Chinese are very particular about names, and the more people with status, the stricter the requirements for every word in the name. Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was one such person.
Zhu Yuanzhang came from a humble background, and his father Zhu Wusi was worried about filling his stomach for the family all day long, and he was not in the mood to bother with his son's name, so he named Zhu Yuanzhang "Zhu Chongba" according to the family ranking according to the word "heavy" in the family tree. Zhu Yuanzhang also has three elder brothers, whose names are Zhu Chong.
Fourth, Zhu Chong. Sixth, Zhu Chongqi. After Zhu Chongba rebelled, he changed his name to Zhu Yuanzhang, which means the sharp weapon (Zhang, referring to jade) that destroyed the Yuan Dynasty. After being proclaimed emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the names of his father and brother: his father Zhu Wusi changed his name to Zhu Shizhen and was posthumously named Emperor Renzuchun;The eldest brother Zhu Chongsi changed his name to Zhu Xinglong and was posthumously named the king of Nanchang;The second brother Zhu Chongliu was changed to Zhu Xingsheng and posthumously named the king of Xuyi;The third brother Zhu Chongqi was changed to Zhu Xingzu and posthumously named King Linhuai.
It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang also changed the names of his grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather, and there is no record of what historical materials were changed, only recording that posthumously crowned his grandfather Zhu Chuyi as Emperor Xi Zuyu, posthumously crowned his grandfather Zhu Sijiu as Emperor Yi Zuheng, and grandpa Zhu Bailiu as Emperor Dezuxuan. Zhu Yuanzhang also wanted to associate his ancestors with Zhu Xi, the great Confucian of the Song Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was too close to the Song Dynasty, and it was difficult to counterfeit it. Moreover, Zhu Xi only has three sons, and the heirs are not prosperous, so it is easy to reveal the stuff after an investigation, so he has to give up. If Zhu Xi had more than 120 sons, like Liu Sheng, the king of Zhongshan in the Han Dynasty, it is estimated that Zhu Yuanzhang would fish in troubled waters like Liu Bei.
Zhu Yuanzhang didn't read much, but he was very addicted to names, and after changing his predecessors, he began to name his children and grandchildren. Zhu Yuanzhang has 26 sons, all of whom have the word "wood" next to their names, such as Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, Zhu Zhang, Zhu Quan, and so on. According to the principle of the five elements, wood gives birth to fire, fire gives birth to earth, earth gives birth to gold, gold gives birth to water, and water gives birth to wood, Zhu Yuanzhang requires descendants to follow this order, and the five lines should be sidelined in the name, for example, Zhu Di's genealogy is "** Qi Jianyou, thick and often by", then Zhu Di's next generation must have a "high" word in their names, in addition to the word "high", another word in the name must be next to the word "fire", so Zhu Di's three sons' names are - Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Gaoxu (fire at the bottom of four o'clock), Zhu Gaosui.
Then the problem comes again, the words on the side of the five lines are limited, and there are so many descendants of the Zhu family, it is really difficult not to repeat. In order not to violate the precepts of Taizu, the descendants of the Zhu family can only make their own words, after hundreds of years of unremitting efforts, the children and grandchildren of the old Zhu family have opened their brains more and more, and there are more and more cold words.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the scientist Xu Shou translated the periodic table and turned the dictionary into pieces, and the Chinese characters next to the word "gold" were still not enough. Those who have studied chemistry in junior high school know that there are 112 kinds of elements discovered by human beings, of which 90 are metal elements, accounting for the vast majority. According to the principle of translation, the Chinese name of the metal element should be next to the word "gold", but where can I find so many Chinese characters with the word "gold"?Don't worry, Zhu Yuanzhang has already solved this problem. Turning over the Zhu family tree, there are hundreds of Chinese characters with the word "gold" such as sodium, potassium, radium, zinc, polonium, etc., and according to this reserve, it is enough to take the elements of the moon, Mars, and even the whole universe. The so-called prophet of uncertainty is talking about this. What Zhu Yuanzhang never expected was that he made a great contribution to the naming of the periodic table of chemical elements in later generations.
