Hello everyone, this is the editor of History Encyclopedia. Today, I will tell you the story of Zhu Yuanzhang. Welcome to follow us.
Since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang successively conferred six dukes, twenty-eight marquises, and two uncles in the following three years. These thirty-six people were either outstanding in battle or full of wisdom, and were the most important founding heroes of the Ming Dynasty.
During the thirty-one years of Zhu Yuanzhang’s reign as emperor, these founding heroes gradually withered away, including those who died on the battlefield (Duke of E Chang Yuchun, Duke of Wei Deng Yu, etc.), those who died of illness and were bedridden (Duke of Cao Li Wenzhong, Marquis of Jining Gu Shi, Prince Chengxin Liu Bowen, etc.), but more of them were executed by Zhu Yuanzhang for various reasons.
When the Crown Prince Zhu Biao was young, he was sent by Zhu Yuanzhang to study the classics under the great Confucian scholar Song Lian, who said, “You can seize the world immediately, but you cannot rule the world immediately.” Zhu Biao, who had been studying literature since childhood, had a kind and tolerant personality, which was completely opposite to his father Zhu Yuanzhang. He often opposed Zhu Yuanzhang’s execution of ministers and punished princes.
Zhu Yuanzhang also saw Zhu Biao’s personality and was worried that he could not suppress the founding heroes who crawled out of the sea of corpses. Therefore, he used this as an excuse to launch a large-scale killing spree against them, such as Xu Da, the Duke of Wei who died from steaming geese in the 18th year of the Hongwu reign. In the Hu Weiyong rebellion case in the 23rd year of the Hongwu reign alone, many heroes were implicated and killed, including Li Shanchang, Duke of Korea, Tang Shengzong, Marquis of Yan’an, Lu Zhongheng, Marquis of Ji’an, Zheng Yuchun, Marquis of Xingyang, Zhao Yong, Marquis of Pingliang, and Huang Bin, Marquis of Yichun.
And this made Zhu Biao even more worried and depressed, leading to his early death from illness at the age of only 37 (Hongwu 25th year, 1392). When Zhu Biao passed away, Zhu Yuanzhang was already 64 years old. It can be said that giving away someone with white hair to someone with black hair is the greatest sorrow in the world. Afterwards, Zhu Yuanzhang quickly established Zhu Yunwen, the son of Zhu Biao, as the Crown Prince, when he was only 15 years old.
Zhu Yunwen has a personality similar to that of a father, but more fragile and impulsive. Due to his young age, Zhu Yuanzhang was even more worried about whether Zhu Yunwen could maintain his foundation, so he continued to kill the remaining meritorious officials. In the 26th year of Hongwu (1393), he killed Duke Lan Yu of Liang on charges of rebellion, and implicated his family to execute more than 15000 people, including Duke Yi, Marquis Thirteen, and Uncle Er. Later, in the 27th year of Hongwu, he forced Duke Fu Youde of Ying to death, and in the 28th year, he executed Duke Feng Sheng of Song and others. At this point, the veteran generals of the Yuan Dynasty have successively completed their duties
By the time of Zhu Yuanzhang’s death in 1398, only the Marquis of Changxing, Geng Bingwen, was left as a garrison general for the new emperor Zhu Yunwen. The reason why he was left behind was because he was only good at defending cities and shorter than attacking.
But Zhu Yunwen’s opponents were the nine uncles who were known as the nine great anti barbarian kings of the early Ming Dynasty, among whom was the Yan King Zhu Di, who was no less skilled in both civil and martial arts than those founding heroes.
