Before emperor, Akihito had been overseeing the state in Nanjing for many years as crown prince. However, he was only responsible for handling the day-to-day affairs of the dynasty, and had no power over major policies such as conquest and personnel. The damn thing is that his father didn't like him, and at first he didn't want him to be put in the storage position, but finally he was a xiangshi, who gave his father and son a face, and got a good omen, and then he made up his mind.
The most famous masters of face-to-face in Chinese history include Yuan Jue at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, known as Yuan Liuzhuang, also known as Liuzhuang Shenxiang. Thinking that before Zhu Di, the King of Yan, raised an army to "Jing Difficulty", he hesitated, so the military master Yao Guangxiao invited Yuan Jue to come and gave the King of Yan a face. Yuan Jue said this:
"(King) The dragon walks the tiger step, the sun angle inserts the sky, and the Taiping Tianzi also." Forty years old, must cross the navel, that is, ascend to the great treasure. ”
Zhu Di was born in 1360 and ascended the throne in 1402, exactly over forty years old. This sentence was accurate, and Yuan Jue gained Zhu Di's trust.
Then when Zhu Di hesitated for the choice of heir, Master Yuan's words were very crucial. Shi Yun:
"Emperor Xiangren said, 'Son of Heaven also.'" Xiang Xuanzong said: 'Long live the Son of Heaven.' 'The position is fixed. ”
Emperor Renzong lived quite hard from the time he was made crown prince in the second year of Yongle to the throne in the twenty-second year of Yongle. His father often found excuses to polish him, making him a trembling man and tying his hands and feet; His two younger brothers were unconvinced and constantly challenged his position. Fortunately, the steady Emperor Renzong eventually succeeded to the throne. But strangely enough, Less than a year after Emperor Renzong ascended the throne, he died suddenly. How did he die?
Judging from the records of the Ming Dynasty official Xiu Guoshi "Records of Emperor Akihito", Emperor Renzong belonged to the violent death. He died in May of Hong Xi's first year, and just before January he sent an edict to Wang Jinghong, a garrison eunuch in Nanjing, ordering him to repair the Nanjing palace in preparation for the return of the capital to Nanjing next spring. At the same time, he sent the crown prince Zhu Zhanji to Nanjing himself, and the crown prince left Beijing on April 13. If Emperor Renzong was ill and worried about his life, he would never send the heir to the throne thousands of miles away at this time.
On May 10, Emperor Renzong handled political affairs as usual, and because li Shimian and Luo Rujing, the attendants of the Hanlin Academy, did not listen to things, they lost their temper and demoted the two to officials. On the eleventh day, suddenly there was "no hesitation", and it was like a mountain of illness, Renzong immediately had a premonition that it might not work, and immediately ordered the prince to be urgently summoned back to Beijing, and the next day he told "Da Xiang" (the meaning of dying), and Renzong dictated the will on his sickbed, and died in the Qin'an Hall on the same day.
It took only two days for Renzong to suddenly fall ill and die. The speed of his death was similar to that of the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. According to Zhang Tingyu, on August 20 of the thirteenth year of Yongzheng, "the holy bow occasionally violated the peace, and listened to the government as usual", but by the evening of the twenty-second day, suddenly there was a "great gradual", and the courtiers were "horrified" and rushed to the Yuanmingyuan Palace to ask for peace, and it was not long before the Yongzheng Emperor was "the guest of the dragon". Existing scholars have pointed out that the Yongzheng Emperor died suddenly after taking Dan medicine for a long time and causing body poisoning. For the death of Emperor Renzong, there is a lot of folk discussion, and many legends have circulated about the mystery of his cause of death. The death of Emperor Renzong Zhu Gaozi was also the biggest suspect in the death appraisal of the Sixteenth Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty Renren Lu Zhi's "Records of Illness and Escape" said: "Emperor Renzong died very quickly, suspected of being Lei Zhen, and suspected that the palace people wanted to poison Zhang, and mistakenly went up", pointing out that there were two speculations in society at that time: he was killed by Lei Zhen and killed by the palace people.
The ming chronicle, which was widely circulated after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, pointed out: "Emperor Renzong or Yun died of thunder, or Yun was poisoned by the palace people, or Yun was killed by internal officials." It can be seen that later rumors added another kind: they were killed by eunuchs.
Was Renzong killed by lightning? Zhang He, a jiajing official, said that Lei was just a cover, and that Emperor Renzong was actually killed by eunuchs. He said in the book "Ze Zai": On a rainy day, Emperor Renzong went to the throne and returned to the harem, and suddenly reported that he had "collapsed" - there were rumors that Emperor Renzong was assassinated by a eunuch after returning to the palace, and just that day there was thunder, and the eunuch pretended that Renzong was killed by thunder. As for why the eunuchs wanted to kill the king, Zhang He explained: "After Emperor Renzong ascended the throne, the evil eunuchs were killed every time they wanted to kill", and as a result, the eunuchs were killed by force first.
