Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang gave birth to twenty-six sons and sixteen daughters in his lifetime, but Zhu Yuanzhang's relationship with Zhu Biao among these children was the most special. Zhu Biao was the eldest son of Zhu Yuanzhang and Empress Ma. In the traditional Chinese patriarchal etiquette system, the eldest son itself has a special status, not to mention that Empress Ma, as Zhu Yuanzhang's hair-tie wife, played a role as an assistant in the process of fighting the world, and Zhu Yuanzhang's gratitude to Empress Ma naturally reflected in zhu Biao's love for Wu and Wu.
When Zhu Biao's younger brothers were born, Zhu Yuanzhang was already the Ninth Five-Year Supreme. The relationship between Zhu Yuanzhang and these sons is first of all a monarch and a second is a father and son, and When Zhu Biao was born, Zhu Yuanzhang was still in the process of fighting the world, so it can be said that Zhu Biao is the only one among all the children who has really had a father-son relationship with Zhu Yuanzhang that has not been affected by any political factors. Zhu Biao, who had experienced the process of fighting the world, was more able to shoulder the burden of daming jiangshan sheji than his younger brothers who grew up in the hands of the women of the deep palace. As the eldest son of the concubine, Zhu Biao always played a role within the Zhu family to coordinate the relationship between his father and his brothers.
Whenever the younger brothers angered their father Zhu Yuanzhang for negligence, Zhu Biao was always able to coordinate as best as possible, thus maintaining the unity of the Zhu royal family. Although Zhu Biao and Zhu Yuanzhang are father and son, their temperaments and dispositions are very different. When Zhu Yuanzhang killed the heroes in his later years, Zhu Biao once advised his father, Zhu Yuanzhang threw down a thorn full of thorns for Zhu Biao to pick up, Zhu Biao picked it up and injured his hand, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "You see this is all thorns, it is not easy to pick it up, right? Now all I've done is help you pull out the thorn." From this story, it can be seen that Zhu Yuanzhang actually fully understands the temperament of his own prince.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang still insisted that Zhu Biao inherit his throne. Zhu Yuanzhang knew that all he had to do was to create a peaceful and prosperous world, and then give this taiping prosperity to Zhu Biao; what Zhu Biao had to do was to maintain this foundation with the style of a generous and courteous corporal. Zhu Yuanzhang's plan for the future of the Ming Dynasty would have been reasonable, but later history did not evolve according to Zhu Yuanzhang's expectations: in the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu (1392 AD), the crown prince Zhu Biao died of wind and cold after inspecting Shaanxi and returning to Beijing.
The death of Zhu Biao, the ideal heir, was a heavy blow to Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Biao had five sons and four daughters: Zhu Biao and the eldest son of the original Chang clan lived only eight years old, while Zhu Xiongying's birth mother Chang Died as early as the eleventh year of Hongwu (1378 AD). After Chang's death, Zhu Biao's step-concubine Lü Shi was made crown princess, and Zhu Yunjiao, the eldest son born to Lü Shi, was also crowned as the emperor's grandson after Zhu Xiongying's death. During Zhu Biao's illness, Zhu Yunjiao had been carefully waiting by his side, and after Zhu Biao's death, Zhu Yunjiao was emaciated due to excessive grief when he kept filial piety.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was a grandfather, comforted Zhu Yunjiao and said: "And sincerity and filial piety, do not care about me." Zhu Yunjiao's filial piety to his father left a deep impression on Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yunjiao also inherited the character of his father Zhu Biaorenhou. In the twenty-ninth year of Hongwu (1396 AD), Zhu Yunjiao asked Zhu Yuanzhang to revise the Daming Law: he revised the overly harsh provisions of the Ming Law with reference to the Book of Rites and the criminal laws of previous dynasties. In the thirty-first year of Hongwu (1398 AD), the emperor's grandson Zhu Yunzhang succeeded to the throne after the death of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor's grandson.
