After Wang Yangming quelled the rebellion of King Ning, Emperor Mingwuzong Zhu Houzhao, who had personally conscripted the emperor halfway, did not buy it, and he even threatened: You have released King Ning and let You arrest him again!
This frightened Wang Yangming and immediately pushed all his credit to Zhu Houzhao, which made Zhu Houzhao reluctantly return to the dynasty. But on the way to the class, something went wrong!
Zhu Houzhao was more playful, and after he arrived in Qingjiangpu, he had to row a boat to play with water fishing, and as a result, he overturned the boat! By the time he was caught, Zhu Houzhao was already dying.
The princes who returned to the capital immediately collapsed. Not long after, 31-year-old Zhu Houzhao died. The key is that Zhu Houzhao has no son! Therefore, before Zhu Houzhao's death, yang Tinghe, the first assistant minister, took out the "Imperial Ming Ancestral Training", in which he turned out the rules of "brother and brother and brother", and took Zhu Houxi, the king of Xing, to inherit the throne. Zhu Houxi was later known as the Jiajing Emperor. So the question is, why did Yang Tinghe have to choose Zhu Houxi?
First, Zhu Houzhao had no brothers, so he had to choose from his cousins.
Zhu Houzhao's father, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, was a very special emperor. He had only 1 empress in his life, without any concubines, and maintained a monogamous and concubine-free system, which was the only one in history.
As an emperor, there are several harem beauties, which are basically standard. This has been the case in all dynasties and dynasties, but Zhu Youfan is an exception. This may be related to Zhu Youfan's origin.
Zhu Youfan's father, Emperor Mingxianzong, was a standard lover. Zhu Jianshen only loved one woman in his life, that is, Wan Guifei, who was 17 years older than him. But as an emperor, his harem naturally has many beautiful women. Zhu Youfan's mother, Ji Shi, was one of the most inconspicuous little palace girls.
Princess Wan Guifei was older and died prematurely for Zhu Mishen's son, after which she began to monitor the harem and did not allow any woman to conceive Zhu Mishen's child in front of her! But in a chance encounter, Ke Ji was pregnant with Zhu Jianshen's child. This child is Zhu Youfan.
In order to save Zhu Youfan, Ji Shi locked Zhu Youfan in a dark hut and lived for 6 years. It was not until he was 6 years old that he dared to pull him out to meet his father Zhu Mi.
Ji Shi was killed by Wan Guifei soon after, and as for Zhu Youfan, under the protection of the empress dowager, he barely survived. Therefore, Zhu Youfan's experience from childhood determined his future mentality. His insistence on monogamy and no concubines may have a lot to do with his lonely childhood.
There was only 1 empress, and it was doomed that Zhu Youfan's heirs would not be many. Empress Zhang of Zhu Youfan gave birth to 2 sons for Zhu Youfan, one of whom died prematurely, leaving only Zhu Houzhao as a son. Therefore, Zhu Youzhao had no choice at all, no matter what kind of goods Zhu Houzhao was, he had to pass the throne to Zhu Houzhao.
Therefore, as an ordinary person, insisting on monogamy and no concubines is a must. But as an emperor, if you have to do this, it is very likely to lead to instability in the country. Zhu Houzhao had no brothers, so he could only choose a successor from his cousins.
Second, why can Zhu Houxi stand out from many cousins?
Since Zhu Youzhao's only son, Zhu Houzhao, had died, then Zhu Youfan's vein was broken. You can only choose a successor from Zhu Jianshen's grandchildren, so how many grandsons does Zhu Jianshen have?
First of all, Zhu Mishen had 13 sons. Since Zhu Youfan was discovered and survived, Wan Guifei no longer prevented the harem women from having children, so Zhu Jianshen's sons were getting more and more every year.
Secondly, among these 13 sons, there are only 5 grandchildren who can give birth to Zhu Jianshen, namely: the third son, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Zhu Youshu, the fourth son, Zhu Youbi, the fourth son, Zhu Youbin, the sixth son, Zhu Youbin, the seventh son, Heng Wang, and Zhu Youshu, the thirteenth son.
Zhu Youfan had two sons, namely: Zhu Houzhao (Emperor Wuzong of Ming) and Zhu Houwei (who died prematurely).
Zhu Youzhao had two sons, namely: Zhu Houxi (who died prematurely) and Zhu Houxi (Emperor Jiajing).
Zhu Youbin had 4 sons, namely: Zhu Houye, Zhu Houxuan, Zhu Houhuang, and Zhu Houyi.
Zhu Youyi had 7 sons, namely: Zhu Houxi, Zhu Houyin, Zhu Houxi, Zhu Houxuan, Zhu Houbing, Zhu Houxuan, and Zhu Hou.
Zhu Youshu had 6 sons, namely: Zhu Houxun, Zhu Houxi, Zhu Houxu, Zhu Houxuan, Zhu Haoran, and Zhu Hou.
It can be seen from this that Zhu Jianshen still has many children and many grandchildren, and there are 21 grandchildren alone. Of these 21 grandsons, in addition to Zhu Houzhao and Zhu Houwei, the remaining 19 are, why did Zhu Houxi succeed to the throne?
From the perspective of age, in fact, Zhu Houxi does not have an advantage. At that time, Zhu Houye was 9 years older than Zhu Houxi, and Zhu Houxun was also 4 years older than Zhu Houxi. So what are zhu houxi's advantages?
In fact, when Yang Tinghe made a choice, he did not look at the age of this grandchild at all, he looked at the ranking order of the fathers of these grandchildren. Zhu Houxi's father, Zhu Youzhao the Prince of Xingxian, ranked fourth among Zhu Jianshen's sons, second only to Zhu Youxi.
Therefore, according to this order, Zhu Houxi was the top one among Zhu Jianshen's grandsons at that time. The Ming Dynasty implemented the standard primogeniture inheritance system, and the phenomenon of seniority ranking was very serious, so there was nothing wrong with Zhu Houxi's smooth succession to the unification by virtue of his father's ranking.
Under the joint arrangement of Empress Zhang (Zhu Houzhao's biological mother) and the first assistant minister Yang Tinghe, the 15-year-old Zhu Houxi entered the capital and ascended the throne as emperor. However, a storm only blew the prelude.
Summary: Empress Zhang and Yang Tinghe must regret their choices.
Empress Zhang was Zhu Houzhao's mother and the only empress of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, and her status in the Ming Dynasty was too high. Unfortunately, Zhu Houzhao had no sons, and Empress Zhang had no other living sons, so she had to pin her hopes on Zhu Houxi.
The problem is that Empress Zhang never considered that Zhu Houxi had a mother! Although Zhu Houxi's father, Zhu Youzhao, the Prince of Xingxian, died, Zhu Houxi's mother, Jiang Shi, was still alive. This is good, Jiang Shi was crowned by Zhu Houxi as the Empress Dowager, with the support of her son, Empress Jiang naturally bullied Empress Zhang miserably, and Empress Zhang had nowhere to speak out.
Yang Tinghe also regretted to death, why? Because the 15-year-old Zhu Houxi is very personal, he completely disobeys discipline. At that time, Yang Tinghe asked Zhu Houxi to succeed to the throne as the heir of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming and renamed Zhu Youfu the Prince of Xingxian as the emperor's uncle, but the people refused, or they did not do it directly.
In the end, Yang Tinghe had to compromise, and as a result, he did not expect that this compromise allowed Zhu Houxi to find the bottom line of Yang Tinghe and others. After that, Zhu Houxi squeezed Yang Ting and these gangs in his hands and played around, and Yang Tinghe had no way at all.
Reference: History of the Ming Dynasty