Emperor Wuzong of Ming, Zhu Houzhao, era name Zhengde, was the tenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty. In history, Wuzong's reputation is very poor, almost synonymous with absurd tianzi. There are countless stories about his playfulness and indulgence. In addition, there are many doubts surrounding Wuzong, in addition to the mystery of his life, the biggest is the cause of his death.
(The Mystery of Emperor Wuzong's Lineage: Why Emperor Mingwuzong Zhu Houzhao was suspected not to be a member of the Zhu family's bloodline)
Meibu Sect Atsou Image
Regarding The death of Emperor Wuzong, most people's impression should be like this. In the fifteenth year of Zhengde, after Emperor Wuzong led a large army south to quell the rebellion of King Ning of Ding, he returned to Beijing and passed through Qingjiangpu. During the process of driving a boat, he accidentally fell into the water and soon became seriously ill. After returning to Kyoshi, he did not get better, and in March of the following year, he died in the leopard room.
Is it that Wu Zong's body is too weak to withstand the toss? Before Emperor Wuzong went south, he had just returned to Jingshi from Xuanfu on patrol. The Records of Emperor Mingwu records that:
Emperor Dongxi traveled fortunately, traveled thousands of miles, rode on horseback, bowed and arrowed, waded into dangers and obstacles, braved wind and snow, followed many diseases, and the emperor was tireless.
Judging from these records, Wuzong's body does not seem to be weak. Moreover, for a long time after Emperor Wuzong fell into the water, it gave people the impression that he did not have any major problems, and he seemed to be circumstantially testifying this.
The Records of Emperor Mingwuzong records that Emperor Mingwuzong set foot on September 15, 15, and arrived in Tianjin Wei on the sixth day of October. Emperor Wuzong stayed in Tianjin for ten days and then moved to Tongzhou. He stayed longer in Tongzhou and returned to Beijing on December 20.
If Emperor Wuzong fell seriously ill after falling into the water, did not hurry back to the palace for recuperation, and stayed on the outskirts of the Beijing Division for such a long time, what would he do? Why did he stay so long" and the "Ming Wuzong Shilu" give almost the same reason. Emperor Wuzong did not intend to return to Beijing, but was ready to lead his army to inspect Xuanda again.
The preachers all thought that Jiang Bin would invite Shangbei Xing again, so they wanted to quickly resolve this prison cloud. -- Records of Emperor Mingwu
Returning to Tongzhou, Shi JiangBin held the army around him, and Emperor Yan had already suffered a disaster, and urged Xingxuanfu to do so. -- History of the Ming Dynasty
The "prison" mentioned in the Records of Emperor Mingwu refers to the case of King Ning's rebellion. According to common sense, King Ning should be taken prisoner by Noon gate before disposing of him, but Emperor Wuzong suddenly executed him after taking him to Tongzhou. It is possible that he really does not plan to return to Beijing.
The Forbidden City's Noon Gate The victorious armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties held a captivity ceremony here
No matter what kind of consideration was planned for the northern tour, at least Emperor Wuzong himself felt that his physical condition at this time should be no big problem. Later, Emperor Wuzong was persuaded by the imperial physician Wu Jie (note this) and returned to Beijing on December 20 for recuperation.
On the day of Emperor Wuzong's return to Beijing, he also held a captive ceremony at zhengyang Gate, and his physical condition seemed to be good. But as already mentioned, the general sacrifice of prisoners is a grand ceremony at noon. The Ministry of Rites did draw up a formal sacrifice ceremony, but "the upper can be played, the value of The FuYu, the FuGuo line", why the Wuzong, who loves to be lively and playful, canceled, most likely the body does not allow it.
Shangrong took the Horse Li Zhengyang Gate and read for a long time. -- Records of Emperor Mingwu
After returning to Beijing, Wuzong's body began to appear abnormal. On December 23, emperor Wuzong suddenly fell ill and vomited blood during the Great Ancestral Heaven and Earth, and had to interrupt the ceremony to return to the palace (this corroborated wu jie's view was correct, as detailed later).
On the twenty-eighth day, Emperor Wuzong's health seemed to improve and he began to attend the imperial meeting. On the first day of the first lunar month of the sixteenth year of Zhengde, Emperor Wuzong also personally met with Empress Zhang and accepted the courtesy of his courtiers at the Fengtian Temple. However, there is a sentence in the record that "Shangli looks at the dynasty", which means that Emperor Wuzong may be holding on.
At this time, the Qunchen did not have much to worry about Wuzong's body, and the Criminal Department gave Gu Ji another advice to Wuzong, "The rest of the tricks of the obscene miscellaneous dramas, the bionic and depraved things, everything is screened." If this was not Wu Zong's indulgence knowing that the Great Limit was coming to the end, at least it could show that he felt that he was not in serious trouble.
On the seventh day of march, Emperor Wuzong issued an edict "To take the temple test on March 15." This order also once again corroborated that Wuzong at least felt good about himself, because the temple examination was a large ceremony that took a long time before and after.
