Thanks to the influence of the famous novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", almost everyone knows that Liu Bei had a set of self-introductions: after King Jing of Zhongshan, he was indicated to be a member of the Han Dynasty royal family, so this became Liu Bei's most important political capital. After Liu Bei's propaganda, King Jing of Zhongshan was also famous, but his fame was not because he was Liu Bei's ancestor, but because he had more than one hundred and twenty sons in his lifetime.
Although King Jing of Zhongshan won the birth championship with one hundred and twenty sons, because the times were too far away, many materials disappeared and did not pass down, and coupled with the fact that king Jing of Zhongshan did not have too many deeds circulated, people could not verify whether he really had so many sons, and whether one hundred and twenty sons were real numbers or an adjective, people could not figure it out. However, more than a thousand years after the death of King Jing of Zhongshan, there was a prince surnamed Zhu in Shanxi who surpassed King Jing of Zhongshan in fertility. This Zhu surnamed Wang Ye is not a person, it is several generations of Wang Ye, they have believed in the concept of "many children and many blessings" for several generations, thus launching a fertility competition, one generation is stronger than the other generation, and finally reached more than a hundred sons alone, thus surpassing all the Zhu surnames of the same clan, becoming the most clan of the Ming Dynasty, is a well-deserved birth champion, this Zhu surname Wang Ye is the Qingcheng King of the Ming Dynasty.
King Qingcheng was a descendant of The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the first prince named Zhu Jixuan, he was the grandson of Zhu Yuanzhang, and his father was Zhu Yuanzhang's third son, Zhu Tang the Prince of Jin.
Zhu Jixuan is Shu out, ranked fourth, and naturally inherits the King of Jin without drama, but his birth is very popular with Zhu Yuanzhang. Because when he was born, Zhu Yuanzhang was holding a Celebration Banquet.
This banquet was held every year in the Ming Dynasty, and the emperor would sacrifice heaven and earth in the first month, pray for the smooth wind and rain in the new year, and then return to the palace to hold a banquet, so that the monarch and the courtiers could rejoice in foreshadowing the peace of the world. Just when Lao Zhu and the ministers were happy, the Jin King's Palace in Taiyuan came to report that the King of Jin was happy to have a noble son, and congratulated the emperor on having another grandson.
Zhu Yuanzhang listened to the dragon heart, he was born poor, most of the relatives around him died or scattered to escape, so Zhu Yuanzhang had a feeling of orphanage since he was a child, he most wanted his family to be reunited, so he was particularly happy about the birth of this grandson, according to the custom he wanted to name this grandson as the king of the county, so he blurted out that in the name of today's Qingcheng banquet, this grandson was named the king of Qingcheng, thus making Zhu Jixuan a rare county king in the Ming Dynasty who did not have the title of king. Perhaps this title is so good that King Qingcheng has been quiet since then, and has many children and many blessings, becoming the envy of the Ming Dynasty clan. King Jixuan of Qingcheng, Prince Gong of Jin. His birth was also, Taizu Fang Yuqingcheng feast, because he thought it was sealed.
In the first year of Yongle, Zhu Jixuan, who had reached adulthood, was officially crowned the King of Qingcheng, but because at this time zhu Di was already the emperor. Zhu Di was the emperor who had been seized by cruel cannibalism, and naturally regarded these tongzong as a thorn in his eye, so he was very afraid that they would follow his own example and rebel, so he began to strictly control the kings of the clan clan.
While depriving the king of the clan of his power, Zhu Di has always had mixed feelings for his second brother, specifically both fear and hatred.
Fear is that the third brother is strong, and hatred is that the third brother has always been at odds with himself when he is alive. Therefore, after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he began to dismember the Jin Dynasty.
Except for the King of Jin who remained in Taiyuan, the rest of the nephews who were given the title of King of the County were moved out of Taiyuan, in order not to unite the sons of the three brothers. So Zhu Jixuan also moved out of Taiyuan, went to Luzhou, moved to Puzhou a few years later, and finally moved to Fenzhou to stabilize.
