Editor's Note] Regarding the burial place and descendants of Shangshu Yuqian of the Ming Dynasty Soldiers, there has always been controversy, and there are many people everywhere who call it the latter, and recently read again the article published by Mr. Zhang Qifeng, a reporter of Tongxiang Television Station, in the "History of Tongxiang", "Collecting and Editing TV Documentaries< Thinking After Looking for Yu Qian's >", regardless of whether the author's views and conclusions are correct, but only by exploring and discussing can we get rid of the false and the true, seek commonality and doubts, and reprint and share.
This platform does not hold any views on the reprinted article, as the author wrote after the article: "I hope to be able to throw bricks and jade and help Yu Qian's research." I look forward to more researchers and opinions being shared with you. The platform has made a picture according to the content of the article, and the full text of the article is as follows:
The TV documentary "Looking for Yu Qian" was produced by my colleagues and me after a year of interviews, and was broadcast on the humanistic documentary program of Tongxiang TV's Cultural Life Channel. Looking back at the interview process of this program, it should be said that it is a process of understanding Qian. For Yu Qian, I knew very little before telling the truth.
In September 2005, someone introduced me to Mr. Yu Xinmin of Yancheng Yujiadai, who claimed to be a descendant of Yu Qian, and said with certainty that Yu Qian was born in Yancheng Yujiadai. As a reporter, I was really interested when I heard about this statement. If the situation is true, it means that Tongxiang has another heavyweight historical and cultural celebrity. But after thinking about it, I think it is unlikely, because Tongxiang local history has never mentioned too modesty. If such a high-powered historical celebrity really has such a close relationship with Tongxiang, then history must have a record. Thinking of this, my interest in Humility decreased again.
Until the first month of 2006, Mr. Yu Xinmin invited us to YuJiadai to see the scene of their ancestor worship of the descendants of the Yu clan, and this look was really shocking, hundreds of people were worshipping Yu Qian, that is, so many people in front of us were Yu Qian's descendants. From this moment on, I also decided to explore this mystery. In order to clarify the relationship between Yu Qian and Yu Jiadai in Tongxiang, since July 2006, my colleagues and I have filmed and documented every link in Yu Xinmin's search for historical and physical evidence of Yu Qian and Yu Jiadai. Gradually, I learned more and more about Qian's life story. As Mr. Yu Xinmin's evidence that Yu Jiadai was a gathering place for Yu Qian's descendants increased, my understanding of Qian became blurred again. Isn't it recorded in history that Yu Qian was a Qiantang man, and how could his descendants move to Tongxiang? Hangzhou already has Yu Qian's tomb, how can Yancheng also have a Yu Qian tomb? What is the relationship between Yu Qian and Tongxiang Yu Jiadai? What kind of background does Yu Qian have? A series of questions arose in my mind. After a period of consultation and research, the following views and speculations have basically been formed.
First, the claim that Yu Qian is a Qiantang person, that is, a Hangzhou person now, should not be questionable. Because in ancient times a person's place of origin was based on the birthplace of the father. Historians believe that Yu Qian was born in Taipingli, Hangzhou, which in the Ming Dynasty did not belong to Qiantang County but to Renhe County, Hangzhou Province. The fifty-eighth column of the History of Ming records: "Yu Qian, a Qiantang person." This shows that when Yu Qian filled in his place of origin, he was not based on his birthplace. Yu Qian's great-grandfather Yu Jiusi was the governor of Hangzhou Road at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and the Yu family moved to Hangzhou City, which was commonly known as Qiantang at that time, and Yu Qian's father Yu Ren was born in Qiantang. Therefore, Qiantang should be Yu Qian's father's place of origin, and Yu Qian filled in his own place of origin according to his father's place of origin "Qiantang". Just as Lu Feikui was not born in Tongxiang but his father was from Tongxiang, so Lu Feikui's place of origin was always filled in Tongxiang, Yu Qian would naturally call himself a Qiantang native. In other words, even if Yu Qian was born outside the scope of the big Qiantang, he should also be a Qiantang person. Experts from the Yuqian Research Association in Hangzhou believe that Yu Qian's self-proclaimed Qiantang people may be because he took the township examination in Qiantang County, which is really a bit far-fetched. As for the statement that Tongxiang Yancheng Yujiadai belonged to Haining County or Xieqiao Township in Haining Prefecture before liberation, and that Haining belonged to Hangzhou Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty or Qiantang in a broad sense, it should have nothing to do with where Yu Qian was from, let alone Yu Qian's self-proclaimed Qiantang people because Yancheng was not famous and Qiantang was famous. That is to say, no matter where Yu Qian was born outside of Qiantang, he could not change his origin of the Qiantang people.