Today I want to talk about the Ming Dynasty emperor of the "fire" generation - Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi.
Zhu Gaochi, born in Fengyang, Anhui Province on July 23, 11th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (August 16, 1378), his mother is Xu Miaoyun, the eldest daughter of the founding father Xu Da, and Zhu Gaochi is the eldest son of Zhu Di, the king of Yan. It is said that before Mrs. Xu gave birth to her son, she dreamed that "the one who has a crown and holds the gui will go up", and after waking up from the dream, she gave birth to Zhu Gaochi. This scene sounds similar to a room full of red lights and phoenixes around the house, but Mrs. Xu played a trick on her heart, and her dream was also ambiguous: if her son became the emperor in the future, it would be a minister who would be in charge of the court;If his son can't be the emperor, then the person who will be the one who will be the emperor is Zhu Gaochi himself. When Mrs. Xu gave birth to Zhu Gaochi, her husband (the child's father) Zhu Di was just 18 years old, and he was just the age when the classmate was young and in his prime, and he was busy pointing out the country and promoting words all day long, and he didn't pay much attention to the son who suddenly came to this world, let alone preschool education, so Zhu Gaochi was trained by his mother Xu.
Xu's virtuous and virtuous people, like to read, and are proficient in all subsets of classics and history, and are known as "female students" (Zhusheng was a good name for students who had the level of participating in the imperial examination at that time)". Under the influence of his mother, Zhu Gaochi has been dignified and quiet since he was a child, and under the influence of Confucianism, he has formed a benevolent character, which is somewhat incompatible with Zhu Di, who has a violent personality and cuts people with a knife at every turn.
In the twenty-eighth year of Hongwu (1395), Zhu Gaochi was made the son and became the legitimate heir to the throne. Note that the prince is not the prince, and making you the prince proves that you are qualified to inherit the throne, if your father becomes the emperor, whether you can be made the prince or not, it depends on how you behave.
In the thirty-first year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang died of illness, and Zhu Yunwen succeeded to the throne of Emperor Jianwen. After Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, he immediately began to cut down the feudal domain, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, was the most powerful and powerful of the 25 feudal kings, and became the focus of attention. At that time, King Yan had no soldiers and no money, and he was not ready to rebel, so in order to show his loyalty to the imperial court, he sent his three sons Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Gaochu, and Zhu Gaosui to Nanjing, in fact, as hostages.
As the saying goes, when people go, they are angry, and rabbits are lucky and can't be hit with shotguns, Zhu Di's rebellious heart has been revealed, but Emperor Jianwen didn't know which tendon in his brain was wrong, and discussed with Huang Zicheng, and actually put Zhu Di's three sons back to Beiping. Even Zhu Gaochi's own uncle Xu Huizu couldn't stand this riotous operation of letting the tiger return to the mountain, and Zhu Yunwen should kill the three hostages, otherwise it will become a trouble. Helplessly, Emperor Jianwen was merciful and soft-hearted, and he still let the three brothers go. After experiencing this catastrophe, Zhu Gaochi didn't say anything, but in his heart he hated his uncle for disregarding family affection and greeting Xu Huizu with an alpaca 10,000 times. Zhu Gaoxu didn't have this kind of self-cultivation, and in order to take revenge, he stole his uncle's most beloved sweaty BMW before leaving Nanjing, which can be regarded as regaining a little psychological balance.
