On May 10, 31931, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, passed away, and according to the will, the throne would be inherited by his grandson Zhu Yunjiao.
Zhu Yunjiao was born in November of the 10th year of Hongwu, and was made the emperor's grandson after the death of Crown Prince Zhu Biao in the 25th year of Hongwu. He was only 21 years old when he succeeded to the throne.
However, although Zhu Yunjiao was still young at this time, he was a shrewd and capable monarch with great ambitions.
In his edict of succession, he clearly proposed to carry out the "government of restoration" in order to make the Ming Dynasty reach the "prosperity of Yongxi".
But don't think that he is just talking, during zhu Yunjiao's 4 years in power, he introduced many policies, most of which were good policies that were conducive to the national economy and people's livelihood, but there were only two major events that triggered the turmoil in the political situation of the Ming Dynasty: one was to set the official system more fixed; the other was to cut the domain.
At that time, these two events were designated by Zhu Di, the King of Yan, as "changing the ancestral system", and finally became an excuse for him to launch the "Jing Difficult Change".
Let's look at the first one: a more bureaucratic system
In the impression of most of us, the establishment and development of a dynasty has always followed the law of "immediately fighting the world and ruling the world under the horse", whether it is a minority regime like the Yuan Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, etc., or a Han regime like the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty.
That is to say, at the beginning of the establishment of the dynasty, the status of military generals was significantly higher than that of civilian generals, and after the founding of the country, the status of civilian generals was naturally higher than that of military generals. Once this transformation was completed, it marked the beginning of a period of relative stability for the dynasty.
However, this was not the case at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, when the status of military generals was the most noble, followed by officials, and the civil servants were at the bottom.
Of course, the reason for this situation was first of all influenced by Zhu Yuanzhang's concept of valuing martial arts and light literature, and secondly, it was constrained by the situation in the early years of the Ming Dynasty.
In the unification war that lasted for more than twenty years before and after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the special status of the Ming Dynasty's military generals was created.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang killed a large number of military generals in his later years, such as Lan Yu, Feng Sheng, Fu Youde, and so on, this situation still could not be changed.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he had already begun to work on this transformation, but he died before it was completed, and could only be left to the emperor's grandson Zhu Yunjiao to complete.
Figure | Zhu Yunjiao (stills)
After Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne, he made two changes to the current official system of the Ming Dynasty!
The first is to change the setting and name of some official offices; for example, the Metropolitan Inspection Bureau is changed to the Imperial History Office, the Department of Communication and Political Envoys is renamed Tongzheng Temple, the Department of Punishment is renamed the Department of Punishment and Punishment, and the Department of Households and Punishment is renamed from being named according to the province and region to being named according to function, and so on;
Of course, if you simply change the name of the official office, Zhu Di will not find a reason to rebel, and what really makes Zhu Di find a reason is the second aspect, that is, "improving the status of civilian officials."
After Zhu Yuanzhang abolished Zhongshu Province and Xiang Xiang, the status of the six ministries increased accordingly, but it was only the Yamen of Zhengerpin, while the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies was the Yamen of Zhengyipin, and the ranks, ranks, and ranks of its chief officials were higher than those of Shangshu.
After Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne, he changed this situation, he promoted the six Shangshu to Zhengyipin, and under the Shangshu added the left and right shizhong and the position shilangshang, all of which were zhengerpin.
In addition, Zhu Yunjiao also changed the Hanlin official system, added bachelors to undertake the will, and so on; these changes are actually expanding the establishment of the Hanlin civil service, thereby strengthening the function of the civilian service in the government for consultation and consultation.
In fact, after Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne, he positioned his era name as "Jianwen", which actually implied the ambition of realizing "Wenzhi".
Although the change of the official system and the improvement of the status of civilian officials can greatly improve the administrative efficiency of the government, it will inevitably harm the interests of some military generals, thus also creating a reason for rebellion for Zhu Di, the King of Yan.
