Preface
In China's more than 2,000 years of feudal history, monogamy and polygonal concubinage have always existed, which has allowed many families to have common husbands and give birth to numerous half-children. In order to compete for their father's property, these children have experienced countless tragic scenes of fathers and sons turning against each other and brothers becoming enemies. In order to solve this problem, the feudal aristocracy developed a set of inheritance rules, namely the primogeniture.
Under the primogeniture system, only the first son born to the wife can inherit the father's main property. This regulation stabilized the ruling order of society, but it also exposed some deficiencies over time. One of the prominent questions is, if the eldest son of the main wife unfortunately dies early, if the eldest son unfortunately dies early, who has more power or the eldest grandson or the second son?
Dynastic turmoil under polygamy and multiple sons
In China's long history of feudal rule, polygamy by monarchs has long been commonplace. The emperors not only had a group of wives and concubines, but also gave birth to many princes. This led to a dark tide of rivalry within the dynasty.
During the Yin Shang Dynasty, the chaos of the monarchy's succession order had spread like a cancer. The throne turned out to be a gift that could easily be replaced. According to the records of the "Historical Records of Yin Benji", seven of the nine monarchs since Zhongding were obtained through violent seizure of power. Seeing that the upper echelons of the Yin Shang were in such chaos, the princes also abandoned the gift of submission and went their own way, which hastened the collapse of the dynasty.
In that dark and chaotic era, the princes could put the lives of their entire clan at risk for a throne. For example, the last Shang king, Emperor Xin, after the death of his father Shou Ding, first killed the two sons favored by Shou Ding, and then killed two other half-brothers. It wasn't until all his rivals had been eliminated that the new monarch ascended to the throne with a suffocating hand and a drop of blood.
However, Dixin's inhumanity was soon met with God's curse. In the third year of his reign, King Wu of Zhou in the west led an army to the east, easily destroying the Yin Shang dynasty with internal strife.
King Wu, who established the Zhou Dynasty, was deeply touched and determined to completely block this scourge. He first abolished the "election system" that led to inhumane infighting in the Yin Shang dynasty, and revised the inheritance system to establish the "primogeniture inheritance system".
This set of rules is very simple and crude - the eldest son born to the monarch's family, even if he is ignorant and incompetent, must become the prince and heir. The other concubines, even if they are wise and martial, are difficult to get the throne of the king. This iron law is best interpreted in King Wu. His half-brother Ji Fa and Ji Hu have done a lot of things, but they have never been able to cross the status of King Wu, the eldest son.
King Wu's system did work. In the hundreds of years that followed, the succession of the Zhou dynasty to the throne was very stable. The princes rarely fought for a throne again. But there is also the problem that if the eldest son dies prematurely or has no heirs, the order of succession becomes blurred.
The origin of the dispute between the eldest grandson and the second son
In the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, his eldest son Liu Ju also unfortunately died early. According to custom, Liu Ju's son should be made the emperor's grandson to take his place in the order of the throne.
However, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not arrange it that way. He did not appoint Liu Ju's son, but set up his seven-year-old younger brother Liu Xun as the crown prince. Liu's son was forced to take a back seat and lost his inheritance.
This decision undoubtedly added fuel to the fire and made the already turbulent Han Dynasty royal family even more turbulent. The crown prince Liu Ju was originally a candidate with high hopes from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and this time the throne suddenly fell to this young lord, which inevitably caused a vacuum of palace power. Sure enough, after Liu Xun ascended the throne as emperor, the powerful minister Empress Dowager Dou and his relatives Huo Guang and others controlled the government for many years, and the imperial power was greatly impacted.
Then another tragedy unfolded decades later. Liu Fuling, the grandson of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, also died early, and his three sons were successively made emperors, but they were all killed by powerful ministers, which eventually led to the fall of the royal family.
After that, all the emperors learned the lessons of Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Zhao of Han. A complementary set of rules was gradually established, that is, "the status of the eldest grandson is higher than that of the second son". In other words, if the eldest son dies, his son (eldest grandson) has a higher inheritance right than his younger half-brother (second son).
