zhenguan era, government was orderly, society stable, the economy recovered and grew, and culture prospered. Historical records state that "the realm enjoyed abundant harvests, displaced people all returned to their home villages, a dou of rice cost no more than three or four coins, and in an entire year only twenty-nine people were sentenced to death." Although such records contain elements of praise, the source states that the Zhenguan era of good government was indeed one of the comparatively rare periods of good rule in premodern China.

Ethnic Policy

Li Shimin adopted a policy of "loving them as one" toward surrounding peoples. After destroying the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in 630, he accepted Wen Yanbo's proposal to settle surrendered Turks in the Hetao region, preserving their tribal organization and appointing Turkic nobles to office. Xueyantuo, the Uyghurs, Tuyuhun, and other groups subsequently submitted. Li Shimin was honored as the "Heavenly Qaghan" and became the shared overlord of northern peoples. He also strengthened relations with regimes including the Tibetan Empire through diplomatic marriages, of which Princess Wencheng's journey to Tibet was an important example.

Cultural Contributions

Li Shimin himself enjoyed literature and calligraphy. The inscription and preface for the Jin Shrine attributed to him survives, and his calligraphy was highly accomplished. He established the Hongwen Academy, gathered talented scholars from across the realm, ordered the organization of books, and sponsored compilation of the *Correct Meaning of the Five Classics*. He valued historiography, established a Historiography Office, and ordered Fang Xuanling and others to supervise compilation of the *Book of Jin*, *Book of Liang*, *Book of Chen*, *Book of Northern Qi*, *Book of Zhou*, and *Book of Sui*, six official histories constituting one quarter of the Twenty-Four Histories. He also personally wrote historical essays for the annals of Emperor Xuan and Emperor Wu and the biographies of Lu Ji and Wang Xizhi in the *Book of Jin*.

The Art of Striking After the Enemy Has Spent Himself

In defeating Xue Ju and Liu Wuzhou Li Shimin mostly used the method of striking after the enemy had spent himself. Against Xue Ju he pointed out that his army had little grain and was weary, that it had come far into our country intent on a decisive battle and could not endure a long war, and that if he challenged we should beware of fighting him; and he ordered the Tang troops to dig deep ditches and raise high ramparts, to blunt his keenness by holding firm and so wear out his army. Afterwards, because Li Shimin suddenly fell ill and entrusted the military business to the chief secretary of the marshal's office, Liu Wenjing, and the adjutant Yin Kaishan, the two acted on their own and altered the plan Li Shimin had made, taking the offensive, and were surprised by the Xue army and defeated. In directing the second battle of Qianshuiyuan Li Shimin, having learned from the failure, firmly carried out the plan of wearing the enemy out, saying that his own soldiers, lately beaten, had little keenness left; that the enemy, proud from victory, would surely make light of them and love to fight, so that they should for the present shut the ramparts and blunt him; and that when his spirit had failed they should strike with all their strength and break him in one battle, which was the sure plan. Here he set out plainly that the end of holding the enemy for long was to wait for the right moment to counter-attack, striking after the enemy had moved, so as to attain the aim of breaking him in one battle. In the northern campaign against Liu Wuzhou he again successfully applied the same principle: leading his troops toward the region of the He, he camped at Baibi facing Liu Wuzhou's general Song Jingang and asked his subordinates for their views; and the Prince of Jiangxia, Li Daozong, held that the bandits, riding on victory, had an edge not to be withstood, that they were easier to bend by stratagem than to match in strength, that they should now deepen their ramparts and heighten their walls to blunt that edge, for a rabble of that kind could not last, and when their grain transport failed they would scatter of themselves and could be taken without a battle. This agreed with Li Shimin's own plan, and he ordered the whole army to hold firm and not come out. After some time his officers asked repeatedly for battle, and Li Shimin reasoned that Song Jingang had led his army deep in with his best troops and boldest generals all gathered there, while Liu Wuzhou, holding Taiyuan, relied on Song Jingang as his shield; that they had no stores and lived by plunder, so that a quick battle was to their advantage; and that if we closed our camp and nourished our keenness to blunt their edge, and divided our troops to Fen and Xi to strike at their heart, then when their grain was gone and their plans exhausted they would withdraw of themselves; and that we should wait for that moment and not fight too soon. After half a year of mutual standoff Song Jingang's army at last ran out of grain and was forced to withdraw north, and Li Shimin led his troops in pursuit and won the campaign.

The Secret Deliberations Before the Change at Xuanwu Gate

The secret deliberations between Li Shimin and his officers before the change at the Xuanwu Gate on the fourth day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Wude are recorded in the Zizhi tongjian. Li Shimin sighed and said that brothers killing one another was the greatest evil from of old; that he well knew the danger was close at hand and wished to wait until they struck first and then attack them in the name of righteousness, which also might serve. Yuchi Jingde said that in human feeling who did not value his own life, that the crowd was willing to serve the prince with their deaths, which was an opportunity given by Heaven; that the signs of disaster were about to burst and yet the prince sat unmoved and unconcerned; that even if the prince made light of his own life, what of the ancestral temple and the state; and that if the prince would not hear him he would flee to the wilds and could no longer stay at his side to be killed with him. Zhangsun Wuji said that if Yuchi Jingde were not heard, the matter would fail at once; that Yuchi Jingde and the others would certainly no longer serve the prince, and that he too would go with them and could no longer assist him. Li Shimin said that what he had said was not wholly without reason and that they should think of another way. Yuchi Jingde said that the prince was now irresolute in handling the matter, which was not wisdom, and that to face the crisis and not decide, which was not courage; and that moreover the more than eight hundred braves the prince had long kept, those outside having now entered the palace, were wearing armour and carrying weapons, so that the situation had formed and could the prince still stop it?

