In the history of our country, there have been many examples of brothers fighting for the throne, such as Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin in the xuanwumen revolution, the four brothers yinchen in the "nine sons and concubines", the eight brothers yinyu and so on. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen was captured by the Wallachians, and in order to stabilize the situation and avoid extortion, the empress dowager, together with Yu Qian and other important ministers, established her brother Zhu Qiyu as the new king, which was Emperor Mingzong.
To be sure, Emperor Daizong's personal ability, virtue, and political achievements during his reign were superior to those of his elder brother Yingzong. However, in the eighth year of his succession, Zhu Qizhen successfully restored the throne with the "change of the door", driving Zhu Qiyu from the throne. Then, since Zhu Qiyu's ability and merits could be far superior to his brother who favored traitors and did nothing during his reign, why couldn't he sit on the throne that he had already arrived?
In the early morning of the seventeenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Jingtai (1457), the army led by the general Shi Heng and the left deputy capital Yushi Xu Youzhen opened the Chang'an Gate at night, and quickly rushed to the Nangong Where the "Taishang Emperor" Zhu Qizhen was under house arrest, and surrounded the latter all the way to donghua Gate in the name of the Emperor Taishang. As soon as the fifth change arrived, the courtiers waited outside the noon gate as usual for xu Youzhen, who came out to announce the restoration of Zhu Qizhen. In this way, Zhu Qizhen sat back on the throne through the "change of seizing the door", while Zhu Qiyu was easily stripped of imperial power, and then deposed as king and placed under house arrest.
The Ming Dynasty scholar Yang Xuan recorded in the "Record of Restoration" that when Xu Youzhen announced the restoration of Zhu Qizhen, Zhu Qiyu was seriously ill and bedridden. The emperor, who had only been reigning for the eighth year, suddenly heard the bell of the Shang Dynasty and asked the people around him doubtfully whether It was Yu Qian who had convened the courtiers to discuss, and the eunuchs listened and reported that the Emperor Taishang had reinstated him as emperor. Hearing this, Zhu Qiyu only said: "Brother do, good!" This sentence is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and second, the meaning is quite profound, which is really puzzling. 、
In short, from the before and after of this period of history, we can see two reasons: First, it is also the direct cause of Zhu Qiyu's loss of position, that is, Shi Heng and Xu Youzhen launched a change to seize the door. Neither of them, including many other participants in the coup, received much value during Zhu Qiyu's reign, so it was natural to think of gaining a share of the merit of supporting Zhu Qizhen by supporting Zhu Qizhen, thereby enhancing their status and making their identity more important.
In order to realize the plan, Shi Heng and Xu Youzhen trained soldiers and horses in advance, planned the uprising, and took advantage of Zhu Qizhen's status as emperor, which successfully implemented the coup. In that year, Qin Shi Huang created the name emperor and posthumously honored his late father as Emperor Taishang, and later Liu Bang also named him Emperor Taishang in order to meet his old father Liu Taigong in a ceremonial manner. Therefore, although the Taishang Emperor did not have real power in most cases, his status was even more honorable than that of the emperor, so Shi Heng and others played the banner of the Taishang Emperor, and the palace guards naturally did not dare to stop it.
As for the second reason, that is what Yang Xuan said in the "Restoration Record", Zhu Qiyu was seriously ill at that time. In fact, it was precisely because Shi Heng was guarding Zhu Qiyu, who was physically ill, that he saw that he could not even get out of bed, so he dared to launch a coup d'état together with Xu Youzhen and others. If Zhu Qiyu remained healthy, then it would be very difficult to achieve the change of door grabbing, but he was bedridden, so Shi Heng took advantage of the loophole. When the emperor could not appear in front of the courtiers, the emperor naturally said what it was, so the whole thing would seem so smooth and simple.
The third reason, in fact, is also the most fundamental reason, that is, the reset of Zhu Qizhen is really justified. In ancient China, the primogeniture system was a very important inheritance system, and Zhu Qizhen, as the eldest son born to Emperor Xuanzong and Empress Sun, was undoubtedly the best successor to the imperial throne. After Emperor Xuanzong's death, Zhu Qizhen successfully ascended the throne and first served as emperor for fourteen years, but the imperial conquest was captured, which lost the throne.
In the final analysis, Zhu Qizhen was originally the master of the imperial throne, but he could not perform the imperial power for the time being, so he was replaced by Zhu Qiyu by the empress dowager, Yu Qian, and others in line with the principle that the country cannot be left without a monarch for a day, and cannot be threatened by the Wala people with their safety as a chip. Generally speaking, the agent exercising power should return the duck to his brother after his true master returns, but Zhu Qiyu did not want to return the duck to his brother, so he not only made him the Emperor Taishang, nominally forbidding him to interfere in the affairs of the dynasty, but also put him under house arrest in the Nangong, preventing him from returning to the imperial power.
Even so, Zhu Qizhen ruled the country for more than ten years before the change of the door, and the ministers who had been in the official field for a few years were not particularly opposed to his return to state affairs. It is true that Zhu Qiyu's performance during his tenure was much better than that of his brother, but the throne was not a lixian but a concubine and a long-term. Therefore, there were already many ministers who supported Zhu Qizhen in the DPRK, and there were even more who did not oppose Zhu Qizhen's reinstatement. In this way, Zhu Qizhen, who had the advantage of blood relations, had one more card than Zhu Qiyu from the beginning, so the later restoration did not care about the unexpected.
In summary, Zhu Qiyu's ability and merit may be superior to Zhu Qizhen's, but he is only the second son of Emperor Xuanzong, and in terms of identity, he is inferior to the latter who is the eldest son of Zhu Qiyu. In addition, his serious illness and bedriding facilitated the uprising of Shi Heng and others, which was also one of the main reasons for the subversion of his throne.