Chu singer held the memorial in his hand and fell into deep thought.

He had already roughly guessed what he was going to do in this last case, but it was difficult for him to make a final decision.

Kill Sima Yan?

This was something that Taizu Sheng was criticized for in history, and Chu Ge also felt it was unnecessary.

At that time, Sima Yan was already over seventy years old after all.

Even if he really succeeds in his rebellion, how many years can he remain emperor?

Moreover, judging from the subsequent situation, the possibility of Sima Yan's rebellion being successful is not high. Just for this trivial hidden danger, it seems completely unnecessary to kill a founding hero.

Will not killing him affect Guo Zuo of the Great Sheng Dynasty?

Chu Ge still didn't believe it.

He even had some doubts about whether this direction was correct and wanted to continue looking for clues in other memorials.

But after thinking about it, the most likely thing about the "death of the second generation" was related to the usurpation of the throne by a powerful official. As Taizu Sheng managed the entire country in an orderly manner, other possibilities were very low.

"Thinking about it again, maybe there is something else I haven't noticed..."

Chu Ge fell into deep thought and went through all the things about Sima Yan in his memory from the beginning.

He had previously focused on preparing for the Zhou Ping case, so he had a relatively deep understanding of the people involved in this case.

"If we look at historical records, Sima Yan doesn't show much signs of expansion. Compared with Zhou Ping, he is simply a representative of a good official.

"There are only three records in history about Sima Yan's inflation when he was prime minister. Two of them were officials who violated his authority and he dismissed them from their official positions; the other was because he was jealous of an influential prime minister.

A talented official, but he took action to suppress this person, resulting in him not being reused...

"But these seem like trivial things.

"As the prime minister, you only dismiss these offending officials, which is quite tolerant. As for being jealous of that talented official, it is more like some kind of nonsense and a bit far-fetched.

"In my opinion, his biggest failure was that after he claimed to be ill and left the position, he recommended Zhou Ping, a fellow native of Lianghuai, to Taizu Sheng as the prime minister.

"When Zhou Ping was the prime minister, he did much more than Sima Yan. It is said that the reason why Zhou Ping was promoted was that he bribed Sima Yan in private. Of course, geographical reasons were also important.

“At that time, these officials were basically organized into interest groups based on geography. Sima Yan represented the Lianghuai Group, the largest bureaucratic interest group at the time, and after Zhou Ping became prime minister, he took over his leadership position.

"Needless to say, Zhou Ping's death was due to Taizu Sheng's deliberate connivance in order to eliminate the power of the prime minister and strengthen the imperial power. However, he himself was arrogant and arrogant and had no sense of crisis in political struggle, so he could be considered to have died unjustly.

"But Sima Yan's reason for execution... is really too far-fetched.

"The most important point is that Sima Yan has already given up his position and went home because of illness...

"Wait, this time..."

Chu Ge suddenly realized something and began to calculate Sima Yan's critical time at several key nodes.

"At the beginning of the Great Sheng Dynasty, Sima Yan resigned from his position within two or three years. It can be seen that Taizu Sheng was very happy at that time. Not only did he give him a lot of fertile land and a beautiful house, but he also married his eldest daughter to him.

's eldest son.

"At this time, Sima Yan was in his fifties.

"Ten years later, the Zhou Ping case broke out. Zhou Ping was recommended by Sima Yan. The two people had always had a good relationship. They were fellow townsmen and in-laws. After the Zhou Ping case broke out, more than 10,000 officials were involved, and they were involved for ten years.

But Sima Yan was not affected and remained the same, even appearing in the court from time to time.

"At this time, Sima Yan was in his sixties.

"Ten years later, Sima Yan, who was in his seventies, was again involved in the Zhou Ping case, and was killed by Sheng Taizu.

"This man... is just like Taizu Sheng, he has a long-lived constitution..."

After sorting out Sima Yan's age among these key points, Chu Ge suddenly remembered a joke, a joke about the lifespan race.

Putting aside the content of the joke, at this time, Sheng Taizu and Sima Yan were indeed trying to outlive each other...

Judging from the results, after Sheng Taizu killed Sima Yan, he lived for another three years before passing away. But judging from Sima Yan's stamina, if he had not been killed by Sheng Taizu, it is hard to say who of the two would have lived longer.

After all, when he was in his fifties, Sima Yan had already resigned from the position due to illness, but he was still active and active until he was in his seventies...

"Suppose Taizu Sheng did not kill Sima Yan.