The Plot Against the Prince of Qin and the Simile of Shun

By that time the designs of the Prince of Qi, Li Yuanji, had also appeared. The Zizhi tongjian records that Li Shimin asked his officers for their views and all said that Li Yuanji was fierce and cruel and would never serve his elder brother; that it had lately been heard that the army supervisor Xue Shi had told him that the characters of his title combined to make the word Tang and that he would in the end preside over the sacrifices of the great Tang; and that the Prince of Qi had said in delight that once the Prince of Qin were removed it would be as easy as turning his hand to take the eastern palace; that he and the heir apparent had plotted rebellion before succeeding and already had the design of seizing the succession; that the ambition to rebel had no limit and there was nothing they would not do; that if the two had their way the empire would no longer be Tang; and that with the prince's ability to remove them was as easy as picking up grass from the ground, so why should he keep to an ordinary man's principles and forget the great plan of the state? Li Shimin was still irresolute, and the others asked again what manner of man he thought Shun was, and Li Shimin answered that he was a sage. The others said that if Shun had not come out when the well was being cleared he would have become the mud at the bottom of it, and if he had not come down when the granary was being repaired he would have become the ashes of it, and how could he then have watered the empire and left a rule for after ages; and that therefore when his father beat him with a small stick he bore it and when with a great one he ran away, because he wished to preserve the greater purpose.

The Personal Campaign Against Koguryo

In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan Li Shimin campaigned against Koguryo in person, the matter appearing in the Xin Tang shu's annals of Taizong. On the gengxu day of the second month of the nineteenth year he went to the Luoyang Palace to attack Koguryo; on the guichou day he shot a tiger at the northern hill of Wude; on the yimao day the heir apparent was left as regent at Dingzhou; and on the dingsi day he gave grain and silk to the aged, widowers and widows of the places he passed, and had Bi Gan made grand tutor with the posthumous name Zhonglie. On the renchen day of the third month Zhangsun Wuji was acting palace attendant and the minister of personnel Yang Shidao acting chancellor of the Secretariat. On the guimao day of the fourth month he swore the army at Youzhou and feasted it greatly; on the dingwei day Cen Wenben died; and on the guihai day Li Shiji took the city of Gaimou. On the jisi day of the fifth month the commander of the Pyongyang route, Cheng Mingzhen, took the city of Shabei; on the gengwu day the army halted at the Liao marshes and buried the Sui soldiers who had fallen there; on the yihai day the commander of the Liaodong route, Zhang Junyi, was executed for a crime; on the dingchou day the army was at Mashou Mountain; and on the jiashen day it took the city of Liaodong. On the dingyou day of the sixth month it took the city of Baiyan; on the jiwei day it heavily defeated Koguryo on the hill southeast of the city of Anshi, where the left guard general Wang Jun'e fell; and on the xinyou day three days of feasting were granted. On the renshen day of the seventh month the officers who had died in service were buried with four grades of rank added and one son to inherit; on the guiwei day of the ninth month the army returned; on the bingwu day of the tenth month it halted at Yingzhou and sacrificed to the fallen with the great sacrifice; on the bingchen day the heir apparent came to meet the emperor at the Linyu Pass; on the wuwu day it halted at the Han Wu Terrace and had a stone inscribed with the merit; on the guiyou day of the eleventh month it feasted the army greatly at Youzhou; and on the gengchen day it halted at Yizhou. Of the results: the Tang army took in succession ten cities, Xuantu, Hengshan, Gaimou, Momi, Liaodong, Baiyan, Beisha, Maigu, Yinshan and Houhuang, occupying a great part of the Liaodong region and establishing a firm forward position for later campaigns against Koguryo; it destroyed great numbers of Koguryo's effective troops, breaking the army of nearly two hundred thousand that came to relieve Liaodong, and according to the Samguk Sagi's annals of Koguryo the Koguryo army's dead, wounded, surrendered and captured came to a hundred thousand, the three battles of Xincheng, Jian'an and Zhubi alone destroying more than forty thousand, so that its picked troops were almost ruined; and in the war countless of the Koguryo people died and great numbers were taken captive, the people moved into the interior from Liaodong, Gaimou and Baiyan alone numbering more than seventy thousand, so that Koguryo's population fell sharply and its strength declined further.

The Five Reports and Care in Judicial Cases

In judicial matters Li Shimin made the system of repeated reports his chief device for caution. Though the three reports had some effect they could not prevent unjust cases and wrongful killing, and he therefore added to them the five reports, providing that in the capital a death sentence should be reported five times in two days and in the other prefectures three times. To carry this out he warned his ministers again and again to observe it. Yet the five reports were not well carried out at the time, since they saved many from death, so that the officials would report once or twice in the day or two before the execution and then the three reports on the day itself, the five reports becoming a form; and Li Shimin strongly reproached the judicial offices for this and further provided that the five reports should be made within three days, doing away with the practice of settling the matter in one day. He also punished officials who violated the system of five reports in degrees according to the gravity of the violation. All this directly reduced the number of unjust and false cases of the time, and the building of the legal system began to show results.

The Rebellion of the Prince of Qi and the Review of Prisoners

The great case of the seventeenth year of Zhenguan appears in the Xin Tang shu's annals of Taizong: on the wuchen day of the first month of the seventeenth year Wei Zheng died; the commander of Daizhou, Liu Lan, plotted rebellion and was executed; on the jihai day of the second month prisoners were reviewed; on the wushen day the meritorious ministers were portrayed in the Lingyan Pavilion; on the renzi day of the third month the violation of the statutory forms for funerals was forbidden; on the bingchen day the Prince of Qi, You, rebelled and Li Shiji was sent against him; on the jiazi day, because of drought, envoys were sent to review prisoners and decide cases; on the yichou day the Prince of Qi, You, was executed and Qizhou exempted for a year; and on the yiyou day of the fourth month the heir apparent was reduced to commoner, the Prince of Han, Yuanchang, Hou Junji and others being executed; on the bingxu day the Prince of Jin, Zhi, was made heir apparent with a general amnesty, officials of the civil and military and sons of the fifth rank and above who were their fathers' heirs being given one grade, those of eighty and over grain and silk, and three days of feasting. That he should send envoys to review prisoners and decide cases because of drought was his cautious judicial policy applied in a year of dearth; and the deposition of the heir apparent and the execution of meritorious ministers in the same year were the harshest cases of his reign, which, seen beside his caution in the five reports, show that in judicial matters he was both mild and severe as the times required.