However, the day before the temple test, Emperor Wuzong died in the leopard room. Many people look at The death process of Wuzong and feel that Wuzong died too suddenly, so they believe that he died of murder.
The first person to be suspected was Jiang Bin. The reason seems to be uncomplicated, after Wang Shouren put down the rebellion of King Ning, he searched the list of bribed courtiers recorded by King Ning himself in the palace of King Ning, which contained Jiang Bin's name. Jiang Bin, fearing that he would be implicated, decided to take the risk and poisoned and murdered Emperor Wuzong.
It sounds like that's the case, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
First of all, after the tumu fort change, the military attaché group has been suppressed and controlled by civilian officials (military attaches can no longer be commanders when the army goes out). Without Emperor Wuzong's favor and support, Jiang Bin was nothing in the eyes of the civilian officials. Not to mention fighting with the civil servants in the courtroom, not even having the qualifications to speak to the members of the imperial court.
The difference between the painting Chinese military officials is clear at a glance (the person with the back of the red suit is a eunuch of the supervising army)
Didn't Jiang Bin plot to kill Emperor Wuzong? It is also true that after the death of Emperor Wuzong, the powerful Jiang Bin was quickly captured and imprisoned by Yang Tinghe.
Secondly, before Emperor Wuzong's death, Jiang Bin had already been sent to Tongzhou by Yang Tinghe. If Jiang Bin really wanted to murder Emperor Wuzong, he would not choose to attack at this time. If he really took the risk of killing the king, he would at least have to pick his military power and do it when he was in the capital division. Because after killing the king, he could not take advantage of the situation to control the court, which was equivalent to suicide.
Finally, it is also a bit far-fetched to say that Jiang Bin was angry because of the bribery list. He was not the only one on that list, there were more than a hundred people, including Yang Tinghe. How many of these people have the intention of killing the king?
As for saying that Jiang Bin murdered Emperor Wuzong in order to gain greater power, this is even more unreasonable. His power and position came entirely from Emperor Wuzong, and if he really wanted more power, he had to at least ensure that Emperor Wuzong lived well.
The second person suspected was Yang Tinghe. His reasons for killing Junjun were much more sufficient than Jiang Bin's.
The biggest problem of the Wuzong dynasty was actually the serious confrontation between the emperor and the civilian clique. Emperor Wuzong was always dissatisfied with the erosion of imperial power by the civilian clique. Emperor Wuzong first used eunuchs such as Liu Jin to suppress civilian officials, and then followed Chengzu's example of using military generals and military power to suppress civilian officials.
Therefore, the clique of civilian officials led by Yang Tinghe was not willing to obey, so they poisoned and killed Emperor Wuzong. Professor Fu Xiaofan of Xiamen University has a wonderful discussion on this:
The sudden death of Emperor Zhu Houzhao caused the emperor to regain military power in the imperial court and his efforts to rebuild the power of the military generals were aborted. At the same time, Zhu Houzhao had no sons, and the power of the Yingli Foreign Domain was completely in the hands of Yang Tinghe, which would inevitably bring opportunities for the further expansion of the power of the civilian official clique. Therefore, the sudden death of Emperor Zhu Houzhao, the biggest beneficiary is the civilian official clique, of course, including Yang Ting and himself. Combining the above reasons, I think that Emperor Zhu Houzhao's fall into the water was just an accident, although Zhu Houzhao had a cold and fever, or suffered from acute pneumonia, but it provided an excellent opportunity for the civilian group represented by Yang Tinghe. Yang Tinghe first used the excuse of curing his illness to control the emperor's actions, and even put the emperor under house arrest. Then, at the behest of Yang Tinghe and after careful treatment by the Taiyi, the thirty-one-year-old emperor Zhu Houzhao finally died. Zhu Houzhao's death meant that the struggle for power between the emperor and the civilian official clique ended in the complete victory of the civilian clique.
It seems that the motivation is very good, but I feel that even if I had this idea, I would not implement it. Because he couldn't control the outcome of the killing.
First of all, Yang Tinghe had no right to appoint emperors. Taizu's "Imperial Ming Ancestral Training" has clear provisions for the heir to the throne: "The father dies and the son succeeds, the brother dies and the brother dies", and secondly, there is Empress Zhang in the palace, why should Empress Zhang be dictated by Yang Ting and Qiankun?
In fact, when Emperor Wuzong was critically ill, the imperial court was already very clear about who would succeed to the throne. In the end, Yang Tinghe and Empress Zhang's will also made this reason very clear.
Description: Here is a digression, a similar situation also occurred once at the end of the Ming Dynasty. After Chongzhen's martyrdom, his three sons also disappeared, and the Ming Dynasty once again faced the problem of the emperor's extinction. Originally, according to the patriarchal law, the son of King Fu (the son of Wanli's favorite concubine Zheng Guifei) ascended the throne, but the Donglin Party was reluctant at that time (because the country had been feuded that year). As a result, the "decision-making" incident