They also seized the throne by killing, but the historical evaluation of Zhu Di was far lower than that of Li Shimin. However, in the recent film and television drama "Daming Fenghua", the portrayal of Zhu Di is relatively neutral. In the play, Zhu Di is not only a rebellious king of the clan, but also an uncle who wants to apologize to his nephew, and a monarch who wants to benefit the people of Li. As Zhu Di said in the play: As jianwen's second uncle, he has something wrong with himself, but as a monarch, he is indeed right. Indeed, as the facts of history have shown, the struggle for the throne is inherently the survival of the fittest. Moreover, this Zhu Di was not just a prince without morality who only pursued the highest power.
In fact, during Zhu Di's reign, all the development of the whole country was positive and progressive, and he made great efforts in various aspects, such as the world-famous "Yongle Canon", which was compiled during this period. There was once a scene in the play: Zhu Di attacked Zhu Gaoxu, the King of Han, who was supervising the country, and blamed him for not doing as well as his eldest brother Zhu Gaoxu, who had been supervising the country for several years and had never reached out to himself because of the matter of silver money. And the King of Han directly began to refute it: the state's annual fiscal revenue is 75 million taels, and you will need 15 million taels for you to repair the Yongle Canon, not to mention other miscellaneous expenses. In the end, the angry and corrupt King Han directly threw his clothes away in anger.
In fact, it can also be seen from here that the cultivation of the Yongle Canon is indeed a very expensive thing, and the cost of repairing the book is no less than the cost of fighting a war. However, for Zhu Di, this cultivation of the book was an unstoppable thing. First of all, during the Ming Taizu period, Zhu Yuanzhang had plans to revise books, but for various reasons, this matter was shelved and not completed. In the Zhu Di period, one is to fulfill his father's long-cherished wish, and the other is to prove himself.
Secondly, Zhu Di only ascended to the throne after overthrowing his eldest nephew Zhu Yunjiao. Although it is said that the king was defeated, this throne was not decent enough after all. Therefore, Zhu Di hopes that he can leave a good impression in the history of Zhengzheng, and compiling books is undoubtedly one of the best ways to change his image. After all, the pen is in the hands of the literati, and in Zhu Di's view, as long as he makes good enough contributions to literature, he may be able to change the influence he has left to the world. Therefore, Zhu Di spent all his efforts to cultivate the Yongle Canon.
From 1403 to the end of 1408, after six years and more than 2,000 people participated in the compilation of the Yongle Canon, the book was finally completed. The Yongle Canon is known as "the largest encyclopedia ever recorded in the world", with a total of 22,877 volumes, of which the catalogue accounts for 60 volumes, a total of 11,095 volumes, about 370 million words, bringing together 7,000 or 8,000 kinds of ancient and modern books, which is a symbol of Chinese culture and shows the glorious achievements of ancient Chinese science and culture. However, what is the current state of such an important collection of documents? After hundreds of years of circulation, has it remained in its original state?
No, it's not. After the completion of this book, it has been continuously lost since the Ming Dynasty. In 1449, the Wenyuan Pavilion in Nanjing was on fire, and the original manuscript of the Yongle Canon was burned, and the later circulation was the manuscript. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, part of it was because of the guards' self-theft, resulting in a large loss of books. By 1900, the Boxers had set fire to the Hanlin Temple, leaving little of the manuscript of the Yongle Canon. There is also a claim that the Eight-Power Coalition burned the book, but it has not been confirmed. That is to say, the whereabouts of the original copies of the Yongle Canon are actually not particularly clearly recorded in history, and most of the manuscripts that have been handed down later are the manuscripts at that time.
It is a pity that such a masterpiece has not been completely preserved, which is really a major regret in ancient Chinese history. Today, the manuscript of the Yongle Canon that has been left behind, after experiencing various upheavals and wars, has a total of only about 400 volumes and 810 volumes, which have also been scattered around the world, with a total of 30 units collected separately. Such a situation is really regrettable! However, in 2002, the Beijing Library Publishing House officially launched the original yongle dadian (永樂大典), and they also resolved to photocopy all the existing Yongle Canons in the world.