[Why does the new dynasty need to settle accounts with the royal family of the previous dynasty? Wouldn't it be possible to achieve long-term stability and peace in the world if the new dynasty governs with benevolence and treats the royal family of the previous dynasty well? ]

……

"Be kind to the royal family of the previous dynasty?"

Seeing the new video title, Li Shimin couldn't help but laugh.

Wanting to exchange sincerity for sincerity is too idealistic.

The so-called kindness is worthless in the face of interests.

Yes.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty... there were many examples of repaying evil with virtue and treating the defeated with kindness, but what were the results?
Gou Jian, the King of Yue, endured hardships and humiliated himself to destroy the State of Wu. Although he did not kill all of the Wu Kingdom in the end, he still demonstrated the principle of raising a tiger to bring disaster upon oneself.

When the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, it did not exterminate all the nobles of the six kingdoms. However, after the death of the Qin Emperor and the division of land, the nobles of the six kingdoms rose up in arms one after another, which became an unstable factor.

Not to mention that later Sima Yi openly violated the Luoshui Oath and almost massacred all members of the Cao Wei royal family.

If you treat the royal family of the previous dynasty well, who will treat you well?
So, instead of raising a tiger to cause trouble, it is better to kill it all and eliminate all worries forever!

……

【On this issue, Emperor Xuanzhao of the Former Qin Dynasty, Fu Jian, has the most say. 】

[Most people probably only know about this person from the Battle of Feishui. Or they may know him from idioms like "throwing a whip to stop the flow of the river" and "every tree and grass looks like an enemy".]

【However, in history, Fu Jian was the only person who fully implemented benevolence and righteousness among the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms. 】

[Later, ancient people even compared him with Liu Bei, and he was also called the most regrettable emperor in history by many people. ]

……

"Benevolence...what a luxury."

Cao Cao looked at the sky with a hint of sarcasm in his eyes.

In his opinion, the so-called benevolence and righteousness are all nonsense made up by those so-called scholars.

If benevolence and righteousness were really useful, Cao Cao would have been betrayed to death hundreds of times. How could he be alive today?
Cao Cao looked at the ministers below with different expressions and said loudly without disguising:

"Everyone says I'm a treacherous hero, and that I'm cunning, but those so-called gentlemen have all been defeated by a treacherous hero like me."

"If the price of being a gentleman is to be humiliated! Trampled! Destroyed! Even killed!"

"I would rather be a treacherous hero who can realize his ambitions!"

……

"I am not alone..."

When Liu Bei saw that people in later generations compared Fu Jian with himself, he couldn't help but look forward to the other person's story.

I didn’t expect that there are still people in later generations who do benevolent and righteous things.

However, his final fate seemed equally bad. He was the most regrettable emperor in history...

Perhaps, this is the final destination of these idealists.

Liu Bei looked at the brothers Guan and Zhang, as well as Kong Ming, Pang Tong and others around him with a gentle gaze.

Although Liu Bei regretted not being able to support the Han Dynasty throughout his life, he was able to work together with many benevolent and righteous people to achieve great things, and his life was not in vain.

……

[Fu Jian was a descendant of the Di tribe, which had a lesser presence than the Xiongnu and Xianbei of the same period.]

[Di people are different from nomadic peoples such as Xiongnu and Xianbei. They originated from the Songpan Plateau in Sichuan. Strictly speaking, they are also an agricultural people like the Han people.]

【After the chaos of the Three Kingdoms, the Western Jin Dynasty finally experienced more than 20 years of stability, but the Eight Kings Rebellion broke out again. 】

[The Di people, who had been farming in the northwest, took advantage of this opportunity to develop. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the five frontier ethnic groups, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di, and Qiang, took advantage of the chaos to enter the Central Plains.]

[The Di tribe was not large in number, so their strength was limited. At the beginning, they only submitted to the Later Zhao Dynasty established by the Jie people.]

[After Hou Jie was destroyed, the then Di leader Fu Jian, Fu Jian's third uncle, relied on his family's background to quickly occupy Longxi and Guanzhong areas.]

【Afterwards, Fu Jian officially proclaimed himself emperor and established the Qin Dynasty, which is known in history as the Former Qin Dynasty. 】

[It's just that this uncle passed away early. After his death, his son Fu Sheng took over the Former Qin Dynasty. However, Fu Sheng was like most emperors of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. He was cruel and merciless, and liked to kill people indiscriminately, making everyone feel insecure at the time.]

