Preface
It is always said that behind a successful man there must be a good woman, and this is very true even in ancient times, especially for those who held great power in ancient times.
In the Ming Dynasty, there was such an empress who was such an excellent woman, because of her existence, her husband kept the throne, and because of her existence, she was able to stabilize the government when her young grandson ascended the throne.
This queen is Empress Zhang, the wife of Zhu Gaochi of Mingrenzong, Empress Zhang's life can be said to be quite magnificent, all the way from the princess to the empress dowager, and she is also very famous in the mouth of hundreds of officials.
In ancient times, the regent of the Queen Mother was often scolded by later generations for "Ji Si Chen" and other bad evaluations, but Queen Zhang did all the positive evaluations she received, what did she do?
1. The husband's virtuous help
In history, there are very few women like Empress Zhang who have been promoted from the princess to the empress dowager, and Empress Zhang's auxiliary role in Zhu Gaochi is also quite obvious.
Zhu Gaochi was originally only the prince of King Yan, but after Zhu Di launched the Battle of Jingyan to seize the throne, the level of the whole family was also upgraded by one level, not only Zhu Gaochi was made the crown prince, but the princess Zhang also became the crown princess.
However, after becoming the emperor, Zhu Di became more and more dissatisfied with Zhu Gaochi's son, the reason was that Zhu Di himself was an emperor who could drive the expedition in person, but Zhu Gaochi liked to be quiet and did not like to move, and he came against him.
In addition, Zhu Gaochi is relatively obese, which causes him to be very bad at riding and shooting, so Zhu Di is more and more unkind to him, and wants to change his second son Zhu Gaochu who is most like him as the prince.
However, in the end, he still didn't do it, firstly, because the prince was not at fault and could not be abolished casually, and secondly, because although Zhu Di did not want to see Zhu Gaochi, he was very kind to his family.
Among them, one is that the crown princess Zhang is not only very filial to her in-laws, but also has a dignified manner, which makes Zhu Di and Queen Xu like her very much.
The other is Zhu Zhanji, the emperor's grandson who is far more loved in Zhu Di's heart than all his sons, Zhu Di can be said to be extremely fond of this grandson and raised him personally since he was a child.
And he naturally did this in the hope that Zhu Zhanji would be the emperor in the future, so Zhu Zhanji's father had to succeed him as the emperor, so Zhu Gaochi's position as the crown prince was finally retained by combining various elements.
Who can say that Zhu Gaochi did not have a share of the credit of the crown princess Zhang behind his succession? And Zhu Gaochi did not disappoint the ministers after succeeding to the throne.
During Zhu Di's reign of more than two decades, he often drove foreign expeditions, and the country was naturally handed over to the crown prince Zhu Gaochi to supervise the country, so Zhu Gaochi was quite experienced in ruling the country, and after succeeding to the throne, he also ruled step by step.
During this period, Empress Zhang also acted as Zhu Gaochi's virtuous helper, although the harem was not allowed to interfere in politics, but Empress Zhang still assisted Zhu Gaochi to solve many problems.
However, unfortunately, Zhu Gaochi died after only ten months of reign, and his son Zhu Zhanji succeeded to the throne, and Zhang was also promoted from empress to empress dowager and continued to help his son.
2. Assist his son Zhu Zhanji
After Zhu Zhanji succeeded to the throne, Zhu Gaoxu, the king of Han, launched a rebellion, and most of the military affairs at that time were handed over to the Empress Dowager Zhang for adjudication, so it is conceivable that the Empress Dowager Zhang also made a lot of efforts to quell the rebellion.
In this way, after getting rid of the biggest threat to the throne, Zhu Zhanji finally sat on the throne, and his reign since then has been quite stable with the assistance of Empress Dowager Zhang.
And Zhu Zhanji also has a lot of respect for the Empress Dowager Zhang, when the Empress Dowager Zhang travels, not only the queen and the imperial concubine are served, but even Zhu Zhanji personally follows and takes care of her, which is very rare for an emperor, which shows the deep love between mother and son.
Empress Dowager Zhang also often told Zhu Zhanji to govern the country and keep an eye on the lives of the people, so that the emperor could be loved by the people and his rule could be stable.
Empress Dowager Zhang also attached great importance to the appointment of ministers, and was quite generous to the ministers left behind during the period of the first emperor, and used her status as the empress dowager to ask them to bother to assist the new emperor.
In ancient times, the superior was able to be a corporal who was the most gratifying to the scholars, not to mention that the Empress Dowager Zhang was still an old acquaintance of the ministers, so what the Empress Dowager Zhang said was very weighty.
Not only is he very concerned about major affairs of the court, but as a queen mother, Zhang's handling of his own affairs is also very good, that is, as the queen mother, he coordinates the relationship with the harem.
Many of Zhu Gaochi's concubines were already buried after Zhu Gaochi's death, and the remaining concubines were very convinced of Empress Dowager Zhang's character and reputation, so there was no contradiction between them.
