Among the many emperors of the Ming Dynasty, there is an emperor who can be described as ridiculous, and was almost strangled to death by the palace maid after not going to the sea for more than 40 years.
He is the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and when it comes to Jiajing, he is actually a lucky person. After all, he became an emperor from a generation of vassal kings, and it can be said that he was very lucky. He is the son of King Xingxian, and he did not have the right to inherit the throne at the beginning, because the Hongzhi Emperor during the Ming Dynasty did not, and he died after giving birth to any son, so the court decided to choose the rest of the royal family, and the child was selected as the person who inherited the unification, and after a long time, Empress Dowager Zhang chose Zhu Houxi to become the puppet emperor of heaven.
At first, Empress Dowager Zhang chose him because he felt that Zhu Houxi looked a little stupid and had no political ability, and choosing him would not affect her continued interference in court politics. What makes Empress Dowager Zhang Wan Wanmei think is that she picked an iron plate, this person not only has thunderous means, but also achieved a high degree of unity of centralized power during the Ming Dynasty, and the ability to recover imperial power is second only to Zhu Yuanzhang and Yongle Emperor.
In the first few years of Zhu Houxi's ascension, he was actually very energetic, and he used a series of thunderous means to uproot some stubborn and conservative forces in the imperial court that he did not like, and by the way, he also made Empress Dowager Zhang angry to death. After that, Zhu Houxi felt that the Ming Dynasty had entered a period of steady development, and there was no need for him to interfere in the government everywhere, so he began to be the shopkeeper. However, everything was in the hands of Zhu Houxi, so the other ministers did not dare to act rashly.
At this time, Zhu Houxi was very obsessed with the Taoist art of immortality, and he felt that as long as he ate something called a red pill, he could achieve immortality. In order to be able to make this kind of elixir of immortality, he raised a lot of palace maids in the harem, and the only use of these palace maids was to provide himself with a primer for making pills.
These ladies were sent to the palace when they were twelve or thirteen years old, and they did not have to do anything every day, except to drink dew and eat vegetable leaves. In this way, their bodies are purified, and once they have menarche, their menstrual blood can be collected and used as a primer for the elixir. Which palace maid had too little menstrual blood, and had to endure the tragic ending of being beaten by Emperor Jiajing, and in the end many palace maids were persecuted to death by Emperor Jiajing.
At that time, many palace maids felt that if they continued to endure it, perhaps everyone would be dead, so some palace maids organized together to kill the emperor. However, how could these palace maids, who drank dew and ate vegetable leaves every day, have the strength to strangle a big man to death? In addition, they had experience in killing Emperor Mei for the first time, so they planned to directly strangle the emperor to death, but Emperor Mei strangled them to death, but some people were afraid to directly denounce what they had done, and in the end, none of these palace maids were spared, and all of them were beheaded all over the house.
After this, Zhu Houxi raised his vigilance and did not dare to mess around again. He knew that these palace maids could do anything, and only by being honest could they save their lives. But how could Zhu Houxi be a peaceful emperor? During his reign, he killed three empresses, and he was also extravagant in the harem, deliberately torturing these palace maids and concubines, making them worse than death. In addition, in order to be able to devote more time and energy to alchemy and cultivating immortals, Zhu Houxi also established many Zhaijiao under the guidance of Fang Shi.
He demanded that the ministers must all study some Taoist knowledge, and whoever behaves well can be appreciated by him, and whoever behaves badly will be belittled by him, so that the entire Ming Dynasty has been made into a miasma. Zhu Houxi also likes to raise cats very much, and the entire harem is full of all kinds of cats. In order to satisfy the appetite of these cats, he asked the people to pay tribute every year, more than 300 catties of pork and more than 100 catties of animal offal, to meet the daily diet of these cats.
With the emperor's backing, these cats have become more unscrupulous. They even dared to directly harm the prince and princess, and Emperor Jiajing would not stop them when he saw these acts, but found it very interesting. In the eyes of Emperor Jiajing, all this was for his own happiness anyway, so what he did caused more and more dissatisfaction among the people.
In the middle and late stages of Zhu Houxi's reign, the Ming Dynasty faced various crises. Although the central military power has always been firmly controlled by Zhu Houxi, later as the government slowly declined, Zhu Houxi's rule became more and more decadent. If Zhu Houxi had not been so absurd, had not attacked the queens and palace maids of his harem, had not let the common people complain, and had not been superstitious in the magic of immortality, how could there have been such an ending? This is the end of this issue, and we will see you next time