Many moves made Zhu Jixuan understand that the intention of the fourth uncle was to make the Jin king unable to stabilize his own throne, so that he could stabilize his throne, and people had to bow their heads under the eaves, in order to keep the throne Zhu Jixuan began to obey the fourth uncle's wishes.
Zhu Di was very unhappy with Zhu Di's eldest son, Zhu Jixi, who was then the King of Jin, and Zhu Jixuan's third brother Zhu Jixi coveted the throne of Jin, so he wooed his brothers to help him.
Zhu Jixuan was sensitive to the fact that the eldest brother could not be saved, and in order to save himself, he agreed to the third brother's request and falsely accused the eldest brother with several brothers, thus allowing Zhu Di to depose Zhu Jixi and help the third brother to the throne.
Although this time Zhu Jixuan sided with the fourth uncle, but the framing of the eldest brother made him uneasy in his heart, and the third brother became the king of Jin, who acted recklessly and was cruel, which made him feel ashamed, so he withdrew from the political arena from then on, and never participated in everything that happened after the Jin king's palace, but hid in Fenzhou's own royal palace to live his own life.
Zhu Jixuan is no longer mixed in politics, and naturally wants to enjoy life, but all this needs money to support. However, Zhu Jixuan found that when the prince was not rich, he wanted to enjoy, the palace had to be repaired, the wives of the flock had to be supported, the people under the palace had to be paid salaries, they had to raise children, and so on, anyway, in the end, they could not save money.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that the prince Feng Lu was 10,000 stones of lu rice, and the king of the county discounted only two thousand stones, and this point of feng lu was not complete, anyway, he did not have much of all his miscellaneous income.
There is no money in the hand, ah, but the imperial court only has this little dead salary is not given, the fish and meat people themselves do not dare, after all, the fourth uncle there is a tight eye, a little carelessness may provide the fourth uncle with a handle and abolish themselves.
How can I make money? Zhu Jixuan thought about this problem all day long, so he began to turn over the rules and regulations of the imperial court, hoping to find loopholes in them. Unexpectedly, the kung fu paid off, and it really allowed him to find a way to legally increase his salary.
This loophole is the clan formulation formulated by Grandpa Zhu Yuanzhang. In order to ensure that his descendants did not have food as he did, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a system of preferential treatment for the title of the clan, and each rank had a corresponding title. The highest prince is 10,000 stones per year, and the following are lowered in turn, zhenguo general shilu 1,000 stones, auxiliary general shi 800 stones, Fengguo general shi lu 600 stones, Zhenguo lieutenant shilu 400 stones, auxiliary lieutenant shilu 300 stones, Fengguo lieutenant shilu 200 stones. And this title has no limit on the number of people, as long as it is the Zhu family, there is a title, there is a feng lu. How much can a person eat in a year, even if it is not given, it is a huge amount, is not this a huge wealth given by the ancestors to future generations? It seems that the old saying "many children and many blessings" is really correct.
The excited Zhu Jixuan then decided to give himself a long salary by giving birth to a child, but Zhu Jixuan himself did not practice success, he only lived for more than forty years, only three sons in his life, ranking first in the penultimate line of The King of Qingcheng, but his concept of getting rich and good physical genes were passed on to his descendants, and his descendants adhered to this concept, and finally became the most popular line of the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhu Jixuan's death, his son Zhu Meidai succeeded to the throne of Qingcheng. The first emperor Zhu Meibei found that his Feng Lu had actually become a thousand stones, because the imperial court stipulated that only the King of Shifeng County was two thousand stones, and the King of Sifeng County was only one thousand stones. Zhu Meibei was very angry, so she immediately began her father's designated plan to get rich, and gave birth to twelve sons in his short period of forty-nine years.
Twelve sons, now look a lot unimaginable, but at that time as a prince had twelve sons is also normal, not too much. It was not until the third generation of King Qingcheng that the fertility legend really began, and this record was recorded in the Records of Emperor Mingxiaozong. Because the third generation of Qingcheng King Zhu Zhongyi had a total of forty-four sons.
