The last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan Shun Emperor, left posterity with the impression of his dynasty, strange, strange and short-lived. People remember only that in 1368, the Ming Dynasty's army marched to the top, from south to north, completely ending the Mongol rule in Han China, and the Yuan Shun Emperor, as the last monarch of his dynasty, fled to the steppe.
This is another repetition of the "king and defeat" incident that is not uncommon in history, the winner single-handedly created the Ming Dynasty that lasted for more than two hundred years, and although the loser fled north, the Mongol forces it represented were like ghosts that always entangled the Ming Dynasty and could not be dispersed. The complexity of history prompts us to think about the repetition and entanglement of the so-called "victory and defeat", the multifaceted nature of the so-called "righteous" or "evil" characters. In this way, let us take the Yuan Shun Emperor as an incision to explore the stormy meetings of the late Yuan Dynasty, which may increase our understanding of this change of dynasty.
The invincible Mongolian Iron Horse
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > first, political struggle does not allow "fainting"</h1>
Because of his reputation for the subjugation of the country and his outstanding performance in the field of design, Emperor Yuan Shun was long known as the "Emperor of The Dark". Of course, in the middle and late period of his reign, he did gradually slack off in political affairs, absurd to feasts, and look like a "king of the country". But parts cannot obscure the whole, and examining a historical figure cannot simply make his face. It is a clear fact that the Mongol Yuan regime lasted for 109 years from the reign of the ancestors (1260) to the Shun Emperor Beiyun (1368), passing on the fifth and eleventh emperors, and the Yuan Shun Emperor occupied it exclusively for thirty-six years, which was the longest reigning emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. The simple question is, how did a truly faint and incompetent monarch survive a bitter power struggle and stay in power for so long? In the more than thirty years between Kublai Khan and The Yuan Shun Emperor, the ancestors of the Yuan Dynasty, nine emperors were changed, and was the court of the Yuan Dynasty really like a calm lake, allowing the Emperor to play?
Stills of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty
Emperor Yuanshun ( Yuan Shun ) was the eldest son of Emperor Yuanmingzong and the eldest brother of Emperor Yuanningzong. Born on April 17, 1320 in the Chagatai Khanate, his father Emperor Yuanmingzong was ushered back to the Yuan Dynasty after his father Emperor Yuanmingzong ascended the throne, but soon Emperor Wenzong poisoned Emperor Yuanmingzong, and Tuoba Timur was exiled to Goryeo and Guangxi as a victim of political struggles. However, fate seemed to be playing a big joke, after the death of Emperor Wenzong and Emperor Yuanningzong, the throne was vacant, and in the struggle and compromise of various political forces, he was finally elected as the heir, ordered by Empress Dowager Bu Dali to return, and was located in Shangdu on the eighth day of The first month of June in the fourth year of Zhishun (1333).
When Emperor Yuan Shun ascended the throne, he was only thirteen years old, and in the face of the complicated situation, he had to learn to compromise. For example, He promised that Bu Da, who had been honored as empress dowager, would later pass the throne to her son. For example, by accepting the advice of Emperor Mingzong's old courtiers and reusing Boyan, the Yuan Dynasty entered the era of Boyan dictatorship. And Emperor Shun himself had to live deep in the palace, Taoguang and obscurity.
The young Yuan Shun Emperor
Although Bo Yan was an arbitrary courtier, he still tried to make a difference. For example, it is proposed to change the yuan to "Zhi Yuan", which is intended to reproduce the prosperity of the Era of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty; for example, to reduce court expenditure, reduce the tax on military service, and increase the relief to various places. But it was also he who forbade Han Chinese to participate in politics, abolished the imperial examination, and forbade Han Chinese to learn Mongolian. Boyan's radicalization of the Han policy not only deepened ethnic contradictions, but also made Emperor Shun even more dissatisfied with him.