After Zhu Di launched the "Battle of Jingyan", Zhu Gaochi stayed in Beiping and was responsible for the logistics support of the army. When Li Jinglong led an army of 500,000 to besiege Beiping, Zhu Di took a few elites to incorporate the army of Zhu Quan, the king of Ning, and only some old and weak soldiers remained in Beiping to defend the city under the leadership of Zhu Gaochi. In the face of this critical situation, Zhu Gaochi did not panic, and with the assistance of the veteran Gu Cheng, he arranged the defensive forces in an orderly manner. He knew that he had a heavy responsibility, he got up early and was greedy for darkness, he could only sleep for two hours a day, and often went to the army and the people to ask for warmth, which won the hearts of the army and the people, and the whole city worked together and had high morale. Zhu Gaochi did not stick to Zhu Di's instructions that he could only defend and not fight, and often seized the opportunity to send people to attack the enemy camp at night, setting fire to harass, which made the Southern Army worried and the army disheartened. It is also time for Zhu Gaochi to show his face, and the opponent he met was Li Jinglong, a straw bag general, who led an army of 500,000 to fight around Beiping for more than a month, without any achievements, until Zhu Di returned to the army, and Li Jinglong was defeated. Zhu Gaochi won the final victory in the defense of Beiping with 10,000 to 500,000, which became the only highlight of military command in his life.
In the third year of Jianwen (1401), Zhu Di gradually gained the military initiative, and Emperor Jianwen took the initiative to show weakness and deposed Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, who advocated the reduction of the domain. At this time, Fang Xiaoru became the main strategist around Zhu Yunwen. Fang Xiaoru was a famous Confucian in the early Ming Dynasty, and it was okay to talk about self-denial or benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom and faith, but it was really a layman to play treachery and sow discord. However, if an honest person occasionally takes a bad time, it will be more lethal and catch people off guard. In order to separate Zhu Di's father and son, Fang Xiaoru let out the wind, saying that Zhu Gaochi had always been close to the imperial court, and sent someone to send Zhu Gaochi a seal book to persuade him to return to the imperial court and promise the throne of King Yan. This matter was secretly reported to Zhu Di by the undercover eunuch Gao Yan sent by Zhu Gaochu beside Zhu Gaochi, and Zhu Gaochu fanned the flames by the side, Zhu Di killed Zhu Gaochi.
At the critical moment, Zhu Gaozhi was a chess player, and transferred the letter of Emperor Jianwen directly to his father Zhu Di without opening it, Zhu Di was shocked into a cold sweat after reading it, and secretly sighed that he almost killed the son by mistake. After this incident, Zhu Di was no longer suspicious, and completely handed over the rear to Zhu Gaochi to take care of.
Zhu Gaochi's two younger brothers, Zhu Gaochu and Zhu Gaosui, are both fierce and deceitful, and they are strong in martial arts. In the Battle of Jingyan, Zhu Gaoxu went out with his father, served as a striker, made many military exploits, saved Zhu Di's life many times in times of crisis, and reversed the unfavorable situation of the war. Zhu Di felt that the second son Zhu Gaoxu was more like himself in all aspects, so he had the idea of changing the son. In the fourth year of Jianwen, before crossing the river, Zhu Di patted Zhu Gaoxu on the shoulder and said: "The son of the world is sick, and you are good for yourself." "It means that your eldest brother Zhu Gaochi is crooked, you work hard, and you will have a chance in the future.
After the victory of the Battle of Jingyan, Zhu Di proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing, and it was natural for Zhu Gaochi to be promoted from the prince to the crown prince, but Zhu Di pushed back and refused to establish the crown prince. In fact, Zhu Di is looking for a suitable opportunity to put Zhu Gaoxu on the crown prince.
