The emperor is the holder of power in feudal society. He can decide people's life and death at will. Maybe just an unintentional word or action can bring disaster to himself.

The emperor is the master of power in feudal society. He can decide people's life and death at will. Maybe just an unintentional word or action can bring disaster to himself.

It’s okay if the sky is high and the emperor is far away, but for the precious people who seek the emperor’s side in a dangerous situation, accompanying him is like accompanying a tiger, and they are afraid of losing their heads at any time.

So why is the emperor so suspicious?

The reason why the emperor is so suspicious has to do with his step-by-step climb to a position above ten thousand people.

Because he has experienced bloody storms, he is very afraid of losing hard-won things, especially when his life is threatened, he will be more sensitive and cautious.

It is said that the emperor is very afraid that someone will covet this high position. In such a mentality, suspicion became a necessity for the emperor to secure his throne, and therefore some people lost their lives due to such suspicion for no reason.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang lived a poor life since he was a child. In order to get rid of his fate, he followed to resist the Yuan Dynasty . They fought all the way to dominate the world and established Ming Dynasty . After gaining power, Zhu Yuanzhang, like other emperors, became suspicious. This is especially serious for him who comes from a grassroots background. Because of his low status, he feels relatively low self-esteem. What he fears most is that the heroes who have conquered the world with him will betray him and take away what he finally won. Zhu's empire.

Therefore, after his power was consolidated, he took the opportunity to weaken the power of the heroes and concentrate it in his own hands. For this reason, he also "killed heroes" to consolidate his position.

Power was concentrated, and accordingly Zhu Yuanzhang was much busier than other emperors, often reviewing memorials until late at night. Such a suspicious character also gave Zhu Yuanzhang Mingjun a cruel name. Once, because he had doubts in his heart, while reviewing the memorial late at night, he personally created an incident "The palace maid was killed with a stick because of porridge" .

Investigation

At that time, when Zhu Yuanzhang was a little tired from reviewing the memorial, a palace maid suddenly broke into the palace without being informed. Zhu Yuanzhang scolded the palace maid, and then took out a silver needle to test the poison on the porridge. The result was that the silver needle was on the spot. It turned black, and in anger he ordered: Drag him down and kill him with a stick!

After the palace maid was killed with a stick, the investigation into the incident was not over.

Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry. He did not expect that a little palace maid could enter his bedroom quietly. The eunuch who was on duty at night was the first object of suspicion.

Soon, the eunuch who was on duty that night was brought to Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang asked where the eunuch went that night? Why didn't the palace maid let anyone know when she came in?

The eunuch who still didn't know what happened was detained in a daze. When he was wondering what he had done, he heard Zhu Yuanzhang's question. He had to explain his itinerary tremblingly.

It turned out that the eunuch didn't know whether he had a bad stomach that night. Since the night shift, he had been feeling vaguely uncomfortable in his stomach.

But in order not to delay his errand, he endured it. But this kind of patience has its limit. When he finally couldn't bear it anymore, it was too late to ask other eunuchs to take care of him, so he hurried to the latrine. Unexpectedly, he was arrested when he came out just after solving the problem. .

But this reason was not recognized by Zhu Yuanzhang, because he felt that why he had a stomachache for no reason must be a plot designed by the people behind the scenes, just to facilitate the palace ladies to enter the palace silently. But no matter how you interrogate the eunuch, you get the same answer. It seems that the eunuch did not lie. So what is the problem? Could it be that the royal chef of 's royal dining room is the accomplice?

Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to call all the people on duty in the imperial dining room that night. After an interrogation, it was discovered that no one had been near the bowl of porridge except the palace maid and the cook responsible for making the porridge. As a result, some fat chefs became the next targets of torture.

The chef was also very puzzled. He just cooked porridge, how could it become poisonous? But he still explained in detail how he cooked the porridge that night, and repeatedly promised that he would not leave the porridge until the palace maid took the porridge away, and everyone in the imperial kitchen testified to him that it was true. Nothing wrong with it.

Reason

In order to verify that the chef was not lying, Zhu Yuanzhang asked the chef to drink the bowl of porridge in question on the spot. After a long time, the chef had no other reaction and was not poisoned.

It seems that the chef has no problem cooking the porridge, and there is no time to administer the medicine. So where does this problem lie? Why do silver needles turn black?

In order to further confirm, Zhu Yuanzhang asked the imperial doctor to do an experiment. He personally watched the chef cook another bowl of the same porridge, took out the silver needle and tried it, and the result still turned black. This is strange. There is no problem with the ingredients and the chef, so why did the silver needle turn black?

At this time, an imperial doctor stood up and tested the water, rice, white radish and pot used to make the porridge respectively. It was found that only white radish can make silver needles turn black. Why does a good white radish make the porridge turn black? What if the silver needle turns black? The imperial doctor also examined the white radish and found no poison like arsenic.

