Since ancient times, regarding the succession to the throne, there has always been a grandson, and there is no grandson, and between the concubines, the concubines are greater than the chiefs, so as long as there are sons-in-law, they will be established, and when there are no sons-in-law, they will be established.

However, since the death of Li Longji's wife, although Li Longji has a large number of concubines, none of them have been made queens, and the latter two are also posthumously sealed, and according to the rules, only the prince born to the queen is the son-in-law, so none of Li Longji's existing sons are sons-in-law, all of them are concubines, including the crown prince Li Heng.

According to the general ranking order, in the absence of a son-in-law, it should be right to make the eldest son the prince, but Li Longji did not set up the eldest son as the prince, but set up the third son Li Heng as the prince, and the reason is quite ridiculous, because the eldest son's face was injured and his image was not very good, so he chose the younger third son as the prince.

are also concubines, the eldest son of the emperor was not made the crown prince, but the third son of the emperor was made the crown prince, which will obviously make the eldest son feel uncomfortable, and even angry, but he dares to be angry and dare not speak.

The previous crown prince was the second son of the emperor, but because of his dissatisfaction with the emperor, he was executed by the emperor, which can be described as very tragic and embarrassing.

Therefore, the crown prince and the princes after that, even if they are dissatisfied with the emperor ten thousand, they dare not have the slightest disobedience, that is, they dare not talk nonsense, Li Mao's matter is an example, all the princes naturally know about this matter, and they must know that their father is not doing it right, but no prince dares to stand up and say a word, even in private, he will never talk about this topic, so as not to be heard by people with a heart and spread to the emperor's ears.

After the former prince was deposed, the hearts of all the princes were cold, they already understood that their emperor father was a person who dared to kill his son, and if they did not do well enough, they could also be killed, so their personalities became very careful, and even a little weak, and many ideas that could express their opinions did not dare to speak, and gradually turned themselves into a mediocre waste.

After all, they don't want to die, they can see from the various behaviors of their emperor's father, what do they want to do by locking so many children and grandchildren together, isn't it just to let the children and grandchildren supervise each other? If someone meets with the ministers of the court and the border generals, other princes will find out, so as to avoid the phenomenon of collusion between the prince and people outside to create a false emperor.

There are many examples of royal murder of fathers and seizure of the throne, especially after the old emperor is old, the probability of this kind of thing happening will become more and more great, and Li Longji has to guard against this.

The princes also saw this, so as long as they behaved obediently and mediocrely, there would be no danger, and if they were too smart and too sharp, they might encounter the emperor's suspicion.

Of course, sometimes you can't be too incompetent, for example, the emperor sometimes, he will find something for the princes to do, and if the princes make a mess, they will also be reprimanded.

However, if a certain prince really likes to eat and wait for death, it is good to make a mess, and it is good to be honest and happy in the future.

The key is that the attraction of the throne to the princes is too great, and although the emperor has established the prince, the feeling of outsiders is that the status of the prince is in jeopardy, although it is possible to be replaced by other princes, in this way, the remaining princes naturally have to work a little harder and perform better, so that once the emperor abolishes the prince, he has the possibility of ascending to the throne.

Therefore, the degree to be grasped here is very knowledgeable, and people who are too smart and too stupid will die miserably.

Maybe this is the thick black study! People who are too smart are not easy to control, and people who are not easy to control are very dangerous, so they must be eliminated, and people who are too stupid belong to pig teammates, which will seriously affect themselves and will also be disposed of.

To tell the truth, Li Longji's sons are really relatively modest, none of them are too smart or too stupid, this may be forced by the environment!

There is no genius in this world, and no one is born a prodigy, the so-called prodigy is to work harder than others, as long as you are willing to work hard, any mediocre talent has the possibility of becoming a prodigy.

That is to say, any smart prodigy needs to be trained, only through experience, people's abilities will be greatly improved, and if not trained, even if you are a genius when you are a child, you will become a complete waste when you grow up.

And Li Longji's princes can't get enough effective training at all, and they don't dare to have too much conversation with the capable ministers and generals of the imperial court, so naturally they can't communicate with these Tang Dynasty heroes, let alone learn the abilities of these ministers and generals, and even if they learn their way of governing, their abilities will naturally not be able to be well improved, and it is strange that they can become talents.

If the princes have too many opportunities to exercise, they can become talents faster, but at the same time, they will also threaten the absolute right of the emperor, and if the princes are not given a chance, the princes will never be able to exercise, and will never know how to govern the country.

Therefore, on the issue of cultivating a successor, it is a difficult choice, if it is cultivated too early, the prince will be eager to take the throne, which will threaten the safety of the emperor, and if it is cultivated too late, the prince has not yet mastered the ability to govern the country, and the emperor has died first, it will be very troublesome.

How to choose between the dilemma is a very headache, many emperors have not done a good job because of this problem, so there are big problems in the process of changing the throne.

A smart emperor will choose to let the crown prince govern and be the emperor himself after he is already old, so that the transition of power will be relatively stable, but how old is it to be really old? Whether it is fifty years old, or sixty years old, or even seventy years old, you must know that many emperors died in their twenties and thirties, and there are many emperors who are still very healthy at the age of sixty or seventy, and even some emperors are very young and healthy, but suddenly they are seriously ill and die, thus leaving a great hidden danger for the country.

For the emperor who is greedy for power, he naturally does not want his throne to be replaced by someone else, even if this person is his prince, but he also does not want to inherit the throne after his sudden death, the descendants who inherited the throne are too incompetent, leading to the decline of the country.