As soon as Zhu Yunjiao ascended the throne, he realized that his young and powerful imperial uncles who held great military and political power did not look up to themselves at all. When Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, he was not at ease with his subordinates, so he wanted to hand over the military and political affairs of the country to his sons. In early April of the third year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang made his second son Zhu Zhu the King of Qin, the third son Zhu Tang the King of Jin, the fourth son Zhu Di the King of Yan, the fifth son Zhu Zhen the King of Wu, the sixth son Zhu Zhen the King of Chu, the seventh son Zhu Yu the King of Qi, the eighth son Zhu Zi the King of Tan, the ninth son Zhu Qi the King of Zhao, and the tenth son Zhu Tan the King of Lu...
In the first month of the eleventh year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang also created five princes as kings: Zhu Chun the King of Shu, Zhu Bai the Prince of Xiang, Zhu Gui the King of Yu, Zhu Mo the King of Han, and Zhu Zhi the Prince of Wei. In April of the 24th year, Hongwu also made ten princes kings: Zhu Li the Prince of Qing, Zhu Quan the Prince of Ning, Zhu Li the Prince of Min, Zhu Yu the King of Gu, Zhu Song the King of Han, Zhu Mo the King of Shen, Zhu Yao the Prince of An, Zhu Li the King of Tang, Zhu Dong the King of Yin, and Zhu Yu the Prince of Yi. In each royal palace, there are guards who guard the prince's mansion and are at the same time at the disposal of the state. Each royal palace has three guards, and each guard is divided into five places: left, right, front, back, and middle.
The number of guards in a royal palace is as small as three thousand, and the number of guards can reach nineteen thousand. These soldiers were theoretically subordinate to the Military Department, but in fact they were under the command of the Prince. In a sense, each palace was a small backup of the imperial court: the advantage of this was that when the destructive forces struck, they could defend the center, thus ensuring that the Chu regime would not collapse overnight; the disadvantage of this was that each palace actually became a semi-independent local separatist regime. After the death of Crown Prince Zhu Biao, the princes who held great power began to take the position of prince.
However, in the end, it was Zhu Yunjiao, a yellow-haired boy, who inherited the throne. The princes of the various domains were Zhu Yunjiao's uncles in terms of generations, and at the same time, they also held many major powers in the local military, finance, and employment. Asking them to claim a subordinate to Zhu Yunjiao, who is younger than himself and younger than himself, is actually not convinced. In particular, the dissatisfaction of Zhu Di, the King of Yan, who had long been responsible for defending the Mongol forces on the northern border, was even stronger: Zhu Di had been fighting in the front line with the Mongol forces for many years to defend the Ming Dynasty, so it could be said that there was no merit and hard work.
Zhu Di, who thought he had worked hard and done a lot, did not expect to let Zhu Yunjiao, a yellow-haired boy, cut off his beard. Zhu Di thought that he had followed his father and emperor for half a lifetime to co-author in order to let this boy succeed to the throne as a tool man. Before Zhu Yuanzhang's death, zhu zhu, the king of Qin, and Zhu Tang, the king of Jin, had both died. Zhu Di, who was originally the fourth oldest among the brothers, became the eldest of the brothers after surviving the death of his three brothers, and his power was also the most powerful of all the local clan kings. Of course, Zhu Yunjiao also saw the threat to his own power from the emperors and princes.
Zhu Yunjiao and his close ministers Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng secretly discussed cutting the domain. In less than a year, the Kings of Zhou, Min, Xiang, Qi, and Dai were deposed. Zhu Yunjiao's move to cut the domain made Zhu Di, the strongest of the clan kings, feel threatened. On August 6, 1399, in the first year of Jianwen (1399), Zhu Di raised an army under the banner of "Qing Jun's Side and JingGuo's Difficulty". After three years of the Battle of Jingnan, Zhu Di was finally able to ascend the throne and become emperor. After Zhu Di entered the city of Nanjing, the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao disappeared without a trace as if evaporating from the human world.
