What is the most risky and most rewarding investment? That's rebellion. However, there are very few successful cases of rebellion in history, and the success of rebellion is even rarer when the country is determined. Ming Chengzu Zhu Di is one of them.
So what exactly made Zhu Di's success can be roughly divided into three aspects, one is the historical trend, the other is the legacy of Zhu Di's father Zhu Yuanzhang, and the third is the innocence of his nephew. These three complemented each other, were each other's appearances, and together created the throne of Zhu Di.
Historical trends
For the agrarian Han people, the nomadic people from the north are a huge threat. They continued to go south to plunder wealth, using the rapid mobility of cavalry to form an asymmetrical advantage over the farming peoples. But nomadic peoples on the steppe are strong, and once they face off against the agrarian peoples with advanced productive forces, defeat and destruction become their fate.
But among the series of nomadic peoples in the northern frontier, there is one region that is different, this is a series of fishing and hunting tribes located in the northeast region. In the past years, the northeast was not a rich land, but to be precise, a region with the most difficult development of civilization. This is arguably the coldest piece of land with civilization, so the life of the fishing and hunting people here is also the hardest. In order to survive, the fishing and hunting peoples in the northeast have to be farming, nomadic, fishing and hunting, and once the living environment deteriorates, they begin to migrate and spread around.
Neither the nomadic nor the agrarian peoples could resist the struggle of these peoples to survive. Therefore, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xianbei in the northeast region began to rise. The ethnic groups in the northeastern region of the Tang Dynasty began to become a major threat to the Tang Empire. From then on, as the key front line against the northeast, hebei and Beijing areas became important places for the heavy army of the Central Plains Dynasty. At least one-third of the heavy army groups of the Central Plains Dynasty were concentrated here against the barbarians in the northeast.
Zhu Di held this key point in his hands, and he also drew a large number of military forces from the surrounding areas in countless Northern Expeditions. Therefore, when Emperor Jianwen cut the domain, the ministers of the cutting domain all thought that Zhu Di was the most powerful of the kings of the domain. The general trend of history gave Zhu Di a chance, otherwise he would be sent to the Western Heavens by a glass of poisonous wine like his other brothers.
The legacy of Old Father Zhu Yuanzhang
In history, there were countless people who relied on the rebellion in North China, but in the end, only Zhu Di succeeded. The most important factor in his success was not his strong military ability, but the legacy left by his father Zhu Yuanzhang gave him a reasonable excuse for rebellion.
Please don't underestimate the legacy left by Zhu Yuanzhang. First, when Zhu Yuanzhang was alive, he made his sons the kings of the domain and divided them in various places. His wishful thinking is to fight father and son soldiers and fight tiger brothers. When the imperial court had a problem, it had to rely on the old Zhu family's own help. Second, Zhu Yuanzhang himself said: As long as there are traitors in the imperial court, and the emperor is loyal and loyal, then the princes of the feudal regions can lead the army to fight. In order to ensure that the ancestral precepts can be observed from generation to generation, Zhu Yuanzhang even stipulated that those who dare to change the ancestral system in the future will be treated as traitors.
The king of the world can qingjun's side and kill the rebellious Zhu family to protect his world. This gave Zhu Di the greatest moral support, and he could use the excuse of the Qing dynasty to make his rebellion a reasonable and legitimate act of righteousness. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's legacy gave Zhu Di the possibility of success.
The most famous of the anti-thieves who started from Hebei in history is An Lushan. When An Lushan raised an army, no one could stop him, and in a very short period of time, he attacked the capital of the Tang Empire. However, after all, he was rebellious and obedient, and the people's hearts were not on his side, if it were not for Tang Xuanzong's indiscriminate command, An Lushan's rebellion could have been extinguished within a year.
