The Ming Dynasty enjoyed the country for 276 years and had 16 emperors, which is not much in the great unified dynasty, but in recent decades, the portraits of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty often appear in the publication of the mistake of Zhang Guan Li Dai. Is it hard to recognize 16 people? It's not hard. But there is also a reason for the high error rate of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, after all, there are too many anomalies in these portraits - there are obviously 16 emperors, but there are only 14 sitting statues (positive images), and one of these 14 people is not among the 16 emperors. In fact, behind these portraits being worn by Zhang Guan Li is the thrilling struggle for imperial power in the Ming Dynasty one after another.
Disappear them.
What is the appearance of Zhu Yunwen, who failed in the Battle of Jingyan and was robbed of the throne by his uncle? Will it look like a human king? Unfortunately, this answer cannot be known to future generations, because there is no portrait of Zhu Yunwen in the statues of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty in the old collection of Nanxun Palace.
The portrait of the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen may have been destroyed in the fire in the palace, or the young king may have taken the portrait with him when he fled. But it can be determined that after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he not only removed the Jianwen year name and killed a large number of Jianwen old ministers, but also tampered with historical materials and erased a lot of information related to Emperor Jianwen. But Zhu Yunwen does have a portrait left behind, this picture is a half-length portrait painting, the person in the painting is wearing a Ming Dynasty gown, wearing a wing crown, the face is immature, no beard, the top of the head is written with the words "Ming Hui Emperor true image", there is a copy of this picture in Nanjing Yuejiang Building, the original picture is unknown, and the style of painting should be painted by the ancients.
But the two pieces of information about the portrait are enough to prove that it could never have been painted in the early Ming Dynasty. One of them is that the pattern of the dragon robe worn by Emperor Jianwen in the painting is a Ming pattern, which only appeared in the Ming Yingzong period. Secondly, the Yishan crown worn on the head of Emperor Jianwen has a double dragon play bead ornament, which is completely different from the simple Yishan crown in the early Ming Dynasty, and it did not appear until the Ming Muzong period. Third, there is an inscription on the painting calling Zhu Yunwen "Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty", but in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunwen was not allowed to be talked about as a forbidden area of the dynasty, and there was no nickname and temple number, because Zhu Di did not recognize his throne at all, so even if it was mentioned, it was called "Jianwenjun". It was not until the middle and late Ming Dynasty that the ban on the Jianwen Dynasty was gradually lifted, and those who sympathized with Zhu Yunwen would be called "Emperor Jianwen". The title of "Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty" only appeared after the death of the Ming Dynasty, in July of the first year of Hongguang of the Southern Ming Dynasty (1645), the Southern Ming Dynasty court for the first time for the Emperor Jianwen on the temple number for Huizong, and the name of the Emperor was the heir of Tianzhang Dao Cheng Yi Yuan Gongguan Wen Yang Wu Ke Ren Du Xiao let the emperor. In the first year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1736), the Qing court called Emperor Gongmin Hui for Emperor Jianwen, and then referred to as Emperor Gongmin, and also called Emperor Ming Hui. That is to say, judging from the time when the title "Emperor Ming Hui" appeared, the portrait of Zhu Yunwen was only painted in the Qing Dynasty, and the face of the person in the painting naturally cannot be the real appearance of Emperor Jianwen.
