Zhu Yuanzhang fought in the south and north for more than ten years, and finally proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing in 1368 and established the Ming Dynasty, known as Ming Taizu in history. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to divide his sons into vassal kings after he became emperor, even though many ministers in the court were opposed, Zhu Yuanzhang still did so, and he reigned for thirty-one years, and all his sons were named vassal kings (except for the crown prince Zhu Biao and the youngest son Zhu Nan, who was born late and died in the year of his birth).
Zhu Yuanzhang's reasons for this are nothing more than two points:
To prevent his other sons from staying in the capital and fighting for power with the crown prince Zhu Biao, those who know the history of the Qing Dynasty should know that the "nine sons to seize the heir" dispute in Kangxi's later years, Kangxi's princes have lived in the capital since they were born, and they are not allowed to leave without an edict; many older princes secretly colluded with the ministers of the court and the central government to compete for the position of prince after they had titles. In addition, there was the "Xuanwumen Change" during the Tang Dynasty, which was the result of many sons of the emperor staying in the capital and competing for the position of crown prince.
Although the Ming Dynasty was established, the borders were unstable. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, although the power of the Yuan Dynasty has been greatly weakened, it is still a threat to the Ming Dynasty and often harasses the borders of the Ming Dynasty. In order to prevent the Northern Yuan forces from making a comeback, someone must guard the border fortress. The Ming Dynasty has just been established, and naturally there is no shortage of generals who can fight well, but Zhu Yuanzhang does not want these battle-hardened founding heroes to take on this important responsibility. If these founding heroes supported their own troops or betrayed the Ming Dynasty and defected to the Northern Yuan, it would be a big disaster for the Ming Dynasty.
Even if these old ministers are loyal, there is no guarantee that their descendants will be loyal to the Ming Dynasty.
Compared with these courtiers and their descendants, Zhu Yuanzhang believes in his descendants more.
Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang was also very aware of the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" in the Western Han Dynasty, and in order to prevent such a thing from happening, Zhu Yuanzhang decreed: All vassal kings are not allowed to interact with each other, and they are not allowed to leave their fiefdoms without permission, let alone with the courtiers in the court; they are not allowed to return to Beijing at will with the permission of the emperor.
In this way, 24 of Zhu Yuanzhang's 26 sons were named vassal kings, of which 23 went to the fiefdom to become vassals, but only 18 vassal kings were able to inherit the princes. In this article, let's get to know together, one of the more special of the 18 vassal kings, the Tang dynasty lineage, the beginning and the absurd Tang Dingwang, and the last Tang king lived to the sixteenth year of Shunzhi, and it is mentioned that during this period, the descendants of Tang Dingwang produced two emperors, what is going on?
01 The lineage of the Tang Dynasty began with the absurd Tang Dingwang
In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang's twenty-third son Zhu Huan was born, and Zhu Huan's biological mother was Li. In the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu, Zhu Huan, who was only five years old, was named the king of Tang, and his fief was in Nanyang, Henan. Two years later, Zhu Huan's biological mother Li was finally named a virtuous concubine by virtue of her son.
When Zhu Huan was born, Hu Weiyong's case had not yet been completely concluded, and there were still many courtiers who were implicated in Hu Weiyong's case and were executed; not long after Zhu Huan was named the Tang Dynasty, there was another Lanyu case in the court, which implicated more than 15,000 people and was killed.
When Zhu Huan was 13 years old, his father Zhu Yuanzhang died of illness, his biological mother was martyred, and Zhu Huan lost his parents all of a sudden;
Soon after Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, he began to cut down the feudal domain, successively cutting off five feudal kings, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, launched a four-year battle of Jingjing.
Zhu Huan has experienced so many things since he was a child, and it is indeed a little difficult for him. But as the younger prince of Emperor Taizu, he was able to survive the Hongwu and Jianwen dynasties peacefully. Zhu Huan's fourth brother Zhu Di became the emperor after his success, and Zhu Huan had reached the age when he should marry a wife. In the second year of Yongle, Zhu Di built the Tang Palace, and married Wu Fu, the granddaughter of Wu Fu, the Duke of Qianguo, to Zhu Huan as the princess of Tang. It stands to reason that Zhu Di has already married a wife and can go to the fief to become a vassal, but Zhu Di is not in a hurry to let his younger brother become a vassal. But in the sixth year of Yongle, when Zhu Huan was 23 years old, he went north to Nanyang.
