To say who is the first person in the ancient Chinese grassroots counterattack, Han Gaozu Liu Bang and Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang must be tied for the first, the two are the only two founding emperors in Chinese history who have come from cloth to Tianzi, before becoming emperor, Liu Bang was idle, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who was once a monk, was like a "salted fish" that was pickled by cruel life.
And the history of the two emperors can not be described by the salted fish turning over, it is clear that the salted fish after the turn over and then successfully jumped over the dragon gate to transform the dragon, Chen Sheng's slogan "The prince will have a kind of Xiangning" is really suitable for them, but these two are personally interpreted what is called a hero without asking the source.
And these two have highly similar hobbies in some aspects, such as killing heroes.
Liu Bang killed the heroes to engage in key objects and key care, and the basics of small merit and few threats were put over; And Zhu Yuanzhang's killing of heroes can be said to be a large-scale indiscriminate killing, whether it is the Duke of Guo or Hou Ye, as long as he violates Zhu Yuanzhang's reverse scales, almost no good end.
Here in Liu Bang, you can also play the emotional card, Yongya has offended Liu Bang several times, but he still looks at Yongya's meritorious deeds and can't bear to kill him.
And here in Zhu Yuanzhang, what merits, relationships, feelings are all useless, sometimes even the source of misfortune, can only let themselves die faster, such as Hu Mei, who is both the founding hero and Zhu Yuanzhang's father-in-law, but because he visited his daughter once in the palace, the result can only be whimpering.
Hu Meiqiren
Hu Mei was the founding hero of Daming, originally named Hu Tingrui, and later changed his name to Hu Mei because of Zhu Yuanzhang's character Guorui, in order to avoid secrecy, he did not follow Zhu Yuanzhang at first, but worked under another boss, Chen Youyu, and was also a general under Chen Youyu who held military power and acted alone.
At that time, the most powerful forces south of the Yangtze River were Chen Youyu, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen, etc., of which Chen Youyi's strength was the strongest, when Chen Youyu took the initiative to launch an offensive against Zhu Yuanzhang, who was east of him, in 1360 AD, and the army was directed at Nanjing.
At that time, although Zhu Yuanzhang had successfully established a base area including Jiangzuo and Zhejiang West centered on Nanjing (then called Yingtian), after all, the time for dividing the territory was limited, both the territory and the foundation were insufficient, and the comprehensive strength was not as good as Chen Youyu and Zhang Shicheng, and in chen Youyu's eyes, he was a "soft persimmon", so he was targeted by Chen Youyu.
Although relying on his outstanding command of the war and the concerted efforts of his generals, Zhu Yuanzhang successfully repelled Chen Youyu's offensive and solved the siege of YingTian, this damage was nothing to Chen Youyu, who was a big family, and did not shake the foundation of Chen Youyu at all, and the Chen Youyu group was still a seemingly unshakable behemoth.
Chen and Zhu were bound to have a life-and-death duel, and judging from the situation at that time, Chen Youyu had a greater chance of winning, and it was at this time that Zhu Yuanzhang sent someone to recruit Hu Mei. We don't know what Hu Mei thought at that time, whether he really saw that Zhu Yuanzhang had the posture of a master, or whether there was any other reason, he decided to turn to Zhu Yuanzhang.
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's later words, at that time, the situation was unclear, and it was difficult to predict his victory or defeat, and there were seven people with heavy troops in their hands, and they obviously could wait and see, but they resolutely turned to themselves. Among these seven people, there was Hu Mei, and Zhu Yuanzhang also missed him very much.
Hu Mei himself was also angry, and instead of relying on the merits of defecting to lie on the merit book to enjoy the blessings, but followed Zhu Yuanzhang to the south to fight in the northern war, the sword came and went, attacking Chen Youyu and Zhang Shicheng, all of whom had his figure, and also served as the main general, commanders He Wenhui and Dai De successfully attacked Fujian for the Ming Dynasty.
It should be known that Hu Mei was born as a descendant, and He Wenhui and Dai De were Zhu Yuanzhang's confidants, of which He Wenhui was still Zhu Yuanzhang's righteous son, on closeness and relationship, Hu Mei was inferior to these two, but Zhu Yuanzhang still made Hu Mei a commander, and the two cronies were instead deputies, which showed the trust and affirmation of Hu Mei's ability.
Relying on the merits of surrender and the southern conquest of the northern war, Hu Mei mixed well with Zhu Yuanzhang, and after the establishment of Daming, he was able to smoothly be crowned marquis, first as the Marquis of Yuzhang, and later changed to the Marquis of Linchuan, and his daughter-in-law also became a noble concubine after entering Zhu Yuanzhang's harem, this score is not low, Hu Mei is barely able to become Zhu Yuanzhang's father-in-law, and is half of Zhu Yuanzhang's family.
