In ancient times, wealthy men usually had three wives and four concubines, and the emperor had thousands of women in his harem, and many people said that this phenomenon was a personal desire, but in fact it was deeply influenced by the social culture and values of the time.
The ancients attached great importance to offspring, men as the heirs of the ancestors, "unfilial piety has three, no queen is great" can reflect the importance of offspring, if there is no descendant to inherit the bloodline is the biggest unfilial piety, whether the rich or the emperor are trying to expand the family bloodline inheritance.
It is worth mentioning that Zhu Di, as a prominent emperor of the Ming Dynasty, did not give birth to a child during his 22-year reign in the Ming Dynasty.
The death of Zhu Biao, the rebellion of the Ming Dynasty
As we all know, Zhu Biao is Zhu Yuanzhang's sister-in-law and eldest son, who grew up under the influence of his father since he was a child, but his personality and conduct are different from his father.
He was even more gentle and elegant, and his character was pure, and he repeatedly made military exploits in the country for many years, and was highly respected in the court for his prestige and ability.
On the gentleness and fairness of Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, Zhu Xiao and other brothers often stood up to intercede when they were punished; Lun Qian and reasonable, he had extremely high trust and support between courtiers and princes, and could be said to be the most ideal heir to the throne.
However, history is sometimes so unsatisfactory, and Zhu Biao's ill-fated and untimely death had a profound impact on the succession to the throne of the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhu Biao, Zhu Yunwen succeeded to the throne and became the emperor, and during his reign, he implemented a policy of cutting feudal domains and depriving the vassal king of his military power, and the methods were too simple and crude.
As the saying goes, where there is oppression, there is resistance, and Zhu Yunwen's policy of cutting the feudal domain failed to properly deal with the reaction of the vassal kings, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, was one of them.
He has a strong military force in the land of Yan Zhao, and although the power cannot compete with the central court, he is unwilling to be a fish on the chopping block.
Seeing the miserable fate of the other vassal kings, he foresaw that if he surrendered, he would become them sooner or later, and driven by this sense of crisis, he decided to "fight against the emperor and clear the king's side", and a war between his uncle and nephew began.
According to the swallow-shaped resort, Chengjian Wen is weak, long-term introverted, and there are four seas.
This war was not only a struggle for power, but also Zhu Di's rebellion against Zhu Yunwen's policies, which lasted for four years before and after, and finally ended with Zhu Di's victory and opened his own reign
As mentioned at the beginning, the concept of having many sons and blessings in ancient China was deeply rooted, especially in the imperial family, and the continuation of heirs was regarded as an important responsibility of the emperor, and Zhu Yuanzhang had 26 sons as the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Di's children are not good, and they have given birth to about 10, but these are all born when he was the king of Yan, and there is no record of new children in the more than ten years after becoming the emperor, which is extremely rare in history.
There are two mainstream theories about this situation, one is because the feelings for Queen Xu are too deep, and the other is related to his body, so let's explain them one by one.
Empress Xu died, and her thoughts became ill
In the ancient court history, Empress Xu's reputation was slightly bleak, but it was very legendary, her life was very short, she only lived for 46 years, but the story with Zhu Di was very touching.
Empress Xu was born in a military family, and her father Xu Da was the founder of the Ming Dynasty and made great contributions to the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty. Growing up in such a family atmosphere since childhood, Queen Xu not only inherited the family's martial arts, but also inherited profound cultural literacy.
At the same time, her intelligence and virtuousness attracted Zhu Yuanzhang's attention very early, and she made a political marriage in order to get closer to Xu Da, and thus became Zhu Di's princess.
Queen Xu is virtuous and capable, and she has lived with Queen Ma for a period of time, which has won the praise of the other party. In short, Empress Xu is a person who can write and martial arts, and can be called Zhu Di's "Queen Ma".
When Zhu Di and Zhu Yunwen competed for the throne, Empress Xu showed extraordinary courage and wisdom, and also made great contributions to her final victory.
For example, Li Jinglong's army surrounded Beiping, not only did she not show any panic, but instead stuck to the city to encourage and organize the women in the city to participate in the resistance, and finally kept the city and Zhu Di's last hope.
In 1402 AD, Zhu Di won the victory of the Battle of Jingyan and became the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, and Empress Xu changed from Princess Yan to the queen, but she did not think highly of herself because of the change of identity, and always paid attention to the government and people's livelihood.
The queen is virtuous and virtuous, and the Han Ma clan and the eldest grandson of the Tang Dynasty are also in the palace, but one of their thoughts is only in the people.
She has a deep relationship with Zhu Di, has three sons and four daughters, and actively participates in court politics while caring about her family.
