Text: The Silent Sheep
Silent Sheep
Li Shanchang was an important figure in the court of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang led the troops to fight under his father-in-law Guo Zixing, but in the end he fought a beautiful turnaround battle and became the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Li Shanchang made great contributions, Zhu Yuanzhang regarded him as a teacher and friend, and treated him with respect all the time, but in the end, Li Shanchang still couldn't get a good death.
Although he holds three gold medals to avoid death, he has been in the position of being above 10,000 people for a long time, and people naturally have many ideas that they shouldn't have.
Assist the emperor and follow loyally
The acquaintance between Zhu Yuanzhang and Li Shanchang is a bit unusual.
In 1354, Zhu Yuanzhang and his subordinates prepared to attack Chuzhou.
He heard that there was a respected elder in Chuzhou, but he knew that this elder Li Shanchang came to visit and greet him before Zhu Yuanzhang came to the door.
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that although Li Shanchang was old, Wen Tao was not bad, so he left him to be his own paperwork.
Li Shanchang nodded and agreed, making up for the vacancy that there was no Wenchen by Zhu Yuanzhang's side.
So far, Zhu Yuanzhang has 24 confidant generals and 1 civil official, and he has made plans for himself to kill the enemy.
It is recorded in the history books that Li Shanchang is actually a person who "reads less but has wisdom", and he has not won any fame.
Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang is an official, he is willing to allow himself to take the position of "clerk".
For the rest of his life, Li Shanchang was not afraid that he had reached the age of forty, and he chose to join Zhu Yuanzhang without hesitation.
After the two established a cooperative relationship, Li Shanchang used his wisdom of reading poetry and books for so many years to make contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang.
First, after Zhu Yuanzhang captured Chuzhou, he suggested that he follow the example of Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, to make good use of people, establish his own talent pool, and raise troops for a thousand days.
Zhu Yuanzhang felt that Li Shanchang's words were reasonable, so he appointed him as a staff officer and made him responsible for recruiting troops for himself.
It can be seen that at this time, Zhu Yuanzhang already had a sense of trust in Li Shanchang.
When Guo Zixing came to Chuzhou to defect to Zhu Yuanzhang, and after seeing Li Shanchang's outspoken advice to Zhu Yuanzhang, he thought that this was a rare talent, so he beat Li Shanchang's idea.
Guo Zixing intended to buy Li Shanchang and snatched Zhu Yuanzhang's military power.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was stabbed in the back, was in a hurry, and at this time, Li Shanchang resolutely stated that he had to follow Zhu Yuanzhang, which moved Zhu Yuanzhang.
So even though there were more and more capable strategists around Zhu Yuanzhang later, such as Song Lian, Liu Ji and other rare talents, Li Shanchang will always be the first person in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart.
After Guo Zixing died of illness, Zhu Yuanzhang was the master of the house.
Li Shanchang has also become his right-hand man, and Zhu Yuanzhang will give priority to Li Shanchang's opinions in many things.
Behind the heroes, reassuring people's hearts
Li Shanchang is under Zhu Yuanzhang, in fact, his role is mainly in calming people's hearts.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked him to recruit talents, and he also gave an order, and Li Shanchang does have the quality of convincing and reassuring.
The biggest reason is that he helped Zhu Yuanzhang build a personnel organizational structure.
Song Siyan, whom he recommended, is a powerful staff member who has a very good way of managing finances, and his financial philosophy is also quite recognized by Zhu Yuanzhang.
He bluntly said that even the lord Zhu Yuanzhang must practice the virtue of frugality, so that future generations can follow suit.
It can be said that after Zhu Yuanzhang became the emperor, he was still as frugal as before, and he couldn't do without Song Siyan who had been instilling financial management ideas by his side.
Li Mengeng is a military general discovered by Li Shanchang, and with Li Menggeng's help, Zhu Yuanzhang is like a bamboo on the battlefield and has achieved success again and again.
Although Hu Weiyong's personality collapsed in the later period, Hu Weiyong, who had just been favored by Li Shanchang, had strong diplomatic ability.