Second, Yu Qian may be buried in jiadai in the end. According to the Ming Dynasty, when Yu Qian was an official in Henan and Shanxi, that is, between 1442 and 1460 AD, he returned home to handle his father's funeral. At that time, Yu Qian was in the Erpin Inspectorate, although he was a clean and honest official, but according to ancient funeral customs, he should not be as simple as ordinary people on the issue of his father's funeral. Because according to historical records, although Yu Qian's father Yu Ren was not an official during his lifetime, his son Yu Qian was already a high-ranking official in the imperial court at the time of his death, according to the system at that time, if the father of a high-ranking official had not been an official before his death, he could posthumously award the same rank as his son. Therefore, Yu Qian's father, Yu Ren, was posthumously awarded the official title of Right Attendant of the Jiayi Daifu Bingbu. This can be found in the Beijing "Yu Gong Ancestral Tomb Table". Such a deceased who was posthumously awarded the title of Erpin Official, his tomb must have considerable specifications. At least thirty-seven years after Yu Qian's murder, his eldest son, Yu Mian, wrote in the "Letter of The First Su Yu Gong Xing" written at the age of seventy that Yu Qian was buried in Zu Qian, that is, Yu Qian was buried in the graveyard of his grandparents and parents. So where is this Yu Jiazuzu who should have a considerable specification, and if it is in Santai Mountain, Hangzhou, why the members of the Yu Qian Research Society in Hangzhou have not mentioned this matter in their research articles. This is probably because the historical records of Hangzhou have not mentioned Yu Qian's ancestral tomb, or the ancestral tomb of the Yu Qian family is not in Hangzhou at all. And Yu Mian was Yu Qian's eldest son, although after Yu Qian's death, Yu Mian was charged with the frontier, but nine years later, that is, in the second year of Ming Xianzong Chenghua, Yu Qian was rehabilitated, Yu Mian was pardoned and returned home, at that time Yu Mian should be more than forty years old, and he was the party to the incident, he should know best about the tombs of his father Yu Qian and his grandparents. But his article does not mention that Yu Qian was buried in Hangzhou, only the burial of Zu Mo. According to historical records, Yu Qian was initially buried in Beijing after his murder, and after two years he was buried in Hangzhou, when Yu Qian had not yet been rehabilitated, and a deceased person who was guilty of conspiracy against him could not have been buried in the bright and upright manner at that time, and Yu Qian's other descendants, such as yu Kang' adopted son and son-in-law Zhu Ji, out of fear of political persecution, most likely built a crown tomb for Yu Qian in Hangzhou, and buried the real remains of Yu Qian in the land of Yu Jiazu. Later, when Yu Mian wrote the "First Su Gong Xing Zhi", Yu Qian had already been rehabilitated by the imperial court and posthumously honored as "Su Yu Gong", and the article said that Yu Qian had no worries about burying Zu Mo. And in Yancheng Yujiadai, here the old people said that in the past, there were indeed two Yujia tombs here, one is yu qian's parents' grave, one is Yu Qian's parents' tomb, and the construction specifications of Yu Qian's parents' tomb are more elaborate and more magnificent than Yu Qian's tomb, and there are not only tombstones in front of the tomb, but also stone arches and tomb passages, etc. Such a tomb is consistent with the tomb level of Yu Qian's father Yu Ren who was posthumously awarded the title of "Jiayi Dafu Bingbu Right Transmission Lang" after his death. Then it is reasonable to say that Yu Qian's official position is Bingbu Shangshu Jia Shaobao, is a Zhengyipin official, if he is buried in Jiadai, then his tomb level should be higher than his father's tomb specifications, but he was secretly buried in the ancestral cemetery at that time, and he was not rehabilitated when he was buried, then his tomb is naturally not as luxurious as his parents' tomb. The tomb of Yu Qian in Santai Mountain, Hangzhou, which we see now, was built more than 130 years after Yu Qian was completely rehabilitated and posthumously honored as the "Duke of Zhongsu" by the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Because whether it is the middle and late Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court took the tomb of Yu Qian on Santai Mountain as the base point, and used the image of Qian to vigorously promote the patriotic spirit and clean and honest quality to educate future generations. In this way, it is natural for later people to regard the Yuqian Tomb in Hangzhou as the real Yuqian Tomb. Therefore, there is no contradiction between the Yuqian Tomb in Hangzhou and the Yuqian Tomb in Tongxiang and the Yuqian Tomb in Tongxiang, both of which are historical needs. The real Yu Qian tomb in Tongxiang Yancheng Yu Jiadai, both in reason, is basically consistent with the facts.