Although the choice is such a dilemma, the emperor still has to make a choice, and he can't escape this problem, for this reason, a little training, it has become the best choice, in this way, the cultivated successor, neither has the ability to replace himself, at the same time, because he already has a certain ability, even if he has an accident, he also has the ability to control the whole world, at least, there is not much problem to be a king of success.

In order to achieve this goal, Li Longji will ask the prince to handle some government affairs from time to time, and at the same time, evaluate and supervise the prince to see how capable the prince is, and at the same time, to see if the prince has any misdeeds.

Because sooner or later the emperor will die of old age, the prince is the real hope of the empire, so if the emperor hands over all government affairs to the prince, it is equivalent to telling the ministers that the prince will definitely inherit the throne in the future, so that many ministers will definitely come over in advance to express their loyalty and make themselves princelings in order to be able to get benefits after the new emperor takes the throne, so that as soon as the old emperor dies, these princelings will be able to become the most important backbone of the empire.

If a large number of ministers in the imperial court all go to the prince prematurely to show their loyalty, there will inevitably be a tendency to overthrow the emperor, which is very unfavorable to the emperor's position, in case the prince can't wait, the most loyal party may plan to kill the monarch and seize the throne, in this way, the emperor will not be miserable, the example of King Zhao Wuling in the Warring States Period is there, and the emperor has to pay attention to it.

Therefore, in order to prevent the ministers of the imperial court from overwhelmingly supporting the crown prince and posing a threat to their own rule, Li Longji is also cultivating other replacement candidates while cultivating the crown prince, who can replace the prince at any time, so that the minister's attention can be distracted, so that the minister cannot figure out what the emperor is going to do, whether he wants to abolish the existing prince and help the replacement personnel up, if so, if they become princelings, then the end will be miserable, and it is very likely that they will die.

Because they can't figure out the emperor's intentions and who the next emperor of the Tang Empire will be, in this way, many ministers will choose to wait and see, that is, continue to be loyal to the existing old emperor wholeheartedly, and a small number of particularly confident ministers will not choose the same person so coincidentally, they will choose different masters, and stand around the masters, and give advice to the masters, so as to form different multiple forces, which balance each other, and at the same time, there are greater forces that support the emperor, which can ensure the safety of the current emperor.

And what the emperor has to do is to supervise these people, to prevent their power from growing to the point that they cannot control it, and at the same time, to monitor their words and deeds to prevent them from really taking risks.

Since ancient times, there have been examples of coups in the palace, there are really too many, too many to count, as an emperor who came to power by a coup d'état, he is naturally very familiar with the coup d'état, he himself came to power by a coup d'état, in order to prevent others from doing the same, Li Longji will inevitably make a lot of precautions, not only in the military precautions, but also in the intelligence precautions are stricter, such as building a ten-prince mansion, let the prince live with himself, etc., with these measures, you can better control the princes, Let the princes develop according to their own needs.

This is simply to cultivate mediocre talents in batches, so that multiple princes have a certain ability to govern, but they will not be very prominent, so as to demonstrate the wisdom and greatness of the existing emperors.

The talents that the emperor focuses on cultivating, mainly the crown prince Li Heng, as a substitute prince, there are the emperor's eldest son Li Palm, as well as the emperor's sixteenth son Li Xuan, and several princes have also been cultivated by the emperor, and the rest are unknown.

All favored princes are hot, they are the objects of private allegiance of ministers, and they always express their goodwill from time to time, of course, there are also some old slippery heads who will bet a few heads, and make the necessary investments in all the princes who may become the next emperor, so that no matter who ends up on the throne, he can get good treatment.

Ordinary ministers can choose the prince they support without any scruples, and ministers at the level of Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, who are important ministers of the imperial court, do not dare to choose the prince they support at will, they must wholeheartedly support the emperor, and at the appropriate time, show discord with the princes, so that the emperor's suspicion can be dispelled, otherwise, once the emperor's suspicion is encountered, it will fall into a situation from which there will be no return.

This time the princes gathered, Li Longji did not appear, so the princes seemed a lot more relaxed, they should eat, drink, and from time to time they also got together to chat, which seemed quite friendly, and there was no sign of competing with each other for the throne.

Usually when this kind of party is held, Li Mao is silent, and easily does not communicate with anyone, and when others take the initiative to say hello, they will respond symbolically at most, but this time it is different, Li Mao actually took the initiative to greet other princes, which seemed very abnormal, so the three protagonists of the original banquet were compared to Li Mao.

All the princes shifted their attention from the crown prince to Li Mao, and they were all very curious, wanting to see if this originally the most favored cuckold brother had taken the wrong medicine, and he had become so lively.

"What's wrong with King Shou today, it's changed so much."

The little eunuch who was hiding in the dark and observing frowned and thought for a while, and then ran to report to the emperor.

Li An has long had the privilege of entering the palace at any time, this is the right given to him by the emperor, he can enter the palace without reporting, but this does not mean that after he enters the palace, the emperor can not know about this matter, the moment Li An entered the palace, someone has already sent the news of Li An's entry into the palace, as long as Li Longji is not very busy and does not rest, he will report.

"Oh, Ang Li has entered the palace, what are you doing?"

"Your Majesty, Li Shilang said that he was going to Penglai Pool to see the rainbow, and he seemed to be worried that the fountain equipment was not good and there were potential safety hazards."

Li Longji nodded, suddenly thought of something, and asked, "The concubine and her sisters are still in Penglai Pool?" ”

"Your Majesty, the concubine is on her way back, and the ladies have just left the palace."