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Li Shimin (李世民), the second emperor of Tang Dynasty, is one of the historical figures that are very familiar to us Koreans because we learn in an upper grande of element school about his attacks on Goguryeo in 645 with his 100,000 troops and siege of the Ansi Castle in Yodong that failed due to the united resistance of the military and civilians under the leadership of the lord Yang Man-chun, and about the arrow he took in his eye during the battle that would lead to his death, and about an episode in which he, admitting his defeat, presented 100 rolls of silk cloth to the lord Yang, who was standing on top of the castle and bidding farewell to the retreating Li, as a token of his admiration for Yang's effective defense of the castle and loyalty to the king. In this tale, Li Shimin is depicted as a failed, yet generous invader, generous enough to give his opponent a praise for the victory and a present of admiration. However, the existence of Yang Man-chun or the eye injury of Li Shimin is not confirmed by any existing historical record, but only an oral tradition recorded in literature. I don't think that this is known to many people other than the few interested in history. The episode of Emperor Taizong's present to Yang Man-chun, although its intention was to highlight the heroic victory of Yang Man-chun, makes us remember Emperor Taizong as a nice man. I think that the popularity of the recently published translations and guide books of 『Zhenguan Zhengyao (貞觀政要)』, a book about Emperor Taizong's political tactics, is adding to the widely spreading perception that Emperor Taizong was a wise ruler during his reign. It should be pointed out, however, that 『Zhenguan Zhengyao』was not without embellishment made with the intention of recovering the legitimacy of Tang overthrown by Empress Ze Tian Wu. Now, let me examine his origin, life, and the challenges that he intended to address, for a look into his character.

Born as the Second Son of Li Yuan the Founder of Tang

Li Shimin was born in 598 as the second son of Li Yuan (李淵). While it is a widely held belief that the ancestors of Li Yuan were of Han origin, they were immersed in Zianbei customs as a result of their longtime residence in areas adjacent to a nomadic community, and were more than half Zianbei as a result of marriage with the Zianbei for generations. Although Li Shimin often proudly declared his Han origin, it does not mean that he did not face certain racial restrictions because it was public knowledge that he was more than half Zianbei. The tolerance he showed in appointing court officials or in foreign policy once he ascended the throne may be an indication of his own struggle to overcome racial restrictions.

The year Li Shimin was born, 598, was the 18th year of the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui. In the same year, Emperor Wen attacked Goguryeo with his fifth son Yang Liang as the overall commander of his 300,000 troops. However, this adventure ended in a miserable defeat in which seven or eight out of ten died due to the failure of timely supply of provisions, and floods and diseases. Emperor Yang, who ascended the throne in 604, having learned lessons from the mistake of his predecessor, spent many years for thorough preparation before he launched attacks on Goguryeo. However, as we all know, his large-scale attacks on Kogryu, which took off in early 612 with his 1.13 millions troops, ended in a miserable defeat. At that time, Li Shimin was fifteen years old, old enough to understand developments in the world.

The uprisings of peasants, whose complaints brewing as early as during the preparation for the attacks on Goguryeo, began in 611. By 613, the rise of heros across the country left the control of Sui paralyzed. In 617, when the great rise was at its peak, Li Yuan raised troops in Tai Yuan and attacked and occupied Chang'an. In the following year, he overthrew Sui and founded Tang. Initially, Li Yuan was hesitant about his revolt, but Li Shimin, along with Liu Wenjing and Pei Ji, reportedly urged him to raise troops by coming up with irresistible excuses, although this is viewed by many as distortion of the truth by those who want to give credit to Emperor Taizong for his deeds.

He Kills His Brothers to Become Emperor

Immediately after the foundation of Tang, Li Jiancheng, the eldest son of Li Yuan, was proclaimed the crown prince. However, Li Jiancheng's status was threatened by the presence of Li Shimin, who had made great contributions to the foundation of the nation and the unification war. Therefore, Li Jiancheng joined forces with his brother Li Yuanji in continued operations to get rid of Li Shimin. Li Shimin took these attempts seriously and dealt with them accordingly. This confrontation culminated in Li Shimin's murder of his brothers Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji and accession to the throne in 626. Accordingly, the scholars of Neo-Confucianism in later generations denounced Li Shimin as an usurper who killed his own brothers to seize the throne, and the high-ranking officials of Joseon were not favorable to him, either.

It is said that once he became emperor, Li Shimin listened to his officials reproving him to his face for his wrong policy and admitted to his mistakes, thereby establishing vertical communications in politics. But there are also episodes where he lost his temper, saying "I will kill this peasant," to Wei Zheng reproving him to his face, and where he, outraged by an appointed general who didn't give him a bow of appreciation, threatened to kill him, where he issued an order to execute by decapitation an official who disagreed with him, only to regret it the moment he saw him beheaded, and where he tried to take his own life out of frustration with the difficulty to choose the crown prince. From these episodes, he comes across as an ordinary human being rather than a hero or a wise ruler.

Expedition to Goguryeo Driven by His Lust for Conquest

The goals of his foreign strategy were to subdue Turk and to conquer Goguryeo. Actually, Li Yuan, before he founded Tang and became the first emperor, had submitted himself as a vassal to Shipi Qaghan of Turk to borrow war horses necessary for him to secure Chang'an. For this reason, Turk not only demanded a lot of goods in return but launched attacks to threaten Chang'an. While satisfying their needs by supplying them with a lot of silk, Tang subdued them with a carefully executed strategy of controlling enemies by enemies. This strategy, however, didn't work for Goguryeo. Mobilizing a large expeditionary force was inevitable, but it was not an easy decision to make because of unstable domestic conditions. Nevertheless, Emperor Taizong wanted to leave his name as the greatest conqueror in history by achieving the conquest of Goguryeo at a single stroke. The reason he finally decided on expedition to Goguryeo against the longtime opposition of a majority of court officials was that he couldn't suppress his desire to achieve the victory that Emperor Yang couldn't. Even after his defeat in the battle of the Ansi Castle, he didn't give up his desire to conquer Goguryeo until his death. Concerned about his obsession, the wise prime minister Fang Xuanling strongly advised him against expedition to Goguryeo. This suggests that Emperor Taizong, although he was cautious, was as much a prisoner of his own lust for conquest as Emperor Yang. After his death, his son Emperor Gaozong conquered Goguryeo, just finishing what his father had left off.