On the fourth day of the first lunar month of the first year of Hongwu (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang was proclaimed emperor, and the country was named Daming, and the capital was set at Nanjing.
As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang was a good emperor, but he also had a problem that made posterity criticize. That is to kill the heroes, because of his origin and other reasons, Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely distrustful of the ministers below. Especially the founding heroes, such people have become high and powerful with the rise of the Ming Dynasty, and it is inevitable that they will be suspected of being high in merit and shaking the Lord.
Therefore, when he was still alive, he dealt with these heroes, and those who could reach the end were very few. The three founding warriors, Chang Yuchun, died suddenly of illness when the world was not yet unified, while the deaths of the other two were suspicious. Like Xu Da was suspected several times, although the Ming history records that he died of illness, there are other records that he was killed by Zhu Yuanzhang. Li Wenzhong's death is even more suspicious, why do you say so?
First, let's look at the life of Li Wenzhong, the son of Princess Cao Guochang and the nephew of Zhu Yuanzhang. He was born in 1339, and at the age of twelve, his hometown suffered drought and plague. Princess Cao Guochang died of illness in this year, and later the rebels entered the country, and Li Zhen had to take Li Wenzhong with him to avoid it. Two years later, they heard that Zhu Yuanzhang was in Chuzhou, so they went to defect. When Zhu Yuanzhang was young, his relatives were relatively poor, and only his brother-in-law Li Zhen's family could eat a little, and he was willing to help him from time to time.
Therefore, later Zhu Yuanzhang was particularly kind to Li Zhen's family, and when he saw his sister's only son, he was also distressed, and out of love, he let him follow his surname Zhu. So for a while, Li Wenzhong was actually called Zhu Wenzhong, considered an adopted son, and Zhu Yuanzhang also invited Fan Zuqian and Hu Han to be teachers. Li Wenzhong was a man of wisdom and a man of both literature and martial arts, and he made great contributions in the process of Zhu Yuanzhang's uprising.
However, whether it is friendship or family affection, in the face of rights, it is actually nothing. After the Ming Dynasty gradually stabilized, Li Wenzhong was in charge of the Metropolitan Governor's Palace, and Hu Weiyong was executed the following year. After Hu Weiyong's death, Zhu Yuanzhang still felt that it was not enough and intended to expand the case. Suddenly, everyone in the government and the public was in danger, and Li Wenzhong was very uneasy about such an approach. He had lost the hearts and minds of the people, so he planned to go to the fold to advise, in fact, he had already advised twice before.
One was to advise not to conquer Japan, the other was to advise not to rely on official eunuchs, and he even criticized Zhu Yuanzhang in the execution of officials and other matters. These two times Zhu Yuanzhang did not pay attention, but the third time he was very angry, and the family affection seemed thinner than paper at this time. One angry, one insisting on seeing each other, the two quickly quarreled, and Li Wenzhong was beaten to prison. In the end, Empress Ma stood up, and she said that Li Wenzhong was a founding minister and your nephew, so couldn't you spare his life?
These words made Taizu feel compassion, and Li Wenzhong was exonerated from the death penalty. However, the official is impossible to be, not even allowed to go out, and is claustrophobic at home. In the winter of 1383 (the sixteenth year of Hongwu), Li Wenzhong fell ill, and Zhu Yuanzhang personally went to visit. When he left, He put Huai'an Houhuazhong in charge of medical treatment, and as a result, less than half a year later, Li Wenzhong, who was forty-six years old, died. His death was the first suspicious point, and then Zhu Yuanzhang suspected that Huazhong had been poisoned, so he demoted his knighthood and expelled his family.
And the other doctors who healed Li Wenzhong were all beheaded, and it was Zhu Yuanzhang who let Huazhong heal him, so why should he suspect that he was poisoned? And where did the other doctors' families die? Even if you really suspect that Huazhong was poisoned, why don't you ask the murderer behind the scenes? The most important point is that the reason for the poisoning is that Hua zhong is Hua Yunlong's son. He had no grievances against Li Wenzhong, and Li Wenzhong was also a relative of the emperor and the state, so why did Central China want to provoke him?
In addition, there are two doubts, one is that when Li Wenzhong was in the past, Zhu Yuanzhang gave enough mourning on his face. However, it is actually very sloppy, and one of the Shinto stone statues in front of his tomb is not even formed. The other is that when Zhu Yuanzhang asked Li Wenzhong's son Li Jinglong to attack the knight, he once said such a sentence: Li Wenzhong, the former sister of The Emperor. The order of the people will be among them. Merit to the public position. alack. Non-intellectual, non-modest. A few tired sheji. Inevitably, he died.
From all kinds of points of view, Li Wenzhong's death seems to have another secret, after all, a general who is both literate and martial is really difficult to control. Combined, it was more like Zhu Yuanzhang was jealous of him, so he ordered Huazhong or the medical officer to poison him to death, and finally killed people to kill him. Of course, this is only a doubt, and it cannot be regarded as the only answer. Just like Xu Da's death, it can only be a speculation, and I am afraid that no one will know how.