An emperor like Emperor Jianwen who lost his portrait due to the failure of the imperial power struggle was not alone, and another emperor who did not leave a portrait was even more wronged than him. Nearly half a century after the Battle of Jingyan, in the fourteenth year of Ming orthodoxy (1449), a civil engineering change caused by Emperor Yingzong's light attack on the enemy plunged the Ming Empire into an unprecedented crisis. In September of the same year, Zhu Qiyu ascended the throne with the support of the ministers, and Zhu Qizhen, who was "studying" in Mobei, was the emperor. After ascending the throne, Zhu Qiyu and Yu Qian and other important ministers actively cooperated, successfully repelled the invading Wara army, and the victory in the defense of Beijing, which turned the tide in the fall, was undoubtedly due to Zhu Qiyu's perfect combination of monarchs and ministers, and good scheduling. The second year of Zhu Qiyu's accession to the throne was changed to the first year of Jingtai (1450). During his reign, he was active in stabilizing the situation. However, there are unforeseen circumstances, Zhu Qiyu, who worked hard, was seriously ill at a young age, in January of the eighth year of Jingtai (1457), Zhu Qiyu was critically ill, Wuqing Marquis Shi Heng, Deputy Capital Yushi Xu Youzhen and the eunuch Cao Jixiang and others launched the "Change of Seizing the Door" on the 17th of the same month, and invited Yingzong, who had been released by Wara, from the South Palace, and supported him to seize the door and restore the throne.
After the restoration of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, he changed the Yuan Tianshun, and the first thing he did was to kill Yu Qian, the hero of the defense of Beijing, and then issued an edict in early February, abolishing Zhu Qiyu as the king of Yu and moving to the west. On February 19, Zhu Qiyu died of illness at the age of 30. Ming Yingzong handled Zhu Qiyu's posthumous affairs very ruthlessly, first of all, he did not recognize his imperial throne, destroyed the imperial tomb built in front of Emperor Jingtai, and only buried it in Xishan with a princely ceremony. Then he was given a vicious nickname of "戾", and his concubines were also given death and burial. Since the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing, the Ming Dynasty had 14 emperors, but the imperial mausoleum in Changzhen only had 13 mausoleums, because Jingtai Emperor Zhu Qiyu became the only Ming Dynasty emperor who did not enter the imperial mausoleum after moving north. Later, in the portraits of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty in the Nanxun Palace, there was no portrait of Emperor Jingtai, which must have been destroyed by Ming Yingzong as early as the Tianshun Dynasty.
Both Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Qiyu are missing portraits because of their defeat in the struggle for imperial power, but in comparison, Zhu Qiyu's experience is more unsatisfactory. Although Zhu Di was not in the right position, he ruled martial arts during his reign, created a prosperous era, and gave history a pretty good answer sheet with his own efforts. And Zhu Qiyu was ordered to be in danger, and in the autumn of survival, he repelled a strong enemy and turned the Ming Empire into a safe place, inheriting the expectations of the great unification, and there was no problem with the legitimacy of the throne. On the other hand, Ming Yingzong, when the country was still strong, was able to bury hundreds of thousands of troops by himself, and he was also imprisoned, playing the Ming Empire with only half a life. After the restoration of Nangong, he brutalized Zhongliang and took crazy revenge on Jingtai Junchen, and it is not an exaggeration to call him a tyrannical king. As early as the Chenghua years, the government and the opposition for Emperor Jing's rehabilitation of the call is very high, to the eleventh year of Chenghua (1475) December, Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshen issued an edict to restore Zhu Qiyu Emperor, set the name as "Gongren Kang Dingjing Emperor", and ordered to decorate the mausoleum according to the specifications of the emperor's mausoleum.
A bust of Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty painted by the Qing people. As the loser of the struggle for imperial power, the Ming Dynasty did not leave a portrait of Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen, whose portrait was painted by the imagination of later generations.
Although the merits of Emperor Jing were recognized to a certain extent, the rehabilitation of Ming Xianzong was reserved, first of all, the name set was only 5 characters, which was much shorter than the 17-character nickname of other emperors in the Ming Dynasty, and secondly, there was no temple number. It is not difficult to speculate that Zhu Jianshen did not repaint the portrait of Zhu Qiyu. When the Qing Dynasty revised the "History of the Ming Dynasty", the historians also had a sympathetic attitude towards Jingtai Junchen and included Zhu Qiyu's biography in this record. In view of the lack of portraits, the Qing Dynasty also repainted the imperial statue for Emperor Jingtai. The portraits of Jingtai and Jianwen are both half-length portraits, which are very similar to the "Portrait Album of Emperors" painted by the Qing Dynasty court painter Yao Wenhan. In the album painted by Yao Wenhan in March of the 53rd year of Qianlong (1788), there are a total of 43 ancient and modern emperors, but it does not include Emperor Jianwen and Emperor Jingtai. The two bust portraits that remain today may have been repainted by Yao Wenhan later, or they may have been painted by other painters in Yao's style. But after all, they are all from the hands of painters hundreds of years later, and their appearance is also imagined by later generations, rather than a portrait of the same as the gods.