Zhu Di is different. After his rebellion, he attacked south several times, but he did not succeed. Constantly the land was not expanded. Moreover, Zhu Di fought with the imperial court's army several times, but did not annihilate his main force, and his army continued to lose. This forced Zhu Di to make a desperate move to attack Nanjing from a long distance in the final attack. In this kind of ultra-long-distance raiding operation, Zhu Di had to face not only the obstruction of the imperial army, but also the logistical supply difficulties of his own army. But what is very surprising is that there is no record in the history books of where his logistics came from and how he was not attacked on the thousands of miles of transportation lines. This shows that Zhu Di had the support of many officials along the way in the process of attacking south, and these people provided grain and grass for Zhu Di. This is the reason why Zhu Di gained the support of some people in the name of the Qing Emperor's side.
With a reasonable foundation for rebellion, Zhu Di did not receive much resistance in the attack on the city, and did not encounter the same death as Zhang Patrol. After annihilating the main force of the imperial court in Huainan, he directly crossed the Yangtze River into the city of Nanjing, and except for a few courtiers loyal to Emperor Jianwen, a large number of officials in Nanjing paid tribute to Zhu Di. This greatly shows that in the imperial court at that time, a large number of officials had a kind of Schrödinger's cat-like contradiction in the rebellion of Zhu Di.
Nephew's innocence
Emperor Jianwen's political immaturity was the last factor in Zhu Di's success. Emperor Jianwen's ascension to the throne was purely accidental, it should have been his father Zhu Biao who ascended the throne as emperor, but unfortunately his untimely death disrupted Zhu Yuanzhang's deployment, and he had to let the untrained Jianwen Emperor ascend to the throne to deal with the affairs of the world.
Emperor Jianwen showed his immaturity in the initial slashing of the domain. Born in the deep palace, he did not know the dangers of the struggle. The princes who cut the domain did not take decisive measures, hesitated and wavered. This gave Zhu Di time to collude with these clan kings, and even more allowed Zhu Di to constantly replenish his strength in the face of repeated losses, which made it more difficult for the imperial army to recruit artificially.
What is even more ridiculous is that on the one hand, Emperor Jianwen hated Zhu Di to the bone and wished he would die quickly, on the other hand, he was unwilling to bear the notoriety of killing his uncle. In this state of mind, Emperor Jianwen actually ordered that he should not harm his uncle. Such a ridiculous order caused headaches for the generals on the front line, and Zhu Di also saw the cheap, and again and again he was in danger in the battle, but because of this order, Zhu Di did not suffer the slightest harm. It also gave Zhu Di the capital to stand in an invincible position. As a super excellent cavalry general, Zhu Di led the cavalry to charge the imperial court army again and again. Because of his nephew's orders, he saved his life again and again, thus leading his troops to gain superiority on the battlefield.
After Zhu Di's army entered Nanjing, the imperial palace lit a fire, and Emperor Jianwen finally did not know the end, and has never appeared in history since, the most likely is to hide his name after escaping. In fact, Emperor Jianwen could have a better choice, if he couldn't run away, he would come face to face with Zhu Di; if he escaped, he should call on the King of Qin. The situation of Emperor Jianwen was completely different from that of Emperor Xian of Han, who was a complete puppet, and Emperor Jianwen still had loyal subjects and troops even in the event of the fall of Nanjing.
Zhu Di's rebellion was in the name of the Qing emperor's side. Even if Emperor Jianwen did not run, Zhu Di could not kill his nephew Emperor Jianwen, but could only offer him as a god of wealth and act as a regent himself. If this is the case, Emperor Jianwen still has the opportunity to turn the tables, Zhu Di has not reached the level of complete control, in case One day Zhu Di is careless, he may deduce the fate of many powerful ministers in history and beheaded by several unknown pawns.
If Emperor Jianwen ran away, then Zhu Di would be more troublesome, and the war would be protracted.
However, Emperor Jianwen himself instigated him, and no one could find him, causing Zhu Di to directly use his identity as emperor to peel the skins of the courtiers loyal to Emperor Jianwen and slaughter them all under the oil pot. Emperor Jianwen personally buried the chance for the final reversal.
So Zhu Di is lucky, he has created his own great cause.