Only then did everyone realize that this time they might have wrongly blamed the palace maid. Zhu Yuanzhang also felt a little unhappy about this, but he had no regrets about killing the palace maid with a stick, because he wanted to use this to deter those with evil intentions.

Since the porridge is not poisonous, why does the silver needle turn black after being inserted into it?

In fact, in relatively backward ancient times, silver needles were the only means of detecting all toxic substances, but they could not detect all toxic substances, and as long as silver needles encountered "sulfide", they would undergo a chemical reaction. turns black.

And white radish contains a small amount of sulfide. If a lot of white radish is put together, the silver needle will turn black, which will make people mistakenly think that the porridge is poisonous.

It was late at night that night. The chef looked at the weather and thought that Zhu Yuanzhang was already very tired because he had not rested so late. In addition, it was still late at night and the humidity was relatively heavy, so he added more white radish when making porridge. It can detoxify and dispel some cold air. I didn't expect that it was a good thing, but it ended up causing the palace maid to die innocently.

The truth

But did the palace maid really die in vain? In fact, it was not the case. The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang immediately ordered the palace maid to be beaten to death that night was not because of a bowl of porridge, but for another reason.

The palace maid is a low-class palace maid. She does serve as a servant in Queen Ma's palace, but she does not often serve Queen Ma. She really wanted to become a high-class palace maid, but she never found a suitable opportunity.

That night, when Empress Ma heard that Zhu Yuanzhang was still reviewing the memorial late at night, she ordered the imperial kitchen to cook a pot of porridge so that she could have a bowl of porridge to warm herself up when Zhu Yuanzhang finished reviewing the memorial.

At that time, the maids around her had other arrangements, so Queen Ma called a maid at random. And this palace maid was the one who wanted to be in power but was unable to do so. This was a great opportunity to show her face, so she happily ran to the imperial kitchen to serve porridge.

On the way, the smug palace maid had other thoughts in her mind. It was late at night. If she finished serving Zhu Yuanzhang to drink porridge, would she need someone to wait on her to go to bed? Then does he have the opportunity to reach a higher level? What does the maid next to the queen mean?

The palace maid, who was worried, was planning her next move while walking towards Zhu Yuanzhang's bedroom. She didn't know if it was her good luck or she was really unlucky. There was not even a single eunuch on duty outside the dormitory where she was always at home. She thought it would be difficult for her to enter the dormitory, and she was still thinking about how to get in. But like God, no one stopped her.

The palace maid felt secretly happy and slowly walked into the bedroom. Looking at Zhu Yuanzhang who was immersed in reviewing the memorial, her heart almost jumped into her throat. She was scared and nervous, but when she thought that it would be different if she succeeded, she suppressed her fear. From the bottom of my heart.

She came to Zhu Yuanzhang's desk, gently put down the porridge bowl, raised her head and glanced at Zhu Yuanzhang affectionately, and then met Zhu Yuanzhang's cold eyes, which scared her so much that she didn't dare to say anything anymore, and He quickly lowered his head.

Zhu Yuanzhang raised his head after she came in, thinking how did this palace maid come in? Why didn't anyone come in to communicate? Just as he was about to scold him, he saw the different look in the palace maid's eyes and understood immediately.

stared at the palace maid coldly and asked her who asked her to come. The palace lady was so frightened that she immediately knelt on the ground and said that she was delivering porridge to him on the order of the queen. Zhu Yuanzhang did not know this palace maid, and besides, he was more or less familiar with the palace maids in the Queen's Palace. But when this palace maid saw such a familiar face, and the way she looked at him before, he suddenly felt disgusted in his heart.

loudly scolded the palace maid for entering the palace without notification. The palace maid explained that there was no eunuch on duty outside. Zhu Yuanzhang didn't listen to what she said at all. He took out a silver needle from the box on the side and tested the bowl of white radish porridge in front of the palace maid. As a result, the silver needle turned black. This further confirmed his suspicion that the palace maid was plotting against him, so he ordered the palace maid to be pulled out and beaten to death.

Conclusion

Although it was confirmed that there was no poison in the porridge, the palace maid did have the intention to take advantage of the situation, even if she had not had time to implement it. But the suspicious Zhu Yuanzhang did not think so. If he just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to ascend to the throne, then he would not directly kill the palace maid with a stick. Just as the silver needle turned black again, this would make him think that the palace maid was to ascend the throne. as an excuse to murder yourself.

For the sake of his own life, how could he rest assured that such a hidden danger existed, and he could also use the palace maid to scare people who wanted to do evil to him, thus achieving the effect of "killing the chicken to scare the monkey".

In that feudal society, the palace maid just served a bowl of porridge, the imperial cook just cooked a pot of medicinal porridge for the emperor, and the eunuch just went to the latrine because of a stomachache. As a result, the palace maid lost her life, and the imperial cook and eunuch were beaten.

Such results are not caused by a certain person, but by the social environment. The emperor's suspicion, the backwardness of drug testing technology, and the era when human life is as trivial as a matter of straw. The emperor's words can make you live or die.