After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, he passed the throne to Zhu Yunjiao, and Zhu Di, who was crowned the King of Yan, attacked the imperial capital under the pretext of cutting the domain and raising troops. After Zhu Di launched the "Battle of Jingnan" to seize the throne, he began to massacre the ministers and generals who supported Zhu Yunjiao, as well as the king of the clan who had not dealt with him before, but Zhu Yuanzhang's righteous son Mu Ying and his descendants still sat firmly in Yunnan and were not affected in any way. Why did Zhu Di not move Mu Ying's descendants?
One is that Mu Ying did not have any conflict of interest with him before his death, Mu Ying's contribution to the Ming court was very large, and more importantly, he guarded the southwest border for Daming Town for more than ten years, never made any mistakes, and Zhu Di, who was unstable, did not want to see the border uneasy. Second, Mu Wangfu's control over Yunnan at that time was very strong, and it can be said that it was a "land snake" type figure in Yunnan. At that time, the Ming court was greatly traumatized due to the "Battle of Jingnan", the national strength was greatly weakened, and the small border countries were looking at the tiger, and Zhu Di could not do anything to the descendants of the Mu family who guarded the gate of the Ming Dynasty. Third, at that time, the descendants of the Mu family obeyed the ancestral precepts, and the Mu family, who acted low-key, did not form parties with the imperial court ministers for personal gain, and did their best for the country, no matter who the emperor was, they only guarded the Ming Dynasty.
Mu Ying and the Mu Ying family
Mu Ying was a famous founding general of the Ming Dynasty, and in the process of unifying Yunnan, after a series of military operations and activities such as setting up official guards, Mu Ying, Fu Youde, Lan Yu, and other Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers not only brilliantly fulfilled the mission of unifying Yunnan, basically established the military and administrative control system of the Ming Dynasty government in Yunnan, but also effectively safeguarded the early achievements of the Ming Dynasty in Yunnan, opened the prelude to maintaining the stability of the Ming Dynasty, and also strengthened the management of Yunnan by the local guards of the Ming Dynasty represented by the Mu family in the future. Development and construction lay a good foundation. In addition, while Mu Ying was under the command of the town of Yunnan, while continuing to try to quell various disturbances in Yunnan and its surrounding areas, strengthening military deployment and improving the military management system, Mu Ying paid great attention to stabilizing the social order in Yunnan, improving the people's production and living environment, and developing and building Yunnan. For example, Mu Ying reclaimed a large amount of land by popularizing the methods of military tun, resettlement and reclamation of seeds, although the historical records about the number of land reclaimed by Mu Ying during the period when the town guarded Yunnan are very inconsistent, such as the "Present Dedication" contains "reclaiming land to more than 300,000 mu", "Huang Ming Wenheng" contains "reclamation of land to 570,000 mu", "Ming Mingchen Huan Yan Record" contains "divided army reclamation of 970,000 mu" (this number does not include the number of mintun soil fields), "Huang Ming Book" contains "reclamation of million mu of land", "Three Family Lineage", "Records of the Sacrifice of the State Dynasty", "Records of the Sacrifice of the State Dynasty". The "Records of the Words and Deeds of Ming Mingchen" contains 1012,000 mu of reclaimed land, and the "DianZhi" records that he "reclaimed more than 9 million mu", but the number of them is beyond doubt. This measure of his not only basically solved the problems of the ming Dynasty's officers and men stationed in Yunnan and their transfer without increasing the burden on the people of Yunnan, but also greatly promoted the development and construction of Yunnan's social economy. In addition, the esteemed and powerful Mu Yingyou Li literati inkers, especially his condescension to an unknown ordinary Confucian student and his ability to truly act according to his words, has also played an exemplary role in respecting knowledge and talents for future generations.
Coupled with the specific historical background and conditions of Yunnan, the Ming Dynasty first adopted the sub-feudal system or the toast system in the sense of yunnan jurisdiction, which is not in the full sense, and was different from the sub-feudal system of the provincial capital, prefecture and county system or the county system characterized by the flow of officials. This transitional management system between the system of sub-feudalism and the system of provincial capitals, prefectures and counties was used by the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, so that the descendants of Mu Ying were able to take charge of the town to guard the official seal of the Yunnan General Army for generations, sit in Yunnan, and have considerable power and influence in the administrative, judicial, and economic fields of Yunnan, such as the thirty years of Hongwu (1397) in the spring of the first month of the Ming Dynasty, when Ming Taizu ordered Yunnan to "discuss the important affairs of the army and the people, still order and the Marquis of Xiping Mu Chunzhi"; during the Yongle period, Ming Chengzu would also " Remote affairs (according to Yunnan government affairs)... One to pay (Mu) Sheng". Until the end of the Ming Dynasty, when Mu Tianbo led the town of Yunnan, the Mu family still enjoyed certain privileges in the administrative, judicial and financial fields of Yunnan. In addition, the Ming Dynasty royal family often used the deeds of Mu Ying, the ancestor of the Mu family, to supervise Mu Ying's descendants, asking them to emulate Mu Ying, do their best for the imperial court, stick to the southwest frontier, and also give special tolerance and preferential treatment to Mu's descendants. The emperors of the Ming Dynasty were very concerned about the children of the Mu family, and for the eldest son to let them inherit the title, and for those second sons who could not inherit the title, they would also be put into the army for training, although these family children did not have the wisdom of their ancestors Mu Ying, they all inherited Mu Ying's diligent and studious qualities, and also followed Mu Ying's family training of being a cautious person, and their performance in the military did not disappoint the emperors of all generations. Therefore, the Mu family was able to overcome the danger several times. The descendants of the Mu clan guarded the southwest frontier for generations until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, with a total of more than 260 years, a total of 12 generations and 14 terms. The Mu family was extremely prominent during the reign of the Ming Dynasty, not only holding the largest fiefdom among the kings of the Ming Dynasty, but also having a place in the Ming officialdom.