Preface
In Chinese history, there was a prime minister named Hu Weiyong, whose life was destined to be remembered forever by history. However, his fate is so embarrassing.
Behind being revered as the prime minister, there is a moving story: 30,000 people are behind him, does he really deserve to die, or has he become a victim of wrong?
The founder of the country with mud legs
Zhu Yuanzhang started in the Huaixi area, and most of his first followers came from humble backgrounds, a group of low-level people who were devastated by poverty and war. They are either peasants, or homeless, or even thieves, but they all have the blood of resistance and do their best under Zhu Yuanzhang.
This army of mud legs, after a series of fierce battles, finally conquered Nanjing in 1368, and Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang canonized a number of founding heroes as a matter of course, the most famous of which are Li Shanchang, Xu Da, Chang Yuchun and others.
Although these people have a humble status, they are real "slaves". They have lived and died with Zhu Yuanzhang for many years, and they should share the glory of the founding of the country. However, once the power was in their hands, these former poor people became arrogant and lascivious, and they ran rampant and domineering in the local area.
It is difficult for the literati to serve
At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang was also faced with another thorny problem: How to deal with those literati who had taken refuge in him? Most of these people came from scholarly families and thought very highly of themselves, and they inevitably had some disdain for Zhu Yuanzhang, the new emperor from humble background.
In order to consolidate his rule, Zhu Yuanzhang had to co-opt these people and appoint them to civilian positions. Literati in eastern Zhejiang, such as Liu Bowen and Yang Xian, became important figures in the court. However, due to the difference in status between them and the Huaixi nobles, there were often discords, which split the government and the opposition camp.
Zhu Yuanzhang watched these two forces wrestling with the DPRK, but he was helpless. He could neither trust the arrogant and lascivious Huaixi nobles, nor could he fully trust the conceited literati of eastern Zhejiang. So, he began to secretly plot to eliminate these two forces in order to consolidate his imperial power.
The rise of Hu Weiyong
Against this background, a little-known figure began to slowly surface. He is Hu Weiyong, a scholar from a humble background, who relied on opportunistic means to finally climb the throne of prime minister.
Hu Weiyong was originally a minor official under Zhu Yuanzhang, and he has been unknown for many years. It was not until 1367 that Zhu Yuanzhang was proclaimed King of Wu in Nanjing, and civil officials began to be valued. Hu Weiyong saw this opportunity, he bribed Li Shanchang and was allowed to enter the Taichang Temple.
Since then, Hu Weiyong has begun his career. He first entered the Zhongshu Province under the guidance of Li Shanchang. Subsequently, with the acquiescence of Zhu Yuanzhang, he gradually replaced Yang Xian, Wang Guangyang and others, and finally became the prime minister of Zuo and was in charge of the government.
Power makes people crazy, and Hu Weiyong soon lost himself in the temptation of power. He acted recklessly, formed a party for personal gain, and the whole court and the central government were scolding him. If someone is not harmonious, he tries to suppress it; If anyone sins against him, he takes revenge. In the end, what he did angered Zhu Yuanzhang.
In a small conflict, Hu Weiyong executed a coachman without authorization, which became the fuse for Zhu Yuanzhang's trouble. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Hu Weiyong to "pay for his life", Hu Weiyong panicked and began to plot a rebellion.
He united a group of Huaixi nobles and Zhedong literati in an attempt to overthrow Zhu Yuanzhang. However, the conspiracy was soon revealed. In the first month of the thirteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the killing of Hu Weiyong and his henchmen, and a total of more than 30,000 people were ambushed, and the scene was extremely cruel.
During the interrogation, Zhu Yuanzhang obtained a large amount of "evidence", accusing Hu Weiyong of colluding with military generals, collaborating with Japanese criminals, and even contacting former ministers of the Northern Yuan Dynasty in an attempt to overthrow Zhu Yuanzhang's rule. Whether these allegations are true or not is still debated.
Some scholars believe that although Hu Weiyong's style is indeed misbehaving, he is a small person after all, and he has no ability to rebel at all. These so-called "evidences" are likely to be artificially created by Zhu Yuanzhang in order to eradicate dissidents.
Zhu Yuanzhang's calculations
However, judging from Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards Hu Weiyong, he seems to have expected that Hu Weiyong would embark on this path. During Hu Weiyong's reign, Zhu Yuanzhang turned a blind eye to what he did, and even deliberately connived at him. It wasn't until Hu Weiyong was completely out of control that Zhu Yuanzhang took action to eradicate him. This abnormal attitude makes people suspect that Zhu Yuanzhang is "trying to capture and indulge".
In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang's promotion of Hu Weiyong is likely to be a well-designed trap. He let Hu Weiyong, a small person, climb to the pinnacle of power, in order to let him completely expose his ugly face, so as to create an excuse for Zhu Yuanzhang to eliminate dissidents.
Once Hu Weiyong was executed, Zhu Yuanzhang could take the opportunity to sweep away other dissident forces in the court. Sure enough, after Hu Weiyong's case, Zhu Yuanzhang successively destroyed a group of Huaixi nobles such as Li Shanchang, Lu Zhongheng, and Fei Ju, and the literati of eastern Zhejiang were not spared.
In the whirlpool of this party struggle, Zhu Yuanzhang was as comfortable as a yellow finch. He first executed Yang Xian, then belittled Wang Guangyang, and finally abolished the system of prime minister, completely sweeping away dissident forces.
Since then, no one in the DPRK and China has dared to confront the imperial power, and Zhu Yuanzhang's country has finally stabilized. And those who have made outstanding contributions in the past have either been killed or deposed, and they are in danger and dare not have the slightest arrogance.
The fall of Lee Shan-chang
In the whirlpool of this party dispute, the most suffocating thing is the fall of Li Shanchang. This founding hero, who was once praised by Zhu Yuanzhang as "my Xiao He", has a transcendent status.
However, it was Li Shanchang who pushed Hu Weiyong to the position of prime minister in order to cultivate a successor. He never imagined that his move would eventually lead to the destruction of the family.
When Zhu Yuanzhang verified the fact that Li Shanchang and Hu Weiyong colluded, he showed no mercy and sentenced Li Shanchang, a 77-year-old man, to death punishment along with more than 70 people, including his wife, daughter, younger brother, nephew, and nephew.
On the execution ground, the Li family looked at each other and cried, and the scene was extremely miserable. In this way, the family of a generation of famous ministers cut off the incense and became the biggest victim of the party struggle in the early Ming Dynasty.
epilogue
From Hu Weiyong's fate, we can see the cruel side of the party struggle in the early Ming Dynasty. In those years of iron-fisted rule, any force that threatened imperial power was ruthlessly eradicated, even by the once most decorated.
In order to consolidate his rule, Zhu Yuanzhang did not hesitate to exterminate dissidents with capital punishment, and his methods were cruel and calculating. He first indulged Hu Weiyong's reckless behavior, and waited until Hu Weiyong was completely out of control, and then took the opportunity to kill him, and used this as an excuse to sweep away other dissident forces in the Qing Dynasty.
This story reminds us that both power and ideals can only truly benefit the people if they are based on justice and goodness. And those dynasties built on intrigue and murder will eventually become synonymous with violence and darkness.