Yi Ugly, King Zhong Yi of Qingcheng in Jin Province. Wang, Gong Shu Wang Shuzi, mother of the Wang clan. Born in the ninth year of Xuande, he was a general of the Zhenguo State in the twelfth year of the orthodoxy, and the king of Qingcheng in the second year of Tianshun. He was sixty-three years old and had forty-four sons. Obituary, quit the day. Give sacrifices and burials as if they were system, and they are known as gentle and gentle.
It is said that this King Qingcheng also had fifty daughters, that is to say, he had at least ninety-four children, so when this record was reported to Ming Xiaozong's desk, Ming Xiaozong was shocked, which was also too able to give birth, as the emperor, he had two sons in total, and he did not have one, which was really incredible.
Although Zhu Zhongyi has many sons, but his son is not willing to let his father be the champion, so he also began his own fertility road, and finally his son alone reached more than a hundred, becoming a fertility champion that posterity cannot surpass, when this achievement was reported, the officials of the Zongren Mansion were shocked, they were afraid of shocking the emperor, and finally changed a number to only report seventy people, but this still surprised the emperor, thinking that the clan room could not ignore the unrestricted birth, if they could not afford to raise it.
Not only did the emperor think so, but everyone, including King Qingcheng, thought that they could not be born like this. The ministers believed that if the number of clans was not controlled, according to the current economic conditions of Daming, the clan would have unlimited fertility, and Guang Fenglu would not be able to afford to exhaust all the grain in the world, and sooner or later the clan would drag down the Ming Dynasty. Inspector Yang Cheng, the governor of Shanxi, asked the imperial court to introduce policies as soon as possible to curb the rapid growth of the clan population, and the grain collected by The Shanxi Province, where King Qingcheng was located in the fifteenth year of Hongzhi, was still hundreds of thousands of dollars short of the grain collected throughout the year, and the imperial court simply could not afford to support the clan. Libu Shangshu Ni Yue said: "There is a fixed place in the world, there is a fixed amount for rent, and the cost of the clan room is increasing day by day, so I sincerely do not know the plan for the aftermath." "Controlling the population of the clan is imminent, and the momentum of unrestricted fertility like King Qingcheng must be stuck, otherwise it will inevitably be emulated by other clans."
The court ministers were worried about the country, and King Qingcheng was also worried.
Although King Qingcheng had unlimited childbirth in order to earn more feng lu, although he got feng lu, became a fertility champion, and lived the rich life of his dreams, he was very troubled.
The first is that many people are not easy to manage. Several generations of Qingcheng king down, the entire Qingcheng king line at least a thousand people, these only rely on one Qingcheng king can not manage at all, not to mention that many people in the same sect do not know, even their own sons are not recognized, the Qingcheng king of more than a hundred sons every time to the family gathering, more than a hundred people gathered together, the result is that everyone does not know, but also rely on others to introduce to know who the other party is, this is simply a fantasy, laughter and generosity. King Qingcheng gave birth to a hundred sons, all grew up, and in addition to the self-proclaimed eldest son, the remaining ninety-nine people were also made generals of zhenguo. Every meeting, Zi Yuying sat down, so that they could not know each other, and everyone was highly accurate, and very strange things were also. How to manage this way, sooner or later something will happen.
Second, there is the fear of implication in counterfeiting.
A large number of people do not know, it is inevitable that there are muddy waters to touch the fish pretending to be the descendants of King Qingcheng to fish for oil and water, and impersonating the descendants of the royal family is a felony, once it is found that it will inevitably implicate the king of Qingcheng, the Ming Dynasty has had many cases of impersonating the children of the royal family, and finally the king of the clan has been severely punished, and the king of Qingcheng naturally does not want such a thing to happen. King Qingcheng of the third year of Zhengde suddenly went to the emperor: "The number of children born to the generals in this house is counted, or the age of the generals is falsely reported, and there is no basis for examination, so that the generals' offices will investigate and report." That is to say, King Qingcheng has not figured out how many people there are in his own line, and he has found that some people are pretending to be children of the royal family, and he can't control these people, in order to avoid being implicated, he can only report to the emperor in advance, hoping that the emperor will order an investigation, so as to clear his faults.