With both solid merit and a close relationship, according to the right reason, Hu Mei's status should be as stable as Taishan, but who knows that Hu Mei eventually died in this relationship.
In 1384, Hu Mei was imprisoned and executed by Zhu Yuanzhang, according to historical records, it is likely that the reason for Hu Mei's execution was not widely announced at that time, and it was only six years after Hu Mei was convicted that Hu Mei was dealt with because he brought his son-in-law into the palace to visit his daughter and violated the palace prohibition.
The inside story of Hu Mei's death
Probably in Hu Mei's view, making her daughter a concubine of Zhu Yuanzhang is the most direct and effective way to bring the two closer, and can make up for the shortcomings of her identity as a descendant. As everyone knows, this invisibly stepped on Zhu Yuanzhang's two pain points, heroes and foreign relatives, and when the two are combined, in Zhu Yuanzhang's place, it is one plus one is greater than two, and the threat is directly doubled.
No founding emperor did not want his Jiangshan to be passed on for thousands of generations, and Zhu Yuanzhang was certainly no exception, but he knew that the inheritance of Jiangshan was not really able to be called a "first emperor", and if a court wanted to be long-lasting, in the end, it still relied on the canon system.
The Ming Dynasty is located in the middle and late period of feudal society, in front of it there have been many dynasties for the Ming Dynasty to test the fault, the so-called "history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall", people as long as they turn over the history books can easily summarize the potential hidden dangers of several dynastic rule, namely meritorious, Xiangquan, foreign relatives, concubines, eunuchs.
Objectively speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's political vision is still very unique, and the points he found are indeed the most common problems for the feudal dynasty. Most of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms are heroes who will rebel and threaten the imperial power; The demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty was indispensable to the credit of eunuchs; Wang Mang of the Western Han Dynasty and Emperor Yang Jian of sui both ascended to the throne from foreign relatives; Before there was Lü Hou and then there was Wu Zetian, all holding imperial power and shaking the world; As for Xiang Quan, there were not only powerful ministers like Huo Guang who dared to depose the emperor, but also traitors such as Cai Jing and Qin Ju, who were evil countries. Among them, the queen concubine and the foreign relative are often combined, after all, there can be a foreign relative with the queen concubine.
In order to solve these problems, Zhu Yuanzhang made meticulous arrangements in a targeted manner and strove to eliminate hidden dangers. In terms of meritorious service and power, Zhu Yuanzhang put these two points together to solve, using the Hu Weiyong case and the Blue Jade case to wantonly implicate the heroes and thirty-four founding heroes, and in these two cases, twenty-three families were killed, and five were also killed for other reasons. After Hu Weiyong's death, Shunshi abolished the xiangxiang system, and the six ministries were directly subordinate to the emperor, completely weakening the xiangquan.
In terms of concubines and foreign relatives, it is strictly forbidden for the harem to interfere in politics, to prevent internal and external collusion, emphasizing that "although the queen concubines are in the world, they must not prepare for political affairs", believing that "the ministers order women, they are also forbidden to come and go, fornication and evil, and the etiquette is so bad that they die", in order to control the concubines and inhibit foreign relatives, Zhu Yuanzhang strictly controls the exchanges between the two, there are only a few fixed days in a year, foreign wives can be allowed to meet, concubines are often from ordinary people's families, there is no strong maternal power, Zhu Yuanzhang even restored the barbaric and bloody burial system, In order to prevent the empress dowager from disrupting the government after the death of the emperor.
And Hu Mei was both a hero and a foreign relative, and dared to violate the palace rules and visit the empress dowager, which naturally violated Zhu Yuanzhang's big taboo. Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang later classified him as a rebel party in Hu Weiyong's case, perhaps he committed something at that time, and then in the process of visiting his daughter, he did some small actions, such as passing on certain messages and asking her daughter to blow the wind on the side of the pillow.
epilogue
Under Zhu Yuanzhang' hands, the hero wants to save his life, neither by relationship, nor by merit, but can only honestly clamp his tail and be a man, otherwise even if you are Zhu Yuanzhang's father-in-law, it is useless, Hu Mei can also be regarded as a famous general in the world, the dragon and phoenix among people, but one step wrong, still can only drink and hate Huangquan, between survival and death, life and death, the mystery of this can not be detected.
Bibliography:
"History of Ming", "Ancestral Training of the Emperor and Ming", "Chronicle of Allusions", etc