: The Ming Zu, the nature of a sage, hero, and thief, is actually both. ——Zhao Yi
Zhu Yuanzhang was the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty . He had 26 sons in his life. Not all of these 26 sons were favored by Zhu Yuanzhang, and only a few left traces in history.
The most familiar thing to the people is the Emperor Yongle Zhu Di who rebelled and took over the throne of his nephew. It is worth mentioning that Zhu Di has been coveting the throne of emperor for more than a day. Something happened to the two of them before Zhu Yuanzhang died.
If Zhu Di’s mother hadn’t responded quickly and asked her son to escape quickly, there would probably be no later Emperor Yongle . Then there are many stories in it, let’s talk about it today.
Beggar Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang
Zhu Yuanzhang was born in 1328 AD. His original name was Zhu Chongba . As soon as he heard this name, he knew that he was not a child of a wealthy and noble family, because The lower class people in the Yuan Dynasty period did not deserve names, so they could only use some matching similar numbers instead.
Zhu Yuanzhang was born in a poor peasant family in Fengyang, Anhui Province. Because he ranks eighth in the family, he is called Zhu Chongba. When he was a child, he lived a life of not having enough food or clothing, just like all children from poor peasant families.
A little older, my father arranged for him to herd cattle for the landlord in order to reduce the burden on the family and supplement the family's income. However, even if the family works hard, they still cannot eat enough.
Gradually, the people in the family fell one after another, and in the end even their parents starved to death in the famine, and the only one of the whole family was Zhu Yuanzhang and his brother.
Later, with the help of kind-hearted people, they buried their parents, and for the sake of or brothers, they had to find their own way out. Zhu Yuanzhang was only 17 years old at that time. The first way he planned for himself was to be a monk, not because he saw through the world but to be able to have a taste of food.
During the days of Huangjue Temple , Zhu Yuanzhang was very satisfied with his life because he had food. He was not lazy, afraid of dirty or tired when working. Such a life was simply a paradise for him.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. The famine quickly spread to Huangjue Temple. The abbot who had no food in the temple asked Zhu Yuanzhang to beg for food under the name of "cloud travel". In this way, Zhu Yuanzhang started sleeping in the open again. This cloud travel lasted for more than three years.
More than three years of experience in traveling around the cloud have made Zhu Yuanzhang more knowledge and broaden his horizons, knowing how to open up a new path in difficulties, and laying the foreshadowing for his later life.
25 years old was a turning point in Zhu Yuanzhang's life. He defected to , one of the leaders of the Red Turban Army, , Guo Zixing, , and was deeply loved by Marshal Guo because of his bravery, scheming and strategist. Guo Zixing even married his adopted daughter Ma to him. In this way, Zhu Yuanzhang's life took a qualitative leap.
In the next ten years, Zhu Yuanzhang expanded his territory and attracted talents while fighting. Finally, after defeating Chen Youliang , Zhang Shicheng , Fang Guozhen and the Yuanting, he established the Ming Dynasty in 1368 AD, realizing the transformation from the little beggar to the emperor of Hongwu .
Zhu Yuanzhang's successors
As we all know, the inheritance system of ancient emperors was the "primary son inheritance system". Zhu Biao was Zhu Yuanzhang's eldest son, and his mother was Empress Ma , so he was appointed as the crown prince as soon as Zhu Yuanzhang called King of Wu. was established as the crown prince as soon as the Ming Dynasty was established.
Zhu Yuanzhang loved this son very much and placed high hopes for him. Zhu Biao was also very successful. He was familiar with Confucian classics since childhood and was highly literate and highly respected by civil and military officials.
For example, when his teacher Song Lian was imprisoned, Zhu Biao risked being blamed by Zhu Yuanzhang for pleading for him. In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang saved Song Lian from his death penalty for his sake.
At the same time, Zhu Biao is kind and generous, and he is very friendly to his younger brothers. Almost all the princes, including Zhu Di, have caused trouble. Every time, Zhu Biao comes forward to persuade Zhu Yuanzhang to make a fuss, so that they can be exempted from punishment.
Such an excellent Zhu Biao is undoubtedly the best choice for the successor. Perhaps God is also jealous of Zhu Biao. On the day he failed to survive until his succession, he died before Zhu Yuanzhang died, and the Ming Dynasty also ushered in an unprecedented crisis.
The death of his eldest son made Zhu Yuanzhang very sad, but the Ming Dynasty must continue. He began to find a new heir. In the case of loving the house and the Ukrainian situation, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to pass the throne to Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen .
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang brought Zhu Yunwen with him and cultivated him carefully like he treated Zhu Biao back then. Zhu Yunwen was as generous and kind as Zhu Biao, very smart and wise, and the support of all civil and military officials was relatively high.
Before his death, Zhu Yuanzhang did the last thing for Zhu Yunwen, that is, paving the way to ascend the throne and become emperor. After establishing the Ming Dynasty, he rewarded the civil and military officials who followed him on his behalf on his merits. At the beginning, he was indeed good at these meritorious officials. He was both a Duke and a Marquis and a grant of iron voucher to avoid death.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a man who climbed from the bottom to the throne step by step. He knew very well how the Yuan Dynasty perished. All the things he had now were hard-won, so no one was allowed to threaten them.