[At this time, Fu Jian was already a famous general in the court, and he was born into the royal family, so he quickly gained everyone's support. So two years after Fu Sheng ascended the throne, Fu Jian launched a coup, imprisoned this perverted cousin, and ascended the throne himself. ]

[Before Fu Jian, the reason why the north was so chaotic was because the court of the Hu people always came up with various extreme policies, either killing all the Han people or treating them differently. A series of unfair and even discriminatory policies caused the Han people to be unable to survive and were forced to rebel, and in turn massacred the Hu people.]

[The two sides hacked and hacked at each other, hostile to each other.]

[After Fu Jian came to power, he saw this situation and thought that it was not a good idea for everyone to continue to be hostile to each other. After all, stability is the foundation of development. When will the people who are fighting each other be able to live a good life? ]

[As a result, Fu Jian came up with the most magical idealistic experiment during the Sixteen Kingdoms period, which was the equality of the Hu and Han peoples.]

【This can be said to be a very subversive policy at a time when the Hu and Han forces were incompatible.】

[Although Fu Jian continued to use Di officials, he also began to promote Han people to serve as officials. Soon, the Former Qin recruited a large number of people, the most important of whom was Wang Meng.]

【Wang Meng can be said to be Fu Jian's most important counselor. The cooperation between them is like that between Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang. Similarly, Wang Meng's assistance to Fu Jian was also tiring.】

……

"Huh?" Liu Bei looked at Zhuge Liang with a question mark on his face. He didn't understand why this young man who was nearly 20 years younger than him was so tired.

However, even though he didn't understand, he still reminded:

"Do you feel tired from assisting me, Military Advisor? If you feel tired, you should pay more attention to rest."

Zhuge Liang was too lazy to explain further and could only nod awkwardly.

There's no way. Explaining too much is also tiring.

……

[Because Fu Jian held high the yellow-left banner of racial equality, no matter whether it was a small Han country or a Hu force, once he defeated them by force, he did not try to split up the management, nor did he think of eliminating the royal family and ministers of the country, but directly moved them all to live near the capital.]

[It turns out that with the help of Wang Meng, the Former Qin Dynasty introduced a series of policies to enrich the country and strengthen the army. ]

[In just a few years, the Former Qin Dynasty went from being a separatist regime in a remote corner to the strongest overlord in the north.]

【After the country became strong, Fu Jian began to expand his territory. 】

[It is worth mentioning that, unlike other Hu separatist forces of the same period, Fu Jian never committed a single massacre during his campaigns.]

[In 369 AD, Murong Chui, who was considered the greatest war god of the Sixteen Kingdoms, fled to Fu Jian due to persecution. Wang Meng believed that he was untameable and suggested that he be eliminated.]

【Fu Jian took Murong Chui in on the grounds that he was a righteous hero who had accomplished unprecedented feats. He personally went out to the suburbs to welcome him, treated him with great courtesy, and even named him the Champion General.】

[One year later, Prime Minister Wang Meng, General Jianjie Deng Qiang and others defeated the enemy with a small force, destroyed the Former Yan, and captured the six prefectures in Guandong.]

[Fu Jian pardoned the Former Yan Emperor Murong Wei, and relocated Murong Wei and more than 40,000 households of his princes, nobles, and ministers, as well as more than 50,000 households of local tyrants in Guandong, to Guanzhong and Chang'an. He also granted official titles to Murong Wei and other Xianbei upper-class members, and took Murong Chong's sister Princess Qinghe as his concubine, which made Murong Chong favored.]

[Two years later, they captured Liang and Yi states of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and incorporated the Bashu region into their territory.]

[At the same time, the states of Qiong, Qiong, Yelang and others in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau also submitted to the throne.]

【Afterwards, Fu Jian sent his general Lu Guang to attack and destroy the Former Liang that occupied Liangzhou, and then destroyed the Dai Kingdom of the Xianbei Tuoba clan, and sent Dai King Shi Yijian and the princes and ministers to the Imperial College in Chang'an to let them study Confucian classics and promote the sinicization of the Xianbei nobles. At this point, Qin basically unified the northern territory, became the most powerful of the Five Barbarians, and started a north-south confrontation with the Eastern Jin Dynasty. 】

……

Liu Bei: "..."

Fu Jian's series of military achievements made Liu Bei feel depressed. He had been defeated in many battles and had no place to stand at the age of over fifty, but Fu Jian must have already owned half of the country, right?
Is Liu Bei worthy of being compared with such a person?
Did something go wrong?
Liu Bei was speechless except for envy, and Zhuge Liang, who was standing by, felt exhausted just by watching Fu Jian's series of outrageous actions, and couldn't help but feel sympathy for Wang Meng.