The Unity of Chinese and Barbarian and the Request of the Tie-le for a Title

The contradiction between the Tang imperial house, the Longxi aristocracy and the newly risen commoner landlords on the one hand and the old Shandong clans and the old ideas of family rank on the other showed that those ideas were unsuited to the superstructure of the early Tang; and to raise the rank of the imperial house and the new bureaucratic landlords Li Shimin resolved to settle the matter by recompiling the Register of Clans, as has been told above. Toward the four barbarians his policy was professedly the unity of Chinese and barbarian: he declared on many occasions that Chinese and barbarian were equally noble, saying that from of old all had valued the Chinese and despised the Yi and Di, but that he loved them all alike; and in practice he not only employed Chinese generals but strongly promoted the use of barbarian commanders with notable effect. He greatly esteemed such commanders from the Turkic and Tie-le pastoral peoples of the north as Ashina She'er, Ashina Simo, Qibi Heli and Zhishi Sili, and could employ them according to their ability so that each gave his full measure, Ashina She'er and Qibi Heli being the most distinguished in merit. One deep reason for his use of barbarian commanders was to make use of their strengths and give full play to their skill in riding and shooting, which had a marked effect in the frontier wars, especially in the campaigns in the western regions and the unification of the northwest; and many of them were ennobled and given office for repeated merit, some holding important posts in the palace guards and some being granted the imperial surname. Of the submission of the northern peoples there is also this to record: on the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the twentieth year of Zhenguan the Prince of Jiangxia, Li Daozong, and others were sent with troops by several routes against the Xueyantuo; on the twenty-first day of the seventh month Li Ji engaged the Xueyantuo and destroyed them, and the peoples formerly subject to them submitted to the Tang; and on the fifteenth day of the ninth month the tribes of the Tie-le asked that Li Shimin be given the title of Khan. On the dingchou day of the first month of the twenty-first year twenty-two envoys were sent to assess and promote or demote the officials of the empire by the six articles; on the gengchen day Bingzhou was pardoned, the households registered at the time of the rising being exempted from taxes and service for three years and those who submitted later for one; and on the jiawu day of the second month those who had followed the campaign against Koguryo without merit were all given one turn of honorary rank.

The Preservation of the Meritorious: The Affair of Yuchi Gong at the Qingshan Palace

To preserve the meritorious was the core of Li Shimin's policy in employing men: unlike Liu Bang, the founder of the Han, who wiped out the founding ministers, he was full of generosity toward them. These founding ministers, and especially the great body of military men among them, in the age when the empire was settled and arms laid by for letters, had few chances to gallop on the field and win merit as of old; and to govern by letters was for most of them no special skill, so that it was hard to lay heavy office on them at court; and among these officers who had served the state with merit it was hard to avoid that some should pride themselves on their merit and complain from time to time. Li Shimin, learning from the lessons of history, both kept to the line of employing men who had both ability and conduct and did his utmost to preserve the meritorious, uniting the two. In his treatment of Yuchi Gong the pains he took with the founding ministers appear: Yuchi Gong was given the title Duke of Wu in the first year of Zhenguan, 627, and made general of the right military guards; he was not only a founding minister but had several times saved Li Shimin's life on the field and guarded his person; and priding himself on his merit, he often quarrelled to their faces with Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, so that those in power came to be somewhat displeased. In the third year of Zhenguan, 629, Yuchi Gong went out as commander of Xiangzhou, and in the eighth year, 634, was advanced to be prefect of Tongzhou. Once, when Li Shimin gave a banquet at the Qingshan Palace, someone sat above Yuchi Gong, and Yuchi Gong in anger demanded what merit he had to sit above him; and the Prince of Rencheng, Li Daozong, who sat below him, sought to reconcile them, whereupon Yuchi Gong flew into a rage and came to blows, so that Li Daozong's eye was injured and the banquet the emperor had given broke up in discord. Yet Li Shimin did not punish Yuchi Gong but spoke to him openly and earnestly in admonition; from which it appears that his preservation of the meritorious was not indulgence but chiefly admonition; and Yuchi Gong was deeply moved and thereafter no longer prided himself on his merit or behaved outrageously. As with Yuchi Gong, so most of the other meritorious ministers no longer dared to be arrogant and to disregard the law. In the Zhenguan years, apart from Hou Junji and Zhang Liang, who were executed for their part in plots of rebellion, all the founding ministers came to a good end, very unlike the fate of some of the founding ministers of the early Western Han; and the good effect of Li Shimin's policy of protecting the meritorious was not only upon the ministers themselves and in aiding political stability, but was a comfort to the minds of the other officials as well.

The Battle of Songzhou and the Entry of Princess Wencheng into Tibet

In the southwest Li Shimin's policy was to combine marriage alliance with defence. The battle of Songzhou made the Tibetans realise that they were still not the equals of the Tang, and made the Tang realise that it could not destroy Tibet once and for all; but the strategic weight of the Tang at that time lay chiefly in the north, the west and the northeast — the Turks, the western regions and Koguryo — and toward the southwest it followed rather a defensive strategy. In these circumstances the Tang hoped by a marriage alliance to establish between itself and Tibet the relation of father-in-law and son-in-law and to bring Tibet into its loose tribute system, so as to ease the pressure on its frontier and concentrate on the traditional enemies of the Chinese dynasties, the Turks, the western regions and Koguryo; and for Tibet the alliance was all profit, since by it she could turn the Tang's attention elsewhere and create a good external environment for settling her internal politics and developing further, and could also bring in advanced techniques from the Tang and raise her own strength. The two sides therefore agreed on the marriage, and it was for this that when Tibet asked again for a bride the Tang took a wholly different attitude from before; and in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, 641, Princess Wencheng entered Tibet, marking Tibet's formal entry into the Tang's loose tribute system.