This set of rules experienced one of the fiercest battles during the Ming Dynasty. In that year, the crown prince Zhu Biao died early, and his youngest son Zhu Yunwen was made the imperial grandson. However, Zhu Biao's younger brother, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, was not reconciled.
Zhu Di is an ambitious and politically skilled descendant of a royal family. He believed that this transition to the throne had given him a good opportunity to seize power. So he first bought people's hearts. In 1402, he finally launched a rebellion that shook the foundation of the dynasty and usurped the throne of his nephew.
Although Zhu Di succeeded in seizing power, his impression in the history books has been nailed to the pillar of shame. Because he violated the principle of the first succession of the eldest grandson, even if he tried his best to override public opinion and implement a series of wise policies to support the people's livelihood and his literary style was open, as a "monarch killer who stepped on blood to ascend the throne", his image in the orthodox history books can only be a dark and cunning negative example.
Zhu Di has been trying to make up for his mistakes in his later years. He even made it clear in his edict that the reason why his sons could inherit the throne was because they were also the eldest grandsons, and not just because they were the emperor's own sons. This fully shows that Zhu Di attaches great importance to and maintains the succession of the traditional eldest son & eldest grandson.
The turning point of the inheritance of the eldest grandson - the heir dispute in the Dream of Red Mansions
However, not all patriarchs choose to assert the privileges of their eldest grandchildren. The most typical case of this appears in the novel "Dream of Red Mansions".
Jia Zheng is the head of the largest family in the book, Ning Guofu. His eldest son, Jia Zhu, died young, leaving the young Jia Lan. According to the rules, Jia Lan, the eldest grandson, should become the heir to stabilize the foundation of the entire Jia clan. However, Jia Zheng did not choose Jia Lan in the end. After weighing it again, he decided to pass on the throne to his other son, Jia Baoyu, the second son.
The reason is actually very simple, because Jia Lan is too young. As a baby who was only a few months old, making him his heir would not only be extremely detrimental to his personal growth, but would also put the giant ship of Ning Guofu in a state of chaos within ten years. This kind of chaos will inevitably lead to external forces encroaching on or even carving up the Jia family's huge industry.
And Jia Baoyu is already a young talent in his early twenties and in the prime of life. He is smart and wise, and he is deeply loved by Jia Zheng. As the heir of Ning Guofu, it couldn't be better.
Therefore, Jia Zheng wisely made the decision to give up the rights of the eldest grandson and choose the most stable and beneficial candidate for the family. This also reveals to us that in ancient times, a wise family head must have the characteristics of flexibility and change. They do not rigidly pick on traditional inheritance laws, but choose the most suitable successor according to the situation and specific circumstances. This adaptation has also allowed many of China's large families to be passed down from generation to generation.
However, Jia Zheng's decision did not come without a price. His second son, Baoyu, has a sickly personality and is unstable, and although he is talented, he is not a stable housekeeper after all.
After Jia Zheng's death, Ning Guofu soon declined in the profligacy of Baoyu. If the inheritance is handed over to Jia Lan, although there will be a period of transition and turbulence, based on the future, Ning Guofu may usher in a steady and serious young helmsman in ten years. Who can say that Jia Lan will not grow into a virtuous monarch to usher in the second glorious period of the Jia family?
Of course, all this is an imaginary backstory after all. We don't know what kind of person Jalan will grow up to become. However, through this case, we can clearly see that the traditional inheritance law of eldest sons and eldest grandsons is not unreasonable. At its core, it's about balancing short-term chaos with long-term stability, and laying a solid foundation for legacy. So it's not something obsolete that should necessarily be discarded.
epilogue
In the thousands of years of dynastic changes, the power struggle between the eldest grandson and the second son has almost never stopped. They are like a machine that can never be repaired, constantly creating new turmoil and disasters.
Behind every turmoil, all kinds of wisdom are inevitably born. It is the wonderful ideas and blood and tears of countless ancestors that have gradually perfected the machine of the inheritance system of the eldest son and eldest grandson. But it's not perfect after all. The continued improvement of it still requires the unremitting efforts of its successors.
Perhaps one day, it will become a stable machine that runs really smoothly and takes into account the short and long term. Let's look forward to that day with hope.