Finally, in February of the sixth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1340), Emperor Yuan Shun and his closest ministers seized the opportunity of Boyan's hunting and decisively launched a coup d'état, and Boyan was deposed and dismissed. Since then, the power of the arbitrary vassals has been cleaned up, and the Yuan Shun Emperor has really begun to grasp the power. In the process of deposing Boyan, Emperor Shun personally issued orders and made decisions, and began to show his imperial talents. After deposing Boyan, Emperor Shun also purged Emperor Wenzong's forces, for example, by moving empress dowagers elsewhere to weaken their influence. These measures fully strengthened the power of Emperor Shun and laid the foundation for his next series of actions.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ii: Reform and the New Deal: Not without effort</h1>
By October of the sixth year of the Yuan Dynasty, he was appointed as the Right Minister of Zhongshu during the process of deposing Boyan, who was quite effective in the process of deposing Boyan. Emperor Shun announced that the Yuan would be changed to "Zhizheng", "so that the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty is the first year of the Zhizheng Yuan, and the beginning of the world". The nineteen-year-old Yuan Shun Emperor and the twenty-six-year-old Tether, two flesh-and-blood young men, were determined to reform and implement the New Deal, which is known in history as "detachment and reform".
Zhizheng Tongbao
First of all, he restored the imperial examination system, reopened the door to scholars, and under his presidency, he also successively revised the three main histories of Liao, Song, and Jin, and the style of Confucian rule arose on a whim, which was conducive to alleviating the contradiction between the Yuan dynasty regime and the Han nationality. Second, they also straightened out the corrupt bureaucracy and worked hard to absorb hidden people into the political power, which played a certain role in rectifying the internal order of the regime. He attached great importance to agricultural development, and he ordered the promulgation of the agricultural book "Nongsang Jijiao" to guide agricultural production, and reduced taxes to promote agricultural production. It was through the joint efforts of Emperor Yuan Shun and The Liberation that the precarious Yuan Dynasty regime was given a breathing space.
However, the good times did not last long, and in the fourth year of Zhizheng (1344), when a series of reform measures were gradually unfolding and deepening, He Deshe requested his resignation on the grounds of illness. The mysterious prophecies of religion made the willingness to break away stronger, so he went up seventeen times in a row to ask for resignation, and Emperor Shun agreed. Although he escaped from the scene, in the next five years, Emperor Shun did not lose his enterprising spirit, and he focused his attention on the grass-roots agents of the huge empire, officials, whose greed or honesty, virtuousness or dimness often affected the credibility of the regime and the degree of implementation of policies, which was also the weakness of the Mongolian Yuan regime. Emperor Yuan Shun attached great importance to the appointment of local guards, and he understood the important role these people played in the imperial mechanism. However, while the policy of dispatching officials and dispatching orders was well-intentioned, its implementation in an already corrupt system had played a negative role. In addition, after the fourth year of Zhengzheng (1344), China entered a period of frequent disasters, especially in the North China Plain. Natural disasters continued, disasters were frequent, the people were difficult to survive, and they went into exile one after another, and even once affected Dadu.
Detachment
By the time of the leap July of the ninth year of zhizheng (1349), when they were once again used as the right minister of Zhongshu, they were already facing a country that was in danger under the devastation of natural disasters and human disasters, and all they could do seemed to be to act as "fire brigade leaders". He was sent to rule the river and to fight the rebellion, and in the process, his former partners who were keen to rule gradually parted ways for various reasons. At the end of the fifteenth year (1355), He was eventually poisoned by his political enemies, but it is not known whether it was due to Emperor Shun's intentions, but he had already lost the trust of Emperor Shun.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, sinking in faith and hobbies</h1>
Once she died, the Yuan Dynasty completely slid into the abyss, and there was no turning point until it collapsed. Faced with the swarming of rebel armies and the government's financial difficulties, the Yuan Shun Emperor was powerless and unable to cope, and he gradually became intoxicated with his beliefs and hobbies, and sank with the dynasty.
After the middle of the reign, Emperor Yuanshun gradually neglected the government, and his favorite courtier, Hama, brought the mysterious Tibetan Buddhist tantra into his life, making him concentrate on studying the tantric rituals of Tibetan Buddhism, indulging in the "art of luck in the room", and gradually losing his original ambition to work hard. Surrounded by illusory and mysterious religious rituals, he was mesmerized, like a believer rather than an emperor, and unloaded his responsibilities and responsibilities as the lord of the world.