Just when Zhu Gaochi's heir position was in jeopardy, there was a person who helped him a lot, and this person was Xie Jin. Xie Jin is a native of Jishui, Jiangxi (now Jishui, Jiangxi), Jishui belongs to Ji'an, only in the Ming Dynasty there were more than 1,000 jinshi, accounting for almost 30% of the total number of the country, is a proper imperial examination province. Xie Jin was a jinshi in the twenty-first year of Hongwu and was only 19 years old. After Zhu Di ascended the throne, Xie Jin, Yang Rong, Yang Shiqi and other 7 people formed the first cabinet of the Ming Dynasty and became the core adviser of Emperor Yongle. In the second year of Yongle, when the dispute for the crown prince was heating up, one day Zhu Di ordered his ministers to inscribe a poem for a "Tiger Biao Picture", which depicted a tiger and a group of small tigers. Xie Jin immediately put pen to paper and wrote: "The tiger is the respect of a hundred beasts. Who would dare to touch their anger?Only the father-son relationship, step by step. Zhu Di was deeply moved, and specially left Xie Jin to consult the crown prince. Xie Jin supported Zhu Gaochi, so he said: "The emperor's eldest son is benevolent and filial, and the world returns to his heart." When Zhu Di heard this, he didn't say anything, and he didn't have any expression. Xie Jin saw that he couldn't make a big move, so he squeezed out three words from between his teeth: "Good saint grandson." The "good saint grandson" here refers to Zhu Gaochi's eldest son Zhu Zhanji. Zhu Zhanji was smart and shrewd since he was a child, and he was deeply loved by Zhu Di, and when he later conquered Mongolia, he deliberately took it with him, with the intention of experience, and accumulated experience for the future emperor. Xie Jin's words established Zhu Gaochi's position, and Zhu Di nodded again and again, so that his mind was decided. In April of the second year of Yongle (1404), Zhu Di officially canonized Zhu Gaochi as the crown prince, and at the same time canonized Zhu Gaochu as the king of Han and Zhu Gaosui as the king of Zhao.
To Xie Jin's surprise, it was precisely because of this sentence that he completely offended the Han King Zhu Gaoxu and brought him death. In the eighth year of Yongle (1410), Xie Jin entered Beijing to perform affairs, just in time for Zhu Di's northern expedition to Mongolia. Xie Jin didn't think about it so much, so he went to see the prince, and before Zhu Di returned to Beijing, he left the capital and returned to his office. Zhu Gaoxu finally seized the opportunity, and after Zhu Di returned to Beijing, he played a book fiercely, saying that Xie Jin had secretly visited the prince and plotted against him. Zhu Di immediately took Xie Jinsuo back to Beijing, repaired it, and then went to prison. Originally, it would be fine after a few years when Zhu Di's anger subsided, but in the thirteenth year of Yongle, Zhu Di occasionally looked through the prisoner books and saw Xie Jin's name, he was very surprised, and he asked casually: "Jin is still there?"The meaning of this may be "why Xie Jin is not dead", or it may be "Why hasn't Xie Jin been released yet", but Jin Yiwei commanded Ji Gang to take it for granted that he was the former, and after he went back, he drunk Xie Jin and buried him in the snowdrift. The poor genius Xie Jin, presided over the compilation of "Yongle Canon" and "Taizu Records", wiped Zhu Di's buttocks, and was frozen to death in the snowdrift at the age of 47 when he died. Xie Jin originally won the trust of Chengzu, but he was sandwiched between Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaochu and became a political victim for no reason.
During the more than 20 years of the Yongle Dynasty, the open and secret struggle between the crown prince Zhu Gaochi and the two brothers never stopped. Zhu Gaoxu relied on his father's pampering and repeatedly refused to go to the fiefdom to take up the domain, until many illegal things were exposed, and Zhu Di was furious, so he had to go to the fiefdom Le'an (now Huimin, Shandong) to hibernate, waiting for the opportunity to try to seize the heir. Zhu Gaosui was even more frenzied, and even wanted to poison his father to seek the throne, but he was only spared after the incident.