Success is due to benevolence and righteousness, and failure is also due to benevolence and righteousness.

Having such a lord, the two of them really feel sorry for each other.

Fu Jian had good ideas and was a man with ideals, but he was a little too soft-hearted.

Isn't it like nurturing a tiger to cause trouble if we leave behind a bunch of unstable factors?

How could the emperors of the previous dynasties, who had been in high positions for a long time, be willing to be inferior to others and have no desire to restore their country?
Zhuge Liang felt that a disaster was imminent.

……

[However, the Former Qin was only strong on the surface. In fact, there were too many landmines buried deep inside. Once the situation changed, it would lead to a disaster.]

[In fact, if the Di people were as numerous as the Han people, it wouldn't be a big problem. The key is that the Di people are a small tribe.]

[Fu Jian brought foreigners to the vicinity of the capital, and sent all his Di people abroad. Then the problem came. The royal family members whose countries were destroyed all wanted to restore their country. Every time Wang Meng suggested that Fu Jian perform a physical salvation for these royal family members, Fu Jian said no, this was different from his own morality, and he had to stick to his own ideals.]

[Because of this, Wang Meng was almost mad to death several times. ]

[In fact, it is not difficult to see that although Fu Jian unified the north, the Former Qin at that time was a unity of various ethnic groups and forces, and even the old royal families of various countries. There was no internal unity at all. The country was moving forward unsteadily in this way. After a long time, problems were inevitable. ]

[Usually, Wang Meng reminded him and helped him keep an eye on these foreign tribes. In addition, the situation was stable, so they could live in peace. But unfortunately, just when Fu Jian was full of confidence and ready to unify the north and the south, his most trusted strategist Wang Meng suddenly died of illness.]

[Before his death, Wang Meng warned Fu Jian to first deal with the Xianbei and Qiang people in the country and not to plot against the Eastern Jin Dynasty for the time being.]

[Because Wang Meng knew that once a war broke out, those foreigners who had not been assimilated would not work well for you, especially those royal clans who had been incorporated, all of whom were destabilizing factors.]

【We must first stabilize the country before we can resist foreign aggression. This is a principle that everyone understands. 】

[However, after unifying the north, Fu Jian gradually began to think that the conditions for conquering the Eastern Jin Dynasty and unifying the world were ripe, and he completely forgot Wang Meng's advice.]

[In 379 AD, General Fu Pi and others led troops to capture Xiangyang, a strategic town of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and captured General Zhu Xu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. This also made the 42-year-old Fu Jian more determined to destroy the Eastern Jin Dynasty. ]

……

"The southern expedition failed..."

Cao Cao, who had just experienced a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Red Cliffs, smiled miserably and felt a sense of sympathy.

He knew without Tianmu telling him that what awaited Fu Jian would be a disastrous defeat, which would destroy his dream of unification in one fell swoop.

"If Wang Meng were still alive, Fu Jian might have been able to accomplish his goal. What a pity!"

As he said this, Cao Cao closed his eyes.

Your Highness, Jia Xu, who was standing among the ministers, looked at the pain between the other's brows and understood that his lord was missing Guo Fengxiao again.

Yes.

If Guo Fengxiao were still alive, he would have been able to see through the enemy's evil plan, and the lord would not have suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Red Cliffs, and his ambition to unify the world would not have been shattered.

……

"Former Qin... Fu Pi..."

When Emperor Qin Shi Huang looked at these words, he felt very upset.

He was not interested in the Former Qin Dynasty alone. After all, there were many countries that took their names from previous dynasties, such as the Later Zhao Dynasty. But isn't it a bit too much to name your general Fu Pi?

Are you sure you're not scamming?

……

【Seeing the opportunity to unify the world right before his eyes, Fu Jian convened a meeting in front of the emperor in 382 AD and ambitiously proposed a plan to take advantage of the situation to march south and destroy the Eastern Jin Dynasty in one fell swoop to unify the world.】

[In fact, there was a fierce debate within the Former Qin ruling group on whether to launch this war. Most of the court officials and clan members opposed it, and there was an endless stream of people offering advice.]

[However, now that the opportunity to unify the world is right before his eyes, Fu Jian has to consider whether this will be his only chance in this life.]

[He believed that Wang Meng had made great contributions to the Former Qin's current dominant position, but he had no choice but to unify the country and restore the glory of the former Qin Empire.]