3. Tongxiang Yujiadai may be the place where Yu Qian lived in his childhood and his parents in his later years, and the birthplace of Yu Qian's descendants. As the original gathering place of the Yu Qian family, Hangzhou should theoretically have a large number of Yu descendants in Hangzhou by now. If It is said that Yu Qian later went out to become an official, was killed at the age of sixty for "conspiracy to rebel", and his son Yu Mian was politically persecuted and charged the army, then Yu Qian also had a younger brother Yu Tai should be in Hangzhou, because in the Ming Dynasty Wang Zhi's "Tomb Table of the Right Attendant of the Imperial Household", Yu Ren had two sons, one Yu Qian and one Yu Tai. If Yu Tai stays in Hangzhou, then Hangzhou must still have Yu Tai's descendants. However, in 2004, the Hangzhou municipal government made a big splash to find Yu Qian's descendants, but no one with the surname Yu in Hangzhou stood up and said that it was related to Yu Qian. However, Yu Xinmin and others from Tongxiang Yancheng, a few dozen kilometers away from Hangzhou, responded to the search in Hangzhou as yu Qian's descendants. Yu Mian mentioned in his "Xiansu Gongxing" that Yu Mian himself had six daughters, but no sons, so he succeeded Tongzong as his heir and took the name Yu Yunzhong. This shows that at that time, there were other branches of the Yu family besides Yu Qian. This branch of the same sect is most likely Yu Qian's younger brother Yu Tai. If the Yu Tai family can pass on their descendants to Yu Mian, then the Yu Tai family must also have other heirs, and there should still be descendants, why hangzhou does not appear in the descendants of Qian Tongzong, but Tongxiang Yu family has a large number of Yu descendants. There is an explanation that Yu Qian's parents, when Yu Qian was three or four years old, moved to Yujiadai in Yancheng, Tongxiang, and Yu Qian's younger brother Yu Tai later lived in Yujiadai. Because in the historical records, Yu Qian's father Yu Ren was upright and upright, and he was not virtuous, that is, he lived in seclusion and was not an official. In the homes of people like them who have been officials for generations, Yu Ren is a special case. Does he want to be an official or can't he be an official? It was clear that he didn't want to be an official at all. We can infer that Yu Qian's grandfather Yu Wen was a central official who was the head of the bureaucracy Zheng Liupin during the Ming Hongwu period, and later retired and returned home, and what was the background of the era when he retired and returned home, it was the Ming Dynasty's "Battle of Jingnan", when Zhu Di, the King of Yan in Beijing, launched the "Battle of Jingnan" to seize the throne and move the capital to Beijing, and Yu Wen was an official of the Nanjing imperial court, and was naturally ostracized by the newly established Beijing regime, which also allowed him to see through the cruelty of the political struggle. Therefore, after abandoning the official and returning home, Yu Wen must have a great influence on whether his son Yu Ren became an official, and it is reasonable for Yu Ren, who is upright, to choose "hidden virtue and not shi". Then since Yu Ren is living in seclusion, he naturally does not want to live in Hangzhou, where will he live in seclusion, the Yancheng area is very in line with the conditions of seclusion, first of all, Yancheng Yujiadai this place is not far from Hangzhou, it is convenient to move; and then Yu Jiadi This place is the junction of Hangzhou, Haining, and Chongde, and it can also be said that it is a place where three disregards, and the political atmosphere is not strong; third, yujiadai this place may have good feng shui at that time. With these three conditions, it is possible for Yu Ren to live in seclusion in his home. If Yu Ren did live in seclusion in Jiadai, then why Yu Qian later studied in Hangzhou, there are probably two reasons, one is that after Zhu Di ascended to the throne and became the Yongle Emperor, the whole country returned to peace, and the politics gradually became clear. In the early years of the second Yongle, when Yu Qian was already six or seven years old, he was smart and studious, and he had great ambitions, and Yu Ren, as a father, certainly could not bear to bury his son. And Hangzhou has left Yu's ancestral house, and it is only natural to send Yu Qian to Hangzhou to study. At that time, Yu Qian was only about seven years old, so Yu Qian's real growth was in Hangzhou, and he also entered Beijing from Hangzhou to enter the jinshi. But his parents, brother and son Yu Mian have been living in YuJiadai. Therefore, it is possible for Yu Qian to be buried in Jiadai after he was killed, and it is reasonable for Yu Jiadi to have so many descendants of the Yu clan now.