The Situation in the Peninsula and the Grounds for the Campaign Against Koguryo

The quarrel between the Tang and Koguryo may be traced to several things. After the accession of King Yeongnyu Koguryo did not itself remove the mounds of the Sui soldiers who had fallen; and in the fifth year of Zhenguan, 631, Li Shimin sent the adjutant of the Guangzhou command, Zhangsun Shi, to Koguryo to gather, bury and sacrifice to the bones of the Sui dead, and it was only then that he had these mounds taken down. To defend against Tang attack Koguryo built a wall of a thousand li in the region adjoining the Tang; and in the south of the Korean peninsula Koguryo repeatedly attacked Silla and Paekche, which were close to the Tang, cutting their roads of tribute to the Tang, so that Silla and Paekche had several times to send envoys to the Tang complaining that the king of Koguryo, Geonmu, closed the roads and did not let them pay tribute and repeatedly invaded them. These acts gradually shook the confidence of the Tang ruling group in the Koguryo regime and bred doubts of it, while their wariness and vigilance toward Koguryo steadily grew. In the first year of Zhenguan, 627, after his accession Li Shimin, while maintaining relations with Koguryo, began gradually to readjust the policy of Gaozu's time, taking care to press down Koguryo's temper and secretly sending men to gather military intelligence in preparation for a campaign. In the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, 642, the Koguryo minister Yeon Gaesomun murdered King Yeongnyu, slaughtered the ministers, set up Go Jang as king and made himself military dictator; and Koguryo's policy toward its neighbours changed greatly, chiefly in allying with Paekche against Silla, while Paekche in turn raised troops against more than forty of Silla's cities and left forces to hold them, made marriage alliance with Koguryo and plotted to take Dangxiang city to cut off Silla's road of tribute. In these circumstances Silla sent envoys to the Tang to cry its danger and beg for aid, and Li Shimin sent the director of agriculture, the chief minister Xiangli Xuanjiang, with a letter admonishing the two peoples and setting before them fortune and disaster, showing that in the tension of the peninsula the Tang's purpose of keeping peace and stability was unchanged; and the matter became grave when Koguryo paid no heed to the Tang's admonition, for under Yeon Gaesomun's control Koguryo was stiff toward the Tang and insisted on taking Silla's land by force. But Li Shimin's purpose of campaigning against Koguryo was already fixed, and he wished to take the matter in hand himself, hoping for Paekche's cooperation; yet in the course of his personal campaign Paekche not only did not help but bore two minds, taking the occasion to expand, and stormed ten cities of Silla; and in the third month of the twenty-second year of Zhenguan, 648, Paekche broke more than ten cities of Silla's western frontier, including Yaoche, and presently broke off its tribute to the Tang.

The Deposition of the Heir Apparent Chengqian and the Elevation of the Prince of Jin

In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan the heir apparent Chengqian was deposed for plotting rebellion, the great matter of the succession in his reign. The Xin Tang shu's annals of Taizong record that on the yiyou day of the fourth month of the seventeenth year the heir apparent was reduced to commoner and the Prince of Han, Yuanchang, Hou Junji and others executed; that on the bingxu day the Prince of Jin, Zhi, was made heir apparent with a general amnesty, officials of the civil and military and the sons of the fifth rank and above who were their fathers' heirs being given one grade, those of eighty and over grain and silk, and three days of feasting; that on the dinghai day Yang Shidao was dismissed; that on the jichou day the retired grand master Xiao Yu was made grand tutor to the heir apparent and Li Shiji household manager of the heir apparent and joint manager of the Chancellery and Secretariat with the third grade; that on the gengyin day he acknowledged Chengqian's fault at the ancestral temple; that on the guisi day the Prince of Wei, Tai, was degraded to Prince of Donglai; that on the first day of the sixth month there was an eclipse of the sun; that on the renchen day the Sui emperor Gong was buried; that on the jiawu day, because of drought, he avoided the main hall and reduced his meals and decreed that officials of the capital of the fifth rank and above should speak of affairs; that on the dingyou day Gao Shilian was made joint manager of the Chancellery and Secretariat and administrator of government; that on the dingsi day of the intercalary month the heir apparent was decreed to command the troops of the left and right camps; that on the bingzi day Tai was transferred in fief to Prince of Shunyang; that on the dingyou day of the seventh month Fang Xuanling was dismissed; that on the gengxu day of the eighth month the minister of works Zhang Liang was made minister of justice and joined in the government; that on the dingwei day of the tenth month residences for the prefectures were built in the capital; that on the dingsi day Fang Xuanling was restored to office; and that on the jimao day of the eleventh month the sacrifices of the southern suburb were performed, three days of feasting being granted and Liangzhou pardoned on a precious stone being found there. In this change of succession, and in his acknowledging Chengqian's fault at the ancestral temple, his attitude of self-blame as a father appears; and the degradation of the Prince of Wei, Tai, and the elevation of the Prince of Jin settled where the imperial line was thereafter to rest.

Why the Government of Zhenguan Was Longed for Afterwards

Li Shimin reigned twenty-three years, and the essentials of his government may be divided into the inner and the outer: within, the shelving of arms and the cultivation of letters, the stilling and comforting of the people, the method of the tripartite tax, the edicts of remission, the policy of ransoming captives, the system of the five reports, the compiling of the Register of Clans, the flourishing of the academy and the addition of the school of law; without, more than six hundred mobilisation offices, six protectorates, the division into ten and then twelve circuits, the doctrine of the unity of Chinese and barbarian, the marriage alliance with Tibet and the campaign against Koguryo. Later writers say that Taizong's government ended quietly but was the first height of the Tang and in some respects unequalled in the whole history of China, and that he left his successor a great legacy: an efficient and rational administration, a prosperous economy and a vast territory; that though his failure in Koguryo cast a shadow, there appeared throughout the empire a prosperity such as had not been seen since the height of the Han, a scene of confidence, stability and flourishing; and that the peaceful government of Taizong's age must have bred deep longing in the officials who served in the unsettled and even dangerous years after his death. They say also that with the passage of time Taizong's prestige and honour grew; that for the Chinese man of letters Taizong represents an age in which civil and military achievement were ideally joined, with a vigorous, intelligent and careful emperor firmly holding his empire while always modestly and patiently hearing the views of his ministers, themselves men of excellence; and that his manner of government was admired not only for its achievements but because it approached the Confucian ideal of receiving remonstrance and loving the people as the root of government, and because it showed the intimate union of sovereign and ministers.

