In China's feudal dynasties, the emperor was the supreme being, and in order to show his majesty and sacredness, in addition to being different from ordinary people in terms of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, even his will to officials had to be called holy will. The opening sentence of the familiar holy will shows the incomparable sacredness of the heavenly right of the monarchy, that is, "the emperor's edict of the Emperor of Fengtian". This sentence appears very frequently in our lives, and it generally appears in costume dramas. So who invented this phrase in the first place?
The inventor of this sentence is Zhu Yuanzhang, about 600 years ago. Speaking of this, everyone may have doubts, Zhu Yuanzhang is from the Ming Dynasty, but it seems that in the film and television drama, all the emperors of the dynasties have used this sentence to issue holy decrees. This belongs to the film and television producer's lack of rigor in terms of historical plot. In fact, before the Ming Dynasty, although there was also a special sentence on the Holy Will, it was definitely not as domineering as Zhu Yuanzhang's sentence.
After Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, in order to highlight his supremacy, he used the "Emperor Zhao Yue", while the Han Dynasty followed the Qin Dynasty conventions, so it also used the "Emperor Zhao Yue". During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to frequent wars, in order to prove the legitimacy of his throne and the state, the emperor changed the beginning of the holy will to "when the heavens are smooth, under the order of Zi Ming". After that, the beginning of almost every dynasty's holy will was different, but it was definitely not as domineering as Zhu Yuanzhang's sentence. So why did Zhu Yuanzhang choose the beginning of such a holy will? This is related to Zhu Yuanzhang's origin.
Everyone knows that Zhu Yuanzhang was a completely poor person before becoming emperor, and even worked as a monk in order to survive. It is very rare for such an identity to become an emperor, knowing that in the great unified dynasty of China, Liu Bang ascended the throne as a commoner before him. Therefore, in order to increase his legitimacy and authority, Zhu Yuanzhang combined his monarchy with heaven, so there will be a saying of "heavenly transportation". With Zhu Yuanzhang's creation of the phrase "Fengtian Carrying Emperor's Edict", it has been circulated for more than 600 years.
But what is embarrassing is that the well-known phrase "Fengtian Carries the Emperor's Edict" is almost rarely read correctly. People often read it in four broken sentences, that is, "Fengtian Carries, the Emperor's Edict", but this reading is wrong. The real pronunciation of this sentence is "Fengtian Carrying Emperor, Zhao Yue", which emphasizes the five words of "Heavenly Carrier Emperor" and emphasizes the legitimacy and authority of the heavenly mandate of the monarchy. Because the ancient holy will was written with the emperor and the heavens side by side, this caused a misreading by later generations.