Emperor Wuzong of Ming (27 October 1491 – 20 April 1521), reigned (reigned 1505–1521), the tenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was also generally known as the Zhengde Emperor because of his reign.
Regarding Zhu Houzhao, posterity has two extreme evaluations of him:
Positive evaluation: He is in charge of the work, resolute and decisive in his handling. During the great victory of Yingzhou, he ate and lived with ordinary soldiers, and also stabbed an enemy soldier with his hand, which boosted the morale of the Ming army.
Negative evaluation: He was absurd and unscrupulous during his political period, which led to the decline of national strength. A lifetime of greed, martial arts, and fun. The behavior is grotesque, and it is a rare and pathless person.
Of course, people have two sides, which is not surprising.
Saying that he was greedy and misguided the government did not wrongfully accuse him at all. Because during his reign, on the festive day of the first day of the Chinese New Year, a murder occurred, which was caused by his misconduct.
We are now on the Spring Festival holiday, civil servants, industrial workers, the time during the holiday is controlled by yourself, you want to sleep lazily, then sleep in the dark, the sun is three poles; if you can't sleep, then go out to visit relatives and friends, push the cup to change the cup, and talk about the wine, it is all up to you.
But in the Ming Dynasty, even during the holidays, time was not controlled by these ministers. Let's say that on the first day of the Lunar New Year, they should leave early and go to the Fengtian Temple to attend the annual meeting of the imperial court, and at this annual meeting, they will go up to pay homage to the emperor.
This rule was set by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and this system was established as soon as the Ming Dynasty was established.
"In September of the first year of the Ming Dynasty Hongwu Dynasty, the DingzhengDan Dynasty ceremony was slightly similar to that of Dengji." (Ming Shi Zhi 29 Rites VII (Jia Li I))
That is to say, the annual meeting on the first day of the Chinese New Year is equivalent to the emperor's enthronement ceremony. It shows that this is a formal and serious national ceremony, and every courtier must naturally participate in it, and must not be absent.
The agenda of this pilgrimage is roughly as follows:
On the morning of the first day of the first year, the ministers would get up before dawn, begin to freshen up, pack up their liso, and rush to the noon gate, where they would wait in line for the start of the meeting.
As soon as the morning hour arrives (6 a.m.), the regular pilgrimage begins.
As soon as the drums of the Sect Division sounded, the hundred officials waiting outside the noon gate had to step on the drums, enter the field in the order of the size of the official positions, and line up to the front of the temple and stand with their hands hanging down.
As soon as the officials were in place, the music immediately became the emperor's special neutral shao music, and as the music sounded, the emperor began to make a grand appearance.
After seeing the emperor enter the field, he slowly sat down on the dragon chair and began to accept the worship of the hundred officials.
At the end of the service, the Emperor will also deliver a New Year's message. But this speech was not an impromptu speech, but a written speech, which was read out by the reading officer on behalf of the emperor.
After the speech was completed, the hundred officials prayed again before they could get up.
After the ceremonies of the entire court were completed, the emperor rode back to the palace. The hundred officials had to wait for the emperor to leave before they could retreat in an orderly manner.
The whole process usually takes two hours to complete. When the officials returned to the palace, it was usually noon.
During the reign of the Zhengde Emperor, this pilgrimage, which was supposed to be at most one morning, was held for a whole day, and it did not end until the evening, and finally there was a murder.
The course of events was as follows: at dawn of the New Year's Day, the venue was set up early, and the ministers were all lined up and waited outside the noon gate. Just wait for the emperor to come, there will be an annual meeting.
However, the emperor was never seen. What's the situation? This is what was said above, the absurdity of the Zhengde Emperor.
Chinese New Year's Eve shou nian, he stayed up late, it may be that Tu Su wine did not drink less, to the first day of the first year, originally wanted to get up early, but he was lazy, dead and alive.
The hundred officials waited there, waited, waited, waited from morning to noon, and did not move; and began to look forward to it from noon, until about 6 p.m., before they hoped to come to the emperor ("Emperor Wuzong did not arrive at the Fengtian Temple until youkai"), and the hundred officials at this time waited quietly for a day.
The officials who ate breakfast were a little better, and the officials who did not eat in the morning, even hungry and thirsty, were already on their chests and backs. In particular, senior officials who are old have become seriously physically weak at this time.
It was easy to survive until the end of the annual meeting, and everyone rushed out to go home.
Who knew that the palace gate was relatively narrow, and everyone rushed to the door and immediately squeezed the palace door to death.
In this way, the people in front could not go out, and the people in the back were working hard again, and suddenly tragedy occurred, "the people with their stomachs rushed to go home, stomped forward and stomped back, and trampled on each other." The right general Zhao Lang actually died at the forbidden gate. ”
Just imagine, the physical fitness of a person who can become a right general should be very good, he has been trampled to death, and the degree of chaos can be imagined.
This chaos is terrible, "the officials look for their officials and sons to call their fathers, and the servants to save their masters, and the noise is as noisy as the city, and the sound is throughout the temple." "The guards could no longer find their masters, the sons could not find their fathers, and there was a sudden chaos like the Roman market.
What was supposed to be a serious national ceremony, a festive event, ended in tragedy. Therefore, can the descendants of these ministers have a good evaluation of the Zhengde Emperor?
In fact, this is also the emperor himself to find, originally a strict, formal national ceremony, but he was late for no reason.
It was supposed to greet the rising sun and joyfully accept the greetings of the hundred officials; as a result, this grand ceremony was held at dusk. At this moment, the auspicious time has been missed, and it has violated the laws of nature, and it is strange that there is no accident!