The Judgements of Later Ages and the "Worthy Sovereign Unsurpassed Since the Three Dynasties"

Later writers on Li Shimin's character and government say that in the time of the Sui emperor Yang the empire fell apart and the contenders glared at one another, eyeing the sacred vessels; and that then the Tang Taizong, with heroic endowment and furnished with the virtue of benevolence and righteousness, and with the worth of Gaozu for his father, arose; that the Changes says that to be embraced is auspicious, that to take a wife is auspicious and that the son can order the house, for Gaozu, with the virtue of yielding and centrality, relied on Taizong to give it forth with the body of yang and use it to settle the empire, so that the sudden rise of the Tang house was fitting. After his accession he laboured to govern well, injuring himself to benefit others, loving the people and following remonstrance, practising benevolence and righteousness in his own person, and using such men as Fang Xuanling and Wei Zheng, sovereign and ministers well matched and never daring to be idle, whereby he brought about the height of Zhenguan; and his excellent virtue and good government cannot be set out in full, so that he may be called a worthy sovereign unsurpassed since the three dynasties. And though in the campaign against Liao he was full of his own satisfaction, yet after the failure he at once restored Wei Zheng's stele, rewarded his wife and children and deeply blamed himself, being swift indeed to mend his faults. They say also that worthy sovereigns do not appear in every age: several hundred years after Cheng and Kang came Emperor Wen of Han, and several hundred years after Emperor Wen came Taizong of Tang; and that in essence, to meet things with an open mind and to injure the high for the benefit of the low, whereby the empire was brought to its height, Taizong and Emperor Wen both followed this way; that Emperor Wen was purer in substance and virtue than Taizong, but that the height of government he achieved could not compare with Zhenguan. They say further that if some hold that Taizong had Wei Zheng and so his person was cultivated and the state ordered, and that when Wei Zheng died the thought of pride and fullness arose, this is not wholly so; for only with a sovereign like Taizong was there a minister like Wei Zheng, and had Taizong been a middling ruler then even with a Wei Zheng what could have been done? Such arguments take meeting things with an open mind and injuring the high to benefit the low as the essence of his government, and take the saying that only with a sovereign like Taizong was there a minister like Wei Zheng as the explanation of the accord between them, and are typical of later discussion of Zhenguan.

The Six Articles and the Envoys to Inspect the Customs

In his government Li Shimin gave weight to the inspection of the localities, and his means were the sending of envoys on tour and assessment by the six articles. On the renyin day of the first month of the eighth year of Zhenguan he sent the left vice director Li Jing, the retired grand master Xiao Yu, Yang Gongren, the minister of rites Wang Gui, the censor-in-chief Wei Ting, the chief secretary of the Luzhou command Huangfu Wuyi, the chief secretary of the Yangzhou command Li Xiyu, the chief secretary of the Youzhou command Zhang Liang, the governor of Liangzhou Li Daliang, the right leading guard general Dou Dan, the left common attendant of the heir apparent Du Zhenglun, the prefect of Mianzhou Liu Dewei and the vice minister of the Chancellery Zhao Hongzhi as envoys to the four quarters to inspect the customs. On the dingchou day of the first month of the twentieth year he sent twenty-two envoys to assess and promote or demote the officials of the empire by the six articles; and on the xinmao day of the ninth month of that year he again sent envoys to inspect Lingnan. The six articles were a survival of the Han rule by which the inspectors questioned affairs under six heads; and to send chancellors, ministers and generals as envoys to inspect the customs by circuits may be called a thorough means of assessing official discipline and the people's livelihood.

The Government of His Last Years and Its Legacy

Of the government of Li Shimin's last years several things may be recorded: first, the gradual delegation of government to the heir apparent, by which the sacrifices, memorials, foreign guests, troops, palace guards with the fish tallies and post horses, the granting of offices of the fifth rank and above with their appointment and dismissal and the deciding of capital cases were all to be reported to him while the rest was entrusted to the heir apparent; second, his repeated self-blame at calamities, as in the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, when because of drought he avoided the main hall and reduced his meals and decreed that officials of the capital of the fifth rank and above should speak of affairs; third, his care for the descendants of meritorious ministers, as in permitting those buried beside the imperial tombs to have their descendants buried with them; and fourth, his entrusting of the heir apparent at his death to Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang, with the charge that they should not let petty men slander and divide the relations of sovereign and minister. All of these ran through with the principle of meeting things with an open mind and injuring the high to benefit the low; and so the legacy of Zhenguan behind him could last another twenty years or more, changing only gradually in the reign of Gaozong.

