Emperor Muzong of Ming (also said Zhu Zaiyuan, based on Zhu Zaiyuan in this article) was the twelfth emperor of the Ming Dynasty and the only one in the Ming Dynasty whose father was the emperor and who inherited the throne as a prince. He reigned for less than six years, sandwiched between the two longest-reigning emperors, and thus had a low sense of historical presence. However, if we deeply understand the history of the Ming Dynasty, we can find that in just over five years, the Ming Dynasty has completed the historic transformation from conservative to open, laying the foundation for the ming Dynasty's final "return to the light".
▲Historical portrait of Zhu Zaituo
According to common sense, Zhu Zaiyuan basically had no hope of inheriting the throne, because he was neither the eldest son (ranked third) nor concubine (his mother was Du Kangfei, because he was promoted to concubine), however, history is always full of surprises, Jiajing has a total of eight sons, and five of them died early in infancy (respectively, the eldest son, the fifth son, the sixth son, the seventh son, and the eighth son), the second was made crown prince at the age of eighteen, and as a result, he died of illness at the age of twenty-eight, leaving only the third zhu Zaizhen and the fourth zhu Zaizhen, and neither of them was born, so that The elder Zhu Zaituo became the first candidate for the position of crown prince.
However, the grief of the continuous loss of his son and the persistent pursuit of the path of immortality made Jiajing convinced of the statement that "the two dragons should not meet each other", and according to the Records of Muzong, Jiajing stipulated that Zhu Zaiyuan "entered the peace when he was old, and did not see him", and even when his mother died, he did not have the right to go to the memorial, "since Muzong was in the Yu Mansion, he could not be seen, he could not be tricked, and he could also be sad" ("Wan Liye was compiled"). Not only that, Jiajing also refused to be crowned prince, and ordered that "those who secretly establish a reserve will die if they are involved in a word", so that Zhu Zaikun, the first candidate, did not receive the position of prince until Jiajing's death.
▲ Zhu Zaikun film and television stills
This attitude of Jiajing made Zhu Zaiyuan suffer a lot, and he had to "be careful and reverent, be cautious and respectful, live and obey the ritual law, live in the hidden residence for more than ten years, and have not had the privilege of hunting and hunting" (Muzong Shilu). As the emperor's personal title of Yu Wang, it is most likely that he will be the ruler of the future empire, and in the end, even the most basic life cannot be guaranteed, and in the end, he can only get Feng Lu by bribing Yan Shifan, the son of a powerful minister, "Chang Lu is outside, for example, there is a kick, and the king does not dare to ask." Accumulate three years old. The mansion was very embarrassed. The king bribed Yan Shifan with thousands of gold, and Shi Boxi, in order to belong to the household, received three years of age" (Ming Shi Chen Yiqin Biography). Life is so bleak!
▲ Yan Shifan and Yan Song stills
This state lasted until the forty-fifth year of Jiajing, when Zhu Houxi died and he succeeded to the throne as King Yu. However, the drastic change in identity from the Fallen Prince to the Zun Jiu Wu Zun made him become oblivious, mainly in three aspects:
First, government affairs are abandoned. Although it did not reach the situation of Jiajing, which lasted for twenty years, it was also "the various priests played the chapters, and the royal records were rarely served; and the feast day was said, and the attacks were stopped" ("Records of Ming Muzong"), and the official Shangshu Gao Yi also said that "as for the two matters of personally observing the chapter and extending the visit to the zhidao, there were no less than dozens of people who had spoken about it before this platform", but for the minister's advice, Zhu Zaiquan did not even bother to respond, and most of the music was left in the middle.
Second, indulge in femininity. According to volume 66 of the "Guoyu" (国榷), "In the early days of the Yu Mansion, The Ji Imperial Palace is very rare, and since taking the throne, it is slightly better to be inside, and the court is full of people", simply put, it is still relatively restrained when it was in the Yu King's Mansion, and after succeeding to the throne, it began to "slightly" like the affairs of men and women, but this "slightly" is just a polite statement, the real situation is, "the harem day is entertainment, the travel is lucky, the funeral is accompanied, and the rear car is allowed to rebuke" "Long night and night drinking, extremely sound and color entertainment." (Ming Tong Jian)
Third, profligacy. After Zhu Zaiyao ascended the throne, although the Ming Shi Muzong Benji said that he was "a widow, a thrifty man, and a huge province of food and food", it is also recorded that in February of the second year of Longqing, "the Ministry of Imperial Households purchased all kinds of gems, pearls, and other things, and limited to three days to enter"; in April of the third year, "the robes and patterns presented by the Inner Weaving and Dyeing Bureau of the Zhao Dynasty, the weaving eunuch Li You took 1,860 ni to advance"; in March of the fourth year, "ordered Nanjing to add woven satin to 110,000".