[In order to seek support, Fu Jian met with his younger brother, Fu Rong, the Duke of Yangping, who succeeded Wang Meng after his death. Although Fu Jian kept talking about his great ideals and aspirations, Fu Rong still opposed this military action and reminded Fu Jian to be vigilant against the Xianbei and other tribes who might take the opportunity to cause chaos.]

【Fu Jian was very angry about this.】

[Of course, Fu Jian did not have no supporters. Murong Chui, a surrendered general of the Former Yan Dynasty, and Yao Chang, a leader of the Qiang tribe, strongly encouraged him to send troops. They cheered him up, and Fu Jian gave these supporters who were hard to find the important task of leading troops.]

[In 383 AD, the 46-year-old Fu Jian insisted on his own way and led his army southward, but was defeated by the Northern Army commanded by Xie An and Xie Xuan of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. This was a terrifying record of 90 troops losing to 8. This was the famous Battle of Feishui in history.]

……

"This……"

The ministers of the Three Kingdoms were extremely dumbfounded.

90 people lost to people. How was this battle fought?

Even if they were a group of scattered individuals fighting each other, they wouldn't lose so badly, right?

Seeing the scene before him, even the originally depressed Cao Cao felt much better... As expected, when you are in a bad mood, comparing your misery with others is the easiest way to regain your confidence.

……

[After the disastrous defeat, Fu Jian fled back to Chang'an with wounds. Murong Chui, a surrendered general of the Former Yan, took the lead in launching an uprising. His Xianbei people all raised their troops to respond. For a time, chaos was raging. The former tribal chieftains and trusted old ministers rebelled and established their own regimes. The north fell into division again, and Guanzhong suffered from the disaster of war again. Murong Chui took the opportunity to return to the former Yan Kingdom and proclaimed himself king.]

【Murong Chong, Murong Hong and others challenged the defeated Fu Jian outside the city of Chang'an. It was then that Fu Jian suddenly realized that the power of moral governance was so fragile in the face of interests.】

[As he angrily rebuked the rebellious Murong Wei, 'Your clan is a beast in human form, and you are not qualified to be a national hero.']

[Alas, I wonder if Fu Jian regretted not listening to Wang Meng's advice at this time.]

[A year later, Murong Chong captured Afang City and approached Chang'an. The following year, he entered Chang'an City. Fu Jian lacked sufficient troops, so he had no choice but to leave his crown prince Fu Hong to defend the city while he fled with his family and prepared to gather troops to rescue Chang'an.]

[But not long after, he was surrounded and captured alive by the Qiang leader Yao Chang.]

[Yao Chang forced Fu Jian to hand over the imperial seal and abdicate. Fu Jian refused and was hanged to death in a Buddhist temple in Xinping by Yao Chang. He was 48 years old.]

...............

Li Shimin kept shaking his head as he watched.

There is certainly nothing wrong in winning over all parties, treating the wise and humble with respect, and winning over heroes of all ethnic groups. However, if you lose your principles and fail to distinguish between evil and wickedness, you will suffer the consequences.

Wang Meng had repeatedly reminded Fu Jian to be extra vigilant against foreign leaders with ill intentions, but Fu Jian took no heed and was always tolerant and kind to them regardless of whether they truly surrendered or not.

The Xianbei, Murong, Qiang and other people were originally politicians of enemy countries. They defected to the Former Qin just to stay temporarily and secretly watch for opportunities to make a comeback. Fu Jian did not listen to Wang Meng's advice, did not ask any questions or investigate, and appointed them all as generals.

He thought that if he was sincere to others, they would be grateful to him, but he never imagined that others' desire to restore their country was stronger than their desire to repay their gratitude, and their desire for independence was greater than their desire to work together.

The reason why Fu Jian suffered a disastrous defeat later was that he was too idealistic.

Honesty and tolerance are good qualities for a person, but not necessarily for a monarch.

In fact, successful monarchs often do not attach importance to keeping promises. During the Sixteen Kingdoms period when ethnic conflicts were acute and the sense of independence of each ethnic group was strong, it was even more impossible to simply emphasize honesty and tolerance.

...............

[Such a person as Fu Jian inevitably makes people sigh with regret, as if the dawn of China's unification was just around the corner, but he made a mistake and plunged headlong into the abyss of chaos from which there was no return.]

[But think about it, being able to stick to his ideals in an environment like the Northern and Southern Dynasties is precisely the bright side of Fu Jian's humanity. ]

[His failure also proves that in troubled times, kindness is far from enough to achieve unification. Sometimes one needs to have no bottom line to have the last laugh.]

[This is also why many dynasties had the tradition of clearing out the old nobles of the previous dynasty at the beginning of their establishment.] (End of this chapter)