Love and Feuds in the Zhenguan Era

From 626 AD to the present, fourteen hundred years have passed, yet people still argue over who was right and wrong in the Xuanwu Gate Incident. The first novel in the Tang Palace Love and Feuds series, Love and Feuds in the Zhenguan Era, originally titled Love and Hate with Emperor Taizong of Tang, approaches the subject from the perspective of human nature and psychology. Without taking sides, it hopes to recreate the truth behind the Xuanwu Gate Incident through literary art.

Many scholars, including Chen Yinke, have concluded that the claim that Li Jiancheng plotted to kill Li Shimin was fabricated by Shimin to legitimize the Xuanwu Gate Incident. Yet it was precisely because Li Shimin seized the throne through evil means that he strove even harder to become a good emperor, proving that he was indeed a more suitable heir than Jiancheng. This psychological need to make amends and atone for his sins, caught between good and evil, is highly dramatic. That makes this work far more compelling than ordinary novels and TV dramas, which portray Li Shimin as wholly virtuous! In fact, the young and middle-aged Li Shimin was just like the most popular male lead in today's TV dramas: a domineering CEO with a muscular build!

The turbulent romance between Li Shimin and his younger brother's wife, who despises him, is utterly captivating. Though it is a tale from the ancient East, their love is as coolly elegant and fiery, as resolute and frenzied, as a tango from the modern West. Li Shimin's forceful pursuit of her, and the process of melting the heart of this icy beauty, are also a sublimation of his guilt and a major driving force behind the Zhenguan era of peace and prosperity. The great writer Goethe once said, "The eternal feminine draws us upward." This could well be the theme of this historical romance. How much miraculous positive energy can a man summon to win the admiration of the woman he loves? Read on and see!

Theme: To express Goethe's famous words: "The eternal feminine draws us upward."