In the novel, there is a person named Li Yuanba, I believe many friends have heard of it.
This Li Yuanba, from the "Biography of Xing Tang" and "Sui and Tang Yanyi" and other books, is the younger son of Li Yuan, the emperor of Tang Gaozu, and the first fierce general at the end of the Sui Dynasty. Legend has it that he is a golden-winged giant bird in the sky, who can make a pair of eight hundred pounds of iron hammers sweep across the world. Unfortunately, later, he raised his hammer to curse the heavens, and was killed by a thunder bolt descended from the heavens.
Of course, the novel is a novel after all, and Li Yuanba in the history is not so brave, but he is a sick straw man. Li Yuanba in the history is actually named Li Xuanba. He is the third son of Li Yuan. The reason why it was renamed Li Yuanba was because later during the Kangxi Dynasty, in order to avoid the secret, the storyteller bypassed this Xuan ye's Xuan character, so they changed Li Xuanba to Li Yuanba.
In fact, this third son of Li Yuan in the history of Daye had already died of illness ten years ago, that is, three years before Li Yuan officially started his army. He was only sixteen years old when he died, which is a pity.
So, how did such a sick seedling who died early evolve into the image of the god who was extremely brave in later novels?
In fact, this Li Xuanba in the novel, the real prototype, is actually someone else. His deeds are highly similar to Li Yuanba in the novel. Moreover, his relationship with Li Yuan is also extremely close. However, he was not Li Yuan's son, but a cousin of Li Yuan.
This man's name was Li Daoxuan.
1. Heroes from ancient times to teenagers
According to historical records, Li Daoxuan was cautious and generous in temperament, and at the same time proficient in martial arts. In today's terms, it should be regarded as a typical three-good teenager.
As for his relationship with Li Yuan, it is also not far away. Li Daoxuan's grandfather was Li Hu, one of the famous Western Wei Eight Pillar States in history. And this Li Hu is Li Yuan's grandfather. Li Hu had a total of eight sons, of which the third son, Li Xun, was the father of Li Yuan, the emperor of Tang Gaozu. The fifth son, Li Yi, is Li Daoxuan's grandfather.
This relationship can be easily sorted out.
According to the historical records, Li Daoxuan should have been born in 604 AD, that is, the year Yang Guang ascended the throne. From this, it can be deduced that when Li Yuan officially started his army in Taiyuan in the thirteenth year of Daye, Li Daoxuan should have been just a fourteen-year-old child.
Of course, if you follow the Tang people's habit of liking to be two years old, Li Daoxuan should be fifteen years old at that time. Whether it's fourteen or fifteen, it's certainly not big.
Although he is only a teenager, after all, he is the Li family and a close relative of the Li family. Therefore, in 618, when Li Yuan ascended the throne in Chang'an, Li Daoxuan was also named the King of Huaiyang and given the post of Grand General of the Right Qianniu Wei.
This year, even if it is calculated according to the imaginary two years old, Li Daoxuan is only sixteen years old. If calculated according to the normal one-year-old algorithm, then Li Daoxuan should have just turned fifteen at that time.
However, although Li Daoxuan was young, it did not prevent him from starting to follow Li Shimin on his southern expedition to the north from then on. For the men of the Li family, going to the battlefield early seems to be a very normal thing. For example, before Li Shimin was also about the same age, he began to take charge of the army.
However, after Li Daoxuan entered the army, he soon showed a brave and fierce side.
In the third year of Wu De, Li Shimin conquered Liu Wuzhou in Shanxi, and fought a major war with Song Jingang under Liu Wuzhou in the area of present-day Jiexiu in Shanxi. The result of this battle naturally ended in Li Shimin's victory. In this battle of Jiezhou, Li Daoxuan took the lead in attacking Jiexiu City, taking the lead.
This year, Li Daoxuan was just seventeen years old.
At that time, Li Shimin was also quite surprised to see that his cousin was so able to fight. After this great battle, Li Shimin rewarded him with a thousand pieces of cloth and began to reuse this cousin.
After pacifying Liu Wuzhou, the next four years after Wude, Li Shimin led an army to begin to conquer Wang Shichong in Luoyang. Later, after Wang Shichong was besieged at Luoyang, he asked Dou Jiande for help in Shandong. Dou Jiande rushed out to reap the benefits of the fisherman. Li Shimin immediately made a decision, allowing the large army to continue to stay in Luoyang to besiege Wang Shichong, while he himself led the elite to Tiger Prison Pass to block Dou Jiande.
This battle is known as the real Dingding First World War in the process of the founding of the Tang Dynasty. Because in this battle, Li Shimin defeated Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande at the same time, laying the foundation for the Tang Dynasty to unify the world.
