In the history of the Ming Dynasty, there was such an emperor, who reigned for a short time, and even his own name was often mistaken by history, and he looked very non-existent. However, such an oolong incident did not affect the political achievements he had achieved during his reign, he was the 12th emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Muzong Zhu Zaiquan.
Whether Ming Muzong was called Zhu Zaiyuan or Zhu Zaiyuan has been in a state of confusion in history. The main reason is that in the History of Ming, Ming Muzong is recorded as "Zhu Zaiyuan". Because the "History of Ming" is relatively early to let everyone understand the history of the Ming Dynasty, the influence is quite profound, so there is a later controversy over the real name of Ming Muzong. In fact, corrections have already been given in the Records of Sejong.
The Records of Sejong records that the third son of emperor Shangming was named Zaikun
In the Imperial Decree of the Emperor and the Records of the Joseon Dynasty, the records of the Great King of Zhongzong also record the names of the third son of the Emperor as "Zaikun". With this evidence, people in the later period slowly accepted Zhu Zai's real name.
Compared with other princes in the history of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zaituan's fate can also be regarded as a relatively tragic one. The Jiajing Emperor had a total of 8 children, Zhu Zaiyuan was the third son, from the perspective of the principle of "standing up for a long time" in the ancient feudal dynasty, the situation at that time was a distant thing for Zhu Zaituo to become an emperor. In addition, his mother Du Shi was not originally a favored woman in front of Emperor Sejong. According to the current state of affairs, Zhu Zaikun's greatest possibility is to be crowned as a clan king or a prince of a certain road, and finally spend the rest of his life.
However, history does not allow Zhu Zaituan to live such a bland and tasteless life, and he needs to come out and do something, and many unknown changes have begun to come quietly.
The jiajing emperor's eldest son Zhu Zaiji died two months after birth; The crown prince fell to the head of the second prince, Zhu Zaiyuan, but Zhu Zaiyuan only died of illness after only a few years as crown prince; At this time, the competitors in front of him have been eliminated, and at this time, those who are still qualified to be princes are the three sons Zhu Zaizhen and the fourth son Zhu Zaizhen.
However, the high-profile personality of the fourth son, Zhu Zaizhen, was not very much liked by the Jiajing Emperor, so he was quickly given a fief by the Jiajing Emperor to let him sit in town.
According to the current situation, Zhu Zaituan was already the prince without any controversy. However, at this time, the Jiajing Emperor did not show how much he liked the three princes, not that he did not like this son in his heart, but because the Jiajing Emperor at this time was convinced of the old way of the gods and immortals, which led to the belief in the Taoist theory that "the two dragons do not meet each other, and when they meet, they will be a disaster".
At this time, the ministers of the DPRK and China were also divided into two factions, one was the Pro-Jing faction headed by Yan Song, and the other was the Pro-Yu Faction headed by Xu Jie. Such a scene of conflict added a reason for the dispute to the Ming court, which was already full of civil officials and strife.
The Jiajing Emperor was also undecided, to put it more bluntly, he did not very much hope to set the candidate for the crown prince early. During this period, some courtiers urged Jiajing to make a prince as soon as possible, but after the disaster of killing was finally incurred, no courtier dared to challenge this bottom line since then.
In the 44th year of Jiajing, after Zhu Zaizhen died violently, Zhu Zaizhen became the only suitable candidate and was made crown prince. The following year, the Jiajing Emperor died, and Zhu Zaituo ascended the throne as emperor for Emperor Mingmuzong.
After Zhu Zaituo became emperor, the first thing he did was to correct the mistakes made by his father at that time. Pardon all the courtiers of the previous dynasty who had been wrongfully imprisoned, including the famous Hai Rui in history. The families of courtiers who had already been beheaded or killed were also compensated and their descendants were hired.
Taoist priests, as the organization that harmed him in the first half of his suffering, naturally could not be spared, and basically they were all guilty, and the building facilities related to the Taoist temple under construction were also stopped.
The Records of Muzong records that all Daoist priests were guilty of crimes
During his reign, Zhu Zaituan also implemented the practice of attaching importance to talents, broadening the way of speech, recruiting talents and recruiting talents, and jointly solving the problem of border turmoil that plagued the Ming Dynasty for many years. Through discussion, they also found the crux of the problem, the northern Mongolia often rioted to provoke, not that people want to have any conflict with themselves, but just want to exchange with themselves, do business. None of the previous emperors before Zhu Zaituo had opened up the border area for the two countries to do business, and Zhu Zaituo opened a precedent for treaty ports.
The Mongol problem was solved, and there was also a Wokou problem in the south, but in fact there were similarities. The main problem behind the scenes is that the people in the south cannot go to sea on their own due to the ban on the sea during the Zhu Yuanzhang period, as the saying goes, "relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the sea to eat the sea", since the imperial court does not allow them to go to sea privately, the people on the southern seashore collude with the Wukou pirates on the sea to start the business of smuggling seafood. Zhu Zaikuan also revised the decree to unify the people on the southern coast to trade and go to the sea, and started the next business.
Zhu Zaiyuan's series of policies not only made the border between the north and the south stable and peaceful, but also filled the national treasury a lot, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
In fact, before Zhu Zaituo, due to the perennial southern conquest and northern war, the pure silver of the national treasury has long been close to the dilemma of running out of oil, and under this wave of operations of Zhu Zaituo, the national treasury has not only been replenished by the return flow, but also the influence in the surrounding countries has gradually become stronger, it can be said that although Zhu Zaituo reigned for a short period of six years, it almost made a Ming Dynasty that had embarked on a downward trajectory continue for decades.
How could such an emperor be described as a faint lord, although in the later period he was interested in harem beauties and longevity elixirs, even if there was such a stain, it was not enough to cover up his exploits.