"Da You Shi" once said: "The road of legendary emperor's career is no better than Zhu Yuanzhang." As the founding emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang's road to power was bumpy and legendary. Although the emperor had the supreme status, Zhu Yuanzhang was discredited because of his appearance, which attracted future generations. The real appearance is curious.
In the background of ancient feudal society, the emperor possessed the supreme power, and as the emperor, he would definitely become an object of respect by the people. But with the change of dynasties, the former emperors will become the object of rejection by later generations. In the process of recording the former emperors, future generations will also conceal something.
During the development of ancient Chinese society, Zhu Yuanzhang was a very special emperor. He was born among the common people, but he successfully ascended to the throne and founded the Ming Dynasty. In the process of understanding Zhu Yuanzhang in later generations, many people's first impression of Zhu Yuanzhang was that his appearance was extremely ugly, which did not match the emperor's sassy and heroic posture. But after the appearance of a portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang preserved for 600 years by the descendants of the Zhu family in Henan, many people's impressions of Zhu Yuanzhang have undergone a huge change. Where did this portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang come from? What kind of image of Zhu Yuanzhang is shown to the world in this portrait?
After understanding the development process of ancient Chinese society, we can find that many emperors have prominent wealth backgrounds. In the eyes of the ancients, a person’s bloodline determines the height of his life development, but Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang succeeded in breaking people’s prejudice against class hierarchy, from an unknown peasant to the founding king.
Zhu Yuanzhang was born in 1328. When he was young, he lived in poverty and used to think of landlords herding cattle for a living. Affected by the turbulent environment, Zhu Yuanzhang lost his stable job in the later period, and then traveled around everywhere, begging for a living.
After twenty-five years old,Zhu Yuanzhang participated in the Red Scarf Army and began to rebel against the rule of the Yuan Dynasty . Later, Zhu Yuanzhang's forces continued to grow and successively eliminated the separate forces such as Chen Youliang , and then became the king of Wu. In the end, established Ming Dynasty rule in 1368.
During his administration, he strengthened centralization and reduced private taxes. With Zhu Yuanzhang's help, the people were able to live a stable life. Zhu Yuanzhang's many political measures helped the Ming Dynasty rule to prosper.
Since Zhu Yuanzhang came to power, the status of the Zhu family has made a qualitative leap. In this case, the Zhu family members all have prominent identity backgrounds. But after the Qing army entered , the prominent status of the Zhu family never returned. Since then, Zhu's descendants have lived a cautious life.
By analyzing the life experiences of Zhu’s descendants, we can find that many people in order to preserve their family blood, even change their surnames to avoid the pursuit of the Qing army. From this point, we can feel that the change of dynasties is of great significance to the rise and fall of the family.
In the process of understanding Zhu Yuanzhang, the grassroots emperor, generally did not have an overly positive impression of him. can be felt from the records of many historical portraits,Zhu Yuanzhang looks ugly, obviously different from ordinary people.
In our country’s past history textbooks, after seeing the portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang, many people think that he does not have the majesty that an emperor should have. For this reason, everyone in the world firmly believes that Zhu Yuanzhang is not like other people. The emperor is like an emperor, with a stalwart posture.
Yes In a farm family in Henan, the descendants of the Zhu family produced a real portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang. According to this family, are descendants of the ninth generation of Zhu Yuanzhang. To prove their identity, they took out cultural relics such as the family tree and the portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang.
said in the process of appraisal of these cultural relics that their genealogies had no traces of forgery and should be true, and the portraits they took out changed the previous image of Zhu Yuanzhang. At first, because this family was not named Zhu, many experts had doubted their identities, but according to the elderly in this family, the reason they changed their surnames was to escape the Qing army's pursuit. Combined with the solid historical data in his hands, the experts determined the identity of the family, and then conducted further research on the cultural relics they provided.
Although in people's general impression, Zhu Yuanzhang has a long face, and his facial features are irregular, but Zhu Yuanzhang's face in this portrait is very easy-going. Although is affected by the changes of the times, the paper of this portrait has turned yellow,The color of his portrait has also faded, and from the afterimage of the portrait, you can vaguely feel the richer face of Zhu Yuanzhang.
Out of the need for cultural relics protection, relevant experts hope that the family can hand over treasures related to Zhu Yuanzhang to the country. Although for this family, it is obviously very reluctant to hand in the ancestral objects, but for the advancement of our country's historical research career, finally, the family decided to hand in the treasures at home to help these treasures get better protection.
Since the publication of this portrait, the world has broken the prejudice against Zhu Yuanzhang, and in the days to come, relevant experts have also expressed that they will change many of the previous historical textbooks to expose the true face of Zhu Yuanzhang to the world.
Concluding remarks
After understanding the story behind this painting, we can discover that in the process of studying ancient Chinese social history, if historical figures are judged only by a single historical data , It will make us miss many historical truths. Compared with modern society, the writing and image recording technology of ancient society is relatively low, which also brings great obstacles to the historical research undertakings of modern society in our country.
Perhaps in the days to come, with the help of relevant experts, many historical figures who have been misunderstood will eventually show their true images to the world. Under this circumstance, the extent of our people’s knowledge and understanding of history Will continue to deepen.
Reference: "History of Ming Dynasty"
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