"Emperor Han Wu of Qin, slightly lost literary style; Tang Zong Song Zu, slightly inferior." A generation of heavenly pride, Genghis Khan, only knows how to bend the bow to shoot large eagles. "
In this sentence, Chairman Mao made a unique evaluation of several emperors who were very famous among the ancient Chinese emperors. In fact, in addition to the above emperors, Chairman Mao has also made a lot of evaluations of other emperors in history. Today we will pick an emperor whom Chairman Mao likes very much and see how Chairman Mao evaluates it.
Ever since Chairman Mao rushed out of Shaoshan and rushed to Changsha, he has fallen in love with reading history. I have to read the Twenty-Four Histories every day, and I especially like to read the Imperial Notebooks in it, and absorb experiences and lessons from the ancient emperors ruling the country. However, most emperors are relatively mediocre, and only a very small number of founding and Zhongxing emperors have achieved success.
Among these emperors, Chairman Mao admired zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. This has a lot to do with Zhu Yuanzhang's peasant origins. Chairman Mao, who also came from a peasant family, was very similar to Zhu Yuanzhang's path. After facing the oppression and injustice of the times, the two rose up in resistance and embarked on the road of revolution. After having such a strong sense of identity, Chairman Mao naturally had different feelings for Zhu Yuanzhang.
The History of Ming is the last of the Twenty-Four Histories of the Zhengshi and the longest to be edited, and its content and writing are of the highest quality, and it is deeply loved by historians. Chairman Mao is naturally no exception, and in the Twenty-Fourth History, the "History of Ming" is the one he left the most notes, the most comments, and the most understanding.
Chairman Mao once said in a conversation:
"I was the most angry when I read 'History of Ming'. In the Ming Dynasty, except for the two illiterate emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang and Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, who were illiterate, did a better job, and Ming Wuzong and Ming Yingzong were slightly better, the rest were not good, and they did all bad things. "
This sentence can be regarded as Chairman Mao's overall impression and basic evaluation of Ming history. And the comments on Zhu Yuanzhang can be said to be the best. After writing the Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang, Wu Han, a well-known scholar of Ming history, sent Chairman Mao a copy of his biography for advice, and Chairman Mao expressed basic satisfaction with Wu Han's "Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang" and gave a one-sentence criticism
"Zhu Yuanzhang is the leader of the peasant uprising, it should be affirmed, it should be written better, not so badly (Note: this refers to Zhu Yuanzhang's later years).
"Emperor Ming Ancestral Training" Ming HongWu engraving
From this sentence, it can be seen that Chairman Mao believes that Zhu Yuanzhang is a good emperor in general.
If you want to better understand Chairman Mao's evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang, you must first understand Zhu Yuanzhang's character deeds. Zhu Yuanzhang was an authentic farmer, because his family was poor, he herded cattle for the landlord, and later became a monk and traveled around. At the age of 25, he joined the rebel army and began the revolution. At the age of 40, he led a large army to sweep the world and establish the Ming Dynasty.
His life is very legendary and inspirational. However, a person's success does not depend on luck, behind Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the Ming Dynasty, it is the embodiment of his wisdom and resourcefulness. In Chinese history, before Zhu Yuanzhang, the only person who had such an experience was Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao.
Stills of Liu Bang
Zhu Yuanzhang, like Liu Bang, stood up recklessly and belonged to the kind of "big old man" who was illiterate or illiterate, but it was precisely this kind of "illiteracy" that created a huge cause that many high-level intellectuals could not hope to achieve, and many people in history who were full of poetry and books and had outstanding talents, such as Chen Hou lord of the Southern Dynasty Chen Guo, Li Hou lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and Song Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty, even if their sons succeeded to their father's business and ascended the throne, they all ended up in a ruined and disgraced end.
Chairman Mao, who experienced the fall of the Qing Dynasty, was deeply touched by this, and through comparison, he came to a conclusion, do not underestimate the "big old rough" and "old rough figures."