Figure | Ming Chengzu Zhu Di statue
The second is: cutting the domain
The establishment of the "feudal king system" can be said to be an important measure for Zhu Yuanzhang to establish a "family world". He once said that the Zhou Dynasty could last for hundreds of years because of the division of kings, while the Qin Dynasty implemented the county system, but it only lasted two generations, so his Ming Dynasty must implement the division of feudalism.
In fact, everyone who has a little historical common sense knows that although the separation of princes and princes can ensure the stability of the country to a certain extent, it is not a long-term solution, because with the passage of time, the descendants of the princes of the clan will inevitably form a situation of "tail is too big to fall".
On this point, the Confucian teaching 'Ye Boju' in Pingyao County, Shanxi Province, once gave Zhu Yuanzhang a recital. In the recital, Ye Boju used the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" of the Western Han Dynasty and the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" of the Western Jin Dynasty as examples to pain the shortcomings of chen fengfan and the difficulties of cutting down the domain in the future.
Originally out of concern for the Ming Dynasty's Jiangshan Sheji, he unexpectedly became a treacherous villain in Zhu Yuanzhang's mouth, denouncing him for deliberately alienating his flesh and bones, so he ordered his arrest. Soon after, Ye Boju died in prison.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, these children and grandchildren of his own, as well as those "princes", were able to fully abide by the ancestral system law, which was much more reliable than those civil and military ministers.
As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a series of clan titles: all princes were crowned princes, and the eldest son of the prince was 10 years old, he was made the prince's son, and the eldest grandson was made the grandson; as for the other sons of the prince, as long as they were ten years old, they could be crowned as the king of the county.
Further down: the eldest son of the king of the county is established as the son of the king of the county, and the eldest son of the grandson is given the title of the eldest son; the other sons of the king of the county are all awarded the general of Zhenguo, the grandson is awarded the general of the auxiliary state, the great-grandson is awarded the general of the Fengguo, the fourth grandson is awarded the lieutenant of the zhenguo, the fifth grandson is awarded the lieutenant of the auxiliary state, and the sixth and below are awarded the lieutenant of the fengguo.
So you see, Zhu Yuanzhang has taken into account the sixth grandson and below, which is really well-intentioned!
Figure | Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang (stills)
Zhu Yuanzhang had a total of 26 sons and was canonized three times!
The first time was in the third year of Hongwu, a total of 9 sons were crowned as princes; the second time was in the eleventh year of Hongwu, 5 sons were canonized as princes; the third time was in the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu, where 10 sons were canonized as princes;
Two of the sons died before they could take the throne, 17 of them during the Hongwu period, and the remaining 5 did not take the domain until the Yongle period.
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's original idea, letting his sons take the domain can use their kinship and blood relations to enable them to maintain the peace and stability of the empire forever. It is also known as "dividing the grass and the soil to the feudal state." ”
However, in Zhu Yuanzhang's later years, when he was ready to pass the throne to his grandson Zhu Yunjiao, his attitude changed!
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang once said to Zhu Yunjiao: I let the prince go to the frontier to take the domain, in order to resist the foreign prisoners, and with them, you can be your emperor with peace of mind!
Zhu Yunjiao was very clever, and he immediately asked Zhu Yuanzhang: The foreigners are restless, the kings can resist, then the kings are restless, who will resist?
Zhu Yuanzhang was speechless at once, and then asked him what he could do! Zhu Yunjiao said: "With virtue and courtesy, we must not cut their land, and we must not abolish their people, and even raise troops to cut them down." ”
Zhu Yuanzhang very much agreed with what Zhu Yunjiao said! In fact, in his later years, Zhu Yuanzhang was already aware of the harm of dividing the seals, although he also wanted to try to change this situation, but at this time, he had no energy and no way to cope.
