Among all the founding heroes of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Da's battle achievements are undoubtedly the greatest.
Thirteen years after the Yuan Dynasty, the 22-year-old Xu Da came to Guo Zixing's army and later joined Zhu Yuanzhang's command.
From the beginning of the southern attack on Dingyuan, Xu Da was the first of Zhu Yuanzhang's twenty-four generals, and he led his troops to march forward in triumph, from Dingyuan to Nanjing, from the great battle of Chen Youyi to the elimination of Zhang Shicheng, from the Northern Ke Zhongyuan to the expulsion of Meng yuan, and made great achievements for the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.
Xu Da's exploits, even if you look at the entire history of ancient China, are extremely rare.
However, like his extraordinary life, his death is also full of legend.
When it comes to Xu Da's death, one of the most widely circulated stories is the steamed goose that only killed him.
According to legend, after Xu Da gave birth to back gangrene, he was forced to eat the steamed goose given by Zhu Yuanzhang, and died due to a back gangrene attack.
In history, there are many celebrities who died of back gangrene, such as Fan Zeng in the Chu and Han Dynasties, Liu Biao in the Three Kingdoms period, Meng Haoran, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, Zong Ze, the hero of the anti-Jin Dynasty, and so on.
According to folk sayings, geese are a "hair product", and eating steamed geese will cause the deterioration of back gangrene to cause rapid death.
After the Ming Dynasty's Jiangshan was stabilized, Zhu Yuanzhang also played the imperial heart technique of "flying birds and good bows", using the "four major cases" in the early Ming Dynasty to exhaust the "Huaixi Xungui" who had made great contributions to him, and most of the princes would be executed, and tens of thousands of people would be implicated.
For Xu Da, who had made great achievements in battle, Zhu Yuanzhang did not let go. Knowing that Xu Da had suffered back gangrene, he also sent someone to comfort him, and gave him a steamed goose, indirectly killing him.
The above story is widely circulated in China and has a great impact. In front of it, even the main history has to stand aside.
For example, the "Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang" written by the famous historian Wu Han introduced it as one of the crimes against Zhu Yuanzhang.
However, whether eating steamed goose can cause the death of patients with back gangrene is a question mark.
First of all, the incident in which eating a goose caused a back gangrene attack and died seems to have nothing in history except the death of Xu Da, which is the only case.
Secondly, from the perspective of modern medicine, the so-called back gangrene is a large-scale suppurative infection on the back of the human body, which is caused by fungal invasion of sebaceous glands and sweat glands. The main components of goose meat are protein, water, fat, etc., which will not accelerate the development of back gangrene.
In addition to the lack of scientific basis for "steaming geese can cause the death of patients with back gangrene", it is more important that it is not recorded at all in the "History of Ming".
For Xu Da's death, the Biography of Xu Da in the Ming Shi Xu Da records it as follows:
"Seventeen years, Taiyin committed a crime against the admiral, and the emperor's heart was evil. Da was ill in Beiping, back gangrene, slightly healed, emperor sent Da's eldest son Hui Zu to Lao, looking for a call back. In February of the next year, he fell ill and died at the age of fifty-four. The emperor was a dropout of the dynasty, and he mourned in mourning. ”
In the seventeenth year of Hongwu, there was a celestial phenomenon such as "Taiyin (Moon) Committing a General (Constellation)", which Zhu Yuanzhang thought was very unlucky. Sure enough, soon Xu Da fell ill in Beiping and suffered from back gangrene. His condition improved slightly, and Zhu Yuanzhang sent Xu Da's eldest son Xu Huizu to Beiping to offer condolences, and soon Xu Da was called back to Beijing. In February of the following year, Xu Da died of illness. Zhu Yuanzhang stopped listening to the government of the dynasty for this reason, and mourned when he mourned.
The above is the history of Xu Da's death in the "History of Ming", in which there is no trace of him eating steamed goose and dying.
As we all know, the History of ming was compiled by Zhang Tingyu, a minister in the early Qing Dynasty. If Zhu Yuanzhang really had such a huge "black spot" on his body, how could Zhang Tingyu easily let it go?
