The eldest grandson of Ming Xuanzong, the crown prince Zhu Jianji, who died young, rewrote the history of the Ming Dynasty
As the Midyear Festival approaches, is it necessary to worship the cemetery of the late Zhu Qiyu, the king of the Emperor? Zhu Qiyu used to be the younger brother of Ming Yingzong, but he was demoted to the title of King of Yu half a year ago, and died in the west of the palace for no apparent reason.
Ming Yingzong pondered for a while, and finally agreed to sacrifice Zhu Qiyu according to the custom. However, he added another sentence to say that he would also sacrifice to the son. Soon after, the Ministry of Rites said that the date of the Zhongyuan Festival sacrifice was approaching, but it was not yet certain whether it was necessary to sacrifice Zhu Qiyu's cemetery.
In this regard, Ming Yingzong made it clear that Zhu Qiyu and Huai Xian Shizi should be sacrificed according to the custom.
If it weren't for Zhu Qiyu's early death, the historical course of the Ming Dynasty might have undergone earth-shaking changes. Ming Yingzong may not have a chance to restore, and Yu Qian may not die unjustly.
Because Zhu Qiyu was ultimately defeated in the brutal political struggle, the age description of his son Zhu Jianji in the history books is also full of various contradictions. After studying various historical sources, we tried to determine the time of Zhu Jianji's birth.
According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", in the third year of Jingtai, Concubine Hang's son Jianji, Emperor Jing wanted to make him the crown prince and abolished Zhu Jianshen. However, the History of the Ming Dynasty is sometimes contradictory, and in Zhu Jianji's biography, he seems to have been born in the 14th year of orthodoxy before the Tumubao Rebellion.
Emperor Jing had a son, Zhu Jianji, the crown prince of Huaixian, and his mother was Concubine Hang. Zhu Jianji was originally the prince of the Emperor of Yu. Yingzong hunted in the north, and the queen mother ordered Zhu Jianshen to be the crown prince, and let Zhu Qiyu supervise the country.
Later, Zhu Qiyu ascended the throne, and he wanted Zhu Jianji to replace Zhu Jianshen as the crown prince, but it was difficult to speak. Empress Wang was also resolutely opposed and delayed for a long time.
Zhu Qiyu and Zhu Jianji: Unraveling the Mystery of the Father-Son Relationship In the imperial inheritance of the Ming Dynasty, the relationship between Zhu Qiyu and Zhu Jianji's father and son has always been full of mysteries. Zhu Qiyu was originally named the king of Yu, but after Zhu Qizhen was captured by Wara, he was promoted as the emperor by the ministers and changed his name to Jingtai.
And Zhu Jianji once replaced Zhu Jianshen as the crown prince, and revealed in the edict of amnesty that he was older than Zhu Jianshen. So, what is the real time of Zhu Jianji's birth?
According to the records of the "History of the Ming Dynasty", Zhu Jianji once served as the prince of Yu, but there are contradictions in his birth time. In this case, we need to look for further evidence to determine when Zhu Jianji was born.
Fortunately, there is a document entitled "Ming Yingzong Records Volume 216: Appendix 34 of the Abolition of the Emperor and the Emperor", which mentions the concept of "preface in Lunxian".
This shows that Zhu Jianji's preface was before Zhu Jianshen. And Zhu Jianshen's birth time is the twelfth year of orthodoxy (1447 AD), if Zhu Jianji is older, it is also in line with the record in the "History of the Ming Dynasty" that he once served as the prince of the king.
However, the clue in the official history is broken here, how can we further argue about the time of Zhu Jianji's birth? This requires us to delve deeper into the history and culture of the Ming Dynasty and look for more evidence to support our inferences.
In the Ming Dynasty, the enthusiasm for folk history revision was high, and many high-level works appeared, which were recognized by historians of all dynasties as a supplement to the official history. Among them, "Yishan Hall Collection" is the most famous one, written by Wang Shizhen, a jinshi in the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing.