According to the Records of the Ming Dynasty and the Ming History Manuscript, when Zhu Di's army entered the city of Nanjing, Zhu Yunjiao and Empress Ma shi burned themselves to death in the palace. After Zhu Di entered the palace, he asked the eunuchs and palace ladies about Zhu Yunjiao's whereabouts, and as a result, these people said that Zhu Yunjiao had self-immolated and died. Zhu Di ordered his men to search according to the principle of living to see people and dead to see corpses, and as a result, a charred corpse was pulled out of the fire. The completely charred corpse could not tell whether it was Zhu Yunjiao's, and even whether it was male or female could not be distinguished.
In order to create political legitimacy for his rise to power, Zhu Di said that the corpse belonged to Zhu Yunjiao. After Zhu Di officially ascended the throne and became emperor, he buried the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao according to the ceremony of the Son of Heaven (although no one can say whether the body was Zhu Yunjiao's). When Zhu Di ascended the throne, he found Fang Xiaoru, a well-known scholar in the government and the public, to draft an edict for himself to take the throne. Who knew that Fang Xiaoru directly wrote him the four words "Yan Thief Usurpation". Zhu Di suppressed his anger and wanted to enlighten Fang Xiaoru and said, "I raised an army for the sake of the QingJun side and the jingguo. This is nothing more than a model of the Zhou Gong's assistance to become a king."
Fang Xiaoru asked, "Since you want to emulate the Duke of Zhou and assist King Cheng, where is King Zhou Cheng now?" Zhu Di replied, "My original intention was to assist Yun Jiong like the Duke of Zhou assisted King Cheng. But now he was momentarily confused and self-immolated. After all, a country cannot be without a monarch for a day. Why should I not ascend to the throne as the eldest of Taizu's sons? Fang Xiaoru asked again, "Why didn't you become the son of a king?" Zhu Di said: "The country depends on the adult king." Fang Xiaoru said, "Why didn't you become the younger brother of the king?" Zhu Di replied, "This is the business of our old Zhu family."
Zhu Di said that he did not want to bother with Fang Xiaoru anymore, so he directly asked his left and right attendants to force him to write an edict of incumbency according to Fang Xiaoru. Fang Xiaoru simply threw his pen on the ground while crying and scolding: "Death is death, and I must not draft the edict." Zhu Di said angrily, "You are not afraid that I will curse you nine tribes?" Fang Xiaoru replied, "Even if you curse me, the Ten Tribes will not be afraid." As soon as Zhu Di heard this, he executed Fang Xiaoru's student disciples as the Tenth Clan and Fang Xiaoru's entire family. Zhu Di killed Fang Xiaoru but did not solve his heart disease.
The ancient Chinese people have always emphasized that the name is right and the words are smooth - the so-called "if the name is not correct, the words are not smooth, and if the words are not smooth, things will not be accomplished." Emperors like Zhu Di, who came to power through irregular means, first had to solve the problem of political legitimacy. Even if Zhu Di makes excuses, he must make his ascension look more reasonable. Fang Xiaoru's behavior actually shows that some people in the dynasty were skeptical of Zhu Di's ascension to the throne. Although these people may not have the courage to resist Zhu Di in person like Fang Xiaoru, the doubts in the hearts of these people will not disappear with Fang Xiaoru's death.
Although Zhu Di announced to the outside world that the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao was dead, in fact, Zhu Yunjiao was not dead or not, even Zhu Di himself did not know. Regarding Zhu Yunjiao's fate, some people believe that he died by self-immolation in the palace, some people think that he took advantage of the chaos to escape from the palace and hide in the people, and even some people think that he may have fled overseas. One of Zheng He's motives for going to the West during the Yongle years has been believed by some to be looking for Zhu Yunjiao, who might flee overseas. Zhu Yunjiao has always been a threat to Zhu Di, so as long as he does not find it for a day, it is difficult to feel at ease.
