Zhu Yuanzhang's life is really not mild, and the four major cases of Hongwu are impressive. These were four major events, or four massacres, by Zhu Yuanzhang in order to eliminate those he considered a threat to his court. It is often said that the Son of Heaven lay down a corpse in anger and shed thousands of miles of blood, but in history, except for the battlefield, it is rare to see such a large-scale mutilation of courtiers. The first of the four major cases was the empty seal case, which was caused by a small matter. Empty seals are actually stamps on documents in advance and then written specifically when needed.
Because the officials at that time had to report bills to the household department every year, the figures had to be completely accurate, and the whole thing had to be rejected and re-reported. The probability of re-reporting is very large, but in ancient times, everyone knew that transportation was not developed. Officials prepared empty seals for convenience, which Zhu Yuanzhang considered to be an act of deception, and at the first order, at least a thousand people involved were killed. The other three cases are also tens of thousands of lives, the Hu Weiyong case of Hongwu thirteen years, Hu Weiyong was accused of treason against the Nine Tribes.
Also implicated were the Founding Fathers of Korea, such as Lee Sun-chang, Marquis Lu Zhongheng, and so on, and a total of 30,000 people were beheaded. The Guo Huan case in the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385) and the blue jade case in the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu (1393). The Blue Jade case was also a case of murdering heroes, and Fu Youde, Feng Sheng, and other princes were among them. In the four cases, the number of people punished reached more than 100,000. When his ministers had to worry about it all day, but there was such a person who was an exception, Zhu Yuanzhang could say that he had no temper at all. Even if his son provoked him, he would be scolded by Zhu Yuanzhang.
The son who caused the trouble was Zhu Yuanzhang's third son, Zhu Tang, whose mother was Empress Ma. On the seventh day of April of the third year of Hongwu, Zhu Tang was crowned king of Jin. Zhu Yuanzhang divided each of his sons into fiefs, and Zhu Tang's fiefdom was in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Zhu Yuanzhang had many sons, twenty-six sons before and after. There are zhu di as outstanding, naturally there are also cunning. Zhu Tang belonged to this kind, and at a young age he married the daughter of Xie Cheng, the Marquis of Yongping.
On April 16, 1378, Hongwu began to set out, and Zhu Yuanzhang, distressed his son, let Xu Xingzu, the cook he had used for many years, go with Zhu Tang. This Zhu Tang was very good-looking, but he was not a kind person, he was more brutal. On the way, because of some small things, he beat Xu Xingzu. Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry when he heard the news. Xu Xingzu was originally Zhu Yuanzhang's imperial cook, and he was kind enough to give his son unsympathetically, and what is important was that Zhu Yuanzhang thought that this person could not be beaten.
This time, he was not only angry, but also specially wrote a handwritten message, which was urgently handed to Zhu Tang. It reads: My handsome group of heroes calms down the chaos and does not appease them. Xu Xingzu, the sole chef, has not tasted humiliation for twenty-three years. The resentment is not big, the boy knows it. What does that mean? That is to say, he has been pacifying the world for many years, and anyone who makes a mistake must be punished, but he has never scolded Xu Xingzu in the past twenty-three years. It is hard to imagine that an emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang, who can't move to kill people, would have such a side, right?
It is not that Xu Xingzu's family is born, or that he has grace and Zhu Yuanzhang, but because he is a cook. Zhu Yuanzhang thinks that the cook is in charge of the meal, if you say that you are punished at will, he is not happy that day, what if you are poisoned? In fact, his words are not unreasonable, the cook is around every day, it is difficult to prevent. Since you want others to be good to you, you must first be good to others, so Xu Xingzu is quite respected by Zhu Yuanzhang in the palace, and he is also a person who makes him rarely have a good temper. The reward given to Xu Xingzu was also very willing, and he was once given an official position.
References: History of the Ming Dynasty, Records of the Ming Dynasty