On July 18, the 22nd year of Yongle (1424), the sixty-five-year-old Zhu Di died of illness on the way back to the army from the Fifth Northern Expedition. Zhu Di died of illness suddenly, and the three ministers accompanying him, Zhang Fu, Yang Rong, and Jin Youzi, were caught off guard, because these three people were divided into two factions: Zhang Fu was the Han king's faction and supported the Han king Zhu Gaoxu;Yang Rong and Jin Youzi are the most powerful crown prince Zhu Gaochi to succeed to the emperor's throne. The night before Zhu Di's death, when Cheng Zu was still sober, he summoned Zhang Fu alone, and it is unknown what he explained. At this delicate moment, Zhu Di's eunuch Ma Yun (this Ma Yun is not Ma Yun, and has nothing to do with Alibaba) played an important role. On the night of Zhu Di's death, Ma Yun secretly informed Yang Rong and Jin Youzi, and Yang and Jin took special measures at a special moment to collect the tin ware from the generals, cast it into a tin coffin, and put Zhu Di's body into a tin coffin and put it in the imperial chariot, so that people could eat as usual and not let outsiders know. Then Yang Rong and the young eunuch Haishou and Cheng went to Beijing to report the funeral first, and asked the prince to prepare in advance in case of accidents.
On August 2, Yang Rong and Haishou returned to Beijing and sent the edict. Zhu Gaochi stayed in Beijing and ordered Zhu Zhanji to go to Kaiping (now Duolun, Inner Mongolia) to meet the funeral. On the 10th, the body of Chengzu was welcomed into the city of Beijing and stopped at the Renzhi Hall of the Forbidden City, and a grand memorial ceremony began to be held throughout the country.
On August 15, the crown prince Zhu Gaochi succeeded to the throne by a posthumous edict, and changed the next year to the first year of Hongxi. At this point, the dispute between the princes that lasted for more than 20 years finally came to an end, and Zhu Gaochi stepped into the front office of taking charge of the Ming Dynasty. At this time, Zhu Gaochi was 47 years old, and there was not much time left for him.
Zhu Gaochi has been fond of writing and cultivating Confucianism since he was a child, and his body lacks exercise, so his physique has not been very good, and he was born with a leg disease, and he walked with a limp. But Zhu Gaochi didn't use poor health as an excuse to be lazy, because there were a lot of bad things waiting for him to cook in the Ming Dynasty. According to common sense, Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne in August, and the last few months of this year are still his father's Yongle year name, which belongs to the transition stage of the new and old emperors. However, Zhu Gaochi didn't want to wait any longer.
As soon as Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne, he did a major thing that made all the ministers dumbfounded - to rehabilitate Jianwen's relics.
On this day, Zhu Gaochi held an early dynasty, he sat on the dragon chair, faced the ministers under the Danqi, and asked with a pleasant face: "Ladies and gentlemen, do Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng of the Jianwen Dynasty have descendants?"If so, forgive them all. "When the ministers heard this, they didn't come back to their senses for a long time, you know, Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng were all punished by the clan back then, and now where do you want to find it?Don't mention it, one of the ministers replied: "Qi Tai has a son, who was only six years old at the time, and was punished for the war. Huang Zicheng also has a son, who escaped and is missing. Zhu Gaochi said: "Let Qi Tai's son come back, as for Huang Zicheng's son, you can send a proclamation, just say that the court has pardoned him, and there is no need to flee again." ”
Just as the ministers were talking to each other, Zhu Gaochi asked again: "Does Fang Xiaoru have any descendants?"Everyone was stunned when they heard this, Fang Xiaoru had already punished the ten clans, how could there be descendants. But everything is afraid of seriousness, a few days later, a minister replied, Fang Xiaoru's father Fang Keqin has a younger brother named Fang Kejia, and Fang Kejia has a son named Fang Xiaofu (Fang Xiaoru's cousin), who was punished and killed. Zhu Gaochi said: "Put it back, return the land, and give appropriate settlement expenses." ”
A few days later, at the court meeting, Zhu Gaochi released another big thunderbolt: the old ministers of the Jianwen Dynasty who were enemies of the first emperor (Zhu Di), they were all loyal ministers!The ministers below opened their mouths wide when they heard this, and said in their hearts that if those people were loyal ministers, wouldn't your father have killed them all wrong?Okay, anyway, it's all your old Zhu family's business, if you say a loyal minister, you will be a loyal minister. Since then, all the families of Jianwen's bereaved ministers, as long as they are still alive, whether they have been confiscated into the army, distributed to the Jiaofang Division, the Huanyi Bureau, or sold as domestic slaves, have all been pardoned and returned to their hometowns and distributed land.
