Hello everyone, I am a historian. Today, I will talk to you about Emperor Zhengde of MingWuzong Zhu Houzhao. A failed monarch, a heroic general, a man who loves pleasure and pursues pleasure, this is probably my comprehensive evaluation of him.
In the history books after the Ming Dynasty, Zhengde is an uncompromising negative teaching material. In the eyes of the ministers, what he did was too much: instead of living in the palace, he built a luxurious apartment leopard room for himself; he personally went to war as a beast trainer, and the tiger did not train himself and was almost trained by the tiger; from time to time he dressed up and walked out of the palace, walked around and came back, and sometimes went to the theater to listen to the play... What does this look like an emperor's deeds?!
Ministers in high positions, with white hair, thought such moves were quite dangerous. From the perspective of the state, they gave the emperor a lot of advice, nothing more than to let him stay in the palace and not go out and make trouble. But Zhengde did not take these old men seriously, he still went his own way.
Of course, Zhengde has more "excessive" things, such as he is an emperor, does not like Wenzhi but indulges in dancing knives and guns all day, dreaming of becoming a general. Zhengde liked to train soldiers in the palace, and his favorites were also military generals. As for the government and integrity, he completely let go, he neither wanted to care nor had time to take care of it.
Since the emperor's several small fights caused conflicts with the ministers, the ministers repeatedly wrote to the emperor, and the emperor ignored them, the ministers gradually got used to this unruly emperor. I only hoped that this uncle would not make more radical moves, but soon they were disappointed.
In 1517, the little prince of Tatars invaded the border, and he had repeatedly invaded the borders of the Ming Dynasty. Zhengde was very excited, and he was ready to ride the imperial conquest to find a little fun in life and test the results of the military training.
The ministers were almost frightened to death by this decision, and they repeatedly dissuaded him, but the emperor used his incomparable power to get his party out of the customs smoothly, and ordered a eunuch to guard the pass, and did not want the courtiers to come out to him.
After leaving the pass and arriving at Xuanfu, Zhengde began to dispatch troops to prepare for battle with the Mongols. At this time, this elder brother created a great general for the first time, and he ordered zhu Shou, the governor of the military affairs and mighty general, to lead the sixth army, that is, to serve as the commander of this war. It is the "stage name" that the emperor gave himself! He also made himself the Duke of Zhenguo, and also set himself feng lu. This may have been a not-too-excessive joke he had made with his ministers.
Of course, jokes are jokes, and the battle still has to be fought. The emperor's personal conquest was naturally a great encouragement to the soldiers, and the Mongol and Ming armies fought fiercely in Shanxi, and a total of more than 100,000 troops on both sides participated in the battle. The fiercest battle lasted for a whole day, and there were many casualties on both sides.
It has to be said that this time Zhu Houzhao's personal conquest was still effective, and the Mongol army failed to break through the Ming army's defense line and had to withdraw. Until the death of the Zhengde Emperor, the Mongols did not launch a large-scale invasion, so it seems that the Zhengde Emperor completed this task excellently.
When the Zhengde Emperor returned to the dynasty after victory, the ministers did not seem to be happy about his victory, or they did not recognize the victory of the war at all. Instead, he advised the emperor not to go out and make trouble again, fighting a war is something that a military general has to do, and the emperor should not participate in it. This greatly displeased the emperor.
In 1519, the Zhengde Emperor again toured the south, this time he was more fiercely opposed, all the supervision officials jointly dissuaded, and even knelt outside the noon gate to ask the emperor for a reply, the emperor was furious, and used the court staff to beat the official's ass to calm the matter.
Of course, the dissuasion of the officials did not let the policy abandon the idea of the southern tour, he still went south, but le ji was sad that he unfortunately fell into the water during a play, although the rescue was timely, but it also caused him a lot of harm. He died within a few months of returning to Beijing.
Since he had no descendants and no younger brother, he had to let Zhu Houxi, the son of his father's younger brother, become emperor. It was for the Jiajing Emperor.
After reading Zhengde's life, let's briefly make an evaluation. In fact, the reason why the Zhengde Emperor was recorded in the history books was largely because what he did did not conform to the norms of an emperor and did not meet the expectations of his ministers.
Since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there has been no short time. All the rules and regulations have been basically fixed, and the Ming Empire only needs to operate according to its previous inertia.
In the eyes of the ministers, the Zhengde Emperor should live in the deep palace, hold the early dynasty every day, approve the chapters, handle the relationship with the ministers, and promulgate several policies that are beneficial to the people's livelihood from time to time. Like his weak father, that's it.
But Zhengde did not like this kind of restrained life, he wanted to develop his personality and pursue his hobbies. In other words, he didn't want to be emperor because the position was too restrictive.
Therefore, his life was a life of resistance to the ministers, to the ancestors to the law, and to various systems. Because of this kind of resistance, Zhengde may have done something that now seems strange and absurd, but from his own standpoint, these seem to meet his needs.
Therefore, Zhengde is not a good emperor, but he is also not a stupid boy who can only talk about it. There are considerable historical materials that can prove that Zhengde still has many excellent qualities, such as being very smart and good at fighting.
Zhengde also had his own ideals and had his own preferences, but this preference was not accepted by the ministers and did not conform to the daily norms of the emperor who had already been stereotyped. That's why he would be so ugly in the history books. In fact, Zhengde is also a bitter person.
We can't help but wonder why hundreds of years ago, Zhengde's northern tour of the south was accused by thousands of people, while hundreds of years later, Qianlong repeatedly went down to Jiangnan, but there was no great criticism?
Is it true that Zhengde was born a dark prince, and Qianlong was a real Ming emperor? I'm afraid not. And how long has our thinking been hijacked by this inertia of being a dimwitted monarch and a non-monarch?