Who should be the first emperor in history? During his reign, there was one of the most regrettable misalignments in human history
Shao Xufeng
To the point, if you look at it comprehensively, the first emperor in history is undisputed that the Ming Yongle Emperor Zhu Di, during which the significance of Zheng He's descent to the West is seriously underestimated - in fact, Zheng He's descent to the West is not only unprecedented in Chinese history, but also in world history, and at the same time, Zheng He's descent to the West also occurred one of the most regrettable dislocations in human history.
Here's a general look:
First, Zhu Di became emperor.
Zhu Di "rebelled" and became emperor, the chance is great, he has an eldest brother Zhu Biao who is 5 years older than him, Zhu Biao was made a son when Zhu Yuanzhang was still King of Wu, Zhu Yuanzhang became a prince after becoming emperor, and began to "supervise the country" (executive deputy emperor) at the age of 19, and died 18 years later.
Zhu Biaoqi was diligent and studious, generous, and capable, and the government and the public and the history books had a high evaluation - obviously, if Zhu Biao had not died young, there would really be nothing wrong with Zhu Di.
Zhu Biao's eldest son, Zhu Xiongying, has been quite Zhu Biao since childhood, but died early at the age of 8, Zhu Biao's second son Zhu Yunjiang (at the beginning, his mother Lü was originally Zhu Biao's side concubine, and was supported after the death of Zhu Biaozheng's concubine Changshi), was narrow and embarrassed since childhood, and became the eldest grandson of the emperor after Zhu Xiongying's early death, and was later named the imperial grandson.
It can even be said that if Zhu Xiongying does not die early, there is nothing to do with Zhu Di.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao obviously valued Zhu Di extremely highly and highly recognized his military talents, so they handed over the first military town of Beiping to him, crowned King of Yan, and commanded the northern military against the Tatars, Vara and Wuliangha forces.
Before and after Zhu Biao's early death, Zhu Di went to wars many times, often taking the lead, and further honed his outstanding military command skills and perseverance.
Before Zhu Yuanzhang died, he should also feel that the clan king, especially the Yan king, has become a great disaster for the crown prince Zhu Yunjiang, but he really can't weigh it, on the one hand, his "forced to" crown prince Zhu Yunjiang (Zhu Yuanzhang's liking for him is far less than Zhu Xiongying before), on the other hand, his own heavy son, and after the northern king baby, the Tatar, Walla, and Liaodong Mongol branches are all growing and strengthening, and it is necessary to strengthen the king to the north... In the end, he did not weaken the kings, but only left the kings' families in the capital—which was also a constraint.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Zhu Yunjiang took the throne, and soon began to forcibly cut the domain, and the kings were forced to die, and Zhu Di raised a large number of geese in the royal palace in order to paralyze the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiang (before that, his father-in-law Xu Da loved to eat roast goose, and he liked to raise geese wherever he went, and the town guard Beiping was also). Zhu Di's princess Xu Miaoyun also raised geese), and as soon as the officials sent by Zhu Yunjiang to find out the details entered the yard, there was a goose sound, and Zhu Di also pretended to be crazy and stupid, often with pigs in the pigsty.
These paralyzed Zhu Yunjiang well, but Zhu Di was also preparing to raise troops, and before going south, he first captured Daning Fu (present-day Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, which was the seat of King Ning, with 100,000 troops) in the northeast, strangled the throats of Tatar and Eastern Liaoning Mongols going south, stabilized the rear, and then began to go south to seize power.
It lasted 3 years and finally seized the imperial throne.
Second, what did Zhu Di do after becoming the emperor?
After Zhu Di seized the imperial throne, on the one hand, he began to reduce the clan and centralize power (adopting a softer strategy, and not too strong a clan king), on the other hand, allowing the world to rest and recuperate, and reducing a large number of private taxes, and within a few years, the world prospered.