At that time, Li Daoxuan followed Li Shimin and went to tiger prison pass to block Dou Jiande.
In the Battle of Tiger Prison Pass, Li Shimin first could not hold out, so that Dou Jiande's hundreds of thousands of troops stayed in front of tiger prison pass for more than a month, completely losing his sharpness. After that, Li Shimin led the elite to kill, directly took Dou Jiande's camp, and captured Dou Jiande alive. In the course of the decisive battle between the two sides, Li Shimin first sent light horses to lure Dou Jiande, let Li Daoxuan ambush on the side of the road, and finally destroyed Dou Jiande's army.
Although Li Daoxuan is young, his personal bravery and martial arts are evident from this.
After pacifying Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, Li Daoxuan was first appointed as the governor of Luozhou, and then changed to Luozhou Assassin History. Luozhou refers to the area around luoyang today, and it is also the old lair of Wang Shichong at that time.
This year, Li Daoxuan had just turned eighteen.
2. Defeated and killed
After pacifying Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, Li Shimin led a large army back to Chang'an and was given the title of General of Tiance. However, just after Li Shimin returned to Chang'an with Dou Jiande, he was beheaded in Chang'an. Dou Jiande's general Liu Heimin (劉黑闼) once again rebelled.
In just over a month, Liu Heimin had gathered tens of thousands of dou jiande's old genera. Throughout Shandong, Hebei and Henan, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
Faced with this situation, Li Daoxuan, who had just turned eighteen at the time, was appointed by Li Yuan as the governor of Hebei Province, leading an army of 30,000 to deal with Liu Heimin.
In the fourth year of Wu De, on October 17, Li Daoxuan led the Tang army to encounter Liu Heimin's main force in the eastern part of present-day Shenzhou City, Hebei Province.
In the face of the powerful Liu Heimin, there were differences within the Tang Army at that time.
Because At that time, Li Daoxuan was in danger of being ordained, and he was young, just turning eighteen, so it was difficult to convince the public. At that time, Shi Wanbao, the deputy general of the Tang Army, was a senior veteran general with a high reputation in the army. Therefore, for Li Daoxuan, a hairy boy to be the manager, Shi Wanbao was extremely unconvinced, and he was not willing to listen to Li Daoxuan's dispatches at all.
Therefore, when Li Daoxuan chose to lead a light horse to attack the enemy position on his own, and let Shi Wanbao lead the army to attack subsequently, Shi Wanbao directly chose to press the soldiers and not move. Shi Wanbao's reasons were also very sufficient, and Shi Wanbao felt that Li Daoxuan had rushed into the battle, which was really too presumptuous. If he also followed suit, it would be easy for the entire Tang army to collapse.
Instead of this, it is better to let Li Daoxuan use as bait to lure the enemy into battle. If Li Daoxuan failed, the enemy took the opportunity to attack, and the Tang army held here, it would certainly be able to defeat the enemy.
As a veteran, Shi Wanbao's combat experience should be very rich. This time, though, he only guessed half right.
Li Daoxuan, who did not follow the follow-up army, failed to charge and died in Liu Heimin's army. After Li Daoxuan's death, Liu Heimin's army indeed took advantage of the victory to pursue and attack the tang army.com. But as a result, because the commander was already dead, the Tang army had no fighting spirit at all, and the Tang army directly collapsed!
In this way, Li Daoxuan, who fought extremely bravely, died at the hands of Liu Heimin.
3. Behind Li Daoxuan's death
On the surface, Li Daoxuan died at the hands of Liu Heimin. If you want to complain, you can only blame the deputy general Shi Wanbao. If Shi Wanbao had led a large army and charged with Li Daoxuan at that time, perhaps the Tang army would have been able to defeat it.
However, if we relate to the background of the times at that time, we will find that Li Daoxuan's death may not be so simple.
Looking back at the entire Li Daoxuan incident, it is easy to find two suspicious points. First, Li Daoxuan, who was only eighteen years old at the time, had never had the experience of leading troops alone. At that time, within the Tang Army, there seemed to be no shortage of famous generals who could stand alone. If this was the case, why would Li Yuan send such a hairy boy to deal with Liu Heimin at that time?
Second, as a vice admiral, why would Shi Wanbao be so bold as to use a Li family prince like Li Daoxuan as bait? Let Li Daoxuan charge the battle by himself, and not go to the rescue at all, are you not worried that you will lose your head afterwards?
In fact, the real cause of Li Daoxuan's death was actually the internal party struggle at the top of the Tang Dynasty at that time!
To be precise, he died in the open struggle between the brothers Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin.