Third, King Qingcheng has become the target of the head bird court. To know that being the champion means that the exposure rate has increased, because he has more children and has become a thorn in the eyes of the emperor and the ministers, and has become the object of emulation by other clans, if the emperor is angry, then he will inevitably become the object of the emperor's treatment, kill a hundred, kill the chicken and the monkey, when the time comes to be deposed and killed and imprisoned, how tragic, he absolutely cannot become the head bird who was hit, so he wrote to the emperor that he hoped that the emperor would investigate the problem of the heirs of the Qingcheng palace, and he hoped that the emperor would manage the Qingcheng palace. Thus preserving the qingcheng king can be passed on.
Since King Qingcheng's unrestricted birth of heirs finally attracted the attention of the imperial court, the emperor and the imperial court ministers finally decided to revise the patriarchal formulation formulated in the era of the old ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang, and began to formulate a new formulation to limit the excessive expansion of the clan.
The last few revisions finally led to a "family planning" policy for the titles of county kings and below. Specifically, it is to limit the number of wives and concubines in these clans. In the past, there were no restrictions on clan marriage, except for the right wife, the concubines were married indefinitely, which also caused the sons to have unlimited births. Now that you have given you the prescribed number, you will be able to give birth to less, and it will not develop to the point of a hundred sons of King Qingcheng. The retribution of the ceremonial meeting repeated the recital, saying that the king of the county could not have more than four concubines, each general could not exceed three, and the lieutenant could not exceed two. From there, the author is the order.
In the fourth year of Zhengde, in order to further control the population of the clan, the imperial court once again ordered the royal palaces: only the children born to the wives and concubines of the clan approved by the imperial court could enjoy the qualification of inheriting the title, and the illegitimate children born of other women of bad birth and the children born to the maids around them without the approval of the imperial court could not inherit and were not recognized by the royal family, and what was more severe was that as long as the county king did not have a legal heir, once he died, the county king was directly abolished, and his brothers and nephews could not inherit. Children born to women of all musicians and daughters of non-virtuous families are not allowed to ask for names. In the future, the king of the county will not have an heir, and his clan branch will not be allowed to attack the knight, and he will not be allowed to pray. If the patriarch of each province does not marry the main chamber and the maid has a child first, the children born shall not be named and sealed.
Under such strict management by the imperial court, the kings of various localities could only change the concept of having many children and many blessings, and live honestly. The same is true of King Qingcheng, whose method of getting rich studied by the ancestors will eventually become a maladministration of the state. It was precisely because of their unrestricted births that led to the serious clan problems of the Ming Dynasty, which plagued the Ming Dynasty for more than two hundred years, and finally became a reason for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, and what they did not expect was that they would actually become the negative teaching materials of the imperial court, forcing the emperor and the imperial court to violate the ancestral system and risk the reputation of filial piety to revise the policies of the ancestors, thus creating a miracle of revising the state policy with their own strength.
Under the new clan system of the imperial court, King Qingcheng finally gave up the policy of having more children and increasing income, and the subsequent King of Qingcheng never reached the situation of "King Qingcheng gave birth to a hundred sons, and Ziyuying sat down, so that they could not know each other".
Although vigorously suppressed by the imperial court, the Ming Dynasty clan headed by King Qingcheng was still a large number of people, and the clan room was always a major hidden danger of the Ming Dynasty, which eventually caused the huge Ming Dynasty to collapse and perish in the midst of internal and external troubles, and finally many of Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants lost the big tree of the Ming Dynasty, and were either killed or scattered to live in anonymity and lived the life of ordinary people, and the glory of the champion of hundreds of heirs with many sons and daughters became a passing cloud.