Of course, this kind of attention to government politics is not to participate in politics, but to repeatedly advise Zhu Di to pay attention to national affairs and reasonably handle domestic and foreign affairs, just like Queen Ma admonished Zhu Yuanzhang.
Such a queen naturally won the hearts of the people, but unfortunately she was always sick and died in a hurry at the age of 41. Empress Xu's time as empress was extremely short, and if it weren't for this, she would inevitably leave a stronger color in history.
After the death of Empress Xu, Zhu Di was extremely sad, not only held a grand funeral for his wife, but also built temples in many places to commemorate it. According to the historical records of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di never even set up a queen, which shows that the early death of Empress Xu has always made him haunted.
As the saying goes, "I think about it every day, and I dream about it at night", Zhu Di has been immersed in the sadness of Queen Xu's death, and naturally he has no intention of having children with other concubines, which has caused him to have no son in his 22 years in power.
But then again, the ancients were not as advanced as modern technology in giving birth, and even now they cannot control 100% "not having children", let alone in ancient times when science and technology were not developed? Even one in 10,000 "hit rate" will slip through the net.
Based on this, some people speculate that why Zhu Di failed to give birth to a boy and a half girl in 22 years of power, and this speculation also has relevant historical records, or evidence.
"Own impotence" reveals the truth
There is such a record about Zhu Di's emotional story, after the death of Queen Xu, Zhu Di's snubbing of the harem became more obvious, and later he was quite fond of a concubine with the surname Quan, but unfortunately this concubine also died early.
Soon after Concubine Quan's death, a concubine surnamed Lu told Zhu Di that Concubine Quan had been poisoned. Such a thing happened in his harem is unforgivable, and in anger, Zhu Di ordered a thorough investigation and successively executed hundreds of suspected harem concubines and eunuchs.
During this period, a scandal was also discovered, which was roughly that Concubine Lu's affair with the eunuch was exposed, and it was unforgivable to wear an LV hat to the emperor.
Concubine Lu committed suicide after the incident, but the people involved were not so lucky, and about 3,000 people were implicated in the incident.
Why do you have to have an affair with a eunuch if you don't do it? Regarding this matter, it is mentioned in the Korean historical book "Records of the Sejong of the Yi Dynasty." The reason why Chinese history appears in the Korean history books is simple, when there was a political marriage between Korea and the Ming Dynasty.
One of them, a concubine surnamed Han, told the story after returning to North Korea, just like we chatted about family affairs and gossip. According to the records of Korean historical materials, an old palace maid who served in the palace left the following words before her death:
"My own impotence is declining, so I die young in private, what ......is the blame for it?"
What does "yang decline" mean, according to the current interpretation, it refers to the deficient side of yang in the human body, which is the further development of yang deficiency, there is an ancient saying called "yang decline is short and easy to lose the soul", simply put, this kind of person is not easy to have children.
Zhu Di is a physically strong soldier, so why is it not easy for him to have children? It may have something to do with his early experience. After Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne, Zhu Di launched the Battle of Jingjing, and in 1402 he took Nanjing and became emperor.
However, he did not indulge in the prosperous life of Nanjing, and after taking the throne, he quickly took measures to stabilize his political power and strengthen his management in the north.
Zhu Di was committed to establishing friendly relations with the Mongols in the north, and succeeded in getting the Tatar and Warat ministries to accept the title of the Ming government, adding a layer of security to his northern policy, but this was based on war.
According to historical records, between 1410 and 1422 AD, Zhu Di personally led the army to the north five times, and unfortunately died on the way back to Beijing on the way back to Beijing for the fifth northern expedition, ending his legendary life.
The war has achieved the great cause of Zhu Di's life, but it is also a place full of crises, and he may die on the spot at any time, or cause irreversible damage to his body.
Zhu Di has not given birth to children since he succeeded to the throne, if it is really a physical factor caused by the war, it is likely to be caused in the Battle of Jingjing.
Although the Yan army won many small battles in the Battle of Jingnan, every war was won with less, and the entire Ming Dynasty was fought with the power of one place.
Li Jinglong twice led an army of more than 400,000 to confront the tens of thousands of troops of Zhu Di, the king of Yan, who was also in crisis, and if it weren't for Zhang Yu's life for life, Zhu Di would have been rounded up at that time.
King Yan is tired, and he doesn't take advantage of this time to catch him, but when to wait.
In such a dangerous situation and such a desperate situation, if it is unreasonable to say that Zhu Di's body has not been harmed, we can make an assumption based on this. Perhaps he was physically injured during the Battle of Jingjing, which in turn led to impaired fertility, so he was unable to give birth to a child during his 22 years in power.
After all, the ancients attached great importance to the succession of the ancestors, especially an emperor with supreme power and countless harem beauties, if there were no physical problems, how could he not have given birth to a child, and there was not even a record of pregnancy.
What do you think differently about this?