In the 31st year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, died. The first question the emperor faced after his death was not how many tables the funeral was done, and who would inherit it. Zhu Yuanzhang's successor was his grandson Zhu Yunwen, the second son of Crown Prince Zhu Biao. So the question is, Zhu Yuanzhang has 26 sons, why did he pass the throne to a hairy boy who was only in his 20s?
To understand this problem, we must first understand the succession system of the emperor. Since the Zhou Dynasty, China's feudal emperors have talked about standing tall and not standing long, and standing tall without standing up. The meaning of this first sentence is to say, your father is the emperor, yes, you are also your father's eldest son, did not run, but if you are not born to the empress, you are not qualified. The meaning of this second sentence is that if the queen does not give birth to a son, or if the son born to the queen dies, she will have the eldest son. Back to Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang's eldest son is Zhu Biao, just after the founding of the country, Zhu Biao was established as a prince to cultivate, but the problem is that the weak Zhu Biao died of an early infection, the white-haired people sent the black-haired people, Zhu Yuanzhang did not have time to be sad, he had to face a very realistic problem, the prince died, who to pass the throne to? Logically, the most disciplined thing must be passed on to the next flute. Zhu Yuanzhang had three concubines, Zhu Biao died, and there was still the second oldest Zhu Shuang and the third Zhu Gang. But these two brothers really made Zhu Yuanzhang look down. The second eldest, Zhu Shuang, was intelligent at an early age and studied parrots, but unfortunately, when he became an adult, he did many evil deeds and was absurd, and he was a stupid boy of Toto'er. Although the old third Zhu Gang did not engage in yellow, but he was brutal, and he wanted to make him the emperor, Daming, which was the second Qin Dynasty. At this time, it was the turn of Zhu Di, the King of Yan, to appear. Zhu Di was the fourth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, who had seen the shadow of swords and lights as early as when Zhu Yuanzhang was fighting in Jiangshan, and was even more courageous and good at war when he grew up. But at that time, the crown prince Zhu Biao was still alive, Zhu Di could only be a prince in Yanjing, and during the time he was a prince, he was diligent in all kinds of civil affairs, and all kinds of advantages made Zhu Yuanzhang decide to let Zhu Di be the successor after the death of the prince.
But Zhu Di's biggest problem is that it is a concubine. No matter what, this emperor's position could not be inherited by him. Sure enough, when Liu Sanwu, a scholar of Hanlin, heard that Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to make Zhu Di the crown prince, he immediately said that he would not be able to do so. First, of course, the rule of standing up for a long time also applies to uncles and nephews, and second, if the pearl land is established, the flute, the king of Zhou and the king of Jin are determined not to do it, the two brothers are holding heavy troops, it is not good, to do the revolution, Zhu Yuanzhang does not want to let the Zhu family fight among themselves, and because Zhu Biao's eldest son died more than pigs and seaweed, and finally considering all the advantages and disadvantages, Zhu Yuanzhang still took Zhu Biao's second son, that is, Zhu Yunwen,the emperor's grandson to inherit the throne. As everyone knows, an infighting has laid the groundwork. Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes are poisonous, he has long found that the pig DJ boy is not willing to be the prince, but what can he do when he finds it? Although during his reign, he was Zhu Yunwen through the Conquest of The Northern Plains and the Blue Jade Case. New clearance of military threats at home and abroad.