Of course, Zhu Di is not the only one who is regarded as a potential threat. From the dialogue between Fang Xiaoru and Zhu Di, it can be seen that Zhu Yunjiao has a son and a brother. Zhu Yunjiao had two sons: the eldest son, Zhu Wenkui, disappeared with his father Zhu Yunjiao when Zhu Di attacked the city of Nanjing. Some people say that both father and son died in the fire in the palace, and some people say that both father and son escaped from the palace. Zhu Yunjiao's second son, Zhu Wengui, was only two years old when Zhu Di invaded the city of Nanjing. After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he imprisoned Zhu Wengui in Fengyang. This captivity is more than fifty years.
After Zhu Di's death, his son Zhu Gaozi and grandson Zhu Zhanji continued to imprison Zhu Wengui. It was not until 1457 that Zhu Wengui was released after the restoration of the ming Emperor Zhu Qizhen's rebellion. Zhu Wengui, who had regained his freedom, was no longer able to distinguish between cattle and horses, and Zhu Wengui died soon after. In this way, Zhu Yunjiao's two sons withdrew from the stage of history in the form of one disappearing and the other imprisoned. In addition to his two sons, Zhu Yunxiong had four brothers: the eldest brother Zhu Xiongying died prematurely in his early years, and when Zhu Di raised an army to invade Nanjing, Zhu Yunjiao and three younger brothers were still alive.
Zhu Yunxi's three younger brothers were Zhu Yunxi, Zhu Yunxi, and Zhu Yunxi. As Zhu Biao's sons and Zhu Yunjiao's younger brothers, they were also eligible to inherit the imperial throne. Fang Xiaoru's questioning of why Zhu Di did not make Zhu Yunjiao's brother reflects this in itself. There is no doubt that this legal qualification is an invisible potential threat to Zhu Di. The most realistic choice in front of Zhu Di was to cut the grass and remove the roots. Li Shimin, who had also ascended to the throne through irregular means before Zhu Di, had cut off all their sons after killing his brother Li Jiancheng and younger brother Li Yuanji.
Zhu Di actually did not want to clean up the sons of the eldest brother Zhu Biao, but his situation was different from Li Shimin.1 After Li Shimin killed the crown prince Li Jiancheng and the Qi king Li Yuanji through the Xuanwumen Rebellion, he used the name of his father Li Yuan to charge the prince and the qi king with the crime of rebellion. Since it was The crown prince Li Jiancheng and the Qi king Li Yuanji who plotted against him first, it was only natural that Li Shimin would get rid of the prince and the heirs of the qi king. However, Zhu Di raised his troops under the banner of "Qing Jun's side and Jingguo's difficulties": Zhu Di said to the outside world that Zhu Yunjiao was deceived by traitors, so he raised troops to enter Beijing to protect Zhu Yunjiao.
So you can't kill all the brothers who are protected as soon as you enter Beijing, right? This kind of thing can be done for Zhu Di, who is in a position of power, but he must not be controlled by others because of this matter, so he must do it cleanly and beautifully. To put it bluntly, Zhu Di could not openly fabricate charges to kill these nephews like Li Shimin, but could only quietly use some means to make these people die inexplicably. In fact, Zhu Yunxi, Zhu Yunxi, and Zhu Yunxi died very strangely. Of course, it is impossible to leave evidence of Zhu Di's killing of his nephew in the main history.
The deaths of Zhu Yunxi, Zhu Yunxi, and Zhu Yunxi became a headless public case that could not be explained. We now have no evidence that they were killed by Zhu Di, but we also have no evidence that their deaths had nothing to do with Zhu Di. All we can say is that the deaths of all three were suspicious. If there is a suspicious death of one person, it may be a coincidence, and if all three people die suspiciously, it may not be a simple coincidence. Although there is no clear evidence to confirm that Zhu Di killed these three nephews, it can be inferred from the successive deaths of the three people that Zhu Di's suspicions are actually very large.
