The emperors shown to us in the film and television works are all majestic and unlimited, just sit on the dragon chair, and the prostration of the brush will be heard in the hall, and then accompanied by a series of "Long live my emperor" mountain cry. However, behind the emperor's scenery, there is a huge danger to life. Although I sat on the dragon chair, whether I could sit safely was a big problem.
After YingZheng proposed the concept of "emperor", by the northern Song Dynasty, a total of 171 emperors appeared in China. The paths of these 171 emperors to the throne were very different:
The twelve emperors won the situation of the division of the world and relied on the barrel of a gun to lay down power;
Fifty-nine emperors ascended the throne by launching a coup d'état, during which naturally there were countless calculations and bloodshed;
The eleven emperors came to the throne by chance due to national difficulties;
The eighty-nine emperors ascended to the throne normally according to the rules of "father dies and son succeeds" or "brother and brother and brother", but their ascension to the throne process is also inevitable in the struggle for power.
As for the puppet emperors who were toyed with by the empress, foreign relatives, courtiers, and eunuchs, their sense of existence was relatively low.
Sima Dewen, the last emperor of the Jin Dynasty, was a rare "man of understanding". When Liu Yu was preparing to replace him, the ministers came forward to "request" Sima Dewen to abdicate, and even the abdication edict was drafted for him. When this edict was handed over to Sima Dewen, he only needed a large stroke of a pen to be "gloriously laid off." Sima Dewen was more knowledgeable about current affairs, he understood the truth that his arms were not thighs, and he signed it unequivocally. The reason why Sima Dewen was so happy was nothing more than to show that he no longer had any more than any desire for the throne, so that his successors could rest assured and leave himself a way to live.
Chan Rang's edict was sent to Liu Yu, and Liu Yu falsely resigned, which made him accept the throne with peace of mind. Being able to make the transfer of the throne like an ordinary person giving gifts, one insisting on sending, one wanting to refuse to return the favor, these two are really strange. In order to appease people's hearts, Liu Yu, who became emperor, inevitably gave Sima Dewen some preferential treatment, made him the King of Lingling, and gave Sima Dewen a fief to let him get out of the egg. However, this harmonious scene did not last long, perhaps feeling uneasy, and the next year Liu Yu got rid of Sima Dewen.
As the saying goes, a mountain does not allow two tigers, who will allow a time bomb to dangle in front of your eyes every day? Compared with other successive emperors, Liu Yu was more benevolent, and he at least let Sima Dewen live a stable life for a year. Xiao Daocheng usurped the power of the last emperor of the Liu Song Dynasty in April, and in May he killed his predecessor, taking only twenty-six days from the time he ascended to the throne and cut the grass and remove the roots.
After the death of Emperor Hui of Han, Lü Yan stepped onto the political stage and became an invisible female emperor. When Lü Hou was in power, in order to block the mouth of the people of the world, she still set up some emperors, but she set up some stinking hairy boys, Liu Gong and Liu Hong. After Lü Yan's funeral, the Lü family became the target of everyone,000 people in power of the Lü clan were eliminated, and even Liu Hong, the young emperor of Lü Yanli, could not escape the disaster. Knowing that Liu Hong was just an innocent young emperor, he had to kill him completely. Speaking of which, Liu Bang had a total of eight sons, four of whom died in political turmoil.
The struggle over the throne was brutal, and bloodshed was a common occurrence. Therefore, not only is the "profession" of the emperor difficult to do, but even the son who becomes the emperor has to risk his life. This was determined by the characteristics of ancient totalitarian rule, when different interests conflicted, the emperor or the sons of the clan would often bear the brunt of it and be affected by political struggles. As the supreme being in totalitarian rule, or with the hope of becoming a descendant of this supreme being, you must become accustomed to political struggles, and even fathers and sons and brothers can swing their swords at each other. Because in this struggle for imperial power, either you die or I live, and if you take care of it, you will end up in a different place.
According to incomplete statistics, among the more than four hundred emperors who have appeared in the historical records of our country, at least dozens have been confirmed to have died of death. Like the two short-lived dynasties of Southern Liang and Northern Liao, none of their emperors died well, and all of them died unnaturally. There are many ways to die, and the methods of death are also various. For example, Emperor Wu of Liang was starved to death, Emperor Xiaowen of Wei was killed by Empress Dowager Qi, and the most outrageous was Sima Yao, who was blinded by a concubine in his sleep and died with a quilt. What is even more puzzling is that the murderer who killed Sima Yao, that is, the concubine, was unharmed after the catastrophe, and no one held her accountable.
Sima Yao's father, Emperor Jianwen's concubines, originally bore him several princes, but one by one these princes died prematurely. After losing their sons continuously, Emperor Jianwen's concubines were like all infertile, and their stomachs were no longer moving. A god-like official in the imperial court gave Emperor Jianwen a blessing, saying that a palace girl could give birth to three sons and a daughter for the saint, and these children could grow up healthily. For the sake of the succession of imperial power, Emperor Jianwen called all the palace ladies together and looked for targets one by one.