But After all, Zhu Di was his own son, and the tiger poison did not eat children, so he could not kill her. Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang's retention of Zhu Di was of great use, at that time, although Beiyuan was forced to chase out of the desert, but the guerrillas were still constantly harassing the border, so he arranged for Xiao Yong's Zhu Di to support 100,000 troops to guard Yanjing, and Ning Wangze, who had 80,000 troops and the elite cavalry of the Three Guards of Duoyan, stationed in Daning, that is, Chifeng Ningcheng County. From this arrangement, it can be seen that in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, these sons are like a barrier to protect the imperial city of Nanjing from the threat of the north. In general, this is a very tangled choice, on the one hand, to let these clan kings support the town to guard the town, on the other hand, they are afraid that Zhu Yunwen will not be able to stop these uncles. Zhu Yuanzhang naturally also took this problem into account, in order to prevent the occurrence of Wang Ye's use of power by raising troops. After the overthrow of the society, it was stipulated that the princes were not allowed to communicate with each other, even if they entered the dynasty, they could not come at the same time, and the king of the wing must leave the capital before the other king could set off, so as to avoid the kings from connecting with each other and confronting the central government. Before he died, he advised Zhu Di separately to protect your nephew Zhu Yunwen, otherwise I would not let you go as a ghost. Then he asked worriedly, I am dead, how do you deal with your uncles? The answer given by Zhu Yunwen was, boil the frog in warm water, first subdue people with virtue, if not, cut the domain, slowly reduce the military power in their hands, it is really not possible, then don't blame me for being a nephew. Well, this answer is perfect, Zhu Yuanzhang is very pleased, although it is very empty, but this is the best way he can think of, he should also consider it, he should not consider it, even before his death, in order to prevent the king of the clan from making trouble, he also ordered them not to enter the capital to investigate. On the day of his death, Zhu Yuanzhang left with peace of mind, but what he did not expect was that Zhu Yunwen answered that way, but he did not do so. In Zhu Yunwen's view, these uncles, on the surface, five people and six people, are actually very bad in their hearts, as long as they exist for one day, he cannot sit on the dragon chair with peace of mind. After boarding the plane, only a month later, Zhu Yunwen was thrown under the command of two important ministers, Shangshu Qitai of the Bingbu And Huang Zicheng of taichangqing. As well as his own worries about short-term success, he began to slash the domain quickly. Of course, the primary target of cutting the domain is the most dangerous Zhu Di, but considering that direct cutting of Zhu Di will be too obvious, So Zhu Yunwen began to pick soft persimmon pinches, cut a few kings first, and make a sample to create a momentum for Xue Zhudi's public opinion. Zhu Suzhi, the King of Zhou, the half-brother of Zhu Di the King of Yan, in Zhu Yongwen's view, would be Zhu Di's powerful assistant, so he became the first person to be purged. Zhu Yunwen was also not polite, and directly swept this uncle to the end, directly demoted from a state-level cadre to an ordinary person, and moved to the barbaric land of Yunnan. In December of the same year, Zhu Yunwen moved the acting king Zhu Gui to Shudi for his crimes of corruption and cruelty. In May of the following year, he was also accused of wrongdoing and demoted the concubines of the King of Min to ordinary people. Within a few years, Zhu Yunwen was the most preying on Zhu Bai, the King of Xiang, for printing money privately. Zhu Bai, the king of Xiang, was very strong, and when he learned that someone was going to arrest him, he directly gathered his wife and children together, closed the palace door, and set himself on fire and died. Is it over? No, Zhu Yunwen quickly deposed his king Zhu Fu and the acting king Zhu Gui as shuren with a thunderous momentum, and destroyed six kings, which took less than a year, which can be described as clean and neat. Zhu Yunwen is still too young. Zhu Di was not stupid, watching his brothers fall one by one, knowing that the next one was himself. He did not want to tie his hands and capture it, so he raised an army, and in the name of the Qing Emperor's side and Jing Guonan, spent four years to capture the city of Nanjing, and took the imperial power from Zhu Yunwen's hands, which is known as the Battle of Jingnan. So the question is, does Zhu Di really want to usurp power? I think he's not so stupid, he wants to be emperor, who doesn't want to? But he didn't want to rebel, and most importantly he didn't have that capital. Although he had 100,000 soldiers under his command, compared with the central army, he did not have the same advantage in number, logistics, and nominality.
At that time, the emperor did not do it, and he also bore the name of the ancient infamy, and could not draw it. He is also suffering, suffering to be a rich man, or risking death to become a ninety-five supreme being? And in the process of his suffering, Emperor Jianwen's side began to press forward step by step, seeing his brothers fall one by one, Zhu Di knew that if he continued to suffer like this, the rich man of the land would not say that he could not succeed, and his life would not be over. Therefore, he chose to use power by the army. Of course, Zhu Di's usurpation of power is an ironclad fact, but the reason is that Zhu Yunwen is too eager to make quick gains. Fang Wang really should cut, but it is not such a cutting method. If he could cut it like this, would Zhu Yuanzhang have done it earlier? You see that Wendi is more far-sighted than Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yunwen's approach is not meaningless, after all, Kangxi learned this lesson from Zhu Yunwen, enwei and shi, and finally succeeded in cutting it three times.