Author: Small A
After the death of his eldest son, Zhu Yuanzhang did not choose other sons as heirs, but let the eldest son's son take over his own class, an unusual decision that left endless disasters.
In order to show the legitimacy of his rebellion, his fourth son Zhu Di claimed that his father's throne should be inherited by himself, and also said that this zhu Yuanzhang meant.
In fact, this was his own statement of inflating his stature, because Zhu Yuanzhang's various arrangements before his death had actually excluded him from the heir to the throne.
The standard of succession established by Zhu Yuanzhang was filial piety rather than force
Zhu Yuanzhang has many sons, but there is only one heir to the throne, so who will inherit his position, Zhu Yuanzhang has standards.
Zhu Yuanzhang
Zhu Yuanzhang did not have much culture, but being able to become the biggest winner in the era of the rise of the crowd was enough to show that he was very talented. Therefore, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang took filial piety as the foundation of the country. When choosing an heir, as the emperor of the horse, he did not value the martial arts of his descendants, but whether the descendants had filial piety.
When the crown prince Zhu Biao was still alive, Zhu Yuanzhang determined that he was his only heir, and the prince's greatest advantage was benevolence, and he was very protective of his brothers, and whenever they made a mistake and were punished by Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao would tearfully intercede for them.
After Zhu Biao's death, Zhu Yuanzhang made his son the heir, that is, the later Jianwen as emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang's choice was very unexpected, because several other sons were also qualified to be heirs, and they could also avoid the storm of future imperial succession.
Zhu Biao
However, Zhu Yuanzhang believes that Jianwen is very similar to Zhu Biao in terms of benevolence, and he also cares for his younger brothers, perhaps, Zhu Yuanzhang was poor when he was young, so he had to wander around and lacked family life. Therefore, it is extremely gratifying to see this behavior of his eldest son and grandson.
Therefore, when Zhu Yuanzhang established the heir, he examined ren filial piety rather than martial arts, so that the status of Emperor Jianwen could be established, on the contrary, Zhu Di was far inferior in this regard.
Zhu Yuanzhang made Zhu Di the King of Yan in order to keep him away from the capital
When Zhu Di was in Zhu Yuanzhang, he used the excuse that Emperor Jianwen violated the ancestral system, saying that he could not be emperor, and only he was qualified to be Zhu Yuanzhang's heir.
When Zhu Yuanzhang re-established the crown prince, there were several sons to choose from, but this would not be Zhu Di's turn, which can be seen from his several sons as kings.
Zhu Di
Zhu Di was made king of Yan and was given the task of guarding against the Mongols in Beijing. Zhu Yuanzhang's preferred capital was Xi'an or Shanxi, and Nanjing was only a temporary capital, so when he made his son king, Zhu Yuanzhang gave these two important places to two other sons, one as the King of Qin and the other as the King of Jin. It can be seen that the weight of Zhu Di, the King of Yan, in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart is not as good as these two sons.
Zhu Yuanzhang took many measures to suppress the King of Yan before his death, that is, to prevent him from rebelling in the future
Zhu Di had made meritorious contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang's pacification of the world, and his ability was also known for his military, which was very dangerous in peacetime. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang sealed him in Beijing in order to let the Mongols drag him down. Moreover, before his death, Zhu Yuanzhang repeatedly found excuses to punish him and strike at his arrogance.
Once in Nanjing, Zhu Di relied on his old qualifications and great generations, saw Emperor Jianwen, and put up the emperor's shelf for him, only to be seen by Zhu Yuanzhang and reprimanded him in person.
Zhu Yuanzhang knew that Zhu Di might cause trouble after his death, so before his death, he issued a specific holy decree stipulating that the kings of various domains could only control the close escort officers, and the number could not exceed 20,000. This weakened Zhu Di's power. At the same time, he also ordered that the officials of the various clan kings could not be appointed or dismissed by the clan king, and this power must be assumed by the central government. In this way, Zhu Di's control over the army was greatly weakened.
Zhu Yunjiao's action of cutting the domain was in line with Zhu Yuanzhang's original intention
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Jianwen took the throne, and cutting the domain was the first action he took after taking office, the purpose of which was to weaken Zhu Di's power. In this way, naturally, he was opposed. Therefore, he used the excuse that the power of the king of the clan was given by Zhu Yuanzhang, and that Emperor Jianwen violated the ancestral system by doing so, so he summoned other clan kings to rebel.
But Jianwen's doing this is actually in line with Zhu Yuanzhang's original intention. When Zhu Yuanzhang was alive, although the power consolidated the ruling power of the dynasty and crowned his own son as king, the purpose was to let the kings defend the capital and seek the long-term peace and stability of the dynasty. But the ministers all told Zhu Yuanzhang that doing so was a way to get rid of the problem and persuaded him to change his mind.
Zhu Yunjiao
However, Zhu Yuanzhang decided that his opinion was correct, so he did not accept the minister's opinion, and also disposed of the minister who gave the opinion. And he also said to Emperor Jianwen, several of your uncles have the ability, they stand guard for you on the four borders, you can be the emperor with peace of mind.
Emperor Jianwen immediately seized this opportunity and told Zhu Yuanzhang that there were uncles in the four sides who rebelled, but what if the uncles rebelled?
Zhu Yuanzhang did not expect that his grandson would think of this problem, in his opinion, his son would obey his own arrangements, how could he rebel? So, he asked Jianwen what should he do? Emperor Jianwen replied, If the uncles want to rebel, I will first subdue people with virtue, and then subdue people with etiquette, if morality and etiquette cannot make the uncles turn back, then I will cut the uncles' fiefdoms, and if they do not repent, I will change them to other places, and if they are still bent on going their own way, then they will have to meet with them.
Zhu Yuanzhang listened to Sun Tzu's words and was silent for a long time before nodding his head and saying that this was also a good idea.
Emperor Jianwen immediately took action against his uncles after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, indicating that he should have obtained Zhu Yuanzhang's consent in cutting the domain, or at least acquiescing in his doing so. You must know that Zhu Yuanzhang is an iron-blooded emperor, and in order to ensure the safety of his throne, he has killed many heroes. This shows that in terms of ensuring the safety of the throne, Zhu Yuanzhang believes that anyone can be killed.
Therefore, Zhu Di said that Jianwen cut the domain against Zhu Yuanzhang's wishes and was difficult to convince.
Examining the historical data, it can basically be concluded that in terms of the choice of the heir to the imperial throne, Zhu Yuanzhang will not consider Zhu Di, and if Zhu Di wants to become emperor, he can only rely on his own rebellion and obtain it by force, in addition, he has no other choice.