In the thirteenth year of Yongle, Zhu Huan, who was only 30 years old, died in the palace.
Zhu Di was very sad when he learned the news of his brother's death, so he ordered him to drop out of the dynasty on the 15th.
"Tang Ding Wang Yuanzhi": "Thinking of the relatives of flesh and blood, it is very sad. On the tenth and fifth days of the dynasty, the edict has a funeral such as a ceremony, and the edict is fixed, and the envoy is sent to sacrifice Chi.
You must know that other vassal kings died and did not have such treatment, which shows that Zhu Di still attaches great importance to Zhu Huan's brotherhood.
However, Zhu Huan is not a person who keeps to himself, and there is no record in the history of the Ming Dynasty, but it can be seen in some sporadic records of Nanyang local chronicles: although Zhu Huan has only been the king of Tang in Nanyang for 7 years, he has lived a luxurious life, which makes the people of Nanyang suffer deeply, and dare to be angry but dare not speak.
02 The title of Tang King continues to inherit seven titles
When Zhu Huan died of illness, his eldest son Zhu Qiongyan was still young, only 10 years old, so it was not until the twenty-first year of Yongle (1423) that he officially inherited the title of Tang King and became the second Tang King of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Zhu Qiongyan died of illness in the first year of Xuande (1426, Zhu Di's grandson Zhu Zhanji reigned) at the age of 21. After Zhu Qiongyan's death, his fiancée Gao committed suicide and was posthumously named Princess Jing by Emperor Xuande, and Zhu Qionghe was posthumously named "King Jing of Tang".
Because Zhu Qionghe had no son to inherit the title, he changed to his younger brother Zhu Qiongjing to inherit the title, Xuande officially became the third Tang king of the Ming Dynasty in three years, after Yongle, Hongxi, Xuande, orthodox, Jingtai, Tianshun, Chenghua seven dynasties, died of illness in the eleventh year of Chenghua.
After Zhu Qiongyan died of illness, his son Zhu Zhi inherited the title in the thirteenth year of Chenghua;
After Zhu Zhizhi died of illness, his son Zhu Miyun inherited the title in the 23rd year of Chenghua; during his reign, Zhu Miquan opened a school in the fiefdom and helped poor students to study; during the reign of Wuzong, Zhu Miquan liked to travel around, and also gave Wuzong a recital to suggest that Wuzong should use talents to govern the world, and wrote poems satirizing Wuzong. In his later years, Zhu Miyun was not only quite accomplished in poetry and painting, but also wrote very well in calligraphy and cursive.
In the second year of Jiajing (1523), Zhu Mijing died of illness. Although Zhu Miyun has been in the title of Tang King for a long time, his two sons died one after another, so there is no son to inherit the title. Emperor Jiajing decreed that his nephew Zhu Yuwen (the son of the third brother Zhu Mitong) inherited the prince in the fourth year of Jiajing, and Zhu Yuwen died of illness in the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing at the age of 76. After his death, his son Zhu Zhouwei inherited the title in the forty-first year of Jiajing, and died of illness after two years of reign.
Later, his son Zhu Shuoxi inherited the title of Tang King in the fifth year of Longqing, and died of illness in the fifth year of Chongzhen (1633).
Because Zhu Shuoxi's son Zhu Qiqi had died of illness before this, his grandson Zhu Yujian inherited the title of Tang King.
Starting from Zhu Huan, the king of Tang Ding, to Zhu Yujian, the ninth grandson of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of Taizu, a total of eight Tang kings have no merits; if it is worth mentioning, it is Zhu Miliang, the king of Tang Cheng, but when Zhu Miliang was in power, it was the reign of Zhu Houzhao, the unscrupulous Emperor Wuzong. It is basically impossible to make contributions in the Wuzong Dynasty, but Zhu Miyun once advised Wuzong, which can be regarded as doing his best.
