Zhu Yuanzhang's life seemed to be protected by God. When faced with danger, he could always turn it into safety, and there were many talented people around him. The most mythical among them is and Liu Bowen . There are more than 400 legends, large and small. Later generations even commented that " Zhuge Liang divided the world, and Liu Bowen dominated the world." This shows Liu Bowen's status in the hearts of future generations. It is no exaggeration to say that without Liu Bowen's help, Zhu Yuanzhang's rise would have been a hundred times more tortuous. However, it was such a great hero who, at the banquet hosted by Zhu Yuanzhang, only passed three dishes and declared that all the officials present must die. What kind of food hides such a mystery, and why did Zhu Yuanzhang kill meritorious officials? Today, let’s talk about this topic.
In 1836, Zhu Yuanzhang relied on himself and the help of a large number of capable people and strangers to overthrow the rule of the Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty . The emperor of the Yuan Dynasty was driven out of the Central Plains. After everything settled down, Zhu Yuanzhang rewarded these meritorious officials who had been with him through life and death, giving them promotions and titles and a large amount of gold and silver jewelry. Like Zhu Yuanzhang, these meritorious officials had grown from grassroots common people to now possessing huge power and wealth. But unlike those heroes, Zhu Yuanzhang still adheres to his true intentions, is diligent and thrifty, and has zero tolerance for corruption and bending the law. Therefore, he especially hopes that those heroes can maintain their original intentions and do more meaningful things for the country and people even if they are in high positions. But what those heroes did made him shudder. Some people, relying on their own rights, constantly bullied the weak, accepted bribes, and robbed beautiful women. Incidents such as this occurred one after another, which could be said to have brought huge disasters to the people. There were also some arrogant people who completely ignored the emperor and often made some acts of resistance. move. As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang, who had a bad temper, finally couldn't bear it anymore and made up his mind to get rid of them and not let them do things that harm the people and the imperial power again.
For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang secretly formulated a perfect plan and was bound to catch them all. So, he built a special celebration building and invited all the meritorious ministers to have a feast. At first, he wanted to test everyone's reaction, so he first served the "Emerald White Jade Soup" that he had eaten during the hard days, which was Chinese cabbage stewed with tofu. However, the ministers who were accustomed to eating delicacies from mountains and seas lost interest in vegetarian dishes. Zhu Yuanzhang was very disappointed, so he served three special dishes one after another. Braised rabbit meat , Braised dog meat , Bird's nest soup . When the ministers saw that it was big fish and meat, they were immediately excited, and they all ate and drank happily. But when Liu Bowen saw these dishes, he was too scared to move and said to himself, "We will all die today." So what’s the secret behind these dishes? The three dishes in front of them made the ministers forget themselves. But Liu Bowen, who was well versed in secrets, saw the braised rabbit, dog and bird's nest soup, and instantly understood Zhu Yuanzhang's thoughts, and couldn't help but feel chills running down his spine. Even though those ministers ate so deliciously, he still put down his chopsticks blankly and looked at the three dishes with a look of fear.
At this time, Xu Da, who had always been friends with Liu Bowen, came next to him and asked Liu Bowen why he didn't eat. Don't you like such a delicious meal? Liu Bowen pointed to the three dishes on the table and whispered to Xu Da, the emperor is going to kill us. Xu Da looked confused when he heard this and asked, "Can you see the meaning of these dishes?" At this time, Liu Bowen hurriedly said, as the saying goes, when the birds are gone, a good bow is hidden; when a cunning rabbit dies, a lackey is cooked. Isn’t it obvious that rabbit meat dog meat? We have no use to the Emperor anymore. Next, he'll eliminate all of us who threaten his position. Xu Da was so frightened that he sweated, and asked Liu Bowen: "Are we going to wait to die?" Liu Bowen said, you should stay sober now, don't drink too much, and remember that you must follow the emperor wherever he goes. After that, Liu Bowen made an excuse and left the Qinggong Building, and Xu Da also kept Liu Bowen's advice in mind and followed Zhu Yuanzhang. Later, everyone was drunk at the dinner table, and Zhu Yuanzhang stood up and prepared to leave. Xu Da also followed, and sure enough, he heard a loud noise just a few hundred meters out of the Qinggong Building. The entire building was instantly engulfed in fire, and all the heroes lost their lives in vain. Lao Zhu's plan was finally completed perfectly.
So did Xu Da and Liu Bowen really escape Zhu Yuanzhang's plot? Although Liu Bowen and Xu Da escaped the massacre at the banquet, they had no way to escape if the emperor wanted them to die. Zhu Yuanzhang was not pleased with Liu Bowen and Xu Da's wit, but felt disgusted. In the end, he asked people to give Liu Bowen medical treatment and take medicine, which killed him. Xu Da was also strangled to death by the steamed goose given by Zhu Yuanzhang. Does this sound like Zhu Yuanzhang is too cruel? That's right, because this is not real history, but the famous story of the burning of Qinggong Tower. So why is there such a ridiculous story? In the final analysis, it was made up by , Manchu and Qing Dynasty in order to discredit and Ming Dynasty . After the Manchu Qing took over the Central Plains, there were still many people who fought against the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, in order to please the Manchus, the civil servants who were afraid of death not only blamed the Ming Dynasty for many bad things done by the Manchus, but also deliberately fabricated a lot of materials to discredit the Ming Dynasty. As for the true history of Zhu Yuanzhang's treatment of the founding heroes, there are clear records in official history. For example, Xu Da and Liu Bowen both died of natural diseases. There is no such thing as steamed goose in the world. Chang Yuchun, Li Wenzhong, Tang and either died in battle or died of illness, let alone burned to death in vain. From this, we can see the authenticity of this story. Although we have all heard the story of Zhu Yuanzhang’s murder of heroes, he did not kill them indiscriminately for no reason. After all, some heroes went too far. In fact, the Qinggong Building in this story has a prototype, which is the "Zhongqin Building" built in Nanjing. It was built to facilitate Zhu Yuanzhang and ministers to discuss national affairs. Because this is not a true folktale, you just need to understand it. Please don't regard it as real history.
