Introduction: Daming Fenghua, who is the prototype of Quan Guifei, was there a Korean tribute girl during the Zhu Yuanzhang period? Zhu Di selected how many tribute women, a brief analysis of the Korean tribute women system
"Daming Style" is a historical drama, in the plot in line with the principle of "big things are not vain, small things are not informal", almost all major historical events have historical prototypes.
In the play, there is such a plot, An Guifei and Park Guifei are both tribute girls of The Korean tribute, after the arrival of Park Guifei, it is An Guifei who receives her, and An Guifei tells Park Guifei the great significance of being fortunate to be blessed by the emperor, if you give birth to a son and a half daughter, the fate of life will immediately become very different.
Quan Guifei was under pressure and played a missing game, and suddenly the harem was in chaos, Princess Zhang Yan and Han Shangyi both felt that their lives were threatened, and the female official Hu Shanxiang took the opportunity to gamble to win the trust of the princess, and then opened the road of counterattack in life.
In real history, what Korean concubines did Zhu Di have? Who is the prototype of Concubine Quan? Let's first understand the Korean tribute system of the Ming Dynasty.
The Korean tribute system began in the Yuan Dynasty, although the relationship between the two countries lasted for more than 1200 years, almost in the dynasties, China and The DPRK had different forms of exchanges, and by the Yuan Dynasty, they submitted Goryeo by force and forced Goryeo to pay tribute to their daughters, and through the marriage system to build the clan relationship between the two countries.
After the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, at the beginning of its establishment, focused on the northeast of the northern frontier, at this time the Goryeo Kingdom on the Korean Peninsula, as well as the later Lee Joseon and the Ming Dynasty across the Yalu River, due to the long-term marriage between Korea and the Yuan Dynasty, so that the relationship between Goryeo and the Yuan Dynasty was quite deep.
Although the Ming Dynasty came to power and banned the Korean system of tribute to the Yuan court, this bad habit continued for decades in the early days of its establishment. During the Zhu Yuanzhang period, the Ming Dynasty once "asked for relatives" to Korea in order to stabilize the situation in the east, but was rejected; in the period of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, under the consideration of diplomatic strategy, he began to choose concubines from Korea, which shows that the reappearance of tribute women in the Ming Dynasty was related to the special political situation at that time.
So, during the Hongwu period, what were the tribute women?
Zhu Yuanzhang worked hard to make peace with North Korea
Zhu Yuanzhang took the throne at Nanjing and established the Ming Dynasty, and although Emperor Yuanshun fled to Mobei with his Mongol royal relatives, officials, and troops, he still had considerable power in Monan, Mobei, Liaodong, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi and other places, and these areas were accumulating strength to return to the Central Plains at any time.
In order to deal with the Mongol forces in the north, the Ming Dynasty and The Ming Dynasty sent large expeditions many times, which greatly weakened the Mongol forces, but the Ming Dynasty also paid a terrible price; in the northeast region, the Goryeo State was adjacent to the Liaodong region, and the military geographical location was extremely special, while the Goryeo Kingdom on the Korean Peninsula and later the Lee Dynasty Korea established close ties with the century-old marriage with the Yuan Dynasty.
Goryeo culture has a long history, has long been influenced by the Han culture of the Central Plains, respects Confucian etiquette, advocates Confucianism, and even the system and bureaucracy of the regime on the Korean Peninsula are also established in imitation of the Central Plains Dynasty, so it is treated with special courtesy by Zhu Yuanzhang; although Korea is called a country, it is not foreign.
From the heart, Zhu Yuanzhang still had a good feeling for Korea, at the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there were Korean concubines in the harem, for example, Zhu Yuanzhang's fourteenth daughter, the mother of Princess Hanshan was the Goryeo concubine Han, and there are also historical sources speculating that Zhu Di's mother, Concubine Shuo, was also a Goryeo. These concubines were all offered by Goryeo during the Yuan Dynasty, and remained in the Central Plains after the Yuan Shun Emperor retreated north, becoming the harem of the Ming Dynasty.
In view of the complex political and military situation in the north and northeast, Zhu Yuanzhang urgently needed to stabilize the northeast region and establish a solid state relationship with the Goryeo state, and at the same time, considering that the Yuan Dynasty and Goryeo had many years of marriage tradition, Ming Taizu drew on historical experience and emulated the "peace and affinity" policy prevailing during the Han and Tang Dynasties, hoping that through marriage, the purpose of effectively controlling Goryeo and Lee Korea could be achieved.
