In "The Style of Daming", when Zhu Di, the ancestor of Ming Cheng, was undecided, he would go to Jiming Temple to stay, in order to listen to the views and opinions of the Daoyan monk Yao Guangxiao, which showed That Zhu Di relied heavily on Yao Guangxiao.
In fact, in history, Yao Guangxiao was indeed resourceful, and he also had the merit of helping Zhu Dijing, and also won Zhu Di's trust. After Jingnan succeeded zhu Di's ascension to the throne, Zhu Di not only appointed him as the monk Zuo Shanshi, but also added the title of Prince Shaoshi, thus Yao Guangxiao was also known as the "Black-clothed Prime Minister".
Li Yan of the same dynasty in later generations praised him and Zhu Di even more: "For more than two hundred years in our country, we have rested and recuperated, and now we are here. Shi Security is full of warmth, and people forget their wars, and I have become the strength of Emperor Zuwen and Yao Shaoshi."
It can be seen that Yao Guangxiao's merits are very great, but the interesting point is that under the secular tradition of paying attention to utilitarianism and achieving fame, he abandons worldly things like weeds.
Although Zhu Di had rewarded the mansion and the palace maid and given them to return to the customs, he refused them one by one and still lived in the temple; but he accepted the gold and silver he gave, and then used them to distribute the clans and villagers. Of course, among his interesting deeds, the most interesting thing is that as a man born at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the great uprising of the peasant army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang Hongwu Dynasty, and the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao Dynasty, he chose to hide his front during Zhu Yuanzhang's time, but he persuaded Zhu Di to rebel during the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao Dynasty. So why?
Yao Guangxiao was born in Cheung Chau in 1335. At the age of 14, he was ordained as a monk. During this period, he not only practiced Buddhism, but also studied the art of yin and yang under the Taoist priest Xi Yingzhen, and he also liked to read Confucian classics, which also made him a figure who was familiar with all three schools of Confucianism and Buddhism.
In the eighth year of Hongwu (1375), Zhu Yuanzhang summoned monks to take the examination, and Yao Guangxiao was also impressively listed, but surprisingly, he was not awarded an official position, only a monk's robe, and the consequence of this incident was that five years later, on the recommendation of Master Zong, he entered the Celestial Temple, the highest standard of the Ming Dynasty and the first of the Five Mountains and Ten Brakes.
In the fifteenth year of Hongwu (1382), Empress Ma died, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned high monks to recite the sutra for her, and at the recommendation of Master Zong, Yao Guangxiao was also listed, this time his greatest gain was not fame, but acquaintance with Zhu Di, the King of Yan, so he also became the abbot of The Qingshou Temple in Beiping and a counselor of Zhu Di.
In the thirty-first year of Hongwu (1398), Zhu Yuanzhang died, Emperor Jianwen took the throne, and Emperor Jianwen began to cut down the domain at the beginning of his term of office. Zhu Xu, the King of Zhou, Zhu Gui, the Acting King, and others also bore the brunt of it, and as the strongest of the Nine Kings of Saibian at that time, Zhu Di naturally became the next target. Faced with an increasingly dangerous situation, Zhu Di was actually not strong in his heart, and Yao Guangxiao, as a strategist, not only exhorted Zhu Di to rebel at this time, but also used Yuan Jue as Zhu Di's face to face and strengthen his heart.
When Zhu Di swore an oath, the tiles fell and everyone thought it was unlucky, but he said, ''Xiang Ye'. Flying dragons in the sky, from wind and rain. Tile drops, will be easy yellow also ''.
When Zhu Di attacked Jinan and was blocked by Tie Xuan, and attacked Liaocheng and was defeated, Zhu Di was reluctant to retreat, and it was he who suggested that Zhu Di take the Beijing Division directly, and these kinds of things can be said to be as far as Zhu Di is concerned, Yao Guangxiao is not only self-achievement, but also the mutual achievement of the two. In the Yongle Dynasty, his achievements were even more outstanding, both in assisting the crown prince Zhu Gaozi in supervising the country, and in teaching the emperor's eldest grandson Zhu Zhanji. In the sixteenth year of Yongle (1418), Yao Guangxiao died of illness at the age of 84. Zhu Di gave him the title Gongjing, personally wrote Shinto inscriptions, and posthumously gave him official positions such as the Pillar Kingdom and the Rongguo Gong. So what exactly caused Yao Guangxiao to not be born in the Zhu Yuanzhang Dynasty, but to display his ambitions and talents in the Yongle Dynasty?
In fact, this should be analyzed from the perspective of personal emotions and social status.
In the Zhu Yuanzhang Dynasty, as the founding prince of the country born as a beggar, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, rabbits and dead dogs cooked everywhere. Gao Qi, who was a close friend of Yao Guangxiao, was also a victim of this political environment. As the compiler of the "History of the Yuan", Gao Qiben was famous and was even appointed to teach the kings, but as a courtier in the early Ming Dynasty, he was finally implicated in the case of the reconstruction of the palace site of The Prefect of Suzhou, Wei Guan Zhang Shicheng, because he mentioned the four characters of "Dragon Pan Tiger Ju" in the "Liang Wen on the County", and was beheaded.
Even the head of the Jiangnan literati at that time, the crown prince Taishi Song Lian, was almost beheaded because the eldest grandson Song Shen was implicated in the Hu Weiyong case. Fortunately, Empress Dema and crown prince Zhu Biaolibao were spared death, but they still had to be exiled to Maozhou, and eventually the elderly Song Lian also died on the road of exile.
As far as personal feelings are concerned, as a fellow countryman, Yao Guangxiao, as a person who has personally experienced it, even though we cannot find out his dissatisfaction records from the historical records, but as a well-versed confucian and Buddhist Taoist master, and even more talented, from the major cases such as the Hu Weiyong case, the Blue Jade case, and the Li Shanchang case that Zhu Yuanzhang did, the combination of this trembling social environment and personal feelings also made him naturally choose to protect himself, but when he met and met Zhu Di, he found that Zhu Di was the best way to change this situation and realize himself.