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It is the custom of successive dynasties and dynasties to crown a prince, but if it comes to hard power, only the prince of the early Ming Dynasty has the highest gold content.
During the feudal dynasty, anyone who had a prince could be called a prince. Taking the Tang Dynasty as an example, Li Shimin was the King of Qin before he ascended the throne, and Guo Ziyi was made the King of Fenyang after his meritorious service. Under normal circumstances, the one-character king is the prince, the highest rank, and the two-character king is the county king, and the grade is slightly inferior.
The reason why the Ming princes are different is that they are not ordinary princes, but the real king of the domain.
(Ming Dynasty Prince Stills)
In the third year of Hongwu (1370 AD), the world was initially determined, in order to stabilize the country and achieve long-term peace and stability, Zhu Yuanzhang did two major things, one was to reward meritorious heroes, and the other was to divide the crown prince.
Zhu Yuanzhang learned lessons, summed up experience, and creatively established the Ming Dynasty feudal system on the basis of drawing on the division of feudal titles from previous dynasties, and successively established the feudal system of the Ming Dynasty on the basis of drawing on the division of feudal titles from previous dynasties, and successively made twenty-four sons and one from sun to the king of the clan in the third year of Hongwu (1370), the eleventh year (1378), and the twenty-fourth year (1391), and the town guarded the main cities on the frontier and inland.
Zhu Yuanzhang had a total of 26 sons, and the reason why he only had 24 clan kings was because: Zhu Biao, the eldest son of the concubine, was a prince and did not need to be crowned king, while the twenty-sixth son of the emperor, Zhu Nan, was not born until zhu Yuanzhang was the last time he was crowned king of the clan, and died shortly after, so he did not have time to be crowned king.
Zhu Shouqian, the only ming dynasty king who was not directly related to Zhu Yuanzhang, was the son of Zhu Wenzheng, a famous general in the early Ming Dynasty. Zhu Wen was Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew, that is to say, Zhu Shouqian was Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew and also the bloodline of the Zhu family. On the eve of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Wenzheng was deposed for making mistakes, but Zhu Shouqian has always been loved and treated favorably by Zhu Yuanzhang. When Zhu Yuanzhang first sealed the world in the third year of Hongwu, Zhu Shouqian had the honor of being crowned king with his uncles, and he was in Jingjiang Province.
(Portrait of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang)
First, let's talk about the difference between a king of the clan and an ordinary prince.
The so-called king of the domain, that is, the prince or county king who has his own fief (vassal state), is the ruler between the local officials and the son of heaven.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the king of the domain not only had fiefdoms, but also official offices and armies, and his power and status were far higher than those of ordinary princes. For example, many of the princes of the Qing Dynasty were also crowned kings, such as: Yin Li, the King of Guo county, and Yi, the Prince of Gong. However, the princes of the Qing Dynasty were all false titles and had no real power, which was a world away from the princes of the Ming Dynasty.
Let's talk about the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang divided the king of the domain.
The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang made his sons the kings of the domain was twofold: first, to resist foreign enemies and resist the Northern Yuan; second, to defend the royal family and replace the heroes.
(Schematic map of the territory of the Ming Dynasty)
Defend against foreign enemies and fight against the Northern Yuan:
Although Zhu Yuanzhang destroyed the Yuan Dynasty, the threat from the remnants of the Northern Yuan in the early Ming Dynasty should not be underestimated. Zhu Yuanzhang divided the most important northern military lands to the eldest and most capable sons, the purpose of which was to let them guard the country's gates and defend the country.
From the perspective of effect, most of the kings of the clan lived up to their expectations and made great achievements in battle, especially Zhu Di, the fourth son of the emperor, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, and Zhu Quan, the seventeenth son of the emperor, The King of Ning. Zhu Yuanzhang was also very satisfied with the performance of the princes, and once issued such an exclamation: "There is no north to worry about! ”
(Ming Dynasty heroes stills, front row for Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen)
Arching the royal family and replacing the heroes:
The most significant feature of the Ming Dynasty's sub-feudalism is that there is no king with a different surname. No king with a different surname,
This is the ancestral precept established by Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty. In the 276 years of the Final Ming Dynasty, there was only one king with a different surname, Jin Zhong, the King of Zhongyong.
The Mongol princes who broke the ancestral feudal system and surrendered to Zhu Di also made Tugan king first, and gave the Han name Jin Zhong, which was a temporary measure. And what we often say about Xu Da, the king of Zhongshan, Chang Yuchun, the king of Kaiping, Li Wenzhong, the king of Qiyang, Deng Yu, the king of Ninghe, and Tang He, the king of Dong'ou, without exception, are all posthumously sealed, not really kings with different surnames.
Similarly, Mu Ying was also the King of Qianning who was posthumously honored, and the Mu family inherited only the title of Duke of Qianguo. The so-called Mu Wangfu, in fact, has never lived in any prince with the surname Mu.
Zhu Yuanzhang adhered to the idea of family and the world, and had great trust in his son and distrust of the heroes. He made all his sons the King of the Domain, and the town was guarded throughout the country, that is, to gradually replace the heroes with different surnames with the descendants of the Zhu family, so as to realize the eternal stability and long-term peace and stability of the Ming Dynasty.
(Portrait of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di)
From the perspective of effect, Zhu Yuanzhang's purpose can also be regarded as achieved. Just as the so-called "dragon gives birth to dragon, phoenix gives birth to phoenix, and the son of a mouse will punch holes", Zhu Yuanzhang has outstanding strategy, can fight a good battle, and his sons are not bad, they are outstanding, and they are indeed Zhu Yuanzhang's good helpers and good kings of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang's feudal system was not perfect, but had major flaws. That is, the strength of the king of the clan is too strong, and the tail is too big to fall, which directly threatens the central rule.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that the princes of the clan "divided the feudal land without tin soil, the lords did not come to the people, and the food was not governed", he did not fundamentally restrict the rights of the clan kings, especially in the military, gave them too much support and freedom, so that in the late Hongwu period, many clan kings even had the strength to compete with the central government.
In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang crossed over more than twenty sons in his later years and passed the throne to his grandson Zhu Yunjiao, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the kings of the clan, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, launched the "Battle of Jingnan" in the name of "Qing Junfang" and seized the throne. All this is the bane planted by Zhu Yuanzhang himself.
(Zhu Di in the Battle of Jingnan)
Generally speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's feudal system has advantages and disadvantages, achieving the established purpose in the short term, but forming major hidden dangers in the long run. In order to eliminate this hidden danger, after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he increased the restrictions on the king of the clan, stipulating that the members of the clan were not farmers, workers, scholars, and merchants, and only enjoyed certain economic and political treatment as clansmen. That is to say, the Ming Dynasty king after Yongle was greatly weakened in strength and greatly reduced in threat. However, new problems have arisen.
According to the statistics of the "Tianhuang Yumu", by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Zhu family's ancestral office reached 600,000. Such a large number of members of the clan government, "not farming, not working, not soldiers, not merchants", have no income, and rely entirely on the state to provide for them, which is a huge financial expenditure. In the final analysis, Zhu Di simply turned political risks into economic burdens.
Resources:
"History of Ming", "Ming Shilu"?