In the following years, the Ming Dynasty built 131 guards in the Heilongjiang and Ussuri river basins, and in the seventh year of Yongle (1409), Daming set up the "Nuer Gandu Division" at the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, ruling the territory, from the Sea of Japan in the east, including Sakhalin Island (Sakhalin), north to the Outer Xing'an Ridge, and west to the Zhinan River (Onen River), which played a very huge role in stabilizing the region, and also oppressed and contained Tatar in the west.
With the help of the picture below, you can observe the platoon of the Nuer Gandushi -
Zhu Di also wanted to make a difference in the field of cultural governance, and ordered Xie Xie to lead, widely collected books from all over the world, classified and edited, and did not tire of voluminous, and in the early winter of the second year, Zhu Di named it "Literature Dacheng". However, Zhu Di felt that it was not enough, it was too simple, and ordered Yao Guangxiao to lead the reconstruction, and recruited the world's scholars, including the classics, history, zi, ji, hundred schools, astronomy, geography, yin and yang, medicine, fortune, monks, Tao, and techniques, and three years later (1407), Zhu Di gave the name "Yongle Dian".
The total number of such books is 22,937 volumes, of which there are 16 volumes of the table of contents alone, a total of 11,095 volumes, a total of about 370 million words, unprecedented scale, for the organization of ancient books, cultural transmission, significance and influence are also unprecedented, and then Qianlong based on this, engaged in a series of four libraries.
The total number of words in the Siku Book is more than twice that of the Yongle Dian, but the categories of the Yongle Dian, which are much broader.
During this period, Zhu Di also prepared for Western affairs, building a large ship on a scale of 100, and in the third year of Yongle (1405), Zhu Di sent Zheng He and Wang Jinghong to lead more than 27,800 sailors and officers and soldiers, as well as merchants, 62 "treasure ships" to sail to the Western Ocean, accompanied by merchant ships. The largest "treasure ship" is 148 meters long and 60 meters wide, which was the largest in the world at that time.
This size and platoon, in the world at that time, was completely an armada.
After several "voyages to the West" (1405 to 1433), it was said that the size of the fleet was at most more than 200 ships—indicating that there were more merchant ships (including civilian merchant ships) accompanying them, and the total number was more than 50,000 or 60,000.
Zheng He's "treasure fleet" reached as far as the east coast of Africa and even the southernmost Cape of Good Hope, and its scale, comprehensive influence and sailing distance, not to mention in the history of the Chinese nation, is completely unprecedented in the world and the world.
Zhu Di's courage is truly swallowing Yunei.
Zhu Di not only started the Western Initiative, but also marched south - in July of the fourth year of Yongle (1406), Zhu Di ordered Zhu Neng, the Duke of Chengguo, to be the general of Zhengyi, Mu Sheng (the second son of Mu Ying the Prince of Qianning) to be the left general, and Zhang Fu to be the right general, leading the army to attack Annan, and successive battles were won. Zhu Di issued an edict, changed Annan to Jiaotoe, set up the Jiaotoe Bu Political Envoy Department, the Inspectorate Department, and the Metropolitan Command Envoy Department (a complete set of provincial-level establishments), with jurisdiction over 15 prefectures, 36 prefectures, and 181 counties, and set up guard posts in key places to exercise overall control.
After completing or beginning these huge measures, Zhu Di began several northern tours (starting in 1409 and Yongle for 7 years. After that, he lived in Beijing for a long time), prepared for the Northern Expedition, and it took 8 years, and Zhu Di began the first imperial conquest after becoming emperor (before his many conquests), with an army of no less than 500,000 and won a great victory.
After that, Zhu Di made four more imperial expeditions, as far as the banks of the Zhaiyan River, dealing a heavy blow to the Tatars, Vara and Wuliangha, but the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty suffered great losses due to the long distance, hunger, cold, and fatigue, and suffered heavy losses - above the ethnic minorities, and even more as for the cost.
On the way back from the fifth imperial conquest, Zhu Di died in Yumuchuan (northwest of Xilin Goldolun County, Inner Mongolia, at the eastern end of the northern foothills of Yin Mountain) - the king died in Sheji, and even if the Yongle Emperor died, he had a place.
