Chapter 72: The Confucian Pot If the defeat of the battle of Goguryeo in history can be attributed to the willingness of the weather (it was late autumn at that time, it was already snowing in the north, and the soldiers and horses were unbearable, so Taizong could only return to the court), then this time it was impossible to fail.
Not to mention that Datang has prepared all kinds of rich materials, let's just say that Datang's equipment is now Datang, which has blast furnace steelmaking technology, and now its equipment has been upgraded for several generations, and now even the weapons used by the most ordinary soldiers can be used as the side-worn weapons of general-level generals in other countries, which is really too sophisticated.
And today's Tang Dynasty still has all kinds of firearms, not to mention cannons, even the simplest gunpowder bag - with Goguryeo's city wall made of mud and gravel, how many times can it withstand blasting?
If you can withstand the blasting of three 10-kilogram explosive packets, you are already in the sky, right?
What's more, a few days ago, Li Zhen also wrote a letter to Li Shimin and put forward a few suggestions, asking him not to be soft-hearted when fighting Goguryeo, and not to care about the so-called fame, should be killed, should be arrested, Goguryeo is a foreign barbarian, even if he imitates the Tang Dynasty culture, he has only learned a little skin, and he still has barbaric genes in his bones, and bullying the soft and fearing the hard is their essence.
In fact, there is no need for Li Zhen to remind him, Li Shimin has already understood the gap between himself and Li Zhen after reading the war report from Nanyang - of course, it is not that he is worse than Li Zhen, but that the two have different perspectives on the problem, as a traverser, Li Zhen's vision is naturally much better than Li Shimin.
Why did those ancient emperors know that the alien race would surrender and rebel, but they still enjoyed sparing the lives of those who surrendered?
Knowing that they will rebel again in the future and bring even greater disaster to themselves?
But he is still unwilling to fall into the well and kill the enemy.
To put it bluntly, it is actually the responsibility of Confucianism.
The reason why we talk about the responsibility of Confucianism here is not to say that there is a problem with Confucius's thoughts, in fact, the starting point of Confucianism is good, but the problem is that later Confucian disciples, in order to cater to the interests of the ruling class, wantonly tampered with Confucius's ideas and took them out of context, and then the whole Confucianism became sour.
Then it got the support of the emperor, and Confucianism, which was originally to cater to the interests of the emperor, slowly turned around and began to influence the emperor's thoughts, and the affected emperors supported Confucianism more strongly in order to maintain their own interests, and Confucianism developed and grew again, and then influenced the emperor again...... has fallen into a vicious circle, and the Confucian thought that originally emphasized repaying grievances with straightforwardness has become repaying grievances with virtue; The idea of "the people can make it, let it be made, it can't be made, and it can't be known" has become a foolish policy of "the people can make it, but can't make it known"; The admonition of 'only women, sons and villains are difficult to raise' has become a famous aphorism that discriminates against women that 'only women and villains are difficult to raise'......
Then the king became more and more concerned about his own conduct, paying attention to benevolence, paying attention to filial piety, avoiding killing, and putting an end to bloodshed.
For the sake of his own reputation, in order to show his generosity, he knew that the alien race was a white-eyed wolf that could not be raised, and he knew that his actions were raising tigers, but for the sake of the so-called reputation, for the praise of the ministers and the two good words of the alien race, he was fluttering and spared the life of the offender.
The most typical example is Li Shimin, in history, Tubo invaded Songzhou, was defeated by the Tang Dynasty, originally the Tang Dynasty should have pursued the victory, but it was because Songtsan Gampo apologized for the crime, Li Shimin not only forgave his sins, but also married Princess Wencheng to him, just to marry all kinds of craftsmen and technologies are innumerable, with these craftsmen and technology, Tubo entered the agricultural society in one fell swoop, and the productivity increased significantly.
That's right, Princess Wencheng's entry into Tibet did bring a brief peace to Tubo and the Tang Dynasty, but what about after that?
Tubo absorbed the technology and craftsmen of the Tang Dynasty and successfully developed it, and then Qinling gave the Tang Dynasty a lesson in Dafeichuan, defeated the famous general Xue Rengui, and added a strong stain to the resume of this victorious general.
The Tang Dynasty almost lost the four towns of Anxi and Tuyuhun because of this battle, but fortunately they were recaptured later, otherwise the Tang Dynasty would have completely lost control of the Western Regions.
Then there was the Anshi Rebellion, and Tubo took advantage of the chaos to invade Chang'an, looting the entire Chang'an, leaving only the devastation, and bringing endless shame to the Tang Dynasty - this is the first time since the founding of the Tang Dynasty that it was beaten into the capital, and even Jieli did not do it back then.
This is the pot left by Li Shimin back then, if he didn't let go of Tubo back then, but pursued it with victory, even if he didn't destroy Tubo, at least he could hurt Tubo's vitality, and at least let them be honest for a hundred years.
There are also Turks, also because Li Shimin let the Turks go, which eventually led to the Turks surrendering and rebelling, rebelling and surrendering, rebelling and rebelling, and rebelling and surrendering......
Datang is strong, they are honest immediately, and once Datang is weakened, they will immediately revert to their old ways and rebel again, bringing endless losses to Datang.
If he can swallow the Turks in one fell swoop like Li Zhen today, where is there so much bullshit in the future?
Li Shimin is like this, Wu Zetian is also like this, when the Khitan and the Tang Dynasty went to war, the Tang Dynasty made the Khitan a grandson, and then the Khitan was very aware of the current affairs and handed over the table to the ministers, maybe it was too sincere to say on the table, or for some other reason, Wu Zetian just let the Khitan go.
After that, the Khitan fought a few more battles with the Tang Dynasty, and they were always defeated and won less, and finally became a little more honest, until the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Khitan took this opportunity to develop and grow rapidly.
It just so happened that the Song Dynasty was also established at this time, and then it hit the Khitan headlong, broke the blood flow, and was directly beaten into a grandson, a minister, and a tribute, which simply lost the face of the Han family.
And it was the Great Song Dynasty that emphasized literature and light martial arts, which led to Confucianism once again entering the golden period of development, various doctrines emerged one after another, and Confucian classics were almost explained by them over and over again, which eventually led to the generation of the freak of science, and completely castrated the blood of the Han family, and after nearly a thousand years, the heads of the Han Erlang have never been raised.
Therefore, Confucianism is really the culprit in this pot, and it is difficult for them to get rid of this pot.
Having said all this, I am not criticizing Confucianism, I have also said before that the ideas of Confucianism were good at the beginning, in fact, no matter which theory it is, it is good when it first takes shape, otherwise these theories will not be accepted by the world.
However, the doctrine is good, but people have differences, and for their own purposes, these ideas have been misinterpreted by people with ulterior motives, and have become one set of fallacies and heresies one after another.
Some people say that they are doing this for the development of Confucianism, but they have even discarded the core scriptures and meanings of Confucianism, is this Confucianism still Confucianism?
Even if such Confucianism is developed, what is the use of it except for bringing disaster to the country and the people?