In the book, Zhu Jianji's birth time is recorded as "the second day of the seventh month of the tenth year of orthodoxy", confirming that Prince Huaixian was born in the orthodox year and not in the third year of Jingtai. However, there are some problems with this book.
First of all, the original text lacks an accurate year, which is very important for arguing who is older, Zhu Jianji and Zhu Jianshen. Secondly, his account of Zhu Jianji's birthday is wrong, because the "Actual Record" clearly records that the time of the Crown Prince's Thousand Autumn Festival is "February 20".
Despite this, the "Collected Works of Yishan Hall" still has a high reference value. When we turn to the famous historian He Qiaoyuan in the Wanli period of Mingshenzong, we are pleasantly surprised to find that there are clues about Zhu Jianji's age.
The book wrote: "Huaixian Crown Prince Jianji, the eldest son of Emperor Jing, and his mother is called Concubine Hang. Emperor Jing took the residence of the king of Yu, which is true. After three years, he was eight years old and intended to be the crown prince. ”
This provides us with an important clue for a more accurate understanding of Zhu Jianji's life.
The order of my eldest son comes first." The change of fate Zhu Qiyu was originally supposed to be the second son of Ming Xuanzong, who became a feudal feudal according to the prescribed age, and then no longer saw his brother Zhu Qizhen.
However, after the Tumu Fort Change, he unexpectedly ascended to the throne of the Ninety-Five. Before Zhu Qiyu succeeded to the throne, his mother-in-law, Empress Dowager Sun, had already canonized Zhu Jianshen as the crown prince.
In other words, Empress Dowager Sun thought that this concubine's son was just a temporary worker, and the throne would eventually be returned to the descendants of Ming Yingzong. However, the situation is stronger than people, and when Zhu Qiyu led the defense of Beijing to victory, his personal prestige reached its peak, and it was no longer realistic to let him work as a temporary worker.
Zhu Qiyu, as an emperor with an heir, could not tolerate his nephew inheriting the throne in the future. He realized that it would not be easy to change the crown prince, because Ming Yingzong had deep roots in the court.
However, in the third year of Jingtai, Zhu Qiyu thought that he had enough strength to promote the matter of Yichu. So he began to test the attitudes of several cabinet members, including Chen Xun, Gao Zhu, Jiang Yuan, Wang Yining, Xiao Rong, and Shang Chen.
Zhu Qiyu knew that his approach would arouse opposition, so he used bribes to silence everyone. On April 21, Zhu Qiyu summoned his ministers for a discussion through a transcript of a local official in Guangxi requesting Yi Chu.
Due to a lot of foreshadowing done before, the cabinet members, including Chen Xun, did not object, and the important ministers of the imperial court did not dare to express their position easily. In general, Zhu Qiyu has successfully promoted the process of easy storage through various means and strategies.
After Zhu Qiyu ascended the throne, he decided to replace the crown prince, which caused controversy in the DPRK and China. The celebrant and eunuch Xing'an made everyone sign by threatening, and finally passed unanimously.
Zhu Qiyu struck while the iron was hot, and immediately announced a super-large list of officials and subordinates of the East Palace, including the Founding Fathers of Jingnan, the meritorious service of the Beijing Defense War, the veterans of the Five Dynasties, and the important ministers of the DPRK and China.
The aim is to unite all ** and eliminate feelings of weakness.
On the second day of the first month of May, there was an unexpected ceremony for the canonization of the crown prince in Fengtianmen of the Ming Dynasty. The ceremony originally scheduled for this day had to be postponed the day before because of a big man who broke into the forbidden palace.
The big man with a mahogany stick in his hand went straight to the Fengtian Gate and prepared to destroy the incense pavilion used by the crown prince for the canonization ceremony. What's even more strange is that this person was finally taken down by the eunuchs in the palace, and the forbidden army that originally guarded the palace disappeared.