In the last ten years of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he began to take the initiative to contact goryeo and Lee Joseon about clan marriages, and also sent officials to Goryeo and Lee Korea many times, hoping to be a relative, but the North Korean side failed to agree for various reasons.
Korean tribute girl during the reign of Emperor Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty
When Ming Chengzu took the throne, he adopted an active foreign policy, and for Korea, Zhu Di, as the King of Yan stationed in Beiping, had contacted the envoys of the Dprk, and the Korean envoys were also respectful and respectful to the King of Yan at that time, leaving a good target for Zhu Di. After Ming Chengzu ascended the throne, the Ming Dynasty and Korea officially began the tributary relationship between the Ming Dynasty and the Joseon Dynasty.
Unlike Zhu Yuanzhang's policy of peace and pro-family, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di made a request to The Joseon Dynasty to offer tribute women, and according to the old system of the Yuan Dynasty and Goryeo, the virgins were selected, this time the requirements were lowered, and concubines were directly selected for themselves from the official eunuchs and the commoner class, and since then, the tribute women have become a matter of diplomatic relations between Korea and the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Di screened virgins from North Korea three times
According to the Records of Emperor Taizong of the Lee Dynasty, it is recorded that Ming Chengzu recruited virgins from Korea three times in the sixth, seventh, and fifteenth years of Yongle. In the sixth year of Yongle, the first recruitment of Korean virgins was personally selected by Huang Yu, who was also angry because of "no beauty", and then carried out a second screening nationwide, which shows that the ming Dynasty's conditions for screening beautiful women in Korea are still very high.
After several screenings, Huang Yu selected a total of five: the daughter of the late Gong Cao Dian Shu Quan, the daughter of the former Dian Ren TianNian, the daughter of the former Zhiyong Prefecture Affair Li Wenming, and the daughter of the official eunuch Lü Guizhen and the daughter of Cui Defei. After the five tribute women of the Quan clan were summoned to the Ming court, they were given a generous gift by Ming Chengzu, and their father and brothers who accompanied them, among them, the Quan clan was given the title of Xianren Concubine, the Ren clan was Shun Concubine, the Li clan was Zhaorong, the Lü clan was Jie Yu, and the Cui clan was a beauty.
In the seventh year of Yongle, eunuchs such as Huang Yu and Hai Shou were once again instructed to go to Korea to screen tribute women, and put forward higher requirements for tribute women, and in order to expand the range of choices, Emperor Taizong of the Joseon Dynasty also lowered the age of virginity to thirteen years old. This time, only the doctor Yizhou Zheng Yunhou was selected.
In the fifteenth year of Yongle, Huang Yu and Hai Shou were sent by Zhu Di to Korea to select virgins, because the incident had already allowed the envoys to pass the word, and the Korean palace had already been selected, and finally the Huang and Han clans were selected. After the Huang and Han clans arrived in the capital division, Ming Chengzu was also generously rewarded, and his accompanying brothers or officials were also given official positions.
In addition to these three visits to Korea to collect virgins, in the twenty-second year of Yongle, Zhu Di asked the Korean envoys to return to China to search for virgins, and at that time, the Lee family's Korean system was still ready, but unexpectedly Ming Chengzu Zhu Di suddenly died, and the matter was not resolved. In this way, after three screenings in North Korea, a total of eight tribute women were selected.
In "Daming Style", the number and name of Zhu Di's Korean noble concubines are different from history, but from the perspective of the degree of pampering and the final ending, the prototype of Park Guifei should be Quan Guifei, but in the play, Park Guifei's identity is very high is Princess Baby Ning, and the historical status of Quan Guifei is not low, and she is also an official eunuch family, and her father is the doctor Cao Dianshu QuanZhong.
Historically, among the Korean tribute women, the most favored and the only one in the "History of Ming" is the Quan clan, she entered the palace in the sixth year of Yongle, with her clever mind and proud posture, won the love of Ming Chengzu, accompanied by the king at any time, in Yongle for half a year, Concubine Quan once followed Zhu Di to personally conquer Mongolia, but died of illness in the ninth year of Yongle.
Han is another favored Korean concubine after the Kwon clan, and although Zhu Di loves him deeply, "accompanied by the king is like a companion tiger", the Han and Choi clan did not escape the end of being martyred after escaping the court massacre caused by the Kwon concubine.
References: "History of the Ming Dynasty", "Records of Li Dynasty", "Records of Li Taizong", etc