The Judgement on the Change at the Xuanwu Gate and Its Consequences

Later writers on the change at the Xuanwu Gate say that Jiancheng and Yuanji were far from equal to Shimin in wisdom and courage, and that having such a brother to help them they should have lived in harmony as one arm with another; yet the two could not tolerate each other, privately binding the consorts to themselves, secretly enlisting braves and inciting Yang Wengan to rebellion, wishing to answer him from within — with what mind could they do this? would the removal of Shimin make them secure heirs or grand brothers? They say also that whereas China has always revered propriety and righteousness and been called a state of culture, and Taizong of Tang was a sovereign rarely seen since the three dynasties and especially wise and keen, yet at the Xuanwu Gate he destroyed his own flesh and blood and the Princess Consort of Chao could be taken as a palace consort, daring thus to violate human relations and setting the first example, so that at last Chengqian had no father, Yuanchang no brother, the Prince of Qi You was worse than the heir apparent and Zhao Jie, Du He and the rest forgot their kindred and plotted within and without, nearly bringing on great disaster; and though Heaven still protected the Tang so that it was put down early and did not spread, yet among father and sons and brothers there was much to regret, and how could Taizong decline the blame? Both arguments speak of his destroying his own flesh and blood and of the changes among his father, sons and brothers, and take the words that among father and sons and brothers there was much to regret as the heart of the judgement. After the Xuanwu Gate he was made heir apparent with all government decided by him, abolished the Heavenly Strategy Office, ended the circuit commissions and changed the hundred officials, and two months later received the abdication and came to the throne, changing the era name to Zhenguan; and the twenty years of government that followed, and the one change of the fourth day of the sixth month, became the two sides of his life.

His Territory and His Relations with the Four Quarters

The territory of Li Shimin's reign and his relations with the four quarters were the result of combining force with virtue. In the north, the eastern Turks being destroyed and the Khan Xieli having submitted, his people came within the empire; and the Xueyantuo being destroyed and the tribes of the Tie-le having asked that he be given the title of Khan, the peoples of the northern grasslands entered the ranks of the loosely held. In the northwest, the Tuyuhun being broken, Gaochang, Karashahr and Kucha were pacified one after another and the roads between the Tang and the states of the western regions were greatly opened; and the establishment of protectorates after the fourteenth year of Zhenguan was in fact the institutional basis of the Tang's management of the western regions. In the northeast, though the campaign against Koguryo did not achieve its purpose, ten cities of Liaodong were taken and Koguryo's picked troops gravely reduced, which was the prelude to the pacification of Koguryo and Paekche in the reign of Gaozong. In the southwest, after the battle of Songzhou the marriage alliance with Tibet was made and Princess Wencheng entered Tibet, so that Tibet entered the loose tribute system. In the south, envoys were sent to inspect Lingnan and the rebellious Liao of the five caves were pacified, so that the prefectures and counties of the south were gradually settled. With the unity of Chinese and barbarian as its watchword and with protectorates, loose prefectures, marriage alliances and investitures as its institutions, this was the whole of his policy toward the four quarters; and later ages, in speaking of the height of the Tang, have always taken the title of Heavenly Khan as its mark.

The Model of Accord Between Sovereign and Ministers

Of the accord between Li Shimin and his ministers several matters have been handed down as models: first, the receiving of remonstrance, as in his own saying that with bronze as a mirror one may set one's cap and robe straight, with antiquity as a mirror one may know rise and fall and with men as a mirror one may know gain and loss, and in Wei Zheng's repeated remonstrance without punishment; second, the employment of men, as in Fang Xuanling's recommending Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng's passing from enemy to minister, Li Jing's being laid under weight and Yuchi Gong's being repeatedly forgiven; third, the preservation of the meritorious, as in the affair at the Qingshan Palace where he did not punish but admonished, so that apart from Hou Junji and Zhang Liang all the meritorious of Zhenguan came to a good end; fourth, self-blame, as in avoiding the main hall and reducing his meals because of drought and decreeing that the officials should speak of affairs, and in acknowledging Chengqian's fault at the ancestral temple; and fifth, the trust at his death, as in entrusting the heir apparent to Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang with the charge that petty men should not divide sovereign and minister. All these ran together with his teaching on the way of a ruler, so that later ages discussing the enlightened sovereign and the good minister have always taken the Zhenguan reign as their measure.

The Legacy of Zhenguan and Its Imitation by Later Ages

The lasting effects of Li Shimin's government were several: first, institutions, such as the three departments and six ministries, the militia, the equal-field system with the tripartite tax, and the codes and regulations, which were largely followed throughout the Tang; second, the temper of government, such as the receiving of remonstrance, the love of the people, care in punishments and frugality, which the sovereigns and ministers of the Tang constantly cited; third, territory, such as the protectorates of Anxi and Anbei with the system of loose prefectures, which were the basis of later management of the frontiers; fourth, the example in history, such as the compiling of the histories of former dynasties and his own discussion and praise in the Book of Jin, which set the example of a sovereign taking part in the writing of history; and fifth, letters, such as the purchase of calligraphy, the fixing of Wang Xizhi as the sage of the art, and the court fashion of poetry. Of later sovereigns who imitated him, Gaozong's Yonghui and Xuanzong's Kaiyuan both took Zhenguan as their model; and the political writers of the Song, Ming and Qing have likewise taken the government of Zhenguan as the measure of a good reign, naming it beside the reigns of Wen and Jing of the Han and the Hongwu and Yongle of the Ming.

His Place in Chinese History

Later writers on Li Shimin's historical place say that worthy sovereigns do not appear in every age: several hundred years after Cheng and Kang came Emperor Wen of Han, and several hundred years after Emperor Wen came Taizong of Tang, setting the government of Zhenguan beside that of Emperor Wen; and they say that as a worthy sovereign unsurpassed since the three dynasties he may be called a lord of transcendent excellence, taking his receiving of remonstrance, his love of the people, his care in punishments and his frugality as the height of what was attained after the three dynasties; while others take the destruction of his own flesh and blood at the Xuanwu Gate, the taking of the Princess Consort of Chao as a palace consort and the halt beneath Anshi city in the eastern campaign as the regrets of his life. Praise and blame differ, yet that he opened the first height of the Tang and fixed the institutions and temper of medieval China is agreed by later critics; and so later ages, in speaking of the greatest reigns of the Chinese emperors, have always used Zhenguan as the name of the height.