We all know that Chairman Mao used his troops like gods in military command, such as the four crossings of the Red River to get rid of the Kuomintang's encirclement and blockade, the classic sixteen-character guerrilla tactics in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and so on, but few people know that a large part of Chairman Mao's military strategic thinking was to learn from Zhu Yuanzhang.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang did not know a single character, he was good at learning how to fight from war, and he could quickly use what he learned for war, plus he was good at judging things, so his performance in the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty was many times higher than that of Yuan Shao and other low-skilled figures at the end of the Han Dynasty.
In the "History of Ming", Zhu Yuanzhang was commented that "at the beginning of his creation, he could sink several views and changes, and the second stage was slight, and he had a successful calculation", which is not a false word. The meaning of this sentence is that When Zhu Yuanzhang was first exposed to war, he could sink his heart to study, then calculate the strategy, and finally become an outstanding military expert.
Chairman Mao gave a high appraisal of Zhu Yuanzhang's ability: "Since ancient times, there has been no one who has been able to join Li Shimin's right, followed by Zhu Yuanzhang's ear." In ancient wars, the wars that "emphasized martial virtue" before the Han Dynasty were not discussed for the time being, and since the Han Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin may have been the one who fought the most wars with the weak to win the strongest wars, which is also very much in line with Chairman Mao's military thinking, because the red army in the early days was only a "spark of stars."
The main reason for Zhu Yuanzhang's second ranking is that his macroscopic military analysis and operational strategy ability has won the praise of Mao Zedong. This can be seen through a specific analysis of the war between Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youyi.
Before Zhu Yuanzhang could pacify the Central Plains, he needed to first address the two main forces entrenched in Jiangnan, one was Chen Youyu and the other was Zhang Shicheng. In terms of prioritizing the attack on that force, Zhu Yuanzhang's men were divided. Some people suggested that he fight Zhang Shicheng first, because Zhang Shicheng's sphere of influence was close to Zhu Yuanzhang.
However, after careful analysis, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to attack Chen Youyu first. In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, Chen Youyu has always had a proud and wild personality, while Zhang Shicheng's cautious instrument is small, and comparing the two, he concluded
"Zhijiao is good at making trouble, and if the instrument is small, there is no far-reaching plan, so first attack the friend and forgive."
Sure enough, when Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youyi were fighting a decisive battle at Poyang Lake, Zhang Shicheng hesitated, did not know which side to help, and finally simply ignored it, only doing a wall view. After Zhu Yuanzhang destroyed Chen Youyu, Zhang Shicheng was unable to support himself and was soon defeated by Zhu Yuanzhang.
Chen Youyi stills
Zhu Yuanzhang later recalled that if Zhang Shicheng had been fought first, with Chen Youyi's character, he would have sent troops to fight Zhang Shicheng back and forth, and I would have been defeated under the enemy in the abdomen and back. This is the diametrically opposed effect of two different battle plans. Later, in the process of pacifying the Central Plains, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the operational policy of The First Shandong, The Second Heluo, and the Later Qin Long, and successfully captured the Central Plains.
Zhu Yuanzhang's strategic thinking of distinguishing between priorities and priorities and gradually encroaching on them gave Chairman Mao great inspiration. In the war under the command of Chairman Mao, we can see that he combined Li Shimin's "victory over the strong with the weak" and Zhu Yuanzhang's "subordinate strategy" to form the strategic principle of "concentrating superior forces and annihilating the enemy each one."
Under such strategic principles, strategic ideas such as "do not attack from all sides" and "do not fight uncertain battles" have been continuously developed.
Like Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang, such big and rough people are often ambitious and courageous, although there is no shortcoming of intellectuals who look ahead and look ahead and fear the tail, but relying solely on courage is not enough to achieve things, such as Xiang Yu and so on.
In a sense, Zhu Yuanzhang inherited the methods that Liu Bang knew and made good use of, and put the strategies and schemes of a group of intellectuals to his own use. Liu Bowen, Song Lian, Zhu Sheng, Zhang Yi, Ye Chen and other able people gathered around him, and only then did he achieve the century-old foundation of the Ming Dynasty.
