What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
As we all know, there were sixteen emperors in the Ming Dynasty, but there were only thirteen tombs, and the missing three were Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Emperor Zhu Yunjiao, and the Ming Emperor Zhu Qiyu.
When Zhu Yuanzhang died, the capital of the Ming Dynasty was still Nanjing, so he was buried in the Ming Xiaoling Tomb; Zhu Yunjiao was not clear whether he was dead or alive, and there was no mausoleum; only Zhu Qiyu, the real emperor, died clearly, in Beijing, but did not enter the royal imperial mausoleum, but was buried with princely rites, and the Shouling Tomb he built for himself was occupied by Zhu Changluo, the son of January, which is now the Qingling tomb in the Ming Tombs.
Zhu Qiyu's ascension to the throne has some elements of luck, he is the second son of Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji, in the case of the eldest brother Zhu Qizhen living well, there is basically no possibility of taking the throne, after Zhu Qizhen ascended the throne, he is also very sensible as his own king.
However, Zhu Qizhen himself died, and under the persuasion of the eunuch Wang Zhen, he decided to march in person, mainly because the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di, who was more than twenty years ago, liked to fight wars, and the five expeditions to the north of the desert and traversed the grasslands. Zhu Qizhen, who was in his early twenties, was told by Wang Zhenyi that his head was hot in an instant, and he wanted to personally go out on the horse.
In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy (1449), Zhu Qizhen led an army to march, and as a result, the Tumu Fort Rebellion broke out, the Ming army was completely destroyed, Ming Yingzong was captured, and Wa Lai drove straight into Beijing.
When the news came back, the government and the public were shocked, everyone in the capital was in danger, and even some rich families were preparing to transfer their property, and some ministers also wanted to send their children to Nanjing.
In the face of such a crisis, there was a dispute over whether to "fight" or "move" above the court. With the strong support of Yu Qian and others, the imperial court decided to fight.
On the one hand, Yu Qian, Wang Wen, and others planned the war, and on the other hand, in order to prevent Wa Lai from using Emperor Ming Yingzong as a shield, he wrote to the empress dowager and requested that Zhu Qiyu be made emperor.
Because Zhu Qizhen's son was too small and the situation was so critical, Empress Sun agreed, so Zhu Qiyu was proclaimed emperor by his courtiers, changed to Yuan Jingtai, and Yaozun Ming Yingzong was made emperor taishang.
Wala soon sent troops to attack Beijing, and with the efforts of Yu Qian and others, the defense of Beijing was finally won, and Wala retreated.
Wa Lai also wanted to use Ming Yingzong to cheat some money, but the Ming Dynasty generals did not give any money, according to common sense, Wala was angry, he should kill Ming Yingzong, but Ming Yingzong's personal charm was outstanding, and he even became good friends with Boyan Timur, the younger brother of the wara leader Taishi Yexian, and with his help, Ming Yingzong actually survived and returned to Beijing a year later.
For the return of his brother, Zhu Qiyu was very unhappy, after all, he suddenly ascended to the throne, and the feeling of power in his hands was really comfortable, and Zhu Qiyu was unwilling to let go.
Zhu Qiyu soon put Zhu Qizhen under house arrest and locked him up in the Nangong For seven years.
For seven years, Zhu Qiyu not only locked the gate of the Southern Palace with lead, but also sent Jinyi guards to keep it under close guard, and even food could only be delivered through small holes. Sometimes, there is not enough food and clothing, and Zhu Qiyu's wife, Empress Qian, can only make some female red herself, and entrust people to take them out to sell to supplement the family.
In order to prevent anyone from contacting the town of Zhuqi, which was under house arrest, Emperor Jingtai even cut down the trees near the Nangong Palace, making it impossible for people to hide. In this way, Zhu Qizhen spent seven years under house arrest in a state of panic and anxiety.
As the throne gradually consolidated, Zhu Qiyu was not satisfied, he not only wanted to be emperor himself, but also hoped that his son Zhu Jianji would also be emperor, so he deliberately deposed Zhu Qizhen's son Zhu Jianshen as the crown prince and made his own son Zhu Jianji the crown prince.
In order to change the crown prince, Zhu Qiyu can be said to have gone to great lengths, first bribing and coercing the courtiers, and then deposing the opposing empress, and finally achieving his goal, but in the second year of the establishment of the crown prince, Zhu Jianji died prematurely.
The only son died prematurely, and Zhu Qiyu's spirit also suffered a heavy blow, and his body was not as good as a day.
In December of the seventh year of Jingtai (1456), Emperor Jingtai became seriously ill and was unable to ascend to the throne. Shi Heng, Xu Youzhen and others saw Zhu Qiyu's condition and gathered together to secretly plan and prepare to welcome the restoration of Zhu Qi Town.
In the early morning of the seventeenth month of the eighth year of Jingtai (1457), the 31-year-old Zhu Qizhen once again became the lord of the Ming Empire, known in history as the "change of the gate".
After the "change of the door", Zhu Qizhen reprimanded Zhu Qiyu for "filial piety, unsympathy, unkindness, unrighteousness, obscenity, and common indignation between gods and men", and deposed him as the king of Qi.
Although Zhu Qiyu, who had lost his imperial title, fell seriously ill, he was still moved to live in the Yong'an Palace in The Inner Province, and died two days later.
Since Zhu Qiyu had already been deposed as a prince, and Zhu Qizhen did not recognize his status as emperor, after Zhu Qiyu's death, the Shou Mausoleum he built during his lifetime was destroyed and buried as a prince in the Jinling Tomb of Jinshan Mountain in Jingxi, while the Ming Tombs were located on Tianshou Mountain, and the Jingtai Tomb was far away from there.
However, Zhu Qiyu's merits in ascending the throne in the midst of danger were still there, and after the death of Emperor Mingyingzong, the reigning Emperor Mingxianzong, with his uncle "Fighting Chaos and Defending the State and Establishing the An Sect Society", posthumously restored his status as emperor, changed his title to "Emperor Gongdingjing", and then ordered the relevant departments to repair the mausoleum, the same rank as the imperial tomb.
During the Jiajing period, the Jing Emperor's mausoleum was rebuilt, and the green tiles were uniformly replaced with yellow glazed tiles that only the emperor could use. However, Zhu Qiyu's body was never moved into the original Shou Mausoleum of the Ming Tombs, and Zhu Qiyu also became the only emperor of the Ming Dynasty who was not buried in the Ming Tombs.
More than a hundred years later, Zhu Changluo died 29 days after taking the throne, and did not repair the mausoleum at all, so the ministers took the Shouling Tomb to repair and used it, and renamed it Qingling.