We all know that the emperor had many privileges in ancient times, such as the emperor's exclusive color was yellow, and the emperor's dragon robe was decorated with dragons. These are the exclusive rights of the emperor and cannot be used by ordinary people.
By the time of the Ming Dynasty, all the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were surnamed Zhu. And the Zhu character is homophonous with the pig, if the people want to kill the pig, then it is not equivalent to killing the emperor?
So in the Ming Dynasty, killing pigs was also called killing pigs. During Zhu Yuanzhang's period, he could not call Zhu by his name, and in the period of Emperor Mingwu Zhu Houzhao, it was even more excessive, and he even did not let the people raise pigs.
How about Zhu Houzhao?
The young Wuzong was very clever, and what the teacher taught him could always be learned quickly, and it was supposed that he should become a good emperor, but the eunuchs around him ruined this clever child.
In order to please Emperor Wuzong, the eight eunuchs offered eagle dogs, songs and dances, horns and other plays every day, and the East Palace at that time was jokingly called "Hundred Theaters".
The young Wuzong could not resist the temptation of these things, so he indulged in them. Later, he let people build leopard houses, indulged in female color all day, and Wuzong had a lot of prostitutes in the leopard house's pets, and of course, his studies and political affairs were abandoned.
There was also the absurdity of Zhu Houzhao later.
Zhu Houzhao, because he belonged to the pig of his zodiac, once ordered the whole country to ban the consumption of pork, but he still ate pork himself, and "the internal approval still used the pig"; immediately under the opposition of the university scholar Yang Tinghe, the edict was abolished.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's period, the dynasty did not strictly control the name, and Zhu Yuanzhang was also a person who loved to eat pork, and he also wrote a couplet to the butcher of the castrated pig: "Split the road of life and death with both hands, and cut the root of non-existence with one knife."
When the political situation stabilized, the matter of concealment was put on the agenda. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately called "pig" "彘" and "豕", and changed the killing of pigs to "Wanli Hum". During Zhu Yuanzhang's time, people were not forbidden to eat pork.
Since the Beginning of the Ming Dynasty since Zhu Yuanzhang, funerals occurred in the imperial family, and slaughter was forbidden under the heavens. Before the Yuan Dynasty Chinese rarely killed cattle, because cattle were the main labor in the fields. The slaughter mentioned here mainly refers to domestic animals such as pigs and sheep.
During the Reign of Emperor Mingwuzong Zhengde, because Emperor Mingwuzong Zhu Houzhao was not only surnamed Zhu, but also belonged to pigs. In 1519 (the fourteenth year of Ming Zhengde), Emperor Zhu toured the south, and in December in Yizhen (now part of Yizheng, Jiangsu), he ordered that people beg pigs and kill pigs, and when the "Ding Qi" sacrifice was held in Yizhen County, it was stipulated that pig heads should not be provided but only sheep heads.
The Records of Emperor Mingwu records: "Zhengde was born in the fourteenth month of December, up to Yi zhen. When the patrol arrived, the folk livestock and pigs were forbidden, and the slaughter was exhausted near and far, and the farmers of the tian family were thrown into the water.
Is the age, Yi Zhen Ding Qi, there is a Si family sheep instead... Pig house, easy to sell and slaughter, fixed commonplace. But when the boat is destined, it is also surnamed, although the words are different, it is actually the same sound, and the situation is accompanied by sores and diseases.
It is advisable to be forbidden to reform, and if it is violated, the offender will also be sent to the extreme border guard by the small hair of the house and will always be charged with the army. "