Twenty-five years after Hongwu, the crown prince Zhu Biao died, and his death had a huge impact on the entire Ming Dynasty in the course of the next few hundred years of history. Zhu Yuanzhang, who had been in a semi-reclusive state, returned to take charge of the imperial government, and Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunjiao succeeded his father as the new crown prince.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's conception, Daming should be guarded by the princes of the clan, and the eldest son Zhu Biao should inherit the unification. Zhu Yuanzhang poured a lot of effort into Zhu Biao's body, and his death disrupted a series of layouts of Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yunjiao, as the crown prince, was also much inferior to Zhu Biao, so this throne was really not very stable.
Although the crown prince Zhu Biao did not inherit the grumpy personality of old Zhu, he was benevolent and humble, after all, he received imperial education from an early age, and the younger brothers at the bottom were mostly convinced of this generous big brother, so he was still a good heir; but Zhu Biao died early, and the eldest son also died early, leaving only the second son.
Old Zhu did not care that "there was a difference between concubines" and made Zhu Yunjiao the crown prince, and also supported his mother Lü Shizheng, which almost killed the other sons. ''You are not merciful to me'", as soon as old Zhu Died, the ambitious Zhu Di led a large army to the Forbidden City. In 1402, the imperial palace was on fire, but the defeated Zhu Yunjiao evaporated from this world.
After Zhu Di ascended to the throne, he was very worried that Zhu Yunjiao would one day re-gather forces to regain power, and he was even more worried that some people in the people would raise troops in the name of Zhu Yunjiao, so he arranged secret agents in various parts of the country to secretly help him find Zhu Yunjiao's subordinates, and even Zheng He in Nanyang actually shouldered the task of going overseas to find Zhu Yunjiao's whereabouts at the beginning.
At that time, Zhu Di had a very high-ranking and powerful minister named Hu Qi, who was Zhu Di's confidant. Zhu Di ostensibly arranged for Hu Xi to go out to find Zhang Sanfeng in the fifth year of Yongle, and hu Qian's real task was actually to secretly visit Zhu Yunxiu's whereabouts and report some folk secrets to Zhu Di.
Hu Xi looked for Zhu Yunjiao's clues in the folk for more than ten years, but he never found any useful information. Until the twenty-first year of Yongle, zhu Di had gone to bed on this day, but Hu Qian suddenly asked to see him in the middle of the night. Normal people who are disturbed by their dreams must be upset and even angry, and Zhu Di is the same. But as soon as Zhu Di heard that it was Hu Xi who asked to see him, he instantly bounced off the bed and talked with Hu Xi in the secret room for a whole night.
Obviously, Hu Qian had been in the folk for more than ten years, and suddenly came to Zhu Di without instructions, then he must have come with Zhu Yunjiao's intelligence. The original description of this incident in the History of the Ming Dynasty is: "'What is heard is right, and the four drums are missing'". Translated into the vernacular text, it means that Hu Xi reported everything he had seen and heard to Zhu Di, and talked about coming out at four o'clock in the morning, and he could talk for so long, and the amount of information must be very large.
Immediately after that, the "History of Ming" wrote such a crucial sentence: "'The ultimate doubt is the beginning of the interpretation'", which means that Zhu Di finally dispelled the doubts in his heart, and the knot in his heart that had been trying to find Zhu Yunjiao for many years was finally unraveled. So what exactly did Hu Qian say to Zhu Di? After the reasoning of the Ming historians, Hu Hao must have determined that Zhu Yunjiao was no longer a threat before he dared to report these news to Zhu Di.
So where did Zhu Yunjiao go? This matter has become an unsolved case for thousands of years, and different historical books give completely different accounts. It is mentioned in the "History of Ming" that Zhu Yunjiao was likely to become a monk later, and had traces of life in the Yunguichuan area: between Yunnan and Qianbashu, it is said that there were traces of emperors who came and went when they were monks. ''。
During the Qing Dynasty, there are also historical records that Zhu Yunjiao lived in the Zhengxu Temple of Shishan and was ordained as a monk: "'Stop at the Zhengxu Temple of Shishan for decades'", so Zhu Yunjiao's last foothold should belong to the Yungui area and become a monk here, which is one of the reasons why the Southern Ming would choose to focus on the southwest region later.