Zhu Yuanzhang is a legendary emperor in the history of our country and the founding monarch of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang's starting point is very low, he lives in a very poor peasant family, because his ancestors have been in debt for generations, so Zhu Yuanzhang has followed his father everywhere since he was a child.
Because his family was poor and could not afford to read, Zhu Yuanzhang's childhood could only herd cattle for the local rich landlords. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang joined the anti-Yuan struggle, Zhu Yuanzhang was born with a flexible mind, clever and astute, and fought heroically in the ranks, so Zhu Yuanzhang was deeply appreciated by the commanders.
Zhu Yuanzhang's excellent qualities such as shrewdness and ability and pioneering soldiers allowed him to slowly climb one ladder after another in the army, and finally became the commander of the anti-Yuan rebel army.
Picture: Zhu Yuanzhang herded cattle as a child
In the ensuing anti-Yuan struggle, Zhu Yuanzhang first used Yingtian as his combat base and defeated Chen Youyu. Then Zhu Yuanzhang quickly eliminated Zhang Shicheng. After destroying one dangerous enemy after another on the road of resisting the Yuan, Zhu Yuanzhang began to send troops to Nanjing.
Zhu Yuanzhang appointed Xu Da as a general and Chang Yuchun as a deputy general, and these two people were simply Zhu Yuanzhang's right and left arms, and they won great victories in every war. Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of the victory to pursue and completely destroy the Yuan Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang's great talent and fierce heart allowed him to constantly win victories in the anti-Yuan struggle.
After years of conquest, the Mongol men died on the battlefield and were wounded, and after the complete annihilation of the Yuan, most of the Mongols captured by Zhu Yuanzhang were women.
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Hundreds of thousands of captured Mongol women, how did Zhu Yuanzhang arrange them?
Image: Stills of a captured Mongolian woman
Zhu Yuanzhang was cruel and vicious, and after destroying the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang captured many Yuan Officials and Mongolian women. At that time, many people felt that they would definitely not survive under Zhu Yuanzhang's hands, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not kill them.
Among the many officials captured, Zhu Yuanzhang left behind many officials from before the Yuan Dynasty. In addition, for the women in the harem of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to release them all. The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang treated these Mongolian women well was actually that he had his own ideas, and there were three main reasons.
The first point is to kill the incest practices of the Yuan Dynasty.
The Mongols had no taboos about incest, and when the father died, his son would naturally inherit the father's property status and wife. But for the Han Chinese, incest is an unacceptable taboo.
The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang released all the women in the harem of the Yuan Dynasty instead of staying in the palace was actually to prevent them from bringing this incest habit to the palace of the Ming Dynasty.
The second point is to prevent hatred among the Mongols.
In the anti-Yuan struggle, Zhu Yuanzhang fought countless wars, large and small, and also killed countless Mongols. Now that the war is over, Zhu Yuanzhang chose to leave a way for Mongolian women to live, in fact, so that they no longer resented the Han people.
In this way, they can choose to return to their hometown to graze animals, or they can stay in the Central Plains to engage in Han agriculture. In short, the Mongols who saved their lives will soon fade the resentment in their hearts in the future life.
The third and most important point is to prevent the differentiation of the Han and Mongol ethnic groups.
In order for the two nationalities to live together in friendship and harmony, it is necessary to exchange cultures between the two sides.
After Zhu Yuanzhang released the captured Mongol women, most of them would remain in the Central Plains. This will promote intermarriage between the two ethnic groups, and after intermarriage, the various cultures such as the language and clothing of the two ethnic groups will quickly merge together in a short period of time.
In this way, it will be more able to promote the friendly coexistence between the Han and Mongolian ethnic groups, and in a long time, the Mongolian people will gradually like the Han culture, and develop the living habits of the Han people, and gradually they will be the same as the Han people. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang took this approach, but also hoped to be able to hanify the Mongols.
Image: Stills of Hammon intermarriage
Zhu Yuanzhang was indeed an emperor with great talent and great talent in Chinese history, and many of the measures he took after the destruction of the Yuan Dynasty were much stronger than those done by the previous emperors during the change of dynasties, which also laid the foundation for the later prosperity of the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty to unify the world, he attached great importance to the integrity and honesty of officials. For those corrupt officials, Zhu Yuanzhang took very severe punitive measures and showed no mercy. As long as he found that the officials had embezzled 60 taels of silver, Zhu Yuanzhang would directly sentence him to death.
It is said that during the thirty-one years of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, more than 100,000 officials were killed for corruption. It can be seen from this that Zhu Yuanzhang's fierce heart is not casually said. The following is another story after Zhu Yuanzhang unified the world.
Image: Stills of corrupt officials being executed
According to the records, one day Zhu Yuanzhang and Empress Ma were having dinner together, and Empress Ma was Zhu Yuanzhang's married couple, sharing hardships with him. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to the two of them' meal, which was originally a warm and happy meal, but it was disturbed by a small hair.
Zhu Yuanzhang was eating when he suddenly found a small strand of hair. The good mood disappeared in an instant, and Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and immediately ordered that the Guanglu Temple Secretary, who was in charge of cooking, be summoned.
At this time, the palace ladies around Zhu Yuanzhang, including Empress Ma, were extremely nervous, just because of this hair, the rough Zhu Yuanzhang might make the entire harem kitchen die, but Guanglu Siqing skillfully resolved this crisis.
Guanglu Siqing came to Zhu Yuanzhang's face, and did not show a trace of nervousness and trepidation, he did not hesitate to explain to the emperor, this is not actually a hair, but your dragon whiskers. After Zhu Yuanzhang listened, he was suddenly shocked and quickly touched his beard.
I didn't expect this touch, and I really covered two small whiskers. Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked, it seemed that the hair in the meal was really his beard. At this time, the furious Zhu Yuanzhang instantly calmed down and continued to return to a relaxed and pleasant state.
Image: Zhu Yuanzhang eats stills
Empress Ma also took the opportunity to play the round field and told Zhu Yuanzhang that there were dragon whiskers in today's dishes, which was really better than all the delicacies in the world. Zhu Yuanzhang was naturally very happy to hear this, so he turned his anger into joy, not only did not question the imperial cook of the harem, but also promoted to the official position of secretary of the Guanglu Temple.
As the saying goes, accompanying the king is like accompanying the tiger, fortunately, Guanglu Siqing is witty and flexible enough to successfully resolve Zhu Yuanzhang's anger, if it were not for the ingenious circle of Guanglu Siqing and Empress Ma, I am afraid that hundreds of imperial cooks would suffer.
From then on, the Secretary of the Guanglu Temple issued a death order, and everyone in the imperial kitchen must shave their heads. This time fortunately, the reaction was fast, and the next time I had hair, it was estimated that I would not be as lucky as I was at that time.
Article author: Zi Haojun
The whole graphic was produced by the Zi Haoxin team!