The Mystery of Emperor Jianwen
In the first year of the Jianwen Dynasty (1399 A.D.), a large-scale civil war broke out in the Ming Dynasty, which lasted until the fourth year of Jianwen, ending with the yan rebels invading Nanjing. History calls it the "Battle of Jingnan".
This war led to the overthrow of the Jianwen court, and the rebel leader Zhu Di the Prince of Yan was able to become the emperor of the new imperial court, the Yongle Emperor in Chinese history. However, the legitimacy of the Yongle Emperor's throne has always been controversial. It was also because of this relationship that later generations always had sympathy for Emperor Jianwen.
When the Yan army invaded Nanjing, a fire broke out in Emperor Jianwen's palace. According to the Yongle imperial court, Emperor Jianwen had already died in the fire, but this claim has always been very controversial: some believe that Emperor Jianwen escaped under the cover of loyalists during the war, and the Yongle Emperor also secretly sent people to find the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen. And there are also a lot of folk legends about the footprints of Emperor Jianwen.
Was Emperor Jianwen killed by the Yongle Emperor?
Personally, I feel that the probability of Emperor Jianwen escaping to his birth is very high. All this can be seen from some details in the early days of the establishment of the Yongle Imperial Court.
Although the Ming Dynasty was also a patriarchal dynasty, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's illiteracy genes were deeply rooted, which led to the Ming emperors having a tradition of bad rules – such as the ascension of the Yongle Emperor to the throne and the great ceremonial dispute of the Jiajing Emperor era, which was typical of the destruction of the patriarchal system – of course, the destruction of the Yongle Emperor was out of a kind of helplessness.
When the Yongle Emperor ascended the throne, he planned to have Fang Xiaoru draft an edict and explain that he did not want to usurp the throne, but wanted to assist Emperor Jianwen, but only when Emperor Jianwen died did he consider becoming emperor.
Fang Xiaoru then questioned the Yongle Emperor according to the patriarchal system: Emperor Jianwen died and had a son; even if the son could not ascend the throne, he still had a younger brother, and no matter what, it was not his uncle's turn to become emperor.
In fact, it can be inferred from this detail: if the Yongle Emperor can capture Emperor Jianwen, he will inevitably pretend to assist the government for a period of time, and then coerce the Jianwen Emperor to give himself inner Zen, so that the legitimacy of the Yongle imperial court will be greatly enhanced. But the Yongle Emperor did not, but risked undermining the patriarchal system to be the emperor. Therefore, at least we can deduce the truth that even if Emperor Jianwen died in the imperial palace in Nanjing, it was definitely not the reason why the Yongle Emperor was subjectively killed.
What is the probability that Emperor Jianwen escaped?
The Yongle imperial court enforced secret service rule. In ancient times, due to the lack of popularization of Mandarin, many people who went to other places would be hindered by the factor of rural pronunciation. Many people are misled by martial arts films, thinking that rangers living in ancient times can be easily done. But in fact, this is just the imagination of future generations of ancient wishful thinking.
Therefore, even if Emperor Jianwen fled, it was very unrealistic to want to run through many provinces under the territory of the Yongle imperial court, which was ruled by secret agents. Therefore, I personally feel that Emperor Jianwen died most of the time in a fire.
However, after all, the Yongle Emperor could not determine whether the charred corpse of Emperor Jianwen really belonged to Emperor Jianwen, so he became a thief and sent people all over the world to look for Emperor Jianwen's body. The legend of Emperor Jianwen's escape has also been circulated in the folk. Eventually, it becomes an unsolved mystery.