How did Renzong die? Lu Yu once curiously asked a eunuch surnamed Lei for confirmation, and the answer given by this eunuch was "cover yin disease" As for what yin is, Lu Yu did not elaborate. The author does not dare to explain it, but there is another bold speculation to make up another possibility for the death of Renzong: Renzong, like the Yongzheng Emperor, died of poisoning by taking Dan medicine.
According to historical records, renzong, who was gentle and elegant, in the last days of his life, was unusual, unusually grumpy, and easily provoked, and once he had a seizure, it was almost difficult to restrain his behavior. For example, The young secretary of the Dali Temple, Yi Qian, in response to the emperor's call for advice when he first ascended the throne, repeatedly went to the throne, and Emperor Renzong blamed him for "overstepping his points" and "selling his name directly", and whenever he came to the dynasty, the evil feeling was "numbered in the tone of words", the words were not good, the face was not good, and it was probably difficult to do it, so that "the courtiers are all afraid of the servants, and they are respectful of words."
On another occasion, he almost beat to death Li Shimian, a famous minister of the early Ming Dynasty and who had served as the superintendent of the State Zi (equivalent to the headmaster of the ming dynasty's highest school). Li Shimian was a man of good words and dared to advise, and suffered a lot during the Yongle years. One day in May of the first year of Hong Xi's reign, Li Shimian came out to speak again, and in front of the hundred officials, he bluntly said that the emperor had sent eunuchs as far away as Fujian to select the ugly matter of the maid before the end of the period of filial piety, which deeply angered Emperor Renzong, and when the dynasty broke out, the order guards broke three of his ribs and demoted him. Unexpectedly, Li Shimian was also a violent temper and had a very arrogant personality, and he connected three pieces of music in three days and gave more opinions. Emperor Renzong believed that Li Shimian was deliberately provoking, and simply arrested him and severely punished him. Thanks to the fact that The Jinyi Wei Qianhu, who was in charge of the prison, had received the grace of Li Shimian and secretly invited a doctor to heal his wounds, so that he could not die. However, Emperor Renzong was really angry, until the day of the "Great Gradual", he still had residual hatred, and cut his teeth and said to the minister Xia Yuanji: "Li Shimian insulted me!" "When I thought about this, I still couldn't help but be furious, and I died that night."
Short-tempered and angry at every turn is one of the commonalities of those who take Dan medicine. During his lifetime, Emperor Renzong practiced Dan dan and died for dan medicine, which can also be seen from the place of his death. Emperor Renzong did not die in the Qianqing Palace, the "Sleeping House of the Heavenly Son", but at the Qin'an Hall at the northern end of the central axis of the Forbidden City. This palace still retains the architectural style of the Ming Dynasty, it was built in the Yongle period, dedicated to the Yongle Emperor's protector Zhenwu Emperor, and is an important place for the Ming Palace to carry out Taoist activities. Although there is no direct record of what Emperor Renzong did in the Qin'an Hall in his later years, it is clear that there must be nothing else to do but burn the runes to refine Dan. Renzong's physical foundation was already weak, and the alchemy was excessive, and the internal fire was exuberant, so his temper also became grumpy. In this regard, Luo Rujing, who had served in the Hanlin Yuan, said: "The succession of the former emperor (Emperor Renzong) did not reach the deadline, abandoned the group of subjects, and the reason for the rebellion, all of them were the reasons for the sacrifice of the golden stone by the young man, which can be described as direct evidence.
Emperor Renzong's father, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, died on the way back to the Division on the Northern Expedition, which also belonged to the "violent collapse". Zhu Di was a firm believer in Taoism, and after about fifteen years of Yongle, he rarely went out of the government, but built a Xuan altar and a temple in the palace. He fell ill in his later years, but he was not able to take medicine raw, and only ate the golden dan that the Daoist priest of Lingji Palace gave him. What happens after taking the elixir? Yuan Zhongche, the son of the divine minister Yuan Jue, said: After Zhu Di took the medicine, "he was rebellious and angry, and he was so angry that he lost his voice, and he did not dare to advise at home and abroad." He was so distressed that he boldly said, "This phlegm fire deficiency is caused by the elixir of the Lingji Palace." Unexpectedly, Zhu Di listened and said angrily, "Immortal medicine is not accepted, take all the medicine?" "In April of the twenty-second year of Yongle, Zhu Di led his division out of the jam, and when he sent the army, he was still unharmed, and he also feasted and drank many times in the middle of the way, not wanting to suddenly fall ill, and he died within a few days, and he did not even survive until the army entered the jam. This sudden and sudden death is very similar to the death of Emperor Renzong.