Yunnan Province, Yushi Zhan Yangpi and Huke all gave Li Ji and Chen Wude to Zhu Zaiyuan, "Your Majesty took the silver of the household department before ,...... Now it is the best to build the AoShan Mountain, repair the palace garden, the dragon and phoenix anus, the loach shoe rack, and the cost of passing on the jade pot, so that the crowd will be small and dry, and the saints will not be small" (Ming Tong Jian). Therefore, after Zhu Zaituo succeeded to the throne, the so-called "thrifty covenant" should be a whitewash of the words of later generations, and the real he began to become splurge and indulge in pleasure after experiencing the suffering of the YuWang period, which is also more in line with the psychological changes of ordinary people.
Dialectical materialism tells us that there are two sides to everything, and the emperor is no exception. Although Zhu Zaituan did many absurd things, he did not do less beneficial things in the Ming Dynasty, for example, as soon as he came to power, he dismissed all jaija and punished Fang Shi Wang Jin, Liu Wenbin, and others; rehabilitated those who were punished for speaking out and advising during the Jiajing period, and the Great Qing official Hai Rui was one of the beneficiaries; increased the intensity of official evaluation and included officials in the scope of examination; suppressed land annexation, and formulated a system of decreasing the number of Emperor Xun Qi's offices; transferred Qi Jiguang to take charge of the defense of the capital gate and the northeast border defense, and supported him in building a hollow enemy platform. Successfully resisted the Mongol invasion; Li Chengliang was appointed as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong and Daxing armament. In a short period of time, the Ming Dynasty had a sign of revival.
The most crucial thing is that he supported the reforms with Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong as the core, and most of the policies in Chen Liushishu and "Saving Decadence and Habits to Worship the Sacred Governance" were implemented because of Zhu Zaiyuan's support, and the "one whip law" in the Wanli reform had already been implemented at this time. During this period, two feats were also accomplished that can be recorded in the annals of history, one is the "Longqing Peace Conference" and the other is the "Longqing Switch", the former solving the problem of "Northern Fu" that has plagued the Ming Dynasty for many years, and the latter solving the problem of "Southern Wu" that has plagued the Ming Dynasty for many years. The completion of these two events also marked the Ming Dynasty's transition from conservative to open, laying the foundation for reform at the beginning of the Wanli Calendar.
▲ Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng film and television stills
However, a careful analysis of the achievements made during the Longqing period will show that the first three years were basically Xu Jie in Zhang Luo, and the last three years were basically Gao Gong and Zhang Ju in Zhang Luo. Xu Jie represented Shoucheng, who hoped to carry out reforms on the basis of the previous dynasty, and worked hard for nearly three years to eliminate many evil diseases of the Jiajing period, and basically realized the political ideal of "returning the lord with weifu, returning the government affairs to the various divisions, and repaying the public theory with sacrifices."; Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng represented reform, believing that the Ming Dynasty was already full of holes, and small repairs and small repairs could not solve the problems, and successfully injected new vitality into the Ming Dynasty by breaking and standing up.
During the crucial turning point of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zaituan was more honest in practicing his political concept of "ruling from the arch", and played a role of more of a spectator. If Zhu Zaikun is put into other periods, his behavior is appropriately an image of a "desolate and unscrupulous", "greedy enjoyment", and "mediocre" monarch, but in Longqing, a dynasty where talents gather, as a monarch, inaction is already the biggest deed. From another point of view, Zhu Zai's ability to have today's historical status is more the result of the "persecution" of Xu Jie, Gao Gong, and Zhang Juzheng, the three ruling ministers, without them, Zhu Zai's "vertical arch and rule" may be a joke.
Historical sources: "Ming Shi Muzong Benji", "Ming Tongjian", "Ming Muzong Shilu"
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