In Chinese history, there are only two and a half emperors who created a new and complete country in the form of cloth clothes, one is Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gaozu who claimed to be the heir of the Qin Dynasty in the last year of the Qin Dynasty, and the history books say that Liu Bang destroyed Qin in three years and Chu in four years, which has vaguely exceeded the qin shi huang who unified the world for ten years; this half naturally refers to Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, who seized the world from his good brother Chai Rong. The era he created is really hard to say!
The last one is to single-handedly lay down the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Chinese Dynasty, in today's history books, the evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang has even surpassed that of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gaozu, because the gap between these two people is relatively large, Zhu Yuanzhang is alone, the whole family died in the harsh government of the Yuan Dynasty, Liu Bang at least his family still has land to plant, and his identity as a pavilion chief can also be regarded as a petty official of the Qin Dynasty, which is the difference between the two people starting from the family, so how strong is Zhu Yuanzhang?
Comparison between Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang
There is a saying in the world that only a hero can recognize a true hero, but there is also a saying that only a demon can recognize a true demon. Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang are both people who have mastered the art of slaying dragons in history and successfully created a new dynasty, so is there a difference between these two people? In fact, there is, because the process of starting from scratch and the difficulty of laying the foundation can be clearly known.
First of all, from the evaluation of others, there was an emperor named Shi Le in the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, this person was very murderous, the Jin Dynasty was dressed in the south when he disturbed the entire Central Plains, he looked at the world and thought that he had no opponent to speak of, but when someone asked him how he viewed Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, he was actually very humble and said that if there were figures like Han Gaozu in the Central Plains today, then I would definitely have to compete to be his subordinates and compete with Han Xin Pengyue for military merit.
Liu Bang was already super powerful in the evaluation of this emperor, so what was the evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang by posterity? First of all, from the words of Zhu Yuanzhang's later dynasty Kangxi, it is said that after Kangxi initially unified the world, he once went down to Jiangnan to personally kneel three times and prostrate himself to sacrifice Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang with the courtesy of a courtier, and Everyone knows that The founding prince of the Qing Dynasty In the 120th century of Kangqian's prosperity, he was able to bow down and be small in front of Zhu Yuanzhang, which indirectly proved that Daming was far better than the Great Qing.
When later generations evaluated the personal military ability of Chinese kings since the Xia Dynasty, a figure once said: Tang Taizong Li Shimin can rank first in the ranks of emperors in battle, then Zhu Yuanzhang can rank second in the ranks of emperors. This is a very pertinent evaluation, and from the perspective of Zhu Yuanzhang's personal military ability, it is indeed possible to crush Liu Bang.
The starting point of Zhu Yuanzhang's entrepreneurship
Zhu Yuanzhang's starting point is many times more difficult than any emperor in Chinese history to start a business, Liu Bang was directly elected as the spokesperson of the Peixian Group as soon as he appeared, and suddenly obtained the excellent resources of Xiao He, Cao Gan, and thousands of disciples in Peixian County, which were not at all for Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang's initial starting point was the same as that of countless people who were dying at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and their starting point was to seek a chance to live.
When Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin started his family, there were ten brothers of the Yishe Society, and Liu Bang had thousands of Peixian disciples in his hometown. Zhu Yuanzhang did not even have a direct relative. His parents died long ago, when the three brothers and their own cousin died, even Zhang Caoxi was given alms by others, only one nephew Zhu Wenzheng and his two people lived, and later in the uprising war, even Zhu Wenzheng was sacrificed for the glory of Daming, to say that the emperor claimed to be a lonely family, Zhu Yuanzhang was the real lonely man.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a monk at the beginning, holding a bowl used to beg for karma, if we did not have the perspective of God, who would have thought that this was the future True Dragon Heavenly Son? The situation he faced was very complicated, nearly 100 years of brutal rule after the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the song dynasty almost overwhelmed the han forces, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to establish a foundation and restore China, first of all, he had to defeat the Golden Family and Mongolian warriors who claimed to be the first in Eurasia.
The other half-grassroots emperors faced a much simpler problem than Zhu Yuanzhang, Liu Bang did not know when he revolted, but he knew that Chen Shi Wuguang revolted, and then at the instigation of everyone, he did it, and then rebelled against the main arms of the Qin Dynasty: Qin Fa plundered, when the founder was Gongzi Fusu, there were naturally countless people who longed for benevolence and righteousness in their hearts to follow, Zhao Kuangyin was even simpler, the yellow robe plus the bloodless blade changed the name of the country from Great Zhou to Great Song, so what kind of problem was Zhu Yuanzhang facing against the Yuan?
From the Qin to the Song Dynasty, the destruction of orthodoxy
Zhu Yuanzhang's life was really too bitter, and the Mongols' destruction of the Song Dynasty in his time was almost an impact that spanned the times, so why say anything? That's because the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty is an unprecedented demise, 100,000 monarchs and subjects are willing to cover the sea and die, even if the former Central Plains Dynasty failed miserably, it was not a big deal like the Jin Dynasty to come to a crown to cross the south, at least the Chinese culture and fire in the south existed, but the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty and the entry of the Mongols directly destroyed the thousand-year-old Han orthodoxy from the Qin to the Song.
How to gather people's hearts and recreate orthodox ideas is the first thing that Zhu Yuanzhang must do as the leader of the rebel army, otherwise the ideas of his subordinates will have certain limitations, everyone may feel that it is impossible to completely defeat the Mongols, and if the people under them have not been supported by orthodox beliefs and the concept that China has never changed hands for thousands of years, they will think of Gou'an Jiangnan, and everyone is not thinking about the whole work, but about stopping when they are rich and ruling with the Yuan Dynasty.
This idea of not doing our best and completing true unification has been experimented with by countless people and then failed in history, far from saying that Wu Sangui in the Kangxi era did not end up with hatred? In the more than one hundred years after Zhao Zhuo killed Yue Fei in the Southern Song Dynasty, was there anyone who could successfully carry out the Northern Expedition? How many times did the Northern Expedition succeed after the Jin Dynasty crossed south? There are some ideas that must not be had, and once they are born, they will make people inert, make people satisfied with the status quo, and finally become a tragedy.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang used the Ming Sect to win over the hearts and minds of the people in the world, but after he really succeeded, he did not hesitate to eradicate the Ming Sect, which was really a brave man with a broken arm and an invincible spirit! After the creation of the foundation industry laid the pattern of the entire Three Hundred Years of the Ming Dynasty, the local use of the military household system, the creation of professional army, no need to conscript and the elite of the army, the emperor system was grasped in the hands, the external arrogance did not have the weakness of the Zhao and Song Dynasties, so everyone sang the iron blood and toughness of the Ming Dynasty, so everyone will miss him to this day!
summary
Some people have told me that Zhu Yuanzhang is an overrated emperor, but what I want to say is that the evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang has never been "overestimated", only "underestimated". As the sworn enemy of the Ming Dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty once said with great reverence: "I think that the kings of the Chinese dynasties are like the Hongwu warriors." The Kangxi Emperor commented: "Zhu Yuanzhang is beyond the reach of the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties"; why do they say so? Because the Three Hundred Years of the Qing Dynasty's Tianxia System, in addition to a military aircraft department, is still copying Zhu Yuanzhang's work!