As a son who did not please Zhu Di, in order to do what he liked, it was only natural for Renzong to learn from him to study Taoism and engage in the cultivation and smelting of that set. For Emperor Renzong to take poison, many foreign ministers did not know, or knew but did not dare to speak, but many of the close ministers who walked in the inner court knew more. Like that Yuan Zhongche, and a royal doctor named Sheng Qidong, both of them were characters who had entered the Ming Shi Fang Ji Biography, but neither of them liked Renzong. Sheng Qidong was very worried about this, and once Yuan Zhongche secretly said to Sheng Qidong: "Don't worry too much, I look at the face of Renzong, not a person of eternal life, he will not sit on the throne for too long." Yuan Zhongche's words were later fulfilled, and Emperor Renzong died after only 8 months of work. Could it be that Yuan Zhongche was so clever in his art of xiangshu that he sentenced people to death like a messenger? The author speculates that he should know that Renzong, like his father, has been poisoned deeply and cannot be saved by medicine, so he dares to speak out in this way.
In fact, Zhu Di's ancestors and grandchildren have been lovers of taking Dan medicine for three generations, and in the past people did not pay much attention to the situation of Xuanzong himself, and we can also find some clues through some historical fragments. Xuanzong, like his father Renzong, also "collapsed". He fell ill at the end of December in the ninth year of Xuande to his death in the first month of the following year, a very short time, and he died at the age of 38. According to the eunuch Nguyen An Liu, when Xuanzong died, "his skin was cracked and burnt fish", and his skin was like grilled fish on a barbecue grill. Eunuch Nguyen said that this situation was "a strong agent". The potion should be the product in the alchemy furnace. I just don't know if its effect is aphrodisiac or the cultivation of immortality.
Xuanzong's lustfulness is well known to all. In this regard, he had a friendship with his grandfather Zhu Di. Before Emperor Xuanzong's three-year mourning period for his father Emperor Renzong had even emerged, he eagerly sent someone to a certain vassal state for beauty. The king of the country was greatly surprised: "(Emperor Renzong) was mourned at the beginning, and (Xuanzong) made people ask for a daughter, and they were really anxious. The selection of women during the national mourning period is obviously contrary to the traditional "junde".
According to credible materials provided by Li Xian, a courtier of Emperor Mingying's Tianshun Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong liked to cultivate this set of tricks. During the Xuande years, there was a man named Chang Zhongfu who served as a petty officer who inspected. It is rumored that this person has a miracle - can "boil platinum" (boiling non-boiling wine, but boiling, is a chemical process, boiling platinum is the meaning of smelting silver), whoever has a treasure jade is damaged, he can repair it as old. When Emperor Xuanzong heard of his name, he summoned him to test his skills. Later, Emperor Xuanzong was pleased and gave him the post of langzhong (郎中) the official of Zheng Wupin (正五品), and often summoned him to the palace, and also built a special field for him in the palace to facilitate him to perform his secret arts. What they do inside, outsiders are naturally "idle people are not allowed to enter", even Xuanzong's very close eunuchs are not allowed to peek into the end.
As the Son of Heaven, Xuanzong certainly didn't care about the few pieces of silver that were smelted in the rivers and lakes, I'm afraid that it was mainly alchemy. The main ingredient of the elixir is mercury sulfide, which is mercury, which is a highly toxic substance. People take sulfur and mercury for a long time, which will cause irreversible and serious damage to the internal organs and nervous system. According to Zhu Yunming's "Wild Record", Xuanzong once killed two young eunuchs in a momentary anger. After the anger subsided, Fang felt that the deceased was innocent and died pitifully, but there was no regret. One day in the palace, he suddenly widened his eyes and pointed to a place and shouted, That is here again! "Immediately take the projectile and shoot indiscriminately." Somehow, left and right, strangely asked, "What is that?" Xuanzong was shocked and breathless, "It was the two eunuchs who were killed by me, and they saw that They had come and were lying there without saying a word." "But left and right didn't see anything. In the future, such strange things became more and more frequent, until Xuanzong Yan drove. This is probably the hallucination that Xuanzong had after he was poisoned.
Emperor Ren and Emperor Xuan, one who lived for 48 years and one who lived for 38 years, both died suddenly. The Ming Shi Benji's evaluation of Renzong is: "Employing people for administration, good is better than books." Make the year of heavenly leave, the recuperation of Han Hao, the prosperity of virtue, and the prosperity of Wen and Jingbi Longya. This means that if Emperor Renzong could live for a few more years, he would certainly be able to realize the rule of Wenjing in the Ming Dynasty. In fact, although Emperor Renzong reigned for less than a year, people had already crowned him with the crown of "Renxuan's Rule".
For Xuanzong, the "History of Ming" is more specific, saying that he "after taking the throne, the officials will be called their posts, the government will be peaceful, the discipline will be repaired, the cangyu will be envious, and the years will not be calamity." Gai Mingxing was in his sixties, the people's morale was gradually relaxed, and there was a sign of peace and tranquility", praised Xuanzong for his "heroic posture and wisdom, and a few grams of rope ancestor warriors", saying that Xuanzong was a good emperor who could inherit the virtues and careers of his ancestors. Therefore, it is a fairer evaluation for later generations to associate Xuanzong with Renzong, collectively known as the rule of Renxuan.