Yuan Dadu Palace
Emperor Yuan Shun was very talented in architectural craftsmanship and mechanical engineering, and when building the palace, Emperor Shun personally drew architectural drawings, and personally made models for craftsmen to start according to his drawings. In the year of disposing of detachment, the Yuan Shi · The ShunDi Ji also records several of his "idle affairs.")
For example, he personally made patterns and designed dragon ships. The dragon ship is 120 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a curtained shed in front and a pavilion in the back, and a loft in the back, and all of them are made of multicolored gold makeup, which is very luxurious. There were twenty-four sailors on the dragon ship, all dressed in purple, all wearing turbans, which were arranged on both sides of the ship, which was very eye-catching. After the dragon ship was built, Emperor Shun also personally took the boat to experience the game, it is said that when the ship is moving, the eyes and mouth of the dragon head, as well as the claws and tails on the dragon's body, will be moved, which is very clever.
Dragon ship
For example, he also made his own palace leak, which is about six or seven feet high and about half the width. The structure of the palace leak is complex, there is a wooden box, hidden in it, by hydraulic movement, and the wooden box is set up on the Western Three Sacred Temples, and the waist of the box has a jade girl holding a time chip, only when the time is up, it will float up. On the left and right of the palace leak, there are two golden armor gods holding bells and plutoniums, who hit on time at night, not worse than milliseconds. When the bell chimes, the lions and phoenixes on the side dance in congratulations, which is very spectacular. There is a sun and moon palace in the west and east of the wooden box, and there are six flying immortals standing in front of it, and when the time comes or noon, the flying immortals will reach the Three Sacred Temples through the immortal bridge, and then return to the beginning. The design of the palace leak can be said to be exquisite and amazing.
The above related description text really outlines the genius side of the shundi architecture and design field, and it is indeed exquisite to read carefully. Among the ancient Chinese emperors, this is probably only comparable to the Ming Qi Emperor, who loves to do carpentry work, and the nickname "Luban Tianzi" is naturally worthy of the name.
When the Ming army invaded Dadu, it once captured the palace leaks made by the Yuan Shun Emperor and offered them to The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang as a trophy. After reading this, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Abolishing thousands of tasks and paying attention to them is so-called doing no benefit and harming it." Will it be destroyed to move this mind to rule the world? "Order left and right to destroy it." Indeed, spending too much energy on his beliefs and hobbies not only degraded his life, but also consumed his will. In this way, of course, the fate of the Northern Grassland awaits him. To say more, the honorific title of "Shun Emperor" was given to him by Zhu Yuanzhang, which means that he conformed to the changes of the times and ran back to the grasslands by himself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Wen Shijun said:</h1>
As the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, although Emperor Yuan Shun also had a sharp intention to advance in his early years, he was ultimately powerless to turn the tide of the tide. He inherited a dynasty lurking in various crises, and how to govern the country to ease contradictions and solve problems was once something he had to face. Unfortunately, the deep-seated reasons are not as easy to perceive as they seem, and the huge Mongolian yuan organization has not really established a solid foundation in the Han Dynasty, and it is always an unattainable political ideal to handle the contradictions between Mongolia and Han and govern the country well. Thus, the return to the steppe and the horse's back cannot but be said to be his fate.
The efforts made by Emperor Yuan shun, like the real and complex himself, have gradually been filtered and forgotten by history, but the design and creation of those "Luban Tianzi" are still circulating in the hot talk. It's really emotional.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">
bibliography:</h1>
Wen Haiqing: History of the Yuan, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2015
Ku Chihan, "The Biography of Emperor Yuanshun Tuoba Timu'er", Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House, 2017
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Henan Normal University Spring and Autumn Society)
This article is the original work of Wenshi Science Popularization Self-media Haoran Wenshi, and unauthorized reprinting is prohibited!
The pictures used in this article, unless otherwise noted, are from the network search, if there is infringement, please contact the author to delete, thank you!
We will provide you with wonderful historical articles every day, and we kindly ask all readers and friends to pay attention to our account! Your likes, retweets, comments, this is the best support for us!