The change of difficulties
After Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne, he reused Qi Tai, Huang Zicheng, Fang Xiaoru and others. The first two were jinshi during the Hongwu dynasty, who was deeply trusted by Zhu Yuanzhang, while Fang Xiaoru was the son of Fang Keqin, a bureaucrat in the early Ming Dynasty, who had studied Song Lian and was famous for his literature.
Zhu Yunxiong was determined to cut the domain, and he followed Huang Zicheng's advice to first attack the kings of Zhou, Xiang, Qi, and Dai, and then pointed the spearhead at zhu Di, the powerful King of Yan.
In order to successfully cut Zhu Di's domain, Zhu Yunjiao did a lot of preparatory work. First of all, he sent people to Beiping to secretly monitor Zhu Di's every move in the form of a post. At the same time, in the name of border defense, the Yanfu guards were transferred to Saiwai.
It was not until June of the first year of Jianwen that Zhu Yunjiao felt that everything was ready, so he began to cut the domain and ordered Zhu Di's arrest.
However, all this was seen by Zhu Di and was already prepared!
Before Zhu Yunjiao prepared to cut the domain, Zhu Di was sick and paralyzed the imperial court, while secretly building weapons, training soldiers, and preparing to fight with the imperial court in the south.
When he received Zhu Yunjiao's arrest secret order, he was ready to rebel! The Battle of Jingnan has begun!
Figure | Ming Chengzu Zhu Di (stills)
In fact, although Zhu Yunjiao at that time was sitting in the world and had enough food, he lacked generals who could command hundreds of thousands of troops, because those excellent generals had long been killed by Zhu Yuanzhang during the Hongwu years.
So much so that in the Jianwen Dynasty, there were no generals available, and they could only use Hou Bingwen, the Marquis of Changxing, who was over sixty years old, as a general and led an army of 300,000 to fight against the King of Yan.
However, it did not take long for Hou Bingwen to be defeated and retreated to Fidelity, unable to hold out. The Yan army saw that it could not be attacked for a long time, so it withdrew and left.
After Zhu Yunjiao heard the news, he accepted Huang Zicheng's suggestion and replaced Hou Bingwen with Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao. In order to encourage Li Jinglong to win the victory and return to the dynasty, Zhu Yunxiu personally gave him an axe and a hammer.
This Li Jinglong, the nephew of Zhu Yuanzhang and the son of Li Wenzhong, the founding general of the Ming Dynasty, although he held a high position of power, he had not experienced the battle front, lacked actual combat experience, and let him lead his troops to fight against Zhu Di, the king of Yan who had been in battle for a long time, which can be said to be self-sufficient.
It is also true that after a brief confrontation between Li Jinglong and Zhu Di, they quickly fled in defeat, while the Yan army was so strong that it fought all the way from Beiping to Yangzhou.
In June of the second year of Jianwen, the Yan army crossed the Yangtze River from Guazhou and besieged the Jing Division, the Gu kings Zhu Xi and Li Jinglong surrendered Kaicheng, and the capital Nanjing fell.
After that, the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao did not know the end! Some people say that he committed suicide in the palace, others say that he fled Nanjing, and the "History of Ming" only records such a vague sentence: "The fire in the palace is on fire, and the emperor does not know the end" is vague. In short, the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen have become a mystery in history.
After Zhu Di occupied the capital city of Nanjing, he carried out cruel revenge on those "traitorous parties" in the DPRK, the most typical of which was that Fang Xiaoru, who refused to write an edict for Zhu Di to ascend the throne, after being accused of exterminating the Nine Tribes, he also connected his friends and protégés, collectively known as the "Ten Tribes". The rest of the people, such as Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, were also wiped out of the Nine Tribes.
In the bloody suppression of political opponents, Zhu Di successfully ascended the throne, and the following year was set as the first year of Yongle, Zhu Di temple was called Taizong, and Jiajing was renamed "Chengzu".
