On the sixth day of the fifth month of the eighteenth year of Hongzhi (1505), Zhu Youzhang, the Hongzhi Emperor who was in poor health since childhood, was dying, and summoned Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, and Xie Qian to the Dongnuan Pavilion of the Qianqing Palace before his death, explained the aftermath, and asked them to assist the prince Zhu Houzhao, and died the next day.
As the king of Shoucheng, Zhu Youzhu has an excellent evaluation in the history books, known as the virtuous monarch, analogous to Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty and Song Renzong, like a generation of Ming monarchs, and even has the rule of "Hongzhi Zhongxing", just looking at the "Record", his governance is a bit unworthy of the name.
Hongzhi Zhongxing is not worthy of the name
According to the records of the history of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youzhang's childhood was extremely miserable, Wan Guifei covered the sky with one hand in the harem, and he and his mother could only live a life of hiding in Tibet in the palace, and they hid until they were six years old before they recognized Ming Xianzong, it can be said that Zhu Youzhang's childhood did not live a few days of normal life.
For this, I actually remain skeptical, first of all, I recognized Ming Xianzong at the age of six, why did Ming Xianzong think that he was his son?
Secondly, with Wan Guifei's status in the harem, even the queen can be pulled off the horse, in six years, can she not know that there is a child in the harem? Even if she doesn't know, there must be a lot of palace maids and eunuchs who want to cling to Wan Guifei, and maybe they will tell Wan Guifei.
Of course, because history has long been covered up, future generations don't know what happened at that time, but what can be sure from these records is that Zhu Youzhu's childhood was definitely unhappy, after all, Wan Guifei has no sons, and she will definitely not have a good face for other princes.
Perhaps Ji has an indisputable personality and has formed a good relationship in the palace, which is why there are constantly people to help their mother and son, some people to help and some people to be jealous, and finally cause Ji's death.
Note: Ming Xianzong had twenty children in his life, of which sixteen were living adults, and the number of children was second only to Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.
But regardless of the true history, Zhu Youzhu was still made the crown prince in the eleventh year of Chenghua (1475), until he succeeded to the throne in the twenty-third year of Chenghua (1487), opening his own Hongzhi era.
Ming Hsiaozong Images
Perhaps because of the tragic experience of his childhood, Zhu Youzhu was the only Empress Zhang in his life, becoming the only emperor without a concubine in the feudal era.
Moreover, Zhu Youzhu and Empress Zhang have a deep relationship, and like folk couples, they live and drink together every day, live and fly together, and they are rare good husbands.
For his son, Zhu Youzhu also loves him very much, Zhu Houzhao doesn't want to study, so it's okay to skip class for a few days, Zhu Houzhao wants to sneak out of the palace, and he also helps take care of it, so he has developed Zhu Houzhao's casual but a little sloppy style.
Judging from these performances, Zhu Youzhu is definitely a rare good husband and father of the emperor, but he is not a good emperor, which stems from his character cultivated since childhood.
The unfortunate living environment of his childhood has cultivated his character of repeated vacillation, and he has no big opinions when encountering problems, and many policies are even inconsistent.
A couple for a lifetime
For example, his father was re-eunuch, and Zhu Youzhu carried out various suppressions on the eunuchs at the suggestion of the minister, but he himself favored the eunuch Li Guang and allowed Li Guang to behave indiscriminately, and so on, and more than that.
Suppress the donation of the imperial village, but give a large amount of land to the emperor's relatives
For example, during the Chenghua period, the land was seriously annexed, and he restricted it, but he connived at Empress Zhang's younger brother to annex the land, and it was not an ordinary connivance, not only rewarding them with a large amount of land, but also allowing the brother-in-law's field to increase rent, even if someone objected, he rejected them one by one and maintained the special permission.
In April of the thirteenth year of Hongzhi (1500), the Marquis of Shouning, Zhang Heling, Hejian Mansion, Suning and other counties were allowed to start from five points per mu (the rest of the Huangzhuang official land was only three points)
In April of the 17th year of Hongzhi (1504), Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, was allowed to acquire 16,705 hectares of land
And relying on Zhu Youzhang's connivance, the brothers of the Zhang family had no fear, indulged the housekeeper to persecute the people, and even killed the people for rent, but Zhu Youzhang didn't care, how could such a person leave a reputation in the history books for suppressing relatives and lightly serving as a servant?