In Chinese history, Zhu Di was the emperor with the largest number of conquests and the largest scale, which was completely unprecedented, not counting the many battles before the emperor's throne, that is, after becoming the emperor, he also drove five imperial conquests, and the size of the army led each time was very large, basically at least 300,000, more than 500,000, and transporting heavy people, no less than one million. Among Zhu Di's troops was the Shenji Battalion, the world's most powerful firearms unit at that time.
Before Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, was besieged by the Xiongnu lord Maudun 400,000 cavalry in Baideng Mountain in Datongpingcheng, Shanxi for seven days and seven nights - there are different theories about why he did not completely annihilate Liu Bang at that time - personally tend to Houton did not make up his mind whether to go south comprehensively, in fact, at that time he could go south in a comprehensive way after the total annihilation of Liu Bang's troops (more than 300,000, which is most of the military strength in the early Han Dynasty), and the resistance encountered was definitely simpler than the Mongol attack on the Great Song, and the age of Daunton was old. The reason why I don't want to throw old bones in a foreign country seems difficult for other explanations to stand up to scrutiny.
During the reign of Emperor Sui, he led 2.3 million troops to patrol the border and invite the Turkic khan to "hunt" in the steppe, but the khan did not dare to respond.
These are far from being comparable to Zhu Di's Northern Crusade, let alone others...
As far as personally going out to fight and driving his own conquests is concerned, Zhu Di is completely proud of the emperors.
On the whole, Zhu Di is called the first emperor, which should be more accurate.
Third, Zheng He's voyage to the West, unprecedented in the history of China and the world, also has the most regrettable dislocation in human history...
During the Zhu Di period, Zheng He made 6 trips to the West, after which Zhu Gaoji's accession to the throne was suspended, and Zhu Zhanji's accession to the throne was restarted - for the seventh time, and after that, it seems that there was no more national-level measures to go to the West.
In the past few decades (1405-1433), the fleet traveled to the South China Sea countries, reached the coast of India, crossed the Arabian Sea, reached the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and even entered the Red Sea, along the east coast of Africa, or to the southernmost Cape of Good Hope, and it is said that the fleet was swept up by storms to the South Pole.
The size of the fleet, the combined impact and the distance traveled are completely unprecedented in the history of China and in the world.
The task of the fleet was, first of all, to expand Daming's sphere of influence and political influence, and secondly, to expand Daming's maritime trade, all of which were guaranteed by the strong military power carried by the warships - treasure ships, first of all, warships, were the strongest warships in the world at that time, including before.
Please note that the first focus of the fleet was not to develop commerce and trade, but to expand the sphere of influence and political influence, and the Daming economy was mainly agrarian and self-sufficient as the basic unit, and there was no need for such a big effort to engage in commerce and trade.
But even so, expanding commerce is the second priority.
Can you imagine such an unprecedentedly powerful fleet sailing at sea and passing along the coast - it was an overwhelming sense of oppression, like a completely irresistible sea wind pushing a huge tide like a mountain.
They also intuitively feel the power behind this fleet, as well as its vision, wealth, and business opportunities...
Wherever the fleet went, either establish and support a regime on the spot that was willing to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty or conduct commerce, or crush and conquer the disobedient... The fleet continued to move forward, and the local tribes or regimes behind it had already organized a fleet and loaded their own special goods towards Daming...
It is said that the Long March is a manifesto, a propaganda team, and a seeder, and this can also be applied to Zheng He's several mighty fleets.
7 Voyages to the West greatly expanded the political influence and comprehensive commerce and trade of Daming, combined with the strong expansion of Zhu Di's land, so that the influence of Chinese civilization on the outside world and its exchanges with the outside world reached an unprecedented height, and the comprehensive comprehensive far exceeded the period of Emperor Wudi of Han and Emperor Taizong of Tang.