Cameo appearances in "Jingtai and Chongzhen's people."
Of the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, there were only 3 who did not leave portraits, Emperor Jianwen and Emperor Jingtai were defeated in the struggle for imperial power, and the emperor also lost the right to enshrine the portrait in the ancestral temple, and the remaining emperor who did not leave a portrait was because of the loss of the country. That's right, he is Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen was also a high-spirited young son of heaven, only 17 years old he ascended the throne as the king of Xin, just a few months to eliminate Wei Zhongxian, the eunuchs who were in power to the government and the opposition. He also used to eat and drink, and tried to save the Ming Dynasty with his own strength. However, due to the accumulation of various problems in the Ming Empire, coupled with Emperor Chongzhen's own mistakes in the process of governance, it was difficult to save the building. On March 19, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng's rebel army approached the Forbidden City, and the desperate Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself in the coal mountain, announcing the end of the Ming Dynasty. This year is also a year of fusion in the world, Li Zicheng's Dashun Dynasty just entered Beijing not long ago, the former Mingshan Customs General Wu Sangui released the Qing army into the customs, Li Zicheng, who lost the war, hurriedly withdrew from Beijing, and was replaced by the Qing Dynasty of the Aixin Jueluo family.
A bust of the Ming Dynasty painted by the Qing people. Zhu Qiyu of the Ming Dynasty did not leave a portrait, and the portrait should have been destroyed in the process of revenge on Jingtai Junchen after the restoration of Yingzong.
Chongzhen reigned for 17 years, which is not a short time, and it stands to reason that there should be a royal statue drawn. But the portrait of Emperor Chongzhen did not remain, then there are only two possibilities, one is lost or destroyed in the war, after all, the Forbidden City changed hands twice within a year, especially Li Zicheng also set a fire before leaving, the scene is bound to be very chaotic, the portrait of Emperor Chongzhen was not enshrined with the ancestors and ancestors at that time, so the possibility of destruction in the war is not ruled out. The second is that it has been deliberately destroyed for political purposes. The first suspect is Li Zicheng. As a gravedigger of the Ming Dynasty, it is reasonable to destroy the portraits of his rivals after entering the Forbidden City as the Emperor of Dashun. The second suspect was the Qing rulers. Soon after the regent Dolgon took the little emperor Shunzhi to Beijing, the Qing court made an inventory of the portraits of the emperor and queen in the palace, and if the portrait of Chongzhen was still there at this time, it should not be destroyed, because the Qing court was under the banner of avenging Emperor Chongzhen, and Emperor Chongzhen was also given a funeral. However, the political situation changed a year later, and the Qing court began a war of annihilation against the Southern Ming court, which met with fierce resistance in the Jiangnan region. In the past 100 years, the anti-Qing and Ming restoration movements have risen one after another, especially those who have started under the banner of Chongzhen Zhu and the third prince, who have entangled several generations of kings of the Qing Dynasty, and Chongzhen at this time has naturally become a sensitive figure, which is the motive for the Qing court to take the initiative to destroy Chongzhen's portraits. According to Hu Jing's description in the "Image Examination of the Nanxun Palace" during the Jiaqing period, there was no portrait of Emperor Chongzhen in the portraits of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty in the old collection of the Nanxun Hall at that time. Of course, this possibility is much lower than the former, after all, in the Qing Dynasty, there were also people who painted Chongzhen's bust portrait, and its painting style and specifications are the same as the portraits of Emperor Jianwen and Emperor Jingtai, and should be written by the same person.
