Author: Zhao Libo
In front of the bookshelf, Zhu Yuanzhang took a self-portrait in the mirror, an old face was covered with wrinkles, the eye sockets were deeply sunken, and the hair was as good as snow, and he was also startled. This was the time of Hongwu's thirty years (1397), when Zhu Yuanzhang had completely turned into a weak old man, and his life was about to enter the countdown.
Zhu Yuanzhang film and television image
Zhu Yuanzhang's emotional world has never been a person who has experienced happiness.
Since the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Empress Ma, his wife Empress Ma, died at the age of fifty-one, which dealt a huge blow to Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, and since then, Zhu Yuanzhang's emotional world has become more and more lonely and sad, and his grandson Zhu Xiongying, who was just born, has also died. Even more unfortunately, the crown prince Zhu Biao, whom he had painstakingly cultivated, actually died, disrupting all the arrangements during his lifetime. On the third day of the prince's death, the sixty-five-year-old emperor "Summoned the imperial court to the imperial court at the gate of the eastern corner: 'Old age! The prince was unfortunate, so as far as this was concerned, his fate was also! And so he cried. ”【1】
Zhu Yuanzhang, who has been a strong life, has never shed tears no matter what dangerous situation he faces in his military career, but from the perspective of family affection, Zhu Yuanzhang is very unfortunate, even quite fragile and pitiful. He basically experienced the realization of the loss of relatives in his life. Since he was a child, he saw his parents and eldest brother being taken away by the plague in three days, his family was broken, his relatives were separated, this unforgettable grief has always grown in his heart, and many years later he is still recalling the misery of that year: "Brother cry for me, I hurt for my brother, the emperor day, crying and breaking his heart!" [2] Lost his parents at an early age, lost his wife at fifty, lost his son one after another in his later years, sent a black-haired person with white hair, and realized the realization of bipolar life, although from the lowest beggar, turned around and became the lord of the empire, Zhu Yuanzhang never felt happiness in his heart, from the perspective of family and emotions, Zhu Yuanzhang was the most unfortunate person under the heavens. According to folk traditions, Zhu Yuanzhang's "life" was too hard, and his family members all died under his "eight characters".
Although superstitious, it is also a kind of interpretation. What is even more fatal is that in the thirty-first year of Hongwu, that is, in March 1398, his favorite third son Zhu Yu of Jin also died suddenly, and Zhu Yuanzhang was completely ill because of this blow. At the same time, he also explained that this blow was a fatal blow to Zhu Yuanzhang, and became the last straw in his life: "Shangsu is less ill, and the disease is sick, and the Japanese Dynasty is determined to be tireless as usual." "But it can only be said that he has stood up to fulfill the professionalism of his life." [3] It was not until a few dozen days later that the old emperor finally could not hold on, and specially instructed people to burn incense and pray, and on the tenth day of the first month of Leap May, the seventy-one-year-old Zhu Yuanzhang completed his magnificent life.
Zhu Yuanzhang's imperial world had never been a person who had a sense of security.
Although he became the emperor of the empire, no matter what, Zhu Yuanzhang was strong on the outside, but he was quite unconfident on the inside, and he never even felt any sense of security. These caused Zhu Yuanzhang's overwork: "The government affairs of all sizes in the country must be handled personally." Leaving it to others can of course save energy and time, but the first is that he is not at ease, and the second is more important, so that he will slowly fall into power. ...... In this way, every day before dawn, I get up to work, approve official documents, and have no rest until late at night, no holidays, and never pay attention to the cultural entertainment of the adjustment spirit. "The Biography of Wu Han Zhu Yuanzhang"
Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang
The foundation of the empire laid by his own hands was extremely heavy in his hands. At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, when everything was abandoned, the first thing he did was how to cultivate his descendants and educate, with the purpose of ensuring that this foundation would be consolidated forever, and for this reason he was like a conscientious peasant, as stubborn and resolute as protecting his private property. To a large extent, he attached great importance to the two legacies he left to his descendants. One is the most precious "Imperial Ming Ancestral Training" in Zhu Yuanzhang's view, which in his view is a magic weapon that can protect the Ming Dynasty. As early as the second year of Hongwu (1373), after the initial political operation, he invested a lot of energy in organizing the compilation of the "Ancestral Training of the Emperor Ming". It took six years, seven drafts, and solemn admonitions: All my descendants, who have inherited their destiny, have no wisdom, mess with the law that I have already made, and cannot be changed in one word." The second is to use the system to strengthen family privileges. Zhu Yuanzhang was ruthless to the heroes and friends in the later stages, and he killed the killer, but he was kind to his children and grandchildren. The prince's palace has 50,000 stones of rice every year, and the prince's son is the king of the county, and there are also 10,000 stones of rice every year. Those dukes who made great achievements on the battlefield, such as Xu Da, the Duke of Wei, only had five thousand stones, and Li Shanchang, the Duke of Korea, had only four thousand stones, and the rest were three thousand stones.