When Zhu Di entered the city of Nanjing, Zhu Yunjiao's birth mother, Empress Lü, was still alive. When Zhu Di ascended the throne, he immediately cancelled the empress dowager's title (renamed Imperial Concubine Yiwen Crown Princess). Of Zhu Yunxi's three younger brothers, Zhu Yunxi was born to Zhu Biao's original wife, Chang Shi, and Zhu Yunxi, Zhu Yunxi, and Zhu Yunxi were all born to Empress Lü. Zhu Yunxi was 24 years old, Zhu Yunxi was 17 years old, and Zhu Yunxi was 11 years old when he ascended the throne. At that time, Zhu Yunxi's title was King Wu, Zhu Yunxi was the King of Heng, and Zhu Yunxi was the King of Xu. Zhu Di deposed Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi as shuren on the grounds that he could not build Emperor Wen of Kuangzheng and harbored resentment.
Zhu Di then imprisoned Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi in Fengyang, and the youngest Zhu Yunxi lived with his mother, Empress Lü, in his father's cemetery. In the fifteenth year of Yongle (1417), Zhu Yunxi, who was only thirty-nine years old, died violently, and in the same year Zhu Yunxi's son Zhu Wenkun died like his father. It is said that Zhu Yunxi's accidental violent death at the age of 39 is questionable, not to mention that the father and son actually died in the same year is even more suspicious. At the time of Zhu Yunxi's death, there was also a young son, Zhu Zaikun, who was still in infancy, whose whereabouts were unknown after his father and brother died violently.
There is a folk legend that Zhu Zaikun was taken by the eunuch Wang Zhong, who was closely waiting for him, and fled to the people. Zhu Zaikun's descendants hid in the folk and bred more than 100 households. It is said that the village where Zhu Zaikun's descendants lived was called Zhu Jiakuan. But that's just folklore. The fate of Zhu Biao's fourth son, Zhu Yunxi, was almost a copy of the third brother Zhu Yunxi: in the same year that Zhu Yunxi's violent death (it is said that in 1414 AD), the younger Zhu Yunxi also died unexpectedly. Not only did Zhu Yunxi's death not only be unclear, but even the time of his death appeared in two different records.
In contrast, Zhu Di's younger son Zhu Yunxi seemed to be slightly different from his older brothers: after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he demoted Zhu Yunxi, the prince of Xu, to the title of Prince of Shihui. Although this was a demotion, it was better than his two older brothers: Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi were deposed by yi to the end; Zhu Yunxi's title was only demoted by one level. Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Yunxi were imprisoned after being deposed from their titles; Zhu Yunxi went with his mother Lü Shi to the tomb of Prince Yiwen to guard the tomb of his father Zhu Biao (of course, this was only a disguised imprisonment).
In 1404, Zhu Yunxi was renamed the Prince of Ouning by Zhu Di, and the "Kingdom of No Dispatch" was enshrined as Prince Yiwen. At first glance, it seems that Zhu Yunxi and his mother have the intention of surviving. However, only two years later, Zhu Yunxi and his mother were burned to death due to a fire in the mansion. At this point, all five of Zhu Biao's sons could not die well. Among the five sons, only Zhu Yunjiao and Zhu Yunxi have descendants. In the third year of Emperor Mingxian's reign, Zhu Biao's bloodline was only 13 descendants of Zhu Yunxi and Zhu Wengui, who had been demoted by Zhu Di to the rank of Shuren.
In the difficult living environment, these two lines of population have been extinct. In ancient times, zhu biao was considered to be the queen of the patriarchal system that only counted male patrilineal blood. In addition to his five sons, Zhu Biao had four daughters (three of whom did not live long after the Battle of Jingnan): the eldest daughter, the Lord of Jiangdu County, died in fear because her husband was killed by Zhu Di. The other two daughters died in the fifteenth year of Yongle and the tenth year of Yongle. There is not much written record of their life experiences, but it can be seen from the date of their deaths that they did not live long.