Why didn't Yan usurp the throne?

Judy, the prince of Yan, rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, but it was a "difficult move" in the name of "killing the Yellow Emperor and cleaning up the monarch's border". During the three-year "Jingnan War", he also emphasized the justice and rationality of his inheritance from the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, after taking the throne, the crisis of the legitimacy of the throne is the main thread that runs through Judy's life, and he always faces the problem of the legitimacy of the throne.

Zhu Yunwen is the legal heir of Zhu Yuanzhang, and Judy launched the "Jingnan War" to seize the throne, which is of course a usurper in the eyes of contemporary people. Because according to Zhu Yuanzhang's provisions in Ming Taizu's Legacy, neither the death of his father, the succession of his son, the establishment of official positions and the abandonment of society, nor the eternal friendship between brothers can provide enough arguments for Judy's accession to the throne.

For example, when Judy ascended the throne, Liu Jing, the second son of Liu Bowen, was at home for the people. I told him to go to Beijing, but he refused to go because he was ill. Later, he was forcibly called into the capital. When he met Judy, he called him "Your Highness" instead of "Your Majesty". The court said that "Your Highness will not die, and it is inevitable to usurp the throne".

Mr. Meng Sen, a famous expert in Ming history, also pointed out in the book "Lectures on Ming History": "The name of Jingnan was advocated by Cheng Zu when he usurped the country." It seems that when Judy was a country, usurpation was the final evaluation. Not only scholars and historians regard Judy as a usurper, but also ordinary people who are deeply influenced by the ethical tradition.

For example, Chu Fu, a native of Wuxi, used to be a marshal of Yanshan Mountain. Because he didn't want to work for Judy, he ran away before the battle of Jingnan was over. After Judy acceded to the throne, she was ordered to flee to join the army, and her father was transferred to Yunnan. Chu's father wept bitterly, denouncing himself as a "lowly pawn" but unwilling to be a rebellious minister. He cried day and night and finally died of hunger strike.

Since Judy ascended the throne, the injustice of the throne is obviously his biggest worry, and his achilles heel is his lack of legitimacy. If he dares to use the name "Yan", he may be next soon.

How to beautify the occupation behavior into a just and legal behavior is Judy's greatest concern. Throughout his life, he wavered between self-confidence and fear of cheating the world and stealing fame. This ambivalence runs through his imperial career.

Judy knew that the legitimacy of ruling the world was congenitally deficient, so after he ascended the throne, she took various measures to strengthen her legitimacy. Judy, in order to beautify her usurpation, is a legal act in line with the patriarchal clan system. Through the revision of official history, she systematically falsified and destroyed relevant historical records. Mainly in the following aspects:

Like all emperors in history, Judy made a mythical rendering of the scene when he was born. It is recorded in Shi Minglu that "when I was born, I was covered with phosgene and reflected in the palace."

Judy's mother is a concubine, but he is actually an unmarried woman. According to his ancestral teachings, he is not qualified to inherit the throne. Judy came up with a way to pretend to be the eldest son, and more than once tampered with the question of how many sons Gao Hou (Ma Huanghou) has. In order to cater to them, the princes Zhu Biao, the King of Qin and the King of Jin mentioned in the local chronicles were concubines, and only the prince and the king of Zhou were born after high school, thus becoming the eldest son.

Later, Judy found it unconvincing that Zhu Biao, the prince of Wen Yi, was an illegitimate child, so she adopted the same statement of five sons in three revisions of a record. As Prince Wen Yi, the King of Qin and the King of Jin all died in the Hongwu period, Judy is the eldest son in the world and can inherit the throne in chronological order. This statement is relatively safe and easy to accept.

Not only that, but also forged Zhu Yuanzhang and his favorite facts, and tried to spread them to himself three times to make excuses for usurping the throne under the banner of Mao and Gao Hou. The story of Fengtian Jingnan records the plot of Zhu Yuanzhang's three attempts to make Judy a prince. Here is just one example:

"In the beginning, Prince Wen Yi did a lot of wrong things. He was too proud of the wishes of his ancestors ... Mao said: All the philosophers were as benevolent and filial as the prince, and they were both civil and military. They can caress this country, and I belong to it. "

Zhu Yuanzhang has always been dissatisfied with his heirs Zhu Biao and Zhu Yunwen, thinking that Judy is both benevolent and civil-military, and wants to hand him over. Such a plot is obviously fabricated by historians who insist on Judy's will. Because according to the principle of the eldest son's (grandson's) inheritance established in the Legacy of Ming Taizu, it is impossible for Zhu Yuanzhang to make Judy a prince.

Beautify the "Jingnan War", raise Zhu Yuanzhang, and deny that the essence of Zhu Yunwen's "Jingnan War" is usurpation. Judy fought against the imperial court with a vassal, and finally forced Emperor Wen Jian to die. How can such a rebellious behavior be explained to future generations?