Finally, the birthday of a palace girl named Kunlun met the requirements. To Emperor Jianwen's surprise, Kunlun looked black and ugly, which made him feel quite "tricky". There was no way, in order for the Sima family's bloodline to continue, Emperor Jianwen had to close his eyes and visit Kunlun, quan as a fertility tool. Sure enough, the Black Palace Lady did indeed give birth to a child for Emperor Jianwen, and Sima Yao was the eldest son of Kunlun and Emperor Jianwen.
After the death of Emperor Jianwen, Sima Yao, who was only ten years old, succeeded to the throne. Don't look at Sima Yao's young age, his mentality is like an old man, very calm about his father's death. The ministers asked Sima Yao why he did not shed tears, and Sima Yao's answer was quite "not surprising and endless": "It is said that people cry when they are most sad, which in my opinion is contrary to human normal feelings." The implication is that the young and old Sima Yao has already taken life and death lightly. However, Sima Yao did not expect that he would later lose his life because of a joke.
One evening in 396 AD, Sima Yao, as usual, had a drink with his favorite Zhang Guiren. Zhang Guiren is the "evergreen tree" around Sima Yao, and she has been pampered for many years and dreams of drunken life and death with Sima Yao every day. After three rounds of drinking, Sima Yao looked at the dancing Gong'e and said a joke to Zhang Guiren in his arms: "You see, these palace girls are young and beautiful. It is said that at the age of Aifei, she should have been abolished long ago. ”
It is reasonable to say that when ordinary young couples talk about this kind of, they should only increase their interest, and no one will take it seriously, but it is not ordinary people who say this, but Sima Yao, who is the emperor. Just as the so-called "Jun Wu Joke", this sentence was like a knife poking into Zhang Guiren's heart socket. That night, Zhang Guiren looked in the mirror and found that a thin wrinkle appeared in the corner of her eye, and she immediately recalled the words that Sima Yao said at the banquet. Not knowing where Zhang Guiren's courage came from, she actually took the palace maid to Sima Yao's bedside, joined hands with the palace maid to kill Sima Yao, and killed this negative man who "saw different thoughts and thoughts".
Zhang Guiren is not only bold, her mentality is also very good. The next day, she said to the palace people like no one else: "Your Majesty 'collapsed' when he slept yesterday. ”
What is a "nightmare"?
It means having nightmares and being scared to death.
How exactly did the emperor die, and who cares? Anyway, at that time, there were several ambitious ministers in the court who wished that Sima Yao would die sooner. Everyone unanimously chose silence, and Zhang Guiren dramatically escaped the sanctions.
You see, this emperor deserves to be depressed enough, right?
In fact, there are many emperors like Sima Yao in history who died inexplicably. If the birth is not timely, even if he can live a few happy days, the emperor's life will not be guaranteed. If we were to choose whether to be a dangerous emperor living on the cusp of the storm or a free and free citizen, I believe that most friends will choose the latter.
It can be seen from this that the emperor is by no means so good, and it is even more difficult to be a good emperor. On the basis of taking risks, we must also have the ability to govern the country, the ambition to stand tall in the world, and the people of Li. On this basis, if you want to be a Ming Jun, you also need a little luck.
In the case of Kangxi, at first, he was not valued by his father, if it were not for the fact that there was no candidate, and Kangxi was immune to smallpox, he had little hope of inheriting the throne. A qualified emperor must be a politician, a military man, and a thinker. For example, Li Yu of the Southern Tang Dynasty, who only knew how to recite poetry, Zhao Yao, emperor Huizong of Song, who was intoxicated with calligraphy, and Li Heng of Tang Suzong, who liked to play chess, they were indeed qualified writers and artists, but they were not qualified emperors. Such a "non-mainstream" emperor, who has the strength to govern the country and the country? Even if you drive the ducks to the shelf and sit on the dragon chair, it will only mistake the country.
How hard it is to be a good emperor naturally does not need to be said by the author, and it is not easy to be a rotten emperor. Every day, the Emperor must rack his brains to evade the government, avoid seeing loyal subjects, block the leisurely mouths of the common people, be afraid of internal and external troubles, and seize the time to indulge in fine wine. If there is a little turmoil in the country, the emperor must be prepared to run, because he is the most dangerous in the riot. How could such an emperor, who lived in fear and fear every day, live more comfortably than Ming Jun? By paralyzing yourself with the happy days of "drinking in this day and getting drunk in this day", you can cover up and escape the fear in your heart.
Therefore, don't be confused by the decent appearance of the emperor in film and television works, and the most difficult person to live in ancient times is probably the emperor. Ordinary people only need to run a good family, and even so, some people are still very tired. The emperor also has to run his own family well, and his family is the best river and mountain as far as the eye can see. Don't look at the emperors in the history books are accompanied by legendary auspiciousness, aside from these exaggerated elements, they are just mortals with two heads, two arms and two legs, but their sufferings are mostly unknown.
Resources:
【Zizhi Tongjian, General History of China】