Wen | LuoShan
Zhu Yuanzhang's early hardships are well known, and he does not shy away from his own hard past, engraving every word on the imperial tomb stele he built for his parents. In the eleventh year of Hongwu (1378), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Wu Liang, the Marquis of Jiangyin, to inspect the overseers to build an imperial mausoleum for his parents in his hometown of Fengyang. This year, Zhu Yuanzhang was already 50 years old, and when he reached the age of knowing the destiny of heaven, his thoughts returned to decades ago, as if "seeing the face of the cang, ignoring the hardships of the past." Hanlin's attendant Wei Su was ordered to write the imperial tomb inscription, but Zhu Yuanzhang was not satisfied with reading it. Wei Su was a famous scholar at that time, and he was also a historian, who held a high position in the Yuan Dynasty and must be very familiar with the history of Zhu Yuanzhang's uprising. However, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that Wei Su's article was written as a "whitewashed text" and "I am afraid that it is not enough for future generations to warn", so he personally wrote the "Imperial Tomb Stele" article, exposing his difficult past. This thousand-word inscription is still engraved on the Fengyang Imperial Mausoleum Stele, and Zhao Yi commented on its text as "thick branches and large leaves, rhymes throughout, and must not be endorsed by subordinates." This is a memoir written by Zhu Yuanzhang himself.
Fengyang Imperial Tomb Monument, with a total height of 6.87 meters. The inscription was written by Zhu Yuanzhang himself, so it is called the "Imperial Tomb Stele"
At the age of 17 (1344, the fourth year of emperor Yuan Shun's reign), a drought swept through Jianghuai, followed by locusts and plagues that covered the sky. The Zhu family has experienced so many ups and downs, and the whole family has been beaten up, but this time the bad luck came unexpectedly. On April 6 of that year, my father died, my eldest brother died three days later, and my mother died 13 days later. The Zhu family was a foreigner, and had no land in the local area, so they could only ask the landlord Liu Jide for a cemetery, but they were insulted by Liu Jide. Liu Jide not only did not pity the Zhu family, but instead went to the door for several days in a row to insult him, "Calling out to Ang Ang" and "endlessly scolding." In the catastrophic tragedy of "keeping the family and mourning", the indifference and cruelty of the rich and unkind deeply stung the teenager Zhu Zhongba. In the end, liu Jide's brother, a retired official Liu Jizu, gave him a piece of land to let him bury his parents and brothers, and the 50-year-old emperor Zhu Yuanzhang recalled that year, it was "no coffin, the body was evil, three feet of floating, and the soup was laid", how tragic! This small cemetery became the Tomb of the Fengyang Emperor 25 years later, and this kind Liu Jizu was awarded the title of Marquis of Yihui by Zhu Yuanzhang, rewarding 30 acres of good land in return. However, at that time, 17-year-old Zhu Zhongba did not know where tomorrow was, and cried bitterly with his surviving brother, "Brother crying for me, I hurt for my brother." Emperor Day, Weeping Heartbreak".
Finally, the neighbor Wang Da Niang asked her son to lead Zhu Zhongba and take the gift to the Huangjue Temple on fengyang mountain in the south of Fengyang City. In ancient times, it was not easy to be a monk with a staff, and the degree was issued by the government, and the number of degrees was limited. The official sale of dumu in the Song Dynasty was an important government revenue, and the payment of dumu could reduce taxes and servitude, so it was also sold very expensive and became a hard currency. The Yuan Dynasty originally promoted Buddhism and did not accept money, but as a result, the fee system was restored a few years before Zhu Zhongba left home. If it weren't for the help of the neighbor Wang Da Niang, this monk of Zhu Zhongba would still not be able to do it.
In these years of famine, the landlord's family had no surplus grain, let alone the temple. Zhu Zhongba stayed at the Huangjue Temple for more than 50 days in total, and the land of the monastery could not be fed, so he dismissed the monks and went out to beg for food. For the next three years, Zhu Zhongba, as a wandering monk, traveled all over the middle reaches of the Huai River "between Guang, Gu, Ru, and Ying", which is today's southern Henan and northern Anhui. Millions of people in need live here. Zhu Zhongba's 3-year career as a monk was actually begging for survival in a difficult land. When everyone is running out of food, will there be any good things to say about a poor monk who comes to the door to beg for food? His self-esteem was hit hard.
In the face of hopeless reality, the surviving people pinned their hopes on the folk secret sect. Founded in the Southern Song Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect gathered a large number of disciples in Jianghuai and other places, forming a huge underground force. This sect believes that in the last days, Maitreya Buddha will come to the world and lead the congregation out of the sea of suffering. These folk secret religions adopted a flat and decentralized organizational model, holding ceremonies as far as possible outside the sight of the government, and there was no close connection between the various branches. Even if you break one of them, you can't go along with the vine to take out their old nest, because people don't have an old nest at all, and the strategy of capturing the thief first is ineffective for the White Lotus Sect.
Zhu Yuanzhang film and television image
As the cyclops appeared on the Yellow River construction site as scheduled, the folk song "Stone people have one eye, provoking the Yellow River world to rebel" was finally fulfilled, and the White Lotus Sect members Han Shantong and Liu Futong quickly revolted, and the rebels wore red scarves symbolizing Zhao Song Huode. Zhu Zhongba soon joined the Red Turban Army, where the White Lotus Sect gathered, and changed his name to Zhu Yuanzhang. The leader of the White Lotus Sect, Han Shantong, was soon killed, and his son Han Lin'er succeeded to the throne as King Xiaoming. Zhu Yuanzhang soon emerged in the rebel army. Li Shanchang, a scholar who took the initiative to come to defect, once suggested that Zhu Yuanzhang imitate Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, so that "the world is not enough to be determined." Zhu Yuanzhang actually saw very thoroughly the White Lotus Sect's pretense of ghosts, and that set of things could fool the common people into rebellion--when launching an uprising, without the support of this supernatural force, it was difficult to call on thousands of people to play for their lives. But religious associations are loose and decentralized, and if you want to build a strong political organization and unify China, you still have to rely on the Confucian masters of the fathers and sons of the monarchs and subjects. Since this was the case, Zhu Yuanzhang also obeyed his words and recruited intellectuals everywhere, hoping to have the assistance of a sage like Zhang Liang.