After nearly 4 years of the Battle of Jingnan, taking advantage of the lack of strategy of the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunzhuo and the internal communication of Xu Zengshou, Zhu Di finally attacked the city of Nanjing, while the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao disappeared.
After repeated persuasions from his courtiers, Zhu Di finally ascended the throne "out of necessity". And after ascending to the emperor's throne, how should he deal with the wife of the eldest brother Zhu Biao and his own sons and nephews? Although he was called Ming Jun by later generations, when dealing with the wife and children of the eldest brother Zhu Biao, he also made us more able to understand the bloodshed under the power. The founding heroes can be "cunning rabbits to death, running dogs to cook", and those who are threatening the throne will be slaughtered, no matter who it is, the relationship is close.
Zhu Biao was the eldest son of Zhu Yuanzhang, and his biological mother was Empress Ma. Loved by Zhu Yuanzhang, when Zhu Yuanzhang was called the King of Wu, he was already established as a son of the world, Zhu Yuanzhang even selected a good teacher for him, Li Shanchang, Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Feng Sheng, Liu Ji, Tang He and other founding heroes all led to the official positions of the Eastern Palace, in 1371, he also promised him Chang Yuchun's daughter Chang Shi as a wife, and then married Lü Shi, the daughter of Lü Bu, the secretary of the Taichang Temple, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's plan, there were more able ministers and internal help, and the favored Zhu Biao could smoothly take over him, take charge of the imperial government, and inherit the position of great treasure.
During Zhu Biao's reign as crown prince, the Chang clan bore him two sons, Zhu Xiongying and Zhu Yunxi. However, the eldest son, Zhu Xiongying, died early in 1382 at the age of 8. His wife, Chang, died early in 1378. Lü gave birth to the future Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao, as well as Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi. In this way, Prince Zhu Biao also had 5 sons.
Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang originally arranged it properly, but unfortunately, on May 17, 1392, Prince Zhu Biao died of a serious illness. Zhu Yunjiao, on the other hand, was helped to be corrected and became the emperor's grandson under the coincidence that his father Zhu Biao died of illness, the eldest brother Zhu Xiongying died early, and the Chang clan died so many times. Therefore, sometimes we have to say that whether a person is accomplished or not is the union of the fortune of the lord of the times. This was true of Zhu Yunjiao's eventual ability to become emperor, but even more so when he was ousted by Zhu Di. After Zhu Yuanzhang's death in 1398, the young Zhu Yunjiao ascended the throne as emperor.
After ascending the throne as emperor, Zhu Yunjiao began to cut the domain. Of course, for his brothers, it is still generous. The third brother Zhu Yunxi was made the King of Wu, the fourth brother Zhu Yunxi was made the King of Heng, and the fifth brother Zhu Yunxi was made the King of Heng. He was given the title of King of Xu. At the beginning of Emperor Jianwen's reign as emperor, he listened to the advice of his teachers Huang Zicheng, Qi Tai and Fang Xiaoru and began to cut the domain, and at the beginning there was not much resistance, and under the absolute strength of the central government, it also achieved fruitful results, and the five princes of Zhou, Daiwang, Xiangwang, Qiwang, and Minwang were deposed successively.
But the times have also changed, a person only has luck or not, more need to control the situation, control of the fate, although Zhu Yuanzhang left 500,000 troops for his beloved grandson, as well as son-in-law Mei Yin Sasuke, but compared with Zhu Di, Emperor Jianwen is still too immature, and the struggle of politicians is always your life. The misuse of corrupt Confucianism, as well as the clumsy disciple Li Jinglong, and the appeasement and adultery of Xu Zengshou also made him lose in this battle that seemed to be a complete victory. In the end, he ended up with an unaccounted for, and his mother and brother ended even more tragically.
Her mother, Lü Shi, was honored as empress dowager after she ascended to the throne. Even when Zhu Di hit the Jinchuan Gate, he personally went to Zhu Di's camp, of course, all this was already useless. When he rushed back to the palace, he saw that the fire had already started. And Empress Lü also had a lot of speculation with Emperor Jianwen. In other words, they were buried together in the sea of fire, or they hid in the people, and it is also said that they were placed in the tomb of Prince Yiwen and finally burned to death. And Zhu Di was not polite, and when he came to power, he took the title of emperor of the eldest brother Zhu Biao and changed it to Crown Prince Yiwen, and Empress Lü was also demoted to "Prince Yiwen".
For King Wu, King Heng, and King Xu, they were not so lucky. After demoting these three sons and nephews from prince to county king, Zhu Di placed Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi in Zhangzhou and Jianchang, but for the suspicious Zhu Di, they were still a threat, and in turn recalled the two, and on the grounds that they could not kuangzheng Jianwen Emperor, they were directly deposed as Shuren and placed under house arrest in Fengyang. In 1417, after more than ten years of living as a shuren, Zhu Yue, the king of Gu, suddenly falsely called Zhu Yuexi, the king of Chongyang in Shu Province, as "Jianwen Jun", with the intention of plotting rebellion, while Zhu Yunxi suddenly died violently, at the age of 39. Zhu Yunxi also died in the same year. And the murderers in this one can probably be considered one or two.
At that time, the eldest son of Zhu Biao, the youngest son of Xu Wang, Zhu Yun?, although he was younger, he was demoted to the title of King of The County, and was not imprisoned in him, but only placed in the tomb of Prince Yiwen, but unfortunately, as a royal mausoleum, there was a fire, and he naturally died in the fire.
After Zhu Di ascended to the throne, he restored the title of Five Kings for different purposes, but was he really different from Emperor Jianwen? As emperors, they were no different in maintaining the supremacy of imperial power. After stabilizing the regime, he also began to cut the domain. Even for Emperor Jianwen, who had disappeared in the fire, Zhu Di searched for years. Even zheng he's major voyage to the West has been recorded as "Cheng zu suspected that Emperor Hui had died overseas and wanted to trace it".
References: History of the Ming Dynasty, Biography of Zheng He, etc