In 1953, when Chairman Mao and Marshal Chen Yi went to Nanjing to visit the Purple Mountain, Marshal Chen Yi casually told several local legends and stories about Zhu Yuanzhang. Chairman Mao was also interested and began to preach
"Zhu Hongwu (Note: Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang's era name Hongwu) is a cowherd, and people are not stupid. He had a counselor named Zhu Sheng, who was very knowledgeable. Zhu Hongwu listened to Zhu Sheng's words, "Accumulate grain, build walls high, and slowly claim the throne," and finally won the hearts and minds of the people and the world. "
The meaning of this is that when Zhu Yuanzhang's forces were not developing and taking shape, his strategist Zhu Sheng advised him not to compete for the world first, but to first build a wall to defend, accumulate strength, and wait until the time is ripe before plotting against the world.
Later, Zhu Di, the ancestor of Ming Cheng, inherited his father's ambitions, and when facing the ethnic minorities in the north, he first built the Great Wall, and waited until the internal affairs were complete, and then took the initiative to lead a large army to carry out the Northern Expedition. This kind of thinking profoundly affected Chairman Mao, and this was precisely the development of the base areas during the war against the Kuomintang and the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In the 1970s, Chairman Mao clearly put forward the two basic slogans of "digging deep holes, collecting grain, and not seeking hegemony" and "preparing for war, preparing for famine, and serving the people."
Chairman Mao had a special affection for Zhu Yuanzhang and his own subjective judgment on Zhu Yuanzhang's evaluation. In 1948, Wu Han first wrote "Zhu Yuanzhang's Biography", sent the manuscript to Chairman Mao for reading, and Chairman Mao, who was commanding the Liberation War, took the time to carefully read the manuscript, during which he also had two deep conversations with Wu Han.
Zhu Yuanzhang passed on Wu Han
Later, when Chairman Mao returned the manuscript, he attached a letter to Wu Han. The letter said: "Two meetings, very fast. After reading the great book, I hereby return it. This book has been very diligent and widely excavated, and it has inspired me a lot, and I am deeply grateful. Some of the immature opinions, which are for reference only, have already been filed.
In addition, on the question of methodology, it seems that he has not yet fully accepted historical materialism as a methodology for observing history. If he works hard in this regard, his future achievements are unlimited.
In Chairman Mao's eyes, the materialist view of history is the history created by the people, and Zhu Yuanzhang, as the leader of the peasant uprising, should be given a higher evaluation. When Wu Han wrote the biography of Zhu Yuanzhang, he used Zhu Yuanzhang to reflect Chiang Kai-shek, so Chairman Mao pointed out that he did not have a materialist view of history.
In 1964, Wu Han made another revision to the Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang and sent it to Chairman Mao for reading again. Chairman Mao expressed satisfaction, but only believed that Wu Han should not seize on Zhu Yuanzhang's mistakes in his later years and slightly deny Zhu Yuanzhang's exploits.
In his later years, Zhu Yuanzhang was very jealous, and mistakenly killed many people and even founding heroes, which caused people to criticize. Chairman Mao believed that Zhu Yuanzhang was not without fault, but only believed that Zhu Yuanzhang, the leader of the peasant uprising, should adopt a basic affirmative attitude.
In addition to the above positive evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang, Chairman Mao also had some bad evaluations of Zhu Yuanzhang. For example, Zhu Yuanzhang personally led troops to conquer Wuchang. Chairman Mao thought zhu Yuanzhang
"If you don't let your children and grandchildren unite in battle, you will make a mistake."
It is easy to cause future generations to sit back and enjoy their success.
Chairman Mao's almost similar experience with Zhu Yuanzhang made him understand Zhu Yuanzhang more deeply, and his evaluation was also extremely pertinent; although he had, he belonged to Ming Jun as a whole, and the most important thing was that when Chairman Mao evaluated Zhu Yuanzhang, he did not say that his martial arts were not good or that his civil rule was slightly poor. This is extremely rare for Chairman Mao, who often evaluates the Qin Emperor Han Wu and the Tang Emperor Song Zu.
Resources
HU Changming. Reading Books from History: Mao Zedong Comments on the Ming Dynasty. Shi Hai looked back
YANG Jianmin. Mao Zedong and the Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang[J], Party History Bocai (Documentary Edition), 2009, (No. 3).
Sheng Xunchang, eds. Mao Zedong and Chinese History Books. Shanghai:Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 2013.12.