This incident once again exposed the undercurrent of the DPRK and China for Yi Chu. However, despite all these changes, the 2nd day of the first month of May was held as scheduled. Zhu Jianji, the eldest grandson of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, the nephew of Emperor Taishang, and the eldest son of Emperor Jinshang, was canonized as the crown prince, and his biological mother Hang was crowned empress, while the original empress Wang was deposed because of her opposition to Yi Chu.
Zhu Jianji's younger brother Zhu Jianshen was demoted to the title of King of Yi. This incident also formalized Zhu Jianji's status as the crown prince, Hang as the empress, and Wang was deposed. Although the process of easy storage was full of twists and turns, the final result was satisfactory.
Zhu Jianji and Hang, the new crown prince and empress, will jointly assume the responsibility of defending the country and maintaining the sect and society. And Zhu Jianshen, Zhu Jianqing, and Zhu Jianchun, the two princes, will also be on the same screen country, the Wei'an Sect.
In the name of Zhu Jianji, Zhu Qiyu rewarded the hundreds of civil and military officials and military and civilian elders in Beijing, and the most first-grade and second-grade ** received 40 taels of silver and 3 taels of silk, and the least sunshine award also had a cloth.
Because Zhu Jianji was still young, Zhu Qiyu specially stipulated that civil and military officials only needed to visit the prince on Shuowang Day, and did not have to go every day. Soon, Zhu Qiyu ordered that the ** people who thanked him on the New Year's Day should also salute.
And Zhu Qiyu also ordered the selection of the government army, the vanguard young army and the executioner as Zhu Jianji's guards. Zhu Qiyu plans to give him a crown ceremony before Zhu Jianji's birthday, so that he can officially assume the mission of the prince of the East Palace.
In the fifty-second appendix of the Appendix to the Abolition of Emperor Zhu Er, Zhu Qiyu paid great attention to the education of the crown prince Zhu Jianji. He believed that the crown prince was the prince of the country and the foundation of the world, and that he must begin to cultivate his knowledge as soon as possible.
Therefore, in November, he prepared a large East Palace lecture team for Zhu Jianji, including Hu Hu and Wang Zhi, two old ministers, as well as all the cabinet members, who changed their classes every day.
However, fate made people, and the crown prince Zhu Jianji unfortunately died of illness three days later, at the age of 9. This brought tremendous pressure to Zhu Qiyu, and there were constantly people in the court asking for the restoration of Zhu Jianshen, the king of Yi, as the crown prince.
After Emperor Jingtai Zhu Qiyu was seriously ill and could not personally perform the ritual of worshipping the heavens in the southern suburbs and did not look at the court for three consecutive days, the ministers' trust in him began to crumble.
Faced with the plight of the emperor's critical illness, the civil and military ministers in the court had different opinions. One faction was headed by Yu Qian, Hu Hui and others, who advocated the restoration of Zhu Jianshen, the king of Yi, as the crown prince in order to stabilize the political situation.
The other faction was led by Wang Wen, a scholar of the Jinshen Temple, who suggested that Zhu Qiyu's cousin, Zhu Qiyong, the son of Xiangshi, be appointed to ease the problem of succession to the throne. There is also a faction led by Shi Heng and others, who hope to take the Taishang Emperor from Nangong to restore the throne in order to deal with the current political crisis.
However, Zhu Qiyu, who was still lying on the sickbed, had been ignored by everyone. In the early morning of the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, Shi Heng and others staged a coup d'état, coercing Ming Yingzong to re-ascend the throne, and returned to the center of power after eight years.
On the first day of February, Zhu Qiyu was deposed of the emperor's honorific title and was still called King Yu. On the sixth day of the first month of February, Zhu Jianji, the prince of Huaixian, was awarded the title of the son of Huaixian. On February 19, Zhu Qiyu, the king of servants, died violently at the age of 30.
Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty decreed that his younger brother be buried near the cemetery of the prince with a princely gift. All this, if Zhu Jianji is still alive, will it still happen? The former one indirectly affected the historical process of the Ming Dynasty because of his untimely death was Zhu Xiongying, the eldest grandson of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Jianji, the eldest grandson of Ming Xuanzong, was the second.