His Contribution to Culture

Li Shimin's contribution to culture may be divided into several heads: first, the writing of history, in decreeing the compilation of the histories of former dynasties and writing the discussion and praise for the Book of Jin himself, setting the example of a sovereign taking part in the writing of history; second, calligraphy, in purchasing the surviving ink of Wang Xizhi and others of the Wei and Jin, having Chu Suiliang examine and catalogue them and writing the discussion of Wang Xizhi himself, establishing his position as the sage of the art; third, poetry, in being the central figure of the court poetic circle of the time and reconciling the softness of the south with the stern temper of the north so as to express the grand and solemn air of the new dynasty; fourth, education, in setting aside the Duke of Zhou and raising Confucius to be the former sage, gathering the Confucian scholars of the empire in numbers, adding the school of law and bringing those who opened their book boxes and ascended the lecture mats in the academy to nearly ten thousand; fifth, religion, in receiving Xuanzang at the Luoyang Palace and building for him the translation hall of the Hongfu Temple, so that the work of translation had the help of the court; and sixth, rites, music and the calendar, in the fixing of the court music and the revision of the codes and regulations in the Zhenguan years, going together with the system of the three departments and six ministries. That a founding sovereign of a dynasty should thus act in all four matters of institutions, learning, letters and religion shows the scale of his contribution to culture.

The Changes in His Historical Judgement

The historical judgement on Li Shimin has changed somewhat with the ages: in the Tang, as the founder of the dynasty and the sovereign of the government of Zhenguan, the praises of the Jiu Tang shu and the Xin Tang shu mostly call him intelligent, sage and martial and receiving remonstrance as a stream; in the Song he was set beside Emperor Wen of the Han, with the meeting of things by an open mind and the injuring of the high for the low as the essentials of his government; and the critics of the Ming and Qing gradually came to his failures at the Xuanwu Gate and in the Koguryo campaign, saying that he destroyed his own flesh and blood and that the Princess Consort of Chao could be made a palace consort, setting the first example, and that the personal campaign was a fair name with more harm than profit. In modern times some have taken his ideal of receiving remonstrance and loving the people as the root of government as close to the Confucian rule, and others have taken the fixing of the institutions and temper of medieval China as his chief historical contribution. Amid the praise and blame the name of the government of Zhenguan has remained undiminished as the measure of a good reign for later ages.

The Tang After Him

After Li Shimin the politics and institutions of the Tang continued the thread of Zhenguan with changes: at the beginning of Gaozong's reign Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang assisted the government and affairs mostly followed the old statutes of Zhenguan, which was the government of Yonghui; afterwards the Wu family rose, and after Xianqing the old ministers left office one after another and the legacy of Zhenguan gradually failed, though the three departments and six ministries, the militia, the equal-field system and the codes were still largely followed. From the empress Wu to Xuanzong the institutions of the Tang changed several times, and the Kaiyuan age again took Zhenguan for its model; and after the rebellion of An and Shi the militia and the equal-field system decayed, the tripartite tax became the two taxes, the power of the military governors grew, and the fortunes of the Tang house turned again. Hence later ages discussing Tang history have always taken Zhenguan as the standard of its government, Kaiyuan as the height of its prosperity and the rebellion of An and Shi as the hinge of its change; and between the three, the institutions and temper of Zhenguan were the ground.

His Name and Political Discussion After the Tang

The name of Li Shimin has ever since the Tang been a standard in political discussion: the men of Song set Taizong of Tang beside Emperor Wen of the Han and took the meeting of things by an open mind and the injuring of the high for the low as the way of government; the men of Ming took his receiving of remonstrance, his love of the people, his care in punishments and his frugality as making him a worthy sovereign unsurpassed since the three dynasties; and the men of Qing discussed both his failure at the Xuanwu Gate and his reverse in Koguryo, saying that among father and sons and brothers there was much to regret. And modern scholars have mostly taken the government of Zhenguan as the model of medieval Chinese politics, with the three departments and six ministries, the militia, the equal-field system with the tripartite tax, and the receiving of remonstrance and love of the people as the two sides of its institutions and its spirit. His name has therefore come to stand in Chinese political culture beside the governments of Wen and Jing, the prosperity of Kaiyuan and the reigns of Hongwu and Yongle as a representative of good government; and his own gains and losses have become an example always cited by later ages in discussing the way of a ruler.

The Example He Set for Later Sovereigns

Of Li Shimin several things were taken as models by later sovereigns: first, restraint in personal campaigns and progresses, since the personal campaign, with authority unified in the sovereign's hands and advance at his own will, also showed its harms, which later ages mostly took as a warning; second, the government of remonstrance, as in the saying about a man being a mirror, constantly cited by later rulers; third, the government of loving the people, as in lightening taxes and service, care in punishments and relief of the orphaned and widowed, which became the basis of later famine policy and judicial leniency; fourth, his way of employing men, in avoiding neither kin nor enemy, in using Chinese and barbarian together and in preserving the meritorious, which became the type of employing men for later ages; and fifth, the writing of history and civil government, as in a sovereign taking part in the compiling of histories, purchasing books and founding schools in honour of the Confucians. All these five were handed down from the single period of Zhenguan as patterns for later ages; and so those who later discussed the learning of a sovereign and the way of government have always taken Zhenguan as the primer of the subject.

The Outline of His Reign

The outline of the Zhenguan reign may be put in eight words: to shelve arms and cultivate letters, to still and comfort the people. In government, institutions were improved within with the people as the root, and the four quarters were held without with peace as the rule; in temper, remonstrance was received, punishments were handled with care, the people were loved and frugality practised; and the effect was that the seas were at peace, being the first height of the Tang. Hence the government of Zhenguan has become the name of a good reign in Chinese history, standing with the government of Wen and Jing and the prosperity of Kaiyuan; and the reason its institutions and spirit could be handed down lay in its joining the virtue of a ruler to the worth of his ministers, and not in relying on the awe of a single age.