The seated statue of Emperor Chongzhen painted by today's people is now in the Palace Museum. As the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen also has no portraits that have survived.
The portrait of Chongzhen that survives today, in addition to the bust portrait painted by the Qing people, there is also a full-body sitting portrait that is widely spread, although the portrait layout is the same as the sitting portrait axis of the Ming Emperors, but the painting style is very different and somewhat blurred, this Chongzhen sitting portrait is repainted by the staff of the Palace Museum. This portrait is drawn in combination with the imagination of contemporary people, and the controversy is that the person in the painting is older. The person in the painting has a dull yellow face and a somewhat haggard face, and looks to be about 50 years old, while Chongzhen was only 34 years old when he died. But the problem is that Chongzhen's portrait has long been lost, and who knows what he looks like?
In fact, from some information in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, one or two can be inferred. Wu Weiye, who served as the editor of the Hanlin Academy and the son of Zuo Shuzi in the Chongzhen Dynasty, described in the "Suikou Chronicles": "Shangjiao worked for seven years in the world, and he was frugal like filial piety (Emperor Hongzhi), and Yingguo Shimiao (Emperor Jiajing), fair and abundant, and his vision was very ......The "fair-skinned Fengxia" that appears here is the only description of Chongzhen's appearance that can be seen at present. However, there are many accounts about the appearance of Prince Chongzhen, and the "Testament of the Ming and Qing Dynasties" records that "the prince is fair-skinned and beautiful, good at coping, and his feet and bones are double", which seems to have inherited the characteristics of his father's white skin. Lu Qi, who lived in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, wrote "Xianyan" recorded that "the prince can be seventeen or eighteen years old, with a cloud crown, a green silk robe, white fiber socks, a long style, a slender and fair-skinned, a hair-cut head, hands and claws like spring onions, and the language is like a cave flute, and the person who sees it is suspected to be a fairy, and it is beyond the reach of an ordinary good son", just like a beautiful young man. Based on genetic factors, Chongzhen's "fair-skinned Fengxia" appearance is very likely to be similar to his father Zhu Changluo, and later generations painted Chongzhen's portrait, using the Mingguang Sect statue as a reference to restore his appearance to some extent.
Busts of Ming Guangzong, Ming, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Mingguangzong Zhu Changluo is the biological father of Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen, and Chongzhen's "fair-skinned and plump" appearance should be inherited from Guangzong.
Jianwen, Jingtai, Chongzhen, the three Ming Dynasty emperors are missing, there is a bloody story behind them, but their absence has dug a "pit" for history lovers and practitioners of literature and history hundreds of years later, and the minefield with the highest error rate has been matched so far - whether it is a variety of self-*** on the Internet or some historical books, documentaries and other public publications, but whenever it comes to the portrait of Jingtai or Chongzhen, it is often mistakenly matched with a sitting portrait of the Ming Dynasty emperor wearing a gown. The appearance rate is extremely high. This portrait is indeed a portrait of an emperor of the Ming Dynasty from the old collection of Nanxun Palace, but he is neither Jingtai nor Chongzhen, nor even among the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty. The name of the person in the painting is Zhu Youqi, is the fourth son of Zhu Jianshen of Ming Xianzong, the half-brother of Zhu Youzhu of Ming Xiaozong, in the twenty-third year of Chenghua (1487) by the king of Xing, Hongzhi seven years of September 18 to the fiefdom of Lake Guang'an Luzhou (now Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province) to take up the domain, died in the fourteenth year of Zhengde (1519), at the age of 44, never sat on the throne in his life. After his death, he was given "dedication" by Emperor Zhengde, also known as "Xingxian King".
Ming Xing dedicated to the king sitting statue, Ming, vertical 2376 cm, 164 wide2 cm, now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. King Xingxian did not be an emperor during his lifetime, but after his son Ming Shizong ascended the throne, he posthumously honored King Xingxian as the emperor and painted a portrait of him according to the emperor's specifications. And this special portrait is often mistaken for Jingtai or Chongzhen by Zhang Guan Li Dai in later generations.