First of all, Zhu Yunwen was vilified as immoral, Zhu Biao, Zhu Tong, Aquamarine, Fang Xiaoru and others were vilified, and Zhu Yunwen was systematically portrayed as a bad king and a traitor. "The Story of Jingnan in Fengtian" said that Zhu Yunwen was even more unruly than this, because he was too arrogant to inherit the throne and disturbed the court and the laws of his ancestors. In fact, Wen Jian is a persistent master. Why not? Therefore, many excessive words were deleted from the later revised Records of Emperor Taizong.

"The Story of Fengtian Jingnan" said that Zhu Biao, the prince of Wen Yi, was "too resourceful and too proud". Later, the story of Fengtian Jingnan was changed to "Wen Yi, the prince, restrained the meaning with weakness, and did not call it Mao's intention", and there were many similar changes.

Secondly, under the guise of Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral teachings, the rebellion was whitewashed as a righteous act of "the Duke of Zhou assisted to become a king" to cover up the reality of usurpation. There is more than one record about Judy's confession in the story of Fengtian Jingnan:

"I am a soldier, so I punish evil, protect the country and save suffering. Is he the whole flesh and blood? "

Judy said that the purpose of his army was to "overcome difficulties". When he succeeds, he will follow the example of the Duke of Zhou and not covet the throne. But Fang Xiaoru died for fear of self-immolation, and he must succeed to the throne. Judy once said:

"Since ancient times, emperors have long merits, and historians will hang Fan Wannian. Our emperor tested Mao's virtue of high divine power, harmony between heaven and earth, and the sun and the moon shine together, which has never been seen since the Han and Tang Dynasties. At the end of the course, Fang Xiaoru and others contributed to the writing and recording, allowing them to see privately, or to be detailed, or to be unclear about right and wrong, making it very beautiful, and the fairy was angry, dancing in the obvious, salty and embarrassing. "

As mentioned above, Zhu Yuanzhang's patriarchal clan system is the legal basis for Judy's difficulty in getting up and inheriting the throne. Judy's excuse of "difficulty in starting an army" is also the ancestor's method of Zhu Yunwen's rebellion. Maintaining Zhu Yuanzhang's image as a holy king is to maintain the supreme authority of ancestral teachings. Beautify Zhu Yuanzhang, cover up his faults, indirectly deny Zhu Yunwen and affirm himself.

Judy is a brilliant emperor, and his achievements show his legitimacy. The Ming empire is a great achievement of Tao. Most of them were completed during Judy's reign. Judy was a ray of bright sunshine in the Chaoyang era of the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the national fortune of the Ming Dynasty has gradually declined, and no emperor has ever been as ambitious as him and adopted a positive policy stance.

He went to Mobei five times, managed the frontier, set up Nur Tuwei and Hami Wei, sent troops to quell Annan's rebellion, took Vietnam back to China, strengthened the management of Southwest Tusi, and first promoted land reform and set up Guizhou Buzheng Department. It was given to the kings of Uzbekistan and Tibet, and a passage from the border area to the mainland was built, which strengthened the connection between the border area and the mainland. He also actively managed the islands in the South China Sea, surveyed and named them, sent envoys everywhere, and made extensive contacts to make Zheng He go to the Western Ocean.

He resumed the Ministry of Trade abolished by Zhu Yuanzhang and his contacts with Japan. He restored the timur Empire in Central Asia and China, and foreign envoys came to China in an endless stream. He moved the capital to Beijing and carried out large-scale construction in Beijing, which moved the political and military center of the Ming Dynasty northward, laying the foundation for stabilizing the frontier and managing state affairs more effectively, and its pattern has been influencing to this day. In order to ensure the transportation of strategic materials in the north, he dredged the Grand Canal, taking it directly from the north to the south and running through the whole line. In terms of literacy, he organized scribes to compile various books, among which Yongle Dadian is the most famous.

The lack of legitimacy of the throne is Judy's "original sin", and his diligent, enterprising and enterprising actions are his salvation. It is driven by guilt and a desire for achievement. Judy overcame the defects of laziness, luxury, meanness and lack of kindness that existed in Ming emperors, and did extraordinary things and made extraordinary contributions.

On his way back from his fifth expedition to Mobei, he passed by Qingshuiyuan. The rocks on the roadside are tens of feet high. Judy ordered the accompanying civil servants Yang Rong and Jin Youzi to carve a stone, "let the world know that I signed it myself."

He knows that he may leave a bad name in later generations, so he should also leave the record of his political achievements to later generations as a defense of his lack of legitimacy. Ten days later, Judy died on the road, and his tired life finally came to an end.

Judy's struggle with the vassal king also set a bad precedent for later generations, making the rebellion of the vassal king a very representative "landscape" in the Ming Dynasty.