Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, the third emperor in the history of the Ming Dynasty, was a very accomplished emperor who opened up territory and expanded his territory. He was the fourth son of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, who was given the title of King of Yan and was given the title of King of Yan, who was in Beijing. Like several other brothers who were given the title of prince, they held heavy troops in their hands and became the northern frontier of the Ming Dynasty in the early Ming Dynasty, responsible for defending against the southern invasion of the Mongols, and because of their courage and strategy, they were relied on by Taizu as an arm.
It is rumored that shortly after the death of Crown Prince Zhu Biao, Emperor Taizu intended to make this shrewd and capable fourth son the heir, which may have laid the foundation for the subsequent turmoil. However, Zhu Yuanzhang, who had always respected Confucian etiquette, eventually chose his grandson Zhu Yunjiao as his heir. However, the ambitious King of Yan certainly did not dare to lose the opportunity to inherit the unification, and in the first year of Jianwen, he launched a rebellion under the pretext of "Qing Jun's side", forcing Emperor Jianwen to set himself on fire, and inherited the throne as he wished, which is the famous "Battle of Jingnan" in history.
Because Zhu Di, the King of Yan, did not inherit the throne by legal means, he encountered many opposition voices, so Zhu Di did not hesitate to tamper with the historical archives of the Taizu and Jianwen dynasties on a large scale, hoping to obtain the legitimacy of his succession. It is precisely because of his baseless changes to the archives that he has left many mysteries for future generations. Each of us has a mother, but who is Zhu Di's mother? People today go through the historical archives and can't seem to find a qualified answer.
This question, like other unsolved mysteries, has a variety of versions, from official issues to folklore... There are different sources, different opinions, and different opinions, but the main statements are as follows:
Official records of Zhu Di's biological mother
The records in the Records of Ming Taizu and the Ming Shi Chengzu Benji are roughly the same: both say that Zhu Di's birth mother was Empress Gao of Taizu's Ma clan, and Empress Gao had five sons, the eldest son, Zhu Biao, who was made crown prince; the second son, King Qin, the third son, King Jin; and the fourth son, Zhu Di, the King of Yan. Both books clearly state that Empress Ma is Zhu Di's biological mother. However, because Zhu Di had falsified history in a big way, many historians were very dismissive of this. There are also many historical records that Empress Ma gave birth to four and five sons, and the other three were born to Concubine Taizu. It is also said in the "Imperial Family" that The Empress Ma gave birth to two sons, Emperor Taizong and King Zhou. However, it is recorded in the "King Butterfly of Lufu" that Empress Ma gave birth to Zu Zhu Di and the King of Zhou. Unfortunately, these two books have long been lost, and there is nowhere to be found true or false.
However, as we have already explained, judging from the style of conduct left over from his early years, he chose the heir to follow the principle of "standing and standing long", and from this point of view, the late crown prince Zhu Biao was not born to Empress Ma. On the contrary, people have more reason to doubt whether the historical record that Zhu Di's birth mother was Empress Ma is true. After all, he has such a previous conviction as "plotting to usurp the throne".
Da Fei said
Some historical books say that Empress Ma had four sons, and that Zhu Di, the ancestor of Cheng, was born to Concubine Da, "Removing The Relics". In the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shizhen, a literary leader with the same reputation as Zhang Juzheng, a political star, also ate the same view in his "Two Historical Examinations". However, Zhu Yizun, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, believed that Huang Zuo, the author of "The Removal of Relics", had obvious political biases, so it was not enough to believe.
The Mongolian concubine said
The basis of this statement is "Mongolian Origins", and the content of the record is as follows: when the Mongols were defeated, when the Yuan Shun Emperor fled the city of Beijing, his concubine Urn was captured by the Ming army, Zhu Yuanzhang saw her beauty, and accepted her as a concubine, at this time she was 7 months pregnant, and three months later gave birth to a baby boy, he was Zhu Di. But this statement is also not worth scrutinizing, how can Zhu Yuanzhang, who already sits in the world, look at a pregnant woman who is already 7 months pregnant? Even if you like it, with Zhu Yuanzhang's suspicious personality, how can he take other people's sons as his own parents and raise them around? Taking a step back, even if he was by his side, would he value him so much that he would entrust the task of resisting the Mongol invasion of the south to such an "enemy" son? So I think it's a story made up by the Mongols to find a way to their own failures.
Of course, the claim that Zhu Di's birth mother was the concubine of the Yuan Shun Emperor is not the only one, there is also another one: Zhu Di's mother is indeed the concubine of the Yuan Shun Emperor, and Zhu Di is really zhu Yuanzhang's son, and because of this life, their mother and son were not offered to the ancestral temple, but were enshrined in a separate place. The legend is that it is three points into the wood, as if there is a real thing.
Concubine said
Zhu Di's birth mother was Concubine Qi, which may be more accepted by posterity than the Zhengshi. People like Fu Sinian, Zhu Xizu, and Wu Han think that this statement is more reliable. They are based on the Chronicle of the Taichang Temple in Nanjing. This book is also based on the display of ancestral tablets in the Fengxian Hall of the Ming Tombs. It is reported that in the middle of the Fengxian Hall is the divine seat of Taizu and Empress Ma, and the eastern side displays the divine seat of Taizu's concubines, while the western side has only one divine seat. This seems to be a bit different from the feudal etiquette, the emperor's many concubines, with the empress status is the most honorable, followed by the birth mother of the next emperor, and the ranking display of the Fengxian Hall is exactly to prove this, so it should be more reasonable to say that concubines are Zhu Di's biological mother.
However, this statement is also flawed, first, the records of Concubine Qi are very rare to see, or even none; second, the person who wrote the "Chronicle of The Taichang Temple in Nanjing" is some distance away from Zhu Di's time, he lived in the Jiajing period, this year is deep and long, where did his writing material come from? The most suspicious thing is that the claim that Concubine Qi is Zhu Di's biological mother, except for the record in the "Nanjing Taichang Temple Chronicle", there is no way to find it anywhere else, it can be said that this is also an "orphan legend".
Personally, I think that Zhu Di's origin is definitely not too high, otherwise why didn't Zhu Di explicitly leave this file in the history books when he was in power? Instead, it leaves an ambiguous record for future generations, is it so that we can guess the mystery?