So, since Zhengshi did not mention it, where did the palm of the "steamed goose" come from?
Originally, the earliest record of this story is a wild history called "Zhai Sheng Ye Wen", which appeared in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the content of the record is mostly various hearsay gossip anecdotes, but it is not explicitly said that Xu Da ate steamed geese.
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the famous historian Zhao Yi processed this story a little in his "Twenty-Two Historical Notes" to enrich it.
Zhao Yi mentioned the phrase "steamed goose" for the first time, and said that "giving steamed goose is the most taboo goose for gangrene".
However, although he interpreted the story, even he himself believed that it was pure nonsense.
However, Zhao Yi is a famous artist after all, and the "Twenty-Two Historical Notes" is a famous work after all, so this objectively plays a role in fueling the widespread circulation of the "steamed goose theory".
From the historical data, Xu Da did die of back gangrene, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not give any steamed goose. Moreover, judging from Xu Da's "posthumous affairs", Zhu Yuanzhang's feelings with him were extraordinary, and there was no motive to kill him.
After Xu Da's death, Zhu Yuanzhang personally wrote a Shinto stele for him, and his tombstone was also the largest among the Ming Dynasty heroes. Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang also posthumously named him the King of Zhongshan and gave his ancestors three generations of ancestors as kings, which is the only example among the ming dynasty heroes.
Xu Da had four sons, all of whom were given names by Zhu Yuanzhang. After Xu Da's death, two sons inherited their father's titles, of which the eldest son, Xu Huizu, was stripped of his knighthood at home but eventually died because he opposed Zhu Di in the "Battle of Jingnan", which was inseparable from Xu Da's great influence.
Xu Da had three daughters, the eldest of whom, Xu Shi, married Zhu Di as a concubine and gave birth to the later Emperor Akihito, Zhu Gaozi, and the other two daughters also married Zhu Yuanzhang's sons.
Xu Da learned martial arts since childhood, and met Zhu Yuanzhang at the age of 22, although there is no record of them as childhood playmates in history, but from the perspective of the lifelong process of the two people working together, the friendship between them should be sincere.
What is more crucial is that Xu Da can not only recruit good warriors, but also has a high emotional intelligence, and after he became famous, he did not regard himself as a hero, but was low-key and cautious everywhere, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very satisfied.
Such a story is recorded in the History of Ming.
Once, Zhu Yuanzhang hosted a banquet in his palace when he was King of Wu, and he was known as a cloth brother, and Xu Da always respected Zhu Yuanzhang.
But Zhu Yuanzhang forced Xu Da to get drunk, and then let people carry him to his bedroom to rest. When Xu Da woke up, he was shocked and immediately ran to the bottom of the steps to kneel down, shouting "capital crime."
At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang was peeping from the side, and when he saw that the brave general Xu Da was so embarrassed, he was secretly happy, and he also ordered a new mansion to be built next to him, and the word "great merit" was inscribed on the square in front of the house.
Xu Da's high emotional intelligence is recorded in the history. In the folk, as opposed to "steamed goose", there is also the story of "a game of chess".
Once, Zhu Yuanzhang invited Xu Da to play Go. In the past, Xu Da knew that the emperor's chess skills were mediocre, so he always deliberately lost a few games. But this time, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to find trouble for him, so he ordered Xu Da to show his housekeeping skills, otherwise he would be punished with "cheating the king".
As a result, from the morning to noon, Zhu Yuanzhang only had a slight upper hand and never distinguished between victory and defeat. Just when Zhu Yuanzhang was undecided, Xu Da threw himself on his knees and even said that he could not play.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked Xu Da why, and Xu Da pointed to the chessboard and said, "Your Majesty, please see." Zhu Yuanzhang carefully examined Xu Da's drop, and it turned out that he vaguely posed the word "long live" on the chessboard.
Zhu Yuanzhang was overjoyed, and from then on he was no longer jealous of Xu Da, and the two reconciled as before. Xu Da not only successfully solved the dilemma, but also let the fierce emperor eliminate his suspicions about him. This game of chess has also become one of the reasons why he has a good ending.