In the third century BC, Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, established the Han Empire and honored Xiao He, Han Xin and Zhang Liang as the "Three Masters of the Early Han Dynasty". Among them, Liu Bang believed that Xiao He's merits were the most outstanding, so he angrily reprimanded those who did not understand him.
He firmly believed that if Xiao He had not provided troops and dispatched grain and grass in the rear, they would not have been able to capture even a city. Therefore, Liu Bang named Xiao He the "first marquis of the founding of the country" and gave him the noble status of ten thousand households.
Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang were both from poor backgrounds, but they succeeded in establishing the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang's love for Li Shanchang is incomprehensible. Although Liu Bowen was named Zhu Yuanzhang's "think tank", he did not receive the same treatment as Li Shanchang, and was only named an earl.
This makes people wonder, why does Zhu Yuanzhang value Li Shanchang so much?
There is a clear gap between Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen's ability and talent. The story of the two is recorded in the history books. When Zhu Yuanzhang attacked Chuzhou, Li Shanchang took the initiative to come to defect, and won Zhu Yuanzhang's appreciation and reuse with his talents, and was appointed as a clerk.
Liu Bowen was recommended by Sun Yan and Song Lian after Zhu Yuanzhang captured Jinhua and Kuo Cang, and came to Zhu Yuanzhang's side after some invitations, and put forward a series of strategic suggestions, which were deeply appreciated and loved by Zhu Yuanzhang.
Although there is a gap between the two in terms of ability, their talents and resourcefulness have made important contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang's career.
After Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing, he heard about the reputation of Liu Bowen, Song Lian and others, and brought a lot of money to invite them. However, Liu Bowen was reluctant to come. Despite this, Zhu Yuanzhang still insisted on the invitation, and eventually succeeded in getting Liu Bowen to come to Nanjing.
As soon as Liu Bowen arrived in Nanjing, he immediately presented Zhu Yuanzhang with the "Eighteen Strategies for Current Affairs", which made Zhu Yuanzhang very happy. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang specially built a residence for Liu Bowen and gave him extremely high courtesy.
Compared with Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards Li Shanchang, he obviously attaches more importance to Liu Bowen. Li Shanchang is just an ordinary scholar, and he has a little fame in Chuzhou.
And Liu Bowen was a jinshi in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, living in seclusion and famous in the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. Therefore, in terms of strength, Liu Bowen obviously surpassed Li Shanchang.
Li Shanchang not only guided Zhu Yuanzhang to establish the ambition of the emperor by telling him about Liu Bang's situation when he was still in charge of the army, but also showed a firm determination to follow Zhu Yuanzhang when Guo Zixing wanted to transfer him to other generals, which made Zhu Yuanzhang deeply moved.
Although Liu Bowen's ability surpassed that of Li Shanchang, they did not experience the same poverty and hardship.
Although some people often compare Liu Bowen with Zhuge Liang, by reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", we can find that Liu Bei seemed a little overwhelmed when faced with the problem of Lu Su asking for Jingzhou, and always had to ask Zhuge Liang's opinion.
However, this is not the case with Zhu Yuanzhang, who has remarkable wisdom and foresight, and can make decisions on his own no matter what difficulties he faces. And his deputy, Li Shanchang, is a bit like Liu Bei, who needs to rely on others to make decisions.
In 1359 AD, Chen Youliang dared to murder his superior, Xu Shouhui, and proclaimed himself King of Han. In order to stop Zhu Yuanzhang's development, he chose to join forces with Zhang Shicheng in an attempt to defeat Zhu Yuanzhang by attacking from east to west.
At this critical moment, not long after Liu Bowen joined Zhu Yuanzhang's military camp, he presided over a military meeting. At the meeting, the soldiers proposed to surrender temporarily because they were afraid of Chen Youliang, but Liu Bowen, with his wisdom and courage, firmly believed that Zhang Shicheng's ambitions were limited and that Chen Youliang was the real threat.
He proposed a strategy called "ambush invitation", using Kang Maocai, a man who had already surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang, pretending to surrender to Chen Youliang, luring him into the narrow river channel of Jiangdong, and then ambushing the ambush soldiers on both sides, and successfully eliminated Chen Youliang's army with one blow.
This battle greatly damaged Chen Youliang's vitality, and it is known as the "Battle of Longwan" in history.
Zhu Yuanzhang proposed the strategy of "ambushing soldiers and inviting them", which was recognized by Zhu Yuanzhang. However, Li Shanchang was puzzled by this and asked him why he invited the enemy.
After listening to Liu Bowen's explanation, Li Shanchang was even more frightened, because he thought that the enemy was worried enough about attacking us, so why did he take the initiative to invite them? This fully shows that at the critical moment, Li Shanchang's strategy ability needs to be improved, and he can understand the strategy is already very good.
Who is better Liu Bowen and Li Shanchang? The answer is obvious, from the perspective of ability, Liu Bowen is slightly better. However, Liu Bowen's status in the early Ming Dynasty was not as good as that of Li Shanchang for three reasons: First, Zhu Yuanzhang was very partial to ministers from his hometown of Huaixi and had a deep emotional connection.
Liu Bowen, on the other hand, is from eastern Zhejiang, and is a group of literati that Zhu Yuanzhang dislikes very much. Zhu Yuanzhang only valued Liu Bowen's talent, and did not trust him as much as he trusted Li Shanchang.
In short, Zhu Yuanzhang's trust in Liu Bowen is much lower than that of Li Shanchang.
Li Shanchang is one of Zhu Yuanzhang's most important ministers, he has served by Zhu Yuanzhang's side for a long time, and has always shown loyalty and professionalism to Zhu Yuanzhang, and served Zhu Yuanzhang without complaint.
Zhu Yuanzhang admired this type of minister and thought that they could bring him stable support. On the contrary, although Liu Bowen is smart and intelligent, Zhu Yuanzhang is afraid of him, because Liu Bowen has a large pattern, which makes Zhu Yuanzhang feel uneasy.
Therefore, Li Shanchang's style of acting is more in line with Zhu Yuanzhang's expectations.
Third, although Li Shanchang did not have outstanding military exploits, he was consistent, and with his loyalty and simple character, he became the best candidate for Zhu Yuanzhang to suppress the generals after he established the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang named Li Shanchang as the first hero of the Ming Dynasty and suppressed Xu Da, Feng Sheng and others. This reflects that although Liu Bowen has the role of "Zhang Liang", he has not been treated as "Zhang Liang", and this phenomenon is worthy of our deep thought.