The Mongols before the Ming Dynasty established the following territory (basically opening up the Eurasian continent), and when Zheng He went to the West, the Ilkhanate (the main body in Iran) had been destroyed by the Golden Horde and the Turkic Timurid Empire, and the Golden Horde was also weakening, and Zheng He's fleet was moving forward and expanding in the southern waters of the Eurasian continent, far beyond the Mongol iron horse.
It should be precisely because of the unprecedented scale, unprecedented distance, and unprecedented impact of sea voyages in the early Daming Dynasty that stimulated and inspired the voyages of Magellan and Columbus - but their scale and comprehensive impact were far from comparable to the Daming fleet, and the time was nearly 1 century later.
The biggest regret, in two points, is that the voyage did not continue - it did not meet head-on at sea and later European civilization that rose due to the Renaissance (15th century) and Reformation (16th century), and if it did, it would inevitably burst into a completely unprecedented explosion of human civilization.
We talked before that after Zhu Zhanji, due to Zhu Qizhen's hasty expedition, the Daming elite was completely lost in Tumu Fort, and he was captured, released, imprisoned, and re-ascended the imperial throne... The concept system of Daming with imperial power as the core was completely knocked down and repeatedly trampled on, and the Daming dynasty and the public were shaped like a wood from then on...
The greater regret is that Europe at that time had begun the Renaissance, re-inheriting ancient Greek and Roman civilization, and cities such as Venice on the Italian Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea were continuing the ancient Greek and Roman production exchange economy, more upgrading and soundness and moving towards "modernization" - although at this time, the Western market exchange economy was still recovering and stretching, but in terms of the history and accumulation of the market exchange economy, it was the most far-reaching - The Italian Peninsula and the Greek Peninsula entered a relatively sound market exchange in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, and since then this economic model has been the mainstream, even in the Middle Ages (mid-5th century to early 15th century), theocracy suppressed market rules, blockaded and isolated the scope of the market, and market exchange was suppressed and isolated in and around the two peninsulas as deformed, but even so, market exchange was still the main economic model.
At this time, although Daming was carrying out unprecedented maritime exploration in human history (as mentioned earlier, economy and trade were secondary), the original market exchange and system were very thin and fragile, and the main economy was a self-sufficient and closed economy based on agriculture and with families as the basic production unit, which continued until the reform and opening up, and until now, it has not been completely constructed...
With completely extraordinary, and perhaps completely alternative, thinking, Zhu Di pushed for an unprecedented voyage of unprecedented intensity and scale - Zheng He had gone deep into the Red Sea, but the Suez Canal at that time was not open, it was still in congestion, and he could only turn back the same way - they were less than two hundred kilometers from the Mediterranean!
Zheng He should have been on the Red Sea for a long time...
Zheng He's fleet also went all the way south, reaching the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, but never went north to the Mediterranean...
The nation, whose main mode of economic life is subsistence farming, sent the largest fleet in history, and many times in a row, finally did not reach the most mature and long-established region in the global market exchange - the two civilizations that should collide the most were so close but missed!
If Zheng He's fleet had gone north from the Cape of Good Hope in Africa into the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean commercial fleet would have gone to Daming, and then the two sides would have joined forces to dredge the Suez Canal—which was difficult for Europe at the time, but not difficult for Daming at all.
The European market economy, which is recovering and regaining its feet, will inevitably inject unprecedented vigor and vigorous development, while Daming's commercial and trade exchanges will be multiplied and stimulate the economic development and transformation of the mainland - it is not necessary for the Chinese nation to enter the market and open economy in advance.
If so, then the economic and trade routes on land will also be strengthened accordingly.
Perhaps the two civilizations will go to war in advance, but they will also find all means to make themselves stronger, based on the situation at that time, personally more optimistic about Daming - the subsequent Daming may engage in the "Meiji Restoration", and the industrial revolution may also begin first in China.
The history of the world after that will inevitably be rewritten...
This is the most unfortunate misalignment in human history.
Public number: Shao Xufeng Domain
Prepared by: Shao Xufeng Media