In the Battle of Jingnan, Zhu Di succeeded, but how did Zhu Yunjiao, who sat in the world, step by step, fail? In my opinion, there are three reasons:
First, cutting the domain is too hasty
Judging from the laws of history, although the newly succeeded monarch has the intention of innovating and reforming, it should not be too public. Because in the early days of succession, people's hearts were unstable, coupled with their lack of practical experience, they could only move forward step by step after the new and old powers tended to stabilize.
After Zhu Yunjiao came to power, before his authority was established, he began to carry out drastic reforms, although it was out of consideration for Jiangshan Sheji, but he was so anxious that something bad was bound to happen.
Because this not only gave Zhu Di the excuse to rebel, but also lost many supporters. So, can there be a reason to be undefeated?
Second, emphasis on literature and light on force
During Zhu Yuanzhang's period, the status of military generals was very high, and after Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne, he changed the status quo, not only with the civil servants such as Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng as the core of the deliberations, but also greatly reformed the official system and improved the status of the civil servants. In this way, the warrior was left out in the cold.
This can be seen throughout the Battle of Jing! In the war with Zhu Di, there were very few loyalists in the Jianwen court, but there were many people watching. After this, the people who martyred the most for Emperor Jianwen were also some civilian officials, and there were very few military generals.
"Fight the world immediately, and rule the world under the horse" is true, but if the civilian and military generals are treated too differently, there will be no suitable people to use when encountering unexpected situations.
For example, in the case of the cutting of the domain, Gao Wei, who was then the former military governor of the imperial capital Zuo Wei, advocated: "Do not carry out the strategy of wrongly cutting and seizing, but follow the strategy of the lord's father to push the favor"; that is, do not carry out the strategy of seizing power by mistake, but follow the master's father's strategy of implementing ende's strategy.
But where could Zhu Yunjiao listen, at this time, the slashing of the domain was already on the string, and he had to send it! However, in terms of the specific steps of cutting the domain, the opinions of Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng could not be unified.
Qi Tai advocated attacking the ambitious Yan king Zhu Di first, while Huang Zicheng advocated cutting the kings of Zhou, Xiang, and Dai.
Obviously, Zhu Yunjiao finally chose Huang Zicheng's opinion. But in fact, although the King of Zhou and others had bad deeds, they were not enough to pose a threat to the imperial court, and the biggest threat was Zhu Di, the King of Yan.
Therefore, cutting the King of Zhou and others first not only made Zhu Di speed up the preparation for rebellion, but also made the other clan kings endanger themselves. As a result, the imperial court also lost the support of other clan kings.
It should be known that when Zhu Dibing approached the city of Nanjing, it was not the small soldiers who opened the city gate and surrendered, but Zhu Qi and Li Jinglong, the king of gu. The former is the representative of the clan and the latter is the representative of the warriors.
Therefore, it can be seen that at this time, Emperor Jianwen had lost the support of the two most powerful political groups in the Hongwu Dynasty. In this way, the imperial power was invisibly weakened, and Zhu Yunjiao could only face failure.
Third, the opponent is too strong
Whether it is Zhu Yunjiao, or Qi Tai, Huang Zicheng and others, they are all scholars, who have never experienced war and lack political experience in governing the country.
Zhu Yunjiao misused people, and he made mistakes again and again in military tactics, and in the end he could only lead to extinction. His opponent, Zhu Di, the King of Yan, was a man who worked on power, fought in battles, and became capable, although he had been suppressed in the early stages, he could endure and endure and win in the end.
Therefore, Zhu Yunjiao's defeat, in addition to his own reasons, the strength of his opponents is also an important reason for his failure.
In summary, we have made a brief overview of the three reasons why the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao lost in the "Battle of Jing".
The above are all the author's words, if there is any untruth, I hope that readers will criticize and correct!
References: "History of the Ming Dynasty", "Records of the Ming Dynasty", "Lecture Notes on the History of the Ming Dynasty", etc.;
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