In the theme song of the old version of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" TV series, there is a sentence called "Take on the matter before the body, why fear the name after the body." Zhu Yuanzhang was born as a beggar, but in the end he stood out from the world, finally calmed the world, sat on the dragon chair, and created the Hongwu rule of "Yuanmai Hantang".
The Ming Dynasty founded by Zhu Yuanzhang also has the same personality as Zhu Yuanzhang, after nearly 300 years of Spring and Autumn, the Southern Ming Dynasty fell in 1661 AD, and the Ming Dynasty died, but the struggle of "anti-Qing and restoration" in the Qing Dynasty seems to have accompanied the Qing Dynasty for a lifetime, from the beginning of the founding of the Qing Dynasty to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, there was no day in the Qing Dynasty that there were no ordinary people preparing for the "anti-Qing and restoration" activities. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants had to flee after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and even changed their names and surnames.
Unlike many "royal families" after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, many "royal families" stood up and announced their identities, the Ming Dynasty royal family was very low-key after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, and it was also very low-key after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, they never took this royal glory as a thing, but just quietly lived their own lives and spread the stories of their ancestors. If it weren't for a family tree that has been passed down from generation to generation, perhaps many of us would think that Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants would almost be extinct.
It wasn't until the villagers of Tianhoupeng Village in Anhui Province inadvertently looked through their own family trees that they found that they were actually descendants of Zhu Yuanzhang! They were descendants of a Ming dynasty prince who, in 1644, Li Zicheng invaded the city of Beijing. This prince may have foreseen the demise of the Ming Dynasty in advance, or perhaps he had made preparations. He led his people to hide in the mountains of Anhui, hiding in a cave for many years, and only dared to come out to find something to eat on weekdays.
This hiding was many years, and after the demise of Li Zicheng's "Da Shun", the establishment of the Qing Dynasty was also very uneasy about these former Ming descendants, and tried its best to catch them and execute them. Because the anti-Qing revival in various places often started things through the names of several former Ming descendants, each former Ming royal family was a figure they had to guard against with all their might. The Prince of the Zhu family had no choice but to stay in the mountains, live in seclusion in the mountains and forests, and never go anywhere.
What is even more amazing is that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the city of Beijing was in chaos, and this prince did not know how to actually get the dragon chair in the Beijing City Palace - perhaps he was not used to seeing the dragon chair being trampled by the shameless people, in short, the dragon chair followed Wang Ye to the mountain and became an "heirloom" of the villagers. However, the villagers did not know that this dark and dilapidated chair was actually a "special seat" that only the emperor could sit in before, and they only kept this thing as a memorial to their ancestors.
There are only 38 families in Tianhoupeng Village, but almost all of them are surnamed Zhu. When the people who saw the family tree told the other villagers the news, everyone was still slightly shocked, and they did not expect that they were actually the "royal family" of the past. So this news was made public, and after careful study by experts, it was found that their genealogical records were true, and the dragon chair was also a genuine golden silk wooden dragon chair, which was extremely valuable, which confirmed their identity.
However, they did not have any idea of applying for privileges, wanting to wear the dragon robe of the Ming Dynasty in public, the Ming Dynasty has become history, they are now the people of the republic, and they only want to create a happy life through their own hands and clever minds. After all, the glory of the ancestors was created by the ancestors, and the glory of this generation also needs to be created by this generation itself!