Of course, Zhu Youzhu did suppress the wind of Huangzhuang's dedication, but on the one hand, he inhibited, and on the other hand, he connived at the annexation of land by the emperor's relatives, not to mention the inconsistencies, and also caused the increasingly serious land annexation problem in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.
Empress Zhang is actually a Voldemort
Expelled from the palace during the Chenghua period, he was obsessed with Jiao
For example, there were many demon refining monks in his father's palace, and he was expelled from the palace all under the advice of the minister, but Zhu Youzhu himself in his later years was also obsessed with Zhai Jiao, and the so-called Zhai Jiao was actually to let various monks do things.
Every time Jiao needs to spend a lot of gold and silver, which directly leads to a sharp increase in the expenses of the inner treasury, Zhu Youzhu has no choice but to order the household department to include the silver in the inner treasury.
In March of the eighth year of Hongzhi (1495), 300,000 taels of Taicang silver treasury were transported;
In October of the ninth year of Hongzhi (1496), 500,000 taels of Taicang silver treasury were transported;
In the thirteenth year of Hongzhi (1500), the Taicang silver treasury was 1.3 million taels;
In February of the 14th year of Hongzhi (1501), 450,000 taels of Taicang silver treasury were transported;
In October of the fifteenth year of Hongzhi (1502), the Taicang silver treasury was 1,950,000 taels;
In April of the sixteenth year of Hongzhi (1503), the Taicang silver treasury was 1.95 million taels;
In July of the seventeenth year of Hongzhi (1504), 150,000 taels of Taicang silver treasury were transported.
It can be seen that since the eighth year of Hongzhi, Zhu Youzhu has taken no less than four million taels of silver from the Tai warehouse, and all this money is used to build statues of gods, reward temples and other meaningless things, and in order to smelt, he often orders people to buy items such as fast incense and yellow wax, which is thousands of catties at a time.
Jiao
As a result, countless silver was wasted by Zhu Youjiao, and what is even more outrageous is that the silver entered the inner treasury but was not properly managed, and there was not even a book to reconcile, and all kinds of corruption often occurred.
The reform of the salt administration has contributed to the further corruption of the salt administration
Salt was the main source of taxes for each dynasty, although each dynasty collected it differently.
In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang set the model of grain transportation in China and France, in order to encourage merchants to transport grain to border towns, allowing them to transport grain and then go to the household department to receive the corresponding salt introduction, and then to the salt field to receive salt for sale.
Due to the huge profits of salt, many powerful people saw that it was profitable, and they tried every means to bargain for salt and then resell it to merchants, or they carried private salt into the salt themselves to make huge profits.
In the Chenghua period of Ming Xianzong, the salt government was completely corrupted, and Ming Xianzong himself further contributed to the trouble, and salt was given to eunuchs, princes and Quan Xing's family.
Therefore, at the beginning of Zhu Youzhang's ascension to the throne, he also had the idea of making great efforts to reform the salt administration, such as prohibiting the powerful from topping up their names in the newspapers, prohibiting corruption and fraud among officials in the salt farms, etc., but the corruption of the salt administration was not a day or two, and these laws did not make the situation of the salt administration much better.
In the fourth year of Hongzhi (1491), Zhu Youzhu ordered Ye Qi, the secretary of the household department, to change the law, and changed the grain to the silver Kaizhong, that is, now as long as the merchant hands over the silver to the household, and then receives salt from the household.
Ye Qi changed the law
Although this move increased the revenue of the state treasury, it was more conducive to the collusion between officials and businessmen, and the payment of silver could obtain salt and no need to transport grain, which directly led to the emptiness of the border towns.
As for Zhu Youzhu himself, like his father, he contributed to the further corruption of the salt administration and allowed the salt to be used for weaving, of course, this is a trivial matter, and what is even more outrageous is that he personally sold the salt.
In the first month of the sixteenth year of Hongzhi (1503), Zhu Youzhu sold a total of more than 169,300 taels of salt from the orthodox to Chenghua years to the merchant Zhu Da at a price of five cents per citation.
Although the household department opposed, but Zhu Youjiao, who cared for his family, did not listen at all, and opened a bottomless pit since then, and later Qingyun Hou Zhou Shou also participated in it.
Salt induction
In the first year of Zhengde (1506), Zhu Houzhao, who had just ascended the throne, removed their salt quotations under the persuasion of the minister, and had previously sold an astonishing amount of 1.16 million citations.
