Zhu Yuanzhang After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in order to consolidate his own country and make his descendants and grandchildren’s foundation sustainable, he adopted a two-handed method. And 1 from Sun Feng as vassal king , respectively stationed in border areas and military locations, to strengthen the power of the royal family. But what Zhu Yuanzhang would not have thought was that the net he carefully constructed would wrap his grandson , which is also his successor, Zhu Yunwen, after his death, and it also triggered a series of events in Chinese history. A big mystery.
Ming Dynasty After the death of the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the crown prince Zhu Biao died before him in the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu (1392), and was enthroned by his grandson Zhu Yunwen , namely Jianwendi. In order to weaken the strength of the various vassal kings and prevent the situation from being too big in the future, Zhu Yunwen began to cut the vassal vassals, which intensified the contradiction between the imperial court and the vassal kings, and the Ming Dynasty began to break up. At this time, the most powerful King of Yan_ span3span Zhu Di became the biggest target. King of Yan Zhu Di facilitates Jianwen In the first year (1399), he raised his troops to resist the imperial court in the name of "the evil on the side of the Qing emperor".In the name of denouncing Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng , the spearhead directly pointed at Emperor Jianwen. Zhu Di raised troops in the fief and launched the famous " Jingnan Battle " in history. It was not until the fourth year of Jianwen (1402) that Zhu Di was crowned the throne by King Yan, and the disaster that lasted for four years ended. After Zhu Di captured Nanjing, the palace was in flames, the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen was unknown, and the jade seal used by the emperor also disappeared without a trace.
For a time, the mystery of Emperor Jianwen's life and death became an unresolved case in history. After that, there were many rumors that Emperor Jianwen had fled, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di was always uneasy about this, and this matter also became a piece of his heart. Regarding the mystery of Emperor Jianwen's life and death, the most common records in the official history are that Zhu Yunwen died by self-immolation in the palace, but there are two strange things. First of all, when cleaning up the scene, the eunuch only found the remains of Queen Ma and the prince Zhu Wenkui, but Zhu Yunwen's remains were never found; secondly, the whereabouts of the jade seal used by Emperor Jianwen was also unknown. . In order to seize the throne, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, only claimed that Emperor Jianwen was dead and launched a coup to cover up the seizure of the throne. Zhu Di instructed his subjects to cover up the historical truth, destroy the government archives during Emperor Jianwen’s time, and forbid all narrations about this matter, so as to change history. Moreover, in order to let the world know that Emperor Jianwen had set himself on fire, he once wrote a sacrificial text, but no one knows where his tomb is. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen once said that he wanted to put the tomb of Emperor Jianwen, but he did not know where his tomb was.
Another way of saying that after Nanjing was breached, Emperor Jianwen wanted to commit suicide, but under the persuasion of his cronies, he cut his hair to become a monk and escaped from the palace through the tunnel, hiding his name and wandering the rivers and lakes. After Ming Chengzu died, he went to the capital again and was buried in Xishan on the outskirts of Beijing. For Zhu Di, the most feared thing is that Zhu Yunwen is living in the people. If he has the opportunity to make a comeback in the future, he will be in trouble. If nephew Zhu Yunwen set himself on fire, that would be the best thing, and he would have no worries.
However, "it is better to believe what he has than to believe what he does not have", Zhu Di still believes that he lives in this world, so he began to send people to find his nephew Zhu Yunwen. Zhu Di sent his confidant minister Hu Xi (yíng) to the people to investigate the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen unannounced. Hu Xu traveled all over the world, and even once visited the masters of Taoism, hoping to get advice, and then help him get news of Emperor Jianwen. Ding You did not return home when his mother died, but continued to complete his mission. He did not return to the imperial court until AD 1423. After he returned, he immediately rushed to Xuanfu to meet Zhu Di. This time, Hu Xi will open the knot that has been entangled with Zhu Di for many years. At that time, Zhu Di had already gone to bed, but when he heard that Hu Xi was coming, he immediately got up and called him in. Hu Xun told Zhu Di exactly what he heard and grasped during his search for Emperor Jianwen, and he did not leave until late at night. The history books did not record the specific content of the conversation between the two. The news that Hu Xun brought back may be that Emperor Jianwen may have died. , the corpse was found by Hu Xi; or as rumored, he had already traveled far across the ocean, and Hu Ying found evidence during an unannounced visit; it is also possible that Emperor Jianwen had become a monk, and after a deep conversation with Hu Xi, he revealed that he had No longer greedy for power, and plan to hide the wish of a lifetime. In short, whether Emperor Jianwen lived or died, he was no longer a threat to Zhu Di.
In folklore, there are traces of Emperor Jianwen in many places. Some say that Emperor Jianwen fled to the Yunnan-Guizhou region and traveled to Nanyang. Until now, there are still people in Dali, Yunnan, who take Emperor Jianwen as the originator; There are also modern scholars who believe that after Emperor Jianwen fled, he hid in the Puji Temple in Yuanshan, Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, and then hid in the Emperor's Driving Nunnery in Qionglong Mountain. superior.
Likewise, the descendants of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di also considered the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen a mystery. Ming Shenzong Zhu Yijun At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, he ordered to build a temple for the slain ministers of the Jianwen Dynasty to worship, and promulgated the "Miao Descendants" to give comfort to their descendants. Wanli On October 17, the second year of Wanli (1574), he talked with the cabinet scholars about Emperor Jianwen at Wenhua Hall, and raised a question that he had thought about for a long time: "I heard that Emperor Jianwen fled, I don't know if it's true or not?" He once again raised the first headless koan of the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Juzheng , the chief assistant of the cabinet, answered truthfully: "There is no record of this incident in the national history of my dynasty. I heard from the elders of the previous dynasty that the teacher of Jingnan entered Nanjing City, and Emperor Jianwen fled in disguise. During the Orthodox period, there was an old man. The monk inscribed a poem on the wall of the Yunnan post station. There was a sentence that said, "I have fallen into the rivers and lakes for dozens of autumns." Emperor Wen." Zhang Juzheng's statement is recorded in the "Ming Shenzong Records", which is roughly the same as what was said in Zhu Yunming "Wild Records". It can be seen that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen were no longer taboo, and the truth gradually became clear. clear.
As for the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen, neither of the above two statements can give a satisfactory answer. The mystery of Emperor Jianwen's life and death can only be left in the long river of history.
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