When it came to Zhu Yujian, the eighth grandson of Zhu Huan, the king of Tang Ding, it was different, and there were two emperors in the line of the Tang king, what is going on?
03 Longwu Emperor Zhu Yujian
In fact, Zhu Yujian's grandfather, Tang Duanwang Zhu Shuoxi, did not want to pass on the title to his son Zhu Qiyi, that is, Zhu Yujian's father, because he favored his concubine. Even in order to let the son of the concubine inherit the prince, Zhu Yujian's father and son were imprisoned, and they wanted to starve them to death, but fortunately, a petty official secretly helped Zhu Yujian and secretly sent brown rice to Zhu Yujian's father and son.
In this way, Zhu Yujian lived in a cage for 16 years, although he was trapped in a cage, Zhu Yujian still did not forget to read, and buried himself in reading Confucian classics. In 1629, the son of Zhu Qiqi was dying, and Zhu Yujian was about to get out of the cage, but Zhu Yujian's uncle, the son born to Zhu Yujian's grandfather Zhu Shuoxi's concubine, was desperate to get the title of Tang king, so he poisoned his brother directly.
In this way, Zhu Yujian, the king of the old Tang Dynasty, planned to let the son born by the concubine be the son of the concubine and inherit the prince in the future.
However, because of the words of a magistrate Chen Qiyu, the old Tang King had to change his mind and let his eldest grandson, Zhu Yujian, be the grandson: If the prince changes the hereditary candidate so rashly, the court is likely to blame it in the future!
After all, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated in the "Emperor Ming Zu Xun": There are grandchildren, but there are no grandchildren.
This year, Zhu Yujian's grandfather also died.
In the fifth year of Chongzhen (1632), Zhu Yujian officially inherited the title of Tang Wang, and Zhu Yujian, who inherited the prince, built a Gaoming Building in the palace and invited a lot of celebrities here. Zhu Yujian began to show his edge, and because of issues such as the change of the clan and the award, he offended many ministers of the DPRK and China. And in order to avenge his father, Zhu Yujian killed his two uncles (one died) with a rod in 1636.
Those who know the history of the Qing Dynasty should know that the year 1636 was the first year of the official establishment of the Qing Dynasty, and Emperor Taiji of the Qing Dynasty was proclaimed emperor in Shengjing. Moreover, in this year, the tenth son of the Qing Taizu Nurhachi, the king of Yingjun, Azige, led his troops to attack Zhili and Shandong, and approached Beijing.
Zhu Yujian saw that the capital was about to become the "turtle in the urn" of the Qing army, so he hurried to Emperor Chongzhen, hoping that the emperor could allow him to enter the king of Beijing. Emperor Chongzhen did not allow it, but he didn't expect Zhu Yujian to disobey his will, forgetting the ancestral rule that "the vassal king shall not be in charge of the army", and after recruiting troops and horses, he set off directly from Nanyang to the capital.
When Emperor Chongzhen learned about it, he ordered Zhu Yujian to return to the fiefdom.
Zhu Yujian did not encounter the Qing army, but met the peasant army on the way, and after a battle, they won and lost, and led their troops back to Nanyang.
Zhu Yujian's move angered Emperor Chongzhen, so he ordered him to be deposed as a concubine and imprisoned in Fengyang. This is the second time that Zhu Yujian is not allowed to be free, and this time Zhu Yujian's situation is not better than the first time, because the eunuch of Fengyang Shouling could not get property from Zhu Yujian, so he deliberately tortured Zhu Yujian.
In this way, under such torture, Zhu Yujian fell ill many times and suffered for seven years, but fortunately saved his life.
In 1644 (the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), Li Zicheng's peasant army entered the capital, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself in the coal mountain. Mingshenzong Zhu Yijun's grandson Fu Wang Zhu Yousong fled all the way south from Luoyang, and when he fled to Nanjing, he was supported by Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, as the supervisor of Nanjing, and soon inherited the throne in Nanjing, known as Emperor Hongguang in history.
