The layman's surname is Yao, and later named Guangxiao. He was the main planner of the Jingnan Campaign and Zhu Di's think tank. He was known as the first person in Jingnan. He never returned to secular life after Zhu Di seized the country. He always provided advice and assistanc

Monk Daoyan's secular surname was Yao, and later was given the name Guangxiao. He was the main planner of Jingnan Battle and also the think tank of Zhu Di. He was known as the first person in Jingnan . He never returned to secular life after Zhu Di seized the country. He always provided advice and assistance to Zhu Di as a monk. He had no actual official position in the court. He can be said to be a prime minister who was actually an unknown one. Therefore, he was known as the "Prime Minister in Black" in history.

"Black Clothes" refers to a kind of black monk's robe worn by monks.

"Prime Minister" refers to senior official positions that assisted emperors in managing the country in the feudal era, ranking first among the "Three Ministers". It can be said that he is a person below one person and above ten thousand people. Therefore, "Prime Minister in Black" refers to a monk who participates in political affairs and has a great influence. Yao Guangxiao , who was born in Buddhism, is such an existence. Although he does not have the official position of the prime minister, he almost has the power of the prime minister under Zhu Di, so he is called the "Prime Minister in Black".

Monk Daoyan is from Changzhou and has practiced medicine for generations at home. In 1348 AD (the eighth year of Zhizheng in the Yuan Dynasty), Yao Guangxiao, who was only fourteen years old, became a monk because of the difficulties in turmoil in the world, and his Dharma name was Daoyan. Once, when visiting Songshan Temple, Yuan Gong arrived at the famous prime minister Yuan Gong . Yuan Gong said to him: "You are a strange monk! Your eye sockets are triangles, like a sick tiger. You must be a person like killing. You are Liu Bingzhong !" Yao Guangxiao was overjoyed.

Daoyan was born in Buddhism, but he was not bound by Buddhism. He not only worshiped Taoist priest Xi Yingzhen as his teacher to learn Yin-Yang numerology, but also studied Confucian classics. It can be said that he is well-versed in the Three religions.

It’s like this. Daoyan lies dormant and swims in the three religions’ classics. While enriching himself, he is also waiting for his chance to soar to the sky. After all, his repaid is a person like Liu Bingzhong, not the deep mountains of the ancient Muyu Temple.

However, in the chaotic times of the late Yuan Dynasty, he did not come out to stir up the storm. I don’t know if it was because he had no chance or because he felt that his ability was not enough to deal with the general trend of the world at that time. In the chaotic times of the late Yuan Dynasty, he leisurely followed the monks to travel around to beg for alms everywhere.

All of this has changed in the fifteenth year of Hongwu . In this year, a generation of virtuous queen Empress Ma died of illness, and Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the woman who followed Zhu Yuanzhang for her life to die of illness. Zhu Yuanzhang selected high monks to accompany the kings to recite scriptures and pray for Empress Ma.

When the prayer was over, Zhu Yuanzhang distributed these monks to the vassal kings to preach. After many inspections, Daoyan had been waiting for the opportunity until the opportunity he had been waiting for came. He chose the most important person in his life - King Yan Zhu Di. After some series of operations, he finally met Zhu Di.

When he met Zhu Di, the two had a good chat. Finally, he told Zhu Di that he was willing to follow Zhu Di. If Zhu Di was willing to use it, he would give King of Yan a "white hat".

After hearing this, Zhu Di's expression changed drastically. He knew what the word "white" was added to "king", and he was both afraid and unwilling to accept it. All of this was expected by Daoyan. In the end, he was unwilling to defeat the panic. Daoyan followed Zhu Di to Pei .

If Zhu Di is a fire, then Daoyan is oil. The effect of the encounter between the two will inevitably be extremely fierce. A prince and a vassal king who is unwilling to surrender to others, and a monk who is full of literary and military strategies cannot be used. In this way, they joined forces to change the history of the Ming Dynasty, turning the world upside down.

This year, Daoyan was 48 years old. After arriving in Peking, I hosted at Qingshou Temple .

This monk is different from other monks. He does not knock on wooden fish, does not recite scriptures, does not persuade people to do good, and does not abstain from killing. One thing that repeats day after day is to persuade Zhu Di to rebel.

1398 (the 31st year of Hongwu), Zhu Yuanzhang passed away, Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne and sat in the hall. As soon as Zhu Yunwen came to power, he burned his uncles to implement the strategy of reducing the vassal states. Under this situation, the weaker vassal kings such as Zhou Wang Zhu Xi , Xiang Wang Zhu Bai, Dai Wang Zhu Gui , Qi Wang Zhu Jing , Min Wang Zhu Xiao and others were successively convicted and were abolished from the vassal states.