Zhu Yuanzhang calligraphy
Not only that, the status of the king of the domain is second only to that of the emperor, and the ministers, no matter how high their position, must also pay homage to the prince, for which the "Emperor Ming Ancestral Training" clearly records: "All courtiers are sent to the royal palace, or because the envoy passes through to see the king, there are four prayers in parallel." Though the three dukes and the great generals will worship four times, the king will sit and accept them. Zhu Yuanzhang still felt that it was not enough, and then stipulated: "If the envoy's path is through the kingdom, deliberately detouring to avoid, and not going to the king, beheading." Even from the "how to administer" and "how to enforce the law" to "how to arrange daily living" and "how to manage the harem" and other minor details, this is really the greatest benevolent grandfather in history.
In the later period, Zhu Yuanzhang scanned the group of courtiers with all suspicious eyes, including those trembling eunuchs who became his defense targets, and he stipulated that eunuchs could not study, so as to block their ability and insight in government, and even the bizarre stipulation that any patient in the palace could not invite any doctor to enter, and must stay up until dawn, and solemnly wrote these into his "Imperial Ancestral Training". After killing all the heroes of the empire one by one, these "thorns" that he believed were hidden dangers to the Ming Dynasty must be pulled out, as long as he could let his descendants enjoy taiping forever and bear all the notoriety themselves.
Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang, who was maliciously vilified
In the last three years of his life, Zhu Yuanzhang became more and more urgent about the arrangements behind him, "I am afraid that the future generations will be the kings of shoucheng, growing up in the deep palace, and not understanding the world... Therefore, day and night are carefully thought out, and after the legislation is over, it will never be published. [4] In Zhu Yuanzhang's long edict, he took Liu Bang's greatest failure as a reference, because Lü Hou failed to abide by Liu Bang's white horse alliance, resulting in the change of color of the country and mountains, so he made great efforts to regard his life as the most important strategy, "Huangming Ancestral Training" to comprehensively cover, as an iron law, no descendant can be deleted in the slightest, and finally he even resolutely said: "Those who dare to change the ancestral law in the future generations will have no forgiveness for the theory of adultery." [5] Nevertheless, it shows that Zhu Yuanzhang was not a confident person all his life, and all his experiences told him that if he slackened off, there would be danger, just like the peasants painstakingly guarded his field, because it was obtained by the beads of sweat falling to the ground and falling eight petals.
To everyone's shock, before the old emperor died, he issued a final order to "rebuke the concubines", and all the women in the harem, except for Zhang Meiren's daughter, who was only ten years old and needed to be raised to avoid death, nearly forty other palace concubines who had served Zhu Yuanzhang were forced to commit suicide and "reunite" with Zhu Yuanzhang underground. "Taizu collapsed, and all the people in the palace were martyred." 【6】
This kind of brutal practice is undoubtedly the selfish and feudal psychology of Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, and he cannot rule out that after his death, the women who served him have deviant behavior with anyone, and only after all the martyrdom have made him feel completely at ease. Zhu Yuanzhang's emotional world is deformed, and even after becoming emperor, his emotional world is already a freak, although in his will he still maintains a little peasant frugal thinking: "Funeral rites, one frugal, no gold and jade." The Mountains and Rivers of Xiaoling, because of this, have not changed. The subjects of the world are released for three days, and there is no obstacle to marriage. [7] But it can only mean that he is an emotionally ferocious monster, Zhu Yuanzhang's emotional world is lonely, indifferent, benevolent, and irritable, and under the tragic experience of his life, he has gradually gone to extremes, which is a product of that era, and it is also the misfortune of Zhu Yuanzhang, because he has never been able to experience the warmth of the world except for the empire.
exegesis:
[1] Ming Taizu Shilu Vol. 153
[2] Zhu Yuanzhang's "Imperial Tomb Monument"
[3] Ming Taizu Shilu Vol. 257
[4] Yu Jideng's "Allusions chronicle volume 5"
[5] Records of the Ming Dynasty, vol. 241
[6] A Small History of the Ming Dynasty, Vol. III
[7] Records of the Ming Dynasty, vol. 257