Liu Shouqian sat on his horse, staring at the tightly shut Xuanwu Gate, fury simmering in his heart.
Over the past few days, he and Wang Jinliang, lieutenant of the Right Army, had wrangled endlessly, never reaching an agreement on whom they should support as the next emperor.
Wang Jinliang considered Prince Wei a fine candidate: a fool who did not know he was a fool, and therefore easy to manipulate.
Liu Shouqian had other calculations. Li Yuanchai was foolish, certainly, but recklessness and violence ran through his bones; he might not prove as obedient as they imagined. The current old emperor had likewise been unremarkable among the princes, seemingly weak and easy to bully. After taking the throne, however, he had played the pig to devour the tiger, revealing vicious methods of his own. Had the sudden death of his cherished daughter last year not left him so stricken with grief that he fell ill and never recovered, how could anyone have bent him to their will so easily?
In Liu Shouqian's view, they would do better to follow the example of Han and Jin and choose a young child, making it easier to wield power. Eight-year-old Prince Huai, Li Yuanyi, was an excellent candidate. His mother, the Noble Consort, had died young, leaving him no maternal relatives to back him, and unlike his elder brother Li Yuanying, his bloodline was beyond question. The court officials would find little grounds for objection.
Wang Jinliang stubbornly held to his own view, insisting that no child emperor had ever been enthroned since the founding of Tang. Particularly when the older princes had committed no obvious wrong, there was no legitimate reason to pass over the elder sons for a younger one.
Both coveted the credit for installing an emperor, and neither