Why is it that the portrait of a vassal king is dressed in emperor-level gowns and enshrined in the palace, enjoying the same treatment as the emperors of the Ming Dynasty? Behind this is another political turmoil related to the Ming Dynasty - the Great Rites Discussion Incident. In the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), Zhu Houzhao of Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty died suddenly, because Wuzong had no children, the ministers according to the principle of "Lun order", please inherit the imperial system with the closest bloodline, so that the Xing Fan is the closest, so Zhu Houxi, the cousin of Wuzong, entered Beijing as the son of Xingshi and ascended the throne. Zhu Houxi is the son of King Xingxian, but he refuses to officially ascend the throne, but has a lot of trouble with the ministers, on the grounds that he thinks he is not the prince, and does not agree with the minister's plan for him to take Ming Xiaozong as the imperial examination, and he will ascend the throne with the etiquette of the crown prince. The two sides were at loggerheads for the sake of the matter, and in the end, it was the Empress Dowager who made a decree to mediate, and Zhu Houxi reluctantly ascended the throne for his difficulty, that is, Emperor Jiajing.
Soon after Jiajing ascended the throne, he immediately launched a three-and-a-half-year dispute with the courtiers led by Yang Tinghe and Mao Cheng, mainly around two cores, one of which was Emperor Jiajing's father in the patriarchal sense? Second, how should Emperor Jiajing's biological father's title be determined in order to solve the problem of imperial unity. In order to confront the courtiers, Emperor Jiajing issued an edict in the year of his accession to the throne, posthumously honoring his biological father Xingxian Wang as "Xingxian Emperor", and renamed Emperor Ming Xiaozong Jing as "Huang Bo Kao". This move caused a huge wave of opposition from the courtiers. In the next three years, Emperor Jiajing and the old ministers of Wuzong Dynasty repeatedly contested on this issue, to the peak of the Zuoshunmen incident in July of the third year of Jiajing (1524), in the face of the courtiers collectively, Emperor Jiajing directly dispatched Jinyi Wei to suppress by force, and the opponents were either imprisoned or by the court staff, and there were 16 people who died because of the court staff in this incident, and then the ministers kept silent. Afterwards, Emperor Jiajing decreed that his father would be dedicated to the emperor and the god in the east room of the Fengxian Palace, the upper honor was called "Emperor Kao Gong Mu Xian Emperor", the biological mother was renamed "Our Lady of the Holy Empress Dowager", in September was renamed Ming Xiaozong Jing Emperor said "Huang Bo Kao", and the Empress Dowager Zhang was "the Empress Dowager Zhaosheng Cishou Emperor", marking the end of the battle of the Great Rites with the victory of Emperor Jiajing.
Since then, Emperor Jiajing's pursuit of his father Zhu Youqi has not stopped. In September of the seventeenth year of Jiajing, the temple number was posthumously honored as "Ruizong"; In the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing, "Feng Ruizong was the fourth on the left of the Taimiao, and the order was on the Wuzong". At the same time, the tomb of King Xingxian was also upgraded and rebuilt according to the regulations of the imperial tomb, that is, the obvious mausoleum. The seated portrait of the emperor of Zhu Youqi is the imperial statue that Zhu Houxi summoned the court painter to repaint and enshrine after winning the Great Rites Dispute. What is quite black humor is that in the 14th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1749), when the Qing court finished decorating the imperial statue in the Forbidden City and moved it to the Nanxun Palace, the note for this portrait of Zhu Youqi was entitled "Ming Xing Presents the Statue of the King". Zhu Houxi tried his best to win the title of emperor for his father, but after all, it was not recognized by later generations. And because of the portrait of Zhu Youqi, the king of Xingxian, but the deeds are little known, and Jingtai and Chongzhen are very famous, so the portrait of the king of Xingxian is always misused, and the daily "cameo" of the two emperors whose portraits are missing.