Emperor Hongguang was the first emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and after succeeding to the throne, he began to grant amnesty to the world, and Zhu Yujian was finally freed and was named the king of Nanyang. The Nanjing Ministry of Rites requested that Zhu Yujian be restored to the title of Tang king, but Emperor Hongguang did not allow it, but ordered him to go to Pingle, Guangxi, to take up the domain, and Zhu Yujian could not go immediately because of his health.
In 1645, that is, the second year of Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Yujian was ordered to go to Pingle, but before he reached the fiefdom, he received the news that the Qing army had captured Nanjing, and Emperor Hongguang was captured alive by Duoduo, the prince of Qing Yu, and brought back to Beijing (at this time the Qing Dynasty had moved its capital from Shengjing to Beijing), and was executed the following year.
Zhu Yujian did not continue to Guangxi, but went to Jiaxing to avoid trouble.
When he arrived in Hangzhou, he met Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, and Zhu Changshu asked Zhu Yujian to supervise the country (acting emperor), but Zhu Yujian did not agree; after that, he met Zheng Hongkui, the chief military officer, and Su Guansheng, Hubu Langzhong, and several people talked about the current situation, and they couldn't help but cry bitterly. Subsequently, under the escort of Zheng Hongkui, Zhu Yujian went to Fujian, and in June of that year, Zhu Yujian officially began to supervise the country.
Twenty days after the imprisonment of the country, he was proclaimed emperor in Fuzhou, changed to Yuan Longwu, and became a vassal:
Zheng Zhilong (Zheng Chenggong's father) was made the Marquis of Pingyu
Zheng Hongkui was named the Marquis of Dingju
Zheng Zhilong's younger brother Zheng Zhibao is Cheng Qingbo
Zheng Zhilong's nephew Zheng Cai was named Yongshengbo
It can be said that what Emperor Zhu Yujian of Longwu can rely on is Zheng Zhilong's Zheng Group.
In fact, after the death of Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong, the most qualified to inherit the throne was King Gui (Zhu Youlang) of Guangxi. It's just that Guangxi is too far away from the south of the Yangtze River, and there is actually another reason why the courtiers of the Ming Dynasty supported Zhu Yujian together: when Zhu Yujian was the king of Tang, his fief was in Nanyang. And Liu Xiu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, started in Nanyang. The courtiers hoped that Zhu Yujian could become the "Guangwu Emperor" of the Ming Dynasty.
It is said that on the day Zhu Yujian ascended the throne, there was a sudden fog and dust in the sky, and even the jade seal was thrown to the ground, and a corner was broken. Everyone thought that this was an ominous omen, but even so, Zhu Yujian's determination to restore the Ming Dynasty was not affected in the slightest.
But although Zhu Yujian is ambitious and a wise emperor, what he can rely on is the Zheng family, Zheng Zhilong started as a pirate, and Chongzhen was recruited to become a courtier of the Ming Dynasty in the first year; from the first year of Chongzhen to the first year of Longwu, Zheng Zhilong and his family have been busy expanding their power, it can be said that only Zheng Zhilong's son Zheng Chenggong is a loyal minister in the entire Zheng family.
Zhu Yujian summoned Zheng Chenggong into the palace and appointed him as the governor of the Imperial Forest Army, known as the "national surname".
Zhu Yujian's move was naturally to make the Zheng family loyal to him, but the Zheng family was arrogant, and it was difficult for Zhu Yujian to let Zheng Zhilong and others send troops north. In addition, Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu in Shaoxing (the ninth grandson of Zhu Tan, the tenth son of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang), was supported by Zhang Guowei and others as a prisoner, and Zhu Yihai still used the era name of Hongguang.
Whether it is Zhu Yujian or Zhu Yihai, they are both distant ancestors of Emperor Chongzhen, and the qualifications to inherit the throne are the same. After Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, learned that Zhu Yujian was the emperor in Fujian, he had no intention of abdicating, so the king of Tang and the king of Lu competed with each other for the "throne".
King Lu thought that as long as he could capture Nanjing and supervise the country in Nanjing, he would definitely be much more justifiable than Zhu Yujian, the "emperor". However, the power of the king of Lu could not help him achieve this goal, and in 1646, the Qing army moved south and soon captured Shaoxing, and Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, had to take refuge at sea.