He can suppress these people when he is alive, but what about a hundred years later? Can these people be obedient to Zhu Yunwen's words? What's more, , the emperor's grandson, is still very kind.
So for the needs of the situation and in order to allow Zhu Yunwen to control the world, after the Hu Weiyong case , Zhu Yuanzhang created the Lan Yu case , and there were tens of thousands of people involved. As the saying goes, "The cunning rabbit dies, the lackeys cook; the birds are gone, and the slingshot hides", which is what it means.
Interestingly, in addition to many founding heroes, even his own son Zhu Yuanzhang did not have any sand in his eyes. He even had the idea of killing Zhu Di.
Because of Zhu Yuanzhang's dream, Zhu Di was almost killed
In his childhood, Zhu Di was not valued and received strict military training with many princes. When he grew up, he followed Xu Da to fight south and north, and was a person with all-round civil and military talents.
About Hongwu year, ten-year-old Zhu Di was named King of Yan, and later went to Beiping to become a vassal king. Originally, in Zhu Yuanzhang's idea, Zhu Biao was in charge of the center of the Ming Dynasty (Nanjing), and his younger brother expanded his territory for him, and the Ming Dynasty could last forever.
Since ancient times, in the battle for the position, many brothers may not dare to act rashly when Zhu Biao was made the crown prince, but after his death, the princes with some strength would have some ideas about that position, and the King of Yan was no exception. During his tenure as a vassal king, Zhu Di used Daoyan and Yuan Gong as counselors to continuously strengthen his power, and surrendered the Taiwei Nai'er Buhua to make him famous and stand out among the princes.
I thought Zhu Yuanzhang would make himself the crown prince. After all, although he was the fourth prince, the first three brothers had already died and died. He had actually become the "large-child" and was closest to that position.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang skipped his sons directly and made Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen the crown prince. Zhu Di who received this news might be very angry but helpless.
What a shrewd person Zhu Yuanzhang was. He knew Zhu Di's little intestines very well, but he just didn't break the window paper. Although he was afraid of Zhu Di's strength and was worried that he would take away the throne of the crown prince, on the other hand, he also knew that the Ming Dynasty needed talents like Zhu Di.
As the saying goes, "I think about it every day and dream about it at night." One night, Zhu Yuanzhang had a dream. In the dream, he saw the crown prince Zhu Yunwen being killed by a man in armor, but he did not see the person's face, but only remembered his back.
After waking up, Zhu Yuanzhang told the concubine around him about this. The concubine did not take it seriously, but he felt that Emperor Zhu was thinking too much, but Emperor Zhu did not let go of his heart. The scene of Zhu Yunwen being killed was always played back in his mind.
One morning in the morning court, Zhu Yuanzhang asked the ministers about state affairs. Zhu Di happened to be in the court and expressed his own opinions. At this time, Emperor Zhu found that Zhu Di, wearing armor, was very similar to the back of "that person" in his dream, and his heart gradually developed a murderous intention.
After the morning court, he called Zhu Di to his side and changed his cold attitude in the past to peel oranges for him to eat. Zhu Di was very happy to see that his father had always been serious and his father peeled oranges for him to eat. He thought that his father had finally changed his view of him, and after he came back, he excitedly told Queen Ma.
Empress Ma is a strange woman who accompanied Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world. When she heard this, combined with a dream mentioned by Zhu Yuanzhang to him, she knew that Emperor Zhu had become a murderous person with Zhu Di.
Under such circumstances, Empress Ma immediately asked Zhu Di to leave Beijing immediately, because the reason was related to the orange. "Orange" is a wooden chair that is taken apart, and the color of the orange is yellow, which obviously refers to the position of emperor.
At the same time, peeling oranges means peeling and bone removal. It is obvious that it means killing Zhu Di. When Zhu Di heard this, he was so scared that he immediately said goodbye to Zhu Yuanzhang on the grounds of guarding the border.
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that his son was loyal to the country, so he gave up his murderous intention to him, and Zhu Di escaped from then on. According to some unofficial history records, Zhu Yuanzhang had the intention of eradicating Zhu Di many times in the later period and issued an order to let him come to Nanjing, but Zhu Di often escaped the disaster on the grounds of "unstable borders".
I have to say that the dream Zhu Yuanzhang had was quite accurate. Zhu Yunwen succeeded to the throne and implemented the reduction of the vassals, while Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Battle in the name of Fengtian Jingnan .
In the early years, in order to successfully succeed the throne, Zhu Yuanzhang killed the heroes who fought with him to conquer the world. When King Zhu Di of Yan launched the Jingnan Campaign, Zhu Yunwen had almost no general available.
The Jingnan Campaign ended with Zhu Yunwen's defeat and Zhu Di's victory. The former disappeared after a fire, while Zhu Di became the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
I don’t know if Zhu Yuanzhang could see these, would he regret it in his heart? Do you regret killing all the heroes? Will you regret peeling the orange but not killing Zhu Di? Because of his temporary ruthlessness and softness, the situation in the Ming Dynasty was later created.
What do you think about this?