Leave Zhu Houzhao with a completely corrupted border defense
After Wenzhi finished speaking, let's talk about martial arts, what about Zhu Youzhang's martial arts? In fact, there is just one word: rotten.
Before, due to Ye Qi's change of law, the border town gradually became empty, and during the entire Hongzhi period, from east to west, the entire border defense was broken, and the Ming army was powerless to resist, even if the touted Helan Mountain victory, the result was only 42 beheadings.
The border defense of the Ming Dynasty is declining day by day
What about the great victory of Helan Mountain? Look at the record of the "Records of Filial Piety."
In July of the 14th year of Hongzhi (1501), Zhu Youzhu ordered an army of 100,000 to go out to the Tatar Department of Hetao, but was discovered by the enemy, and the whole campaign was beheaded by three levels.
When the captives crowded into the interior to plunder, the lost population and livestock were invincible, and the fate was about to be out of command for a long time, and the towns supported the soldiers who could not be captured, and successively beheaded the twelve levels, so as to hear about it, and the speaker was ashamed.
It can be said that during the entire Hongzhi period, the Ming Dynasty won very few victories against the Tatars, and only a few major victories.
Moreover, Zhu Youzhu also handled the handling of the border town generals carelessly, and even said that there were basically no means at all, since he could not resist them, he neither changed the defense policy, nor dealt with these border generals, at most he was fined or demoted, and he just took a formality, and even ordered them to kill the enemy with crimes, etc., and the border defense became more and more erosive.
Zhu Youjiao's neglect of the border for more than ten years led to the increasingly arrogant Tatar department, and in the last years of Hongzhi, the little Tatar prince actually had 400,000 troops, directly sending a "surprise" to the Ming Dynasty.
In May of the eighteenth year of Hongzhi (1505), Zhu Youzhu had just died of illness, and the Tatar Department launched a fierce attack on the Ming Dynasty.
It can be said that what Zhu Youzhu left to his son before his death was the most powerful foreign enemy and the most abandoned frontier since Tumubao.
What's even more exciting is that Zhu Youzhu also left his son Jingxiang, Nanyang, Hanzhong, Yunyang, Xi'an, Shangluo and other prefectures and counties with a total of one million displaced people, and millions of displaced people are running all over the land, and they may rebel one day.
These are all messes after Zhu Houzhao just succeeded to the throne.
Zhu Houzhao felt bitter in his heart
Hongzhi Zhongxing is by no means the Zhongxing of the Ming Dynasty
But even so, Zhu Youzhu was still crowned with the hat of "Hongzhi Zhongxing", but judging from these performances, there is no trace of Zhongxing at all, or the so-called Zhongxing is actually the Zhongxing of the Wenchen's forces.
The weak Zhu Youzhu listened to the words of the Wenchen, and what the Wenchen said was completely in line with the image of the traditional Confucian emperor, which gave him a false reputation.
After Zhu Youzhang, the status of civil officials in the Ming Dynasty became higher and higher, laying the groundwork for future party struggles.
If he is not the emperor, the evaluation may be good, but he became the emperor, practiced a wife, and favored Empress Zhang, which indirectly led to the severance of his heirs, and Empress Zhang's life was very miserable after Jiajing came to power, and her younger brother was also killed.
Empress Zhang and Zhu Houzhao did not have a good relationship
Not to mention that before his death, he left his son a Ming Dynasty with an empty treasury, a Ming Dynasty with a lax border defense, a Ming Dynasty with displaced people everywhere, and a Ming Dynasty with poor people, such a situation really has nothing to do with the prosperity of the world.
Therefore, Zhu Youzhang, the emperor, is actually very ordinary, and it should belong to a mediocre grade, far inferior to his father and son, he can't bring his own filter because he watched "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", and he should take a look at what Zhu Youzhu did from "Actual Records".
For example, the historian Mr. Huang Renyu said in "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" that "the more humble and gentle the Hongzhi Emperor is, the more he is at the mercy of the ministers, the more the ministers praise him as a wise monarch."
As for what Professor Fang Zhiyuan said even more ruthlessly, saying that Xiaozong was not only at the mercy of the ministers, but also at the mercy of the ministers, and from his actions, he should be an emperor with a low IQ, which is really a bit heart-wrenching.
Overall, although Zhu Youzhu is not mediocre, but mediocrity is true, he is the king of peace by ancient standards, the lord of mediocrity and cowardice, a good man, a good father, and a good husband, but he is by no means a good emperor.