The Essentials of His Last Charge

The essentials of Li Shimin's last charge may be summed up in three: first, that the heir apparent was humane and filial, making the virtue of the successor the foundation of his politics; second, that with Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang there he need not worry about the affairs of the empire, laying the charge of assisting the government on his old ministers; and third, that they should not let petty men slander and divide the relations of sovereign and minister, making the keeping of that accord the end of his charge. Brief as the three sayings are, the whole political spirit of the Zhenguan reign is in them.

The Enduring Name

The two characters of Zhenguan became the name of a good reign, and those who later discussed government always cited it as a model; his temper of receiving remonstrance, loving the people, caring in punishments and practising frugality has likewise been constantly cited by later ages.

The Legacy of His Government

The legacy of his government lasted into the early Yonghui years; and later writers have mostly taken Zhenguan as the ground of the politics and institutions of the Tang.

In Conclusion

Li Shimin's work turned on three hinges: the one change at the Xuanwu Gate, the twenty-three years of Zhenguan and the one reverse in the personal campaign against Koguryo; the three acting on one another, his name ran together with the rise and fall of medieval China.

Personal Relations

• Father: Li Yuan (Emperor Gaozu of Tang)
• Mother: Lady Dou (Empress Taimu)
• Elder brother: Li Jiancheng (crown prince, killed in the Xuanwu Gate Incident)
• Elder sister: Princess Pingyang Zhao (commander of the "Army of the Lady")
• Younger brothers: Li Xuanba; Li Yuanji (Prince of Qi, killed in the Xuanwu Gate Incident)
• Wife: Lady Zhangsun (Empress Wende)
• Sons: Li Chengqian (crown prince, deposed), Li Tai (Prince of Wei), Li Zhi (Emperor Gaozong of Tang), Li Ke, and others
• Daughters: Princess Changle, Princess Jinyang, and others
• Fang Xuanling: former retainer of the Prince of Qin's household, celebrated Zhenguan chancellor, associated with "Fang's planning"
• Du Ruhui: former retainer of the Prince of Qin's household, celebrated Zhenguan chancellor, associated with "Du's decisions"
• Wei Zheng: formerly an official under Crown Prince Li Jiancheng; known for direct remonstrance during the Zhenguan era
• Zhangsun Wuji: elder brother of Empress Zhangsun and foremost among the meritorious officials of Lingyan Pavilion
• Yuchi Jingde: surrendered general and important participant in the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Li Jing: major early Tang general who defeated the Eastern Turks and Tuyuhun
• Gao Shilian: maternal uncle of Empress Zhangsun and participant in the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang: Li Shimin responded to recruitment to relieve him while young
• Emperor Gaozu of Tang, Li Yuan: father and son; later abdicated in Li Shimin's favor
• Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi: ninth son and successor
• Li Jiancheng: crown prince and rival for the succession; killed in the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Li Yuanji: Prince of Qi and supporter of Li Jiancheng; killed in the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Liu Heita: former follower of Dou Jiande who rebelled against Tang in Hebei
• Illig Qaghan: leader of the Eastern Turks, captured in the fourth year of the Zhenguan era

Historical Assessment

Tang and Contemporary Assessments

• After meeting Li Shimin, Li Mi privately told Yin Kaishan: "He is truly a heroic ruler. Without one such as this, how could the disorders be pacified?" (*Old Book of Tang*, vol. 2, Basic Annals II)
• After Wei Zheng died, Li Shimin lamented: "Using bronze as a mirror, one can straighten one's cap and clothes; using antiquity as a mirror, one can understand rise and decline; using people as a mirror, one can see gains and losses. I have always preserved these three mirrors to guard against my own errors. Now that Wei Zheng has died, I have lost one mirror!" (*Old Book of Tang*, vol. 71, "Biography of Wei Zheng")
• Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, assessed his father: "Emperor Taizong Wenwu Sheng possessed virtue that covered the four seas and beneficence that reached all directions." (*Tang Huiyao*)

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang of the Northern Song wrote in the *Zizhi Tongjian*: "Taizong's civil and military talents surpassed those of ancient times. Since the Three Dynasties, China had never seen such flourishing." He nevertheless criticized the Xuanwu Gate Incident, writing: "Establishing the eldest legitimate son is the proper principle of ritual... Was Taizong's action something he could avoid? It was probably done only from necessity."
• Zhu Xi, the major Neo-Confucian thinker of the Southern Song, wrote: "Emperor Taizong of Tang was intelligent and martial and truly possessed the bearing of an emperor, yet in planning for himself he could not escape the selfishness of profit and desire."
• Yuan historian Hu Sanxing, in his commentary on the *Zizhi Tongjian*, wrote: "Taizong, with his heroic and martial endowment, pacified the disorder of the four seas; his achievements may indeed be called magnificent."

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wang Fuzhi, thinker of the late Ming and early Qing, wrote in *Du Tongjian Lun*: "Taizong's virtue was sufficient to win the hearts of all under Heaven; Taizong's talent was sufficient to settle the enterprise of all under Heaven. Yet the way by which he obtained the realm was not without regret." He criticized the Xuanwu Gate Incident.
• Qing historian Zhao Yi wrote in *Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories*: "The government of Zhenguan came close to leaving punishments unused. Taizong's worth was rarely seen after the Three Dynasties."
• The Qianlong Emperor of Qing assessed him: "Emperor Taizong of Tang was truly the foremost man after the Three Dynasties, yet at the beginning he had cause for shame, and at the end too there remained a little cause for shame."

Modern Assessments

• Modern historian Chen Yinke wrote in *A Draft Discussion of Tang Political History*: "The age of Taizong was the most flourishing period in Chinese history; its politics, society, culture, and other fields all achieved brilliant accomplishments."
• Historian Qian Mu wrote in *Outline of National History*: "Emperor Taizong of Tang was one of the most outstanding emperors in Chinese history, and his age was a golden era of China's medieval history."
• Historian Fan Wenlan wrote in *Concise General History of China*: "Emperor Taizong of Tang was a rarely enlightened ruler in history, and the Zhenguan era of good government was a rare period of good rule in Chinese feudal society."