He used his clever diplomatic means to let Zhu Yuanzhang reap the benefits of the fisherman several times.
And Guo Jingxiang handled current affairs for Zhu Yuanzhang in his veil.
It is important to rush to the front line to attack the enemy, but how to pacify the people's hearts and minds after occupying the enemy's positions is also a difficult task.
Those who win the hearts of the people win the world, and Guo Jingxiang's joining helped Li Shanchang win the hearts of the people for Zhu Yuanzhang together.
It has to be mentioned here that after Zhu Yuanzhang captured Zhenjiang, Li Shanchang did a good job of pacifying the soldiers and the local people in advance, so that the army marched into the city without the people knowing.
In addition to recommending talents, in modern terms, Li Shanchang is an outstanding human resource management talent.
He knew that although some people were under Zhu Yuanzhang's command, they were not convinced by Zhu Yuanzhang, like Guo Zixing's old subordinates, many of them thought that Zhu Yuanzhang had taken advantage of his father-in-law Guo Zixing.
Treating these people, Li Shanchang patiently communicated, constantly comforted and persuaded them, so that they could put aside their prejudices against Zhu Yuanzhang and unite to fight for the country.
It was Li Shanchang's personnel work that was implemented perfectly, which relieved Zhu Yuanzhang of a lot of worries.
The most important point is that Li Shanchang not only calmed the hearts of his subordinates and the people properly, but also made Zhu Yuanzhang have full trust in him.
Under one person, selfishness grows
"Although there is no sweat and horsework, it is very meritorious to give food to the army." With Li Shanchang's support behind him, Zhu Yuanzhang is like a tiger.
Although Li Shanchang did not have the military merits of going to the front line to kill the enemy, his ability was strong in coordinating resources in the rear.
In addition to providing a stable supply of troops and military funds, he also formulated a military discipline and law with clear rewards and built livelihood projects.
Therefore, three years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, among the six dukes rewarded by Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Shanchang was named the Duke of Korea as the only civil official, and his position was the first hero above the other five.
In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang also gave Li Shanchang an iron coupon to avoid death, which could exempt himself from the death penalty twice with his son.
Maybe even Li Shanchang couldn't have imagined that Zhu Yuanzhang would have such a gift to him.
It's a pity that the fate of the first hero of the founding of the country is high and low, as an old courtier who has assisted Zhu Yuanzhang for 38 years, Li Shanchang repeatedly violated Zhu Yuanzhang's bottom line in the last few years of his life.
The history books evaluate Li Shanchang as a mean person. Li Shanchang, who is a very human minister, is not superficially kind, he is narrow-minded and easy to hold grudges, and as long as there is a conflict with him, he will take revenge for personal gain.
used his power to depose the other party, and even Liu Bowen was openly humiliated by him, and Liu Bowen, who could not bear to be humiliated, angrily told his old man to return to his hometown.
Who would have thought that Li Shanchang would eventually fall on Hu Weiyong, whom he promoted.
In the twenty-third year of Hongwu, Li Shanchang, who was already 70 years old, repeatedly asked Zhu Yuanzhang to release Ding Bin, a prisoner who was assigned to the frontier, which aroused the suspicion of Ming Taizu.
After severely interrogating Ding Bin, he learned that Li Shanchang's brother Li Cunyi had participated in Hu Weiyong's rebellion, and Hu Weiyong had also personally wooed Li Shanchang, using "I will give you the land of Huaixi after the matter is completed" as bait.
Although Li Shanchang didn't agree in the end, he was really moved by it.
Zhu Yuanzhang remembered many times that Li Shanchang had made meritorious contributions for many years and did not pursue some of his mistakes, but he could never bear the idea of rebellion.
So on the charge of rebellion, Li Shanchang's entire family of more than 70 people was executed, and the three iron coupons to avoid death became scrap metal.
A year later, Wang Guoyong avenged Li Shanchang's grievances, and Zhu Yuanzhang immediately purged all henchmen related to Li Shanchang.
Li Shanchang's mistake was that he was pampered and arrogant, and he couldn't recognize his position.