In the first few months after Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne, he dared to rehabilitate the unjust prisoners of the Yongle Dynasty, which indeed required great courage. Not only that, Zhu Gaochi also carried out a series of political reforms, allowing cabinet members to concurrently serve in six ministries, which virtually raised the grade of cabinet members. Zhu Gaochi saw talents and included Yang Rong, Yang Pu, and Yang Shiqi into the cabinet, forming the second strongest cabinet in the history of the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years (the first strong cabinet did not appear until a hundred years later), known as the "Three Yang Cabinet" in history.
During Zhu Gaochi's reign, he waived prisons, reduced taxes, and did a lot of good things for the people. Militarily, Zhu Gaochi was sympathetic to the people's strength, changed Zhu Di's strategy of taking the initiative to attack, and took an all-out defensive position against Mongolia. Although this restored the national strength, it also made Warat sit on the throne and unify the Mongolian tribes, which eventually led to the Tumubao Rebellion.
As the saying goes, good people don't live long, and Zhu Gaochi, a good emperor, left his beloved Daming after only one year of reign. On May 29, the first year of Hongxi (1425), Zhu Gaochi died in the palace at the age of 48, leaving an edict and passing on to the crown prince Zhu Zhanji.
Historians have three different theories about the cause of Zhu Gaochi's death:
1. Excessive indulgence. Zhu Gaochi has been the prince of the nest for more than 20 years, worrying all day long, and finally survived until his father Zhu Di died, without upper eyelids, Zhu Gaochi began to indulge in lust, so that the body bones that were not very competitive quickly collapsed, and he reported to Lao Yan for ten months.
Second, he was. Zhu Gao is generous by nature, and his ministers are inevitably presumptuous, especially those imperial historians, who scold the emperor at every turn. Among them, there is a doctor named Li Shimian, a well-known bar, who once went to prison for preventing Zhu Di from moving the capital. Now that the new emperor has ascended the throne, Li Shimian ** is sick again, and the book says that Zhu Gaochi secretly upside down the phoenix with his concubines during his filial piety is against filial piety, and it is not good for the dragon's body. Zhu Gaochi was so angry that he died on the spot when he saw that the music was folded, and ordered the warrior to beat Li Shimian with a golden gourd, break three ribs, and then throw him into the imperial prison. Zhu Gaochi was also so angry that he couldn't afford to get sick because of this incident, and died of illness three days later, and before he died, he held the minister's hand and cried: "Li Shimian bullied me, woo woo woo ......."”
3. He was killed by the crown prince. There is information that in order to ascend to the throne as soon as possible, the crown prince Zhu Zhanji secretly poisoned his father, and also came up with evidence, saying that Zhu Zhanji ran too fast from Nanjing to the funeral, and arrived in Beijing in a few days after more than 1,000 kilometers, and he must have returned to Beijing in advance and waited for his father's death.
I don't believe in historical conspiracy, and I don't believe that Zhu Gaochi is so fragile that he can be angry to death if he is scolded twice. In line with the principle of being kind, I still believe that good people don't live long.
When Zhu Gaochi died, Zhu Zhanji was staying in Nanjing, and after learning the information first, Zhu Gaoxu, the king of the Han Dynasty, ambushed people along the way, trying to rob and kill the prince on the way to the funeral and seize the throne.
If you are interested, please pay attention to the next episode - Ming Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji.