Ancient China had two very clever political means, the first was marriage, and the second was to recognize the righteous son (recognize the father). In fact, both points can be attributed to one point, that is, to increase the relationship between the two people through kinship to achieve some political purpose.
This kind of behavior through "playing the family affection card" can indeed consolidate the position to some extent and play a very good role, so this practice has always been used by the emperor and the ministers. Marriage between emperors and ministers, marriages between ministers and ministers.
There are not many emperors in history who have adopted dry sons, but Zhu Yuanzhang is a different kind, because he has adopted 20 dry sons at once, and when he sees a poor child, he adopts one, he does not want these children to live the kind of life he used to have, he wants to change the fate of these children.
After other people adopt a child, no matter what the child's previous surname is, they must follow the surname of the righteous father, but Zhu Yuanzhang is different, what their previous surname is, and what will they be surnamed in the future.
Zhu Yuanzhang's more than twenty sons were Mu Ying, He Wenhui, Li Wenzhong, Sima Xu, Ping'an, and so on, and these sons made great contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang and were Zhu Yuanzhang's right and left arm.
So why didn't Zhu Yuanzhang let them take the surname Zhu? In fact, this is precisely where Zhu Yuanzhang's cleverness lies. Let's take Mu Ying as an example today and analyze it in detail. Like Zhu Yuanzhang, Mu Ying had a poor family and an unhappy childhood, but they both met good people.
Zhu Yuanzhang met Guo Zixing, Mu Ying met Zhu Yuanzhang, and the fate of the two changed since then. After Zhu Yuanzhang came to Haozhou, he saw Mu Ying walking alone on the street, alone, and he had compassion in his heart, and he accepted Mu Ying as his son and changed his surname to Zhu Ying, called Zhu Ying.
Zhu Yuanzhang and Empress Ma did not have sons, so Zhu Ying was the first son of both of them, and Empress Ma was kind in heart and regarded Zhu Ying as her own son.
After Zhu Ying grew up, Zhu Yuanzhang took him with him and personally taught him the art of war. Zhu Ying is talented and intelligent, has a strong learning ability, and independently leads the army to fight, becoming the right and left arm of Zhu Yuanzhang's side.
Zhu Ying made great contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang's pacification of the world, and his military achievements were outstanding, and he was deeply favored by Zhu Yuanzhang.
On the eve of Zhu Yuanzhang's claim to the throne, he called out all his sons, and he said to his sons: "Now that you have grown up, you no longer need to be surnamed Zhu, you should change back to your original surname!" ”
After listening to the sons, they were moved to tears, Zhu Yuanzhang was really very good to them, not only did they have the grace of nurturing them, but also let them change back to their surnames, they were determined to swear allegiance to Zhu Yuanzhang, especially Zhu Ying, he became Mu Ying again, he was more excited than anyone, excited.
In the fourteenth year of Ming Hongwu (1381 AD), Zhu Yuanzhang took Fu Youde as the general of Zhengnan and Lan Yu and Mu Ying as deputy generals, and led troops to conquer Yunnan.
After a fierce battle, the Ming army won a complete victory, and then Fu Youde and Lanyu Banshi returned to the dynasty, zhu Yuanzhang let Mu Yingzhen guard Yunnan, and since then the Mu family has guarded Yunnan for generations, guarding the stability of the Ming frontier until the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
Mu Jianping in the wuxia novel "Deer Ding" is a person from MuFu in Yunnan, and she is a descendant of Mu Ying.
Zhu Yuanzhang is so clever, he adopted a dry son, this dry son and his descendants have guarded the stability of Daming for 270 years, no matter how you look at it, how to calculate, this is a stable and profitable transaction.
Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang had the grace of nurturing his sons, and did not let them be surnamed Zhu, which must have made the sons of Gan grateful and swear allegiance to the Ming Dynasty.
References: History of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Shilu, Hongwu The Great, etc