At this time, Yao Guangxiao advised Zhu Di to raise an army. Zhu Di asked, "What should we do if the people support the court?" Yao Guangxiao replied, "I only know the way of heaven and do not care about the people's hearts." At the same time, he recommended fortune tellers such as Yuan Gong, Jin Zhong to Zhu Di, and of course, the result was to rebel, which eventually made Zhu Di determined to raise an army to calm the crisis.

When Zhu Di decided to raise an army, a sudden storm broke out, and the green tiles on the eaves of the Yanwang Mansion were blown down and smashed to pieces. The tiles are broken, which is an ominous sign.

Zhu Di was shocked when he saw it and his heart was shaken. Yao Guangxiao once again exclaimed and said, "Congratulations to the king, this is a great sign. Only when the real dragon comes out of the water will there be wind and rain. The green tiles fall to the ground, which means they will be replaced by the yellow tiles used by the emperor!"

In this way, under the perseverance of Daoyan, Zhu Di raised the banner of "clearing the king's side" and claimed to be "the Fengtian Jingnan" under the name of killing Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng .

This year, Daoyan was 65 years old. After three years of the Jingnan Battle, Zhu Di's army only occupied the three counties of Beiping, Baoding, , and Yongping. Faced with the national strength that Zhu Yunwen had, Zhu Di's war potential was much weaker. He knew that if he continued to fight like this, he would eventually fail. It was Daoyan again, and proposed a new strategic idea to Zhu Di. He said that the Jingnan was an internal war of the Zhu family after all, and it would be enough to resolve Zhu Yunwen. There was no need to attack each city and one place. So he proposed to bypass and insist that he used a light cavalry to directly attack Huanglong and directly attack Zhu Yunwen's nest Nanjing.

Zhu Di decisively adopted this strategy, so he bypassed the area where Zhu Yunwen was crowded with heavy troops at that time, and took the lead in a detour to attack Nanjing City. Finally, he achieved his contribution to the battle and captured Nanjing City. Emperor Jianwen disappeared in the palace fire, and Zhu Di ascended the throne in Nanjing.

This year, Daoyan was 68 years old, and he fulfilled his promise to give Zhu Di a "white hat".

During Zhu Di ascended the throne, Daoyan was known as the number one in Jingnan.

But he has always lived in the temple and lived a very poor life.

Assist Zhu Di during the day to handle state affairs and court affairs, and at night to return to the temple to accompany the ancient Buddha of Qinglantern. Most of the rewards to Zhu Di were rejected. All the rare gold, silver and treasures received were given to the clan.

After that, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty traveled between Nanjing and Beijing and conquered Mongolia several times. Yao Guangxiao was ordered to stay in Nanjing and assist the prince Zhu Gaochi in supervising the country. In 1407 (the fifth year of Yongle ), Yao Guangxiao was ordered to teach the emperor's eldest grandson Zhu Zhanji.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he wanted to move the capital to Beijing, Yao Guangxiao was responsible for another matter and planned the layout of modern Beijing city . After failing to edit the book in Xie Jin, he served as the highest editor of "Yongle Encyclopedia" and " Ming Taizu Records ", especially "Yongle Encyclopedia", which is his greatest contribution in Chinese cultural history. In Yao Guangxiao's later years, Buddhism gradually declined, and Daoyan took on the responsibility of protecting the Dharma in Buddhism and sorted out the anti-selected Buddha " Daoyulu ", which was an important event in the history of Buddhism.

In 1418 AD (the sixteenth year of Yongle), Daoyan died of illness. In order to mourn this first meritorious official and old friend, Zhu Di, the Emperor Cheng of Ming Dynasty, stopped court for two days and buried him with the rituals of a monk. He posthumously named him as Duke Rong , was given the posthumous title of Gongjing, and was buried in the northeast of Fangshan County. He also personally wrote a stele of the divine Tao for him and entered the Mingzu Temple as a civil official. He was the first and only person in the Ming Dynasty.

On the seventh anniversary of Daoyan's death, Zhu Gaochi personally wrote a memorial to praise his merits and specially ordered him to enjoy Zhu Di's temple.

Looking at Daoyan's life, he had no children, nor was he greedy for high officials, great fortune and wealth, nor even wanted fame to be kept in history. What he pursued was like a process and a world of displaying his talents.

　He planned to overthrow a regime and participated in the reconstruction of another regime, but he did not want anything. He walked in the court and Buddhist temple as the "prime minister in black". In front of the king, you can be at ease and start and end well.

This is a strange man and one of the two most awesome monks in the Ming Dynasty, "Prime Minister in Black" - Yao Guangxiao.