In 1402, the four-year Battle of Jingnan ended with the victory of Zhu Di, the King of Yan, who ascended to the coveted throne as he wished, while the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao, who reigned for four years, remained missing.
Regarding the whereabouts of Zhu Yunjiao, the "History of Ming" gives such an unbelievable record as "the emperor is missing", but it is precisely because of this record that Zhu Yunjiao's whereabouts have become one of the most famous unsolved cases in China's history.
So where did Zhu Yunjiao go, did he die in the fire in the Nanjing Imperial Palace that year, or did he take advantage of the chaos to escape from the palace? If he had escaped from the palace by chance, would he have crossed the ocean to a foreign country, or had he gone to an unknown temple and lost his hair as a monk with green lanterns, and died? No one knows.
Of course, the author does not know, not only the author does not know, Zhu Di does not know, but we do not know is not important, Zhu Di does not know then he is a little sleepy.
After all, Zhu Di's throne was taken from Zhu Yunjiao's hands, so after Zhu Di came to power, he tried everything to find Zhu Yunjiao, whether he was dead or alive, Zhu Di must know the end of his nephew.
So did Zhu Di finally find Zhu Yunjiao? I don't know, or the history books have not given an accurate answer, but today I want to talk about some of my views from a passage in the history book, which is from the "History of Ming".
Before talking about this content, the author would like to introduce a person, because this person will be the protagonist of the following author to talk about, this person is called Hu Qian, Jianwen second year jinshi birth, lifelong History Jianwen Emperor, Chengzu, Renzong, Xuanzong, Yingzong, Daizong Six Emperors and Seven Dynasties, was a heavy minister in the early Ming Dynasty, and finally died at the age of 89 in the Yingzong Tianshun period.
Hu Qian's original official position was in the military department, this position is not high, just a seven-pin official, but this is a very special official position, its special feature is that it has the responsibility of supervising and advising the emperor, that is, the Yan official, belongs to the emperor's close attendants, so Hu Qi could have close contact with Emperor Jianwen, that is to say, Hu Qi knew Emperor Jianwen, which was a very important information.
Then after the Battle of Jingnan, Hu Xi became a minister of the Yongle Dynasty, although Zhu Di won the throne by conspiracy, but for the former dynasty ministers who submitted to him, he was still able to use them according to his own ability, and did not embarrass them and even gave them a promotion, Hu Xi belonged to one of them, but from the fifth year of Yongle, Hu Xi got a special task, what task? The History of the Ming Dynasty records:
"Five years of dispatch to travel all over the county of Tianxia Prefecture, hidden inspection of Jianwen Emperor An is there?"
Hu Qian's task is to find Zhu Yunjiao, so what is the final outcome of Hu Qian's search for Zhu Yunjiao?
Twenty-one years later, emperor Chi Gurudwara yu Xuanfu. The emperor was already asleep, smelled it, and hurriedly summoned in. Knowing what he had heard, the four drums that were missing were out. Before the first emperor arrived, it was rumored that Emperor Jianwen had gone to the sea, and the emperor sent his internal minister Zheng He to float to the sea for several generations to go to the Western Ocean, which was the first doubt
Hu Xi began to search for The Capital in the fifth year of Yongle, and did not return to the dynasty until the twenty-first year of Yongle, sixteen years in between, and there is still a passage in the History of Ming that is not recorded, that is, in the seventeenth year of Yongle, Hu Xi's mother died, and Hu Xi played Zhu Di wanted to come back to guard his mother's filial piety, and after keeping filial piety, he continued to look for Zhu Yunjiao, but Zhu Di resolutely disagreed, and promoted Hu Xi to appease him and let him continue to search. In ancient times, with filial piety ruling the world, Zhu Di preferred to violate filial piety and let the people of the world scold him for not allowing Hu Qi to come back, so it can be seen that finding Zhu Yunjiao is the most important thing for Zhu Di.
Well, Hu Xi could only continue to search for Zhu Yunjiao, and finally in the twenty-first year of Yongle, he rushed to Xuanfu to see Zhu Di, why was he in Xuanfu, Zhu Di was in the north at that time to conquer the Northern Yuan, so he was in Xuanfu. At that time, Zhu Di had already slept, but when he learned that Hu Qian had arrived, he hurriedly summoned Hu Qian to meet, and the two did not know what they talked about, but the two kept talking about "missing four drums", that is, at more than two o'clock in the morning, Hu Qian came out.
So what did the two talk about? We can speculate in conjunction with the later records, which are that before Hu Xi did not see Zhu Di, there were rumors that Emperor Jianwen went overseas, so Zhu Di sent Zheng He and others to the West, and when Hu He returned, so the doubts were finally solved, and Zheng He did not have to go to the West again.
Therefore, the author here can boldly speculate that Hu Qi must have found the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen, the two talked about two o'clock in the morning, indicating that Emperor Jianwen must be alive, otherwise for a dead person, the two did not need to talk for so long, or there was no need to talk so urgently, perhaps Hu Xi personally met Emperor Jianwen, this pair of former monarchs met again after many years, naturally there are many things to say and there are many feelings to express, but in the final analysis, that is, Emperor Jianwen has lost his throne for a long time, and he has no strength or ambition to compete with Zhu Di for the throne Emperor Jianwen hoped that Hu Xi would convey his meaning to Zhu Di so that Zhu Di would no longer have to look for himself, and when Hu Xi brought these words to Zhu Di, Zhu Di had been sitting on the throne for many years, of course, he thought that Zhu Yunxiu would not pose a threat to himself, but remembering the feelings of his former uncle and nephew, his heart would also sigh, and after learning about Zhu Yunjiao's recent situation, he finally let go, and everything would return to plain.
The above is only the author's speculation, of course, in reality, whether Emperor Jianwen is really as the author speculated, no one knows, and perhaps no one will ever know.