"Further suppose that Sheng Taizu died two years earlier and Sima Yan lived two more years and successfully lived to the age of eighty, which is two or three years longer than Sheng Taizu.

"What will happen?

"Is it possible to succeed in rebellion?"

Chu Ge frowned, instinctively wanting to deny his guess.

"It's unlikely.

"After the rebellion is successful, he can indeed pass the throne and power to his son. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is no motive at all.

"However, people are over seventy years old and may die at any time. Not to mention whether they are old and confused, their bodies have no energy at all.

"Can you still rebel at such an age?"

Chu Ge thought for a long time and finally came to a conclusion that surprised even him.

"able.

"There is a precedent for this in history...

"At the turn of Chu and Wei, Sima Yi, who was already in his seventies, did exactly this, and he succeeded."

After coming to this conclusion, Chu Ge himself was a little surprised.

However, when comparing the experiences of the two, many issues do feel suddenly enlightened.

Chu Ge somewhat understood why Sima Yan had to die.

He was tricked by an ancient man from hundreds of years ago...

…

In the early years of the Chu Dynasty, a famous person once said a well-known saying: When the world is safe, pay attention to the generals; when the world is in danger, pay attention to the generals.

That is to say, when the world is safe, the person who poses the greatest threat to the emperor is the prime minister who is mainly responsible for running the country; but when the world is in chaos, the person who poses the greatest threat to the emperor is the general who leads the army.

I have to say that this is good advice, because those emperors who do not believe in evil have already been eliminated by the survival of the fittest.

And Sima Yi at the turn of Chu and Wei was both.

Sima Yi was just a minor official in the prime minister's palace at first. He was promoted step by step because of his outstanding abilities. By chance, he began to supervise the army and began his military career.

Unexpectedly, he turned out to be a military wizard, so he gradually established his authority and became the leading general at that time.

Of course, the emperor was aware of the danger, so he gradually relieved him of his military power and allowed him to hold high-level civil posts.

Later, the emperor died and the prince succeeded to the throne. Sima Yi was designated as the auxiliary minister and assisted the new monarch conscientiously. It seemed that the entire power transfer was very smooth, and the monarch and his ministers were happy and trusted each other.

But unexpectedly, a few years later, the new king also became seriously ill. And the new king's son was only more than ten years old when he succeeded to the throne.

Then, Sima Yi endured it for another ten years before finally planning to usurp the throne and succeed.

When talking about Sima Yi, there are two points that must be mentioned.

The first is that he is very good at pretending.

The second is that he directly destroyed the credibility of political promises for more than a thousand years.

The emperor at that time did not trust Sima Yi, so Sima Yi began to pretend to be ill at home. He endured it for nearly ten years, always looking like he was about to ascend to heaven. Not only did he deceive the emperor and the general, he even deceived everything about himself.

Close relatives and friends.

When the emperor sent someone to find out what was true, he looked like he was possessed by a movie king. He pretended to be dim-sighted and deaf, unable to hear clearly what the other party was saying. Moreover, when he drank medicine, he spilled the medicine and porridge all over the place.

My chest kept making the sound of being out of breath and about to pass away.

This scene was performed for nearly ten years, and finally the emperor lost his guard and believed that he was really old and would die in a few days.

Unexpectedly, Sima Yi persisted for more than three years under such circumstances and cleared all obstacles for future generations to usurp the throne.

More importantly, in the process of usurping the throne, he also destroyed the credibility of his political promises.

There was once an emperor who swore to his sworn enemy Shisui that he would never kill him, and then he fulfilled his promise and it became a famous story.

And Sima Yi also made an oath to stop the water, but then turned around and directly betrayed his promise, throwing all the oaths he had made before, and completely annihilating all his political opponents.

Therefore, he set a very bad precedent for the following troubled times. Starting from him, people in the future only believed that whoever had greater military merit could be the emperor, and any oaths had no credibility, so we entered a long period of

A period of great chaos.

…

Chu Ge was a bit dumbfounded: "Brother, I am over seventy years old and come home claiming to be ill, but all the people in the court and court are your people. No matter how I look at it, I look like Sima Yi..."

Chu Ge went around in a big circle and finally figured it out.

The main reason why he didn't realize this problem at first was that he had a God's perspective.

From the perspective of future generations, it seems far-fetched that Sheng Taizu killed Sima Yan.

However, if we can really close the fog of history again and put ourselves in his shoes, we will find that there are deep reasons for Sheng Taizu's decision.

Will Sima Yan rebel?
To be continued...