At this time, Emperor Zhu Yujian of Longqing faced three dilemmas:
The Qiu Family
Zhu Yihai, King of Lu
and the Qing army's step-by-step approach
After Jiangxi, Hunan and other places were captured by the Qing army, Zhu Yujian planned to drive the expedition in person. But Zheng Zhilong only wanted to secede Fujian, so he ignored Zhu Yujian's orders.
Although with the support of Huang Daozhou in the old city, Zhu Yujian was able to have an army of tens of thousands of people, but this improvised army had no combat experience and was soon wiped out.
Seeing this, Emperor Longqing ignored the dissuasion of the Zheng family and insisted on leading thousands of Ming troops to conquer Hunan. However, Zheng Zhilong had already secretly surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and the various passes in Fujian had long been unguarded. It didn't take long for Zheng Zhilong to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and after Zheng Chenggong failed to dissuade him, he led his troops south alone, and soon captured Jinhua, Pingzhou, Jianning and other places.
In August of that year, Zhu Yujian, the Emperor of Longqing, was captured by the Qing army and died of hunger strike (some say that Zhu Yujian was shot).
According to the edict of Emperor Zhu Yujian of Longqing, King Gui Zhu was in charge of the country, and on the tenth day of October of this year, he was proclaimed emperor in Zhaoqing, and the Yuan Yongli was changed. However, on October 20, Yongli Emperor Zhu Youlang fled to Wuzhou, and Zhu Youlang's move was tantamount to taking the initiative to abandon Guangdong, so that Yongli Emperor lost the hearts of the people in Guangdong.
On the fifth day of November, Zhu Yujian's younger brother Zhu Yulu, the king of Tang, was enthroned as emperor in Guangzhou with the support of Su Guansheng, a university scholar, and changed to Shaowu. In this way, the Shaowu regime established by Emperor Shaowu Zhu Yulu was-for-tat with the Yongli regime established by Zhu Youlang, but Zhu Yulu was on the throne for a short time, only a little more than a month.
The Qing army invaded Guangdong from Fujian, and Zhu Yulu saw that the general trend was gone, so he hanged himself, ending his career as emperor for just over a month. Although Zhu Yujian and his younger brother Zhu Yulu have not reigned for a long time, they are really the emperors of the Southern Ming Dynasty with the support of everyone.
When Zhu Yulu was proclaimed emperor in Guangzhou, he named his younger brother Zhu Yuyi as the king of Tang, which was the last Tang king of the Ming Dynasty.
When the Qing army invaded Guangzhou, Zhu Yuyi was able to escape, and led his clan to flee to the neighboring Dahaiwen Village, and built the Tang Wangfu in Wencun, which was renamed Wen'an City. And with the name of Yongli year, he regarded Yongli Emperor Zhu Youlang as his master.
In 1648 (the second year of Yongli), Zhu Yuye welcomed Zhu Youlang back to Zhaoqing, and was declared a minister.
From 1650 to 1658, the Qing army attacked Guangdong many times, and finally in 1658 (the sixteenth year of Shunzhi), Wencun was besieged by the Qing general Shang Kexi for fifteen months, and then the grain and grass were cut off. In order not to be captured, Zhu Yuye hanged himself, and the year of Zhu Yuyi's hanging was the sixteenth year of Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty.
epilogue
The lineage of the Tang Dynasty began with Zhu Huan, the king of Tang Ding, and Zhu Huan was named the king of Tang in the twenty-fourth year of Hongwu (1391), and ended in the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (1659), which existed for 268 years, and there was no interruption during these 268 years. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Tang lineage still existed, and there were two Southern Ming emperors: Zhu Yujian, Emperor of Longqing, and Zhu Yulu, Emperor of Shaowu.
Zhu Yujian is a rare Ming emperor among the Southern Ming Emperors, with great ambitions and concern for the suffering of the people; however, he is not loyal to himself, and he has a heavy army, and he is subject to Zheng Zhilong everywhere, so that he wants to restore the world of the Ming Dynasty, and he can't do anything, which is really a pity.