As we all know, when Li Yuan first ascended the throne in Chang'an, the area that the Tang Dynasty could control was limited to the Guanzhong region with Chang'an as the core. In the following years, with Li Shimin's southern conquest of the northern war, he defeated Xue Ju, Liu Wuzhou, Wang Shichong, Dou Jiande and others successively, and gradually unified the world.
To put it bluntly, in the process of unifying the world in the Tang Dynasty, the most important battles were several times, except for the Southern Expedition to Xiao Milling, all the remaining important wars were basically fought by Li Shimin.
After each win, Li Shimin will receive a certain degree of reward. After Li Shimin swept away Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, Li Yuan even found that the existing official positions could no longer commend Li Shimin's merits. To this end, Li Yuan also deliberately created a position of General of Tiance to Li Shimin.
After receiving the position of General of Tiance, Li Shimin was no less than Li Jiancheng, who was the crown prince, both in terms of power and status. In this way, the contradictions and conflicts between the two are inevitable.
Therefore, when Liu Heimin had just started his army, Li Yuan was actually very worried. Sending Li Shimin into battle can certainly succeed in a battle. But the problem is that Li Shimin is already a general of tiance at present, and there is no ancient person before. If you win again, what will you do to reward him? Take the position of prince? At that time, Li Yuan obviously had no such intention.
In addition to Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng's side at that time did not want Li Shimin to touch the military power again. Moreover, Li Jiancheng hoped that Liu Heimin's uprising could damage some of Li Shimin's forces to a certain extent and reduce Li Shimin's forces.
Therefore, in this case, Li Daoxuan became the best candidate to lead the troops. For Li Yuan, Li Daoxuan was also a member of Li's family, and as a resident of Luozhou, he was relatively familiar with the war in Hebei and could be trusted. And for Li Jiancheng, Li Daoxuan is Li Shimin's person. If Li Daoxuan succeeded, he would definitely be greatly rewarded by Li Yuan, and would directly become independent from Li Shimin and take away some of the subordinates who originally belonged to Li Shimin. And if Li Daoxuan was defeated, he would also lose Li Shimin's subordinates.
It's a sure deal.
In addition, in order to prevent accidents, Li Jiancheng also specially recommended Shi Wanbao as a deputy general. What should be said here is that Shi Wanbao was neither Li Jiancheng's person nor Li Shimin's person, but another Li Shentong's person at that time, the prince of the Li family!
Li Shentong was Li Yuan's cousin, and after Li Yuan's Taiyuan uprising, he and Li Yuan's daughter Princess Pingyang organized a large army near Chang'an to receive Li Yuan, and finally helped Li Yuan easily take Chang'an. In the first few years of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang army could be roughly divided into four major factions, which were: The Li Jiancheng faction, the Li Shimin faction, the Li Shentong faction, and the Li Xiaogong faction. As a force in the military, Li Shentong must not want to see Li Shimin's family alone, so in the matter of pitting Li Shimin, he and Li Jiancheng coincided.
Therefore, when Shi Wanbao went into battle, he would play a play of wall watching and let Li Daoxuan die in Liu Heimin's army.
epilogue
Li Daoxuan's death can be said to be the result of a mutual game between the top brass of the Tang Dynasty, and it was a pure political murder.
However, whether it was Li Yuan or Li Jiancheng, or Li Shentong behind Shi Wanbao, they probably did not expect that the later development of things would exceed all of them' expectations.
Indeed, Li Daoxuan's death in battle did damage Li Shimin's power a lot to a certain extent. But at the same time, this also gives Liu Heimin, who was not originally powerful, a chance to completely become bigger.
In just half a year, Liu Heimin restored all of Dou Jiande's original territory, and even grew somewhat, becoming another fatal threat to the Tang Dynasty.
In the face of Liu Heimin, who had completely become big at that time, Li Yuan finally had to choose Li Shimin and let Li Shimin lead the army to conquest. The result is obvious, Li Shimin won the battle against Liu Heimin. Moreover, through this battle, Li Shimin's power was actually even stronger, so big that even Li Yuan could not completely suppress it.
In addition, through Li Daoxuan's death, Li Shimin also wanted to understand one thing thoroughly: as the prince of the Li family, the greater the merit, the more dangerous it is. In order to save his life, Li Shimin had to start the battle with Li Jiancheng. After a few years, it finally led to the change of Xuanwumen.
To put it bluntly, Li Daoxuan's death was actually the cause of a series of major events in the Later Tang Dynasty. It's just a pity that when Li Daoxuan died, he was still too young. Probably li Daoxuan did not understand whose hands he had died at until he died.