4. Yujia Village, Jingxing County, Hebei Province shall have nothing to do with Yu Qian. There is also a small village called YujiaCun in Jingxing County, Hebei Province, and there are still relatively complete Ming Dynasty buildings preserved there, and people there claim to be descendants of Yu Qian. It is said that the ancestor of Yujia Village was Yu Qian's eldest grandson Yu Youdao, so whose son was Yu Youdao? Yu Mian's son as Yu Qian has been fully confirmed in history. And as a son, Yu Mian should also be aware of his brothers and sisters. Yu Mian recorded in the "First Su Yu Gong Xing" that Yu Qian had only one son, that is, Yu Mian . But Yu Mian also has a righteous brother named Kang. This man named Kang was probably Yu Qian's righteous son. The historical records do not clarify whether this person named Kang is also surnamed Yu, and Yu Mian said that he did not have a son, so Yu Youdao, the ancestor of Yujia Village in Jingxing County, Hebei Province, could not be Yu Mian's son. In "Yu Qian and Beijing" written by Mr. Lai Jiadu and Li Guangbi, it is mentioned that after Yu Qian was killed, a eunuch rescued Yu Qian's young son and fled to a private retreat in Kaocheng County, Henan. Villagers in Yujia Village, Jingxing County, Hebei Province, say their ancestors moved from Henan to Hebei. So who is this so-called Yu Qian Shaozi? Is it impossible that Yu Mian, as Yu Qian's eldest son, did not know that he also had a brother? Because of historical records, Yu Qian did not remarry or take concubines after the death of Yuan Pei's wife Dong Shi. And Dong Shi was Yu Mian's biological mother, how could Yu Mian not know his brothers? So is the young son of Yu Qian, who fled to the people of Henan, what they are talking about, Yu Qian's righteous son Kang? No way. Because Yu Mian mentioned in his article that year or "Kang Fu returned to bury zu Mo". This shows that Kang did not have the problem of fleeing at that time. At present, the "Yu Family Genealogy" in Yujia Village, Jingxing County, Hebei Province, can only be traced back to Yu Youdao, and there is no relevant record of Yu Tian or Kang. Therefore, Yujia Village in Jingxing County should have nothing to do with Yu Qian. If it must be said that this Yujia Village is related to Yu Qian, then it can only be said that the ancestral gathering place of Yu Qian IV was Kaocheng County, Henan, and there must also be a surname of Yu, if the ancestors of Yujia Village in Jingxing County, Hebei Province really moved here from Kaocheng, Henan, it may also be just the descendants of Yu Qian IV's ancestors in Kaocheng, Henan.
In response to some of the doubts in the mystery of the relationship between Yu Qian, a historical figure, and Yu Jiadai in Tongxiang, the above is just some immature views and speculations drawn from consulting relevant materials, hoping to throw bricks and stones and help Yu Qian's research.
(The picture and text are compiled from the network, thank you to the author of this article Zhang Qifeng, if there are any mistakes and omissions, please understand)