But Zhu Zhanji's harem is not peaceful, Zhu Zhanji's queen Hu Shanxiang was born noble and virtuous and dignified, took care of the harem in an orderly manner, and was also very filial to Empress Dowager Zhang, and was definitely a good queen.
However, Zhu Zhanji did not favor her, but another Sun Guifei, who was not of high background but was beautiful, was very favored by Zhu Zhanji, and even the honor guard was close to the shape of the queen.
Not only that, because Sun Guifei gave birth to Zhu Zhanji's eldest son Zhu Qizhen, she was even more favored, and Queen Hu was even more disgusted by Zhu Zhanji because she had no children.
Therefore, under the condition that Empress Hu was not at fault, Zhu Zhanji resolutely deposed Empress Hu and appointed Sun Guifei as the queen, and Zhu Qizhen became the crown prince.
Empress Dowager Sun took pity on Hu Shanxiang and was deposed for no reason, but because Hu Shanxiang really did not have an heir for the emperor, there was no reason to avenge her, so she still took care of Hu Shanxiang after she was deposed.
In addition to the royal family, Empress Dowager Zhang is also quite strict with her relatives, so that as relatives, they cannot endanger the government, which is not only to protect the imperial power, but also to protect their own families.
3. Assist his grandson in his later years
Zhu Zhanji died in less than ten years of reign, and Zhu Qizhen was only nine years old when he succeeded to the throne, and he had no ability to pro-government, so Zhang, who became the first empress dowager in the history of the Ming Dynasty, naturally took on the work of auxiliary government.
The first thing she faced was the rumors that she wanted to make her second son emperor, after all, there were not a few queen mothers in history who were greedy for power and had this idea, and the ministers were naturally wary.
But Zhang didn't think about it like this, and he didn't approve of this idea, so he decisively convened the ministers, clarified the rumor, and then asked the ministers to assist the new emperor Zhu Qizhen in the future.
In this way, the Empress Dowager helped her grandson sit on the throne with her prestige, and because the Empress Dowager was very familiar with the ministers, the ministers did not dare to behave out of line.
The very famous Sanyang cabinet in the history of the Ming Dynasty: Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, Yang Pu, and a number of ministers were told by the empress dowager one by one to work together to assist the young master.
In fact, Zhang's did this not only to dismount the ministers after the new emperor ascended the throne, but also because she was old at this time, and she didn't know when she would drive west.
She couldn't trust Empress Dowager Sun's conduct and education of her son, so she naturally wanted to establish authority for her grandson while she was still alive, so that the ministers could obey the young master.
But the Empress Dowager still rejected the ministers' request to let her listen to the government, so many examples in history: Lu Pheasant, Deng Sui, Wu Zetian, Liu E...... They all have positive political achievements, but they are also scolded.
Therefore, Zhang's heart is clear about whether the curtain is good or bad, anyway, she is not able to assist in government affairs, and she has no extravagant hopes for power, so why should she rush to be scolded by future generations?
It is precisely because of this that after Zhang's death, later generations also evaluated her quite well, basically praising her, comparing her with the previous generations of queen dowagers who covered the sky with one hand, and exaggerating the overall situation in a different way.
Because of his young age and lack of judgment, Zhu Qizhen was very partial to the eunuch Wang Zhen who took care of him, which also made Wang Zhen gradually gain power and start to transgress again.
The Empress Dowager was very angry when she learned about this, and there were lessons from the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, and it was definitely not a good thing for the emperor to favor eunuchs, so she called Wang Zhen in front of her and reprimanded him and threatened him with death.
Therefore, Wang Zhen was very afraid of the Empress Dowager, and when the Zhang family was alive, once he made a mistake, his life might be lost, so he did not dare to be too public.
It wasn't until the seventh year of orthodoxy that after the death of the Empress Dowager, Wang Zhen, who had no threat, began to gain power again, and Zhu Qizhen also deviated from the growth trajectory in Wang Zhen's flattery, and there were a series of disasters later.
epilogue
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Tan Qian commented on Empress Zhang like this: "The momentum is not Ma Deng, and the seat is not high." In this way, he praised Zhang's virtues and merits.
Among them, "Ma Deng" refers to the empress Ma and Hui of Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty and the empress Deng Sui of Emperor Han He, both of whom are queen templates in Chinese history and are very virtuous, but they both hold great power, so they are belittled by later generations.
And "Xiang Gao" refers to the Empress Xiang of Song Shenzong and the Empress Gao of Song Yingzong, both of whom are the Empress Dowager who covered the sky in the imperial court, making the court unstable, so later generations have a lower evaluation of them.
Comparing the Zhang family with them, this brings out the excellent quality of Empress Zhang, who is both virtuous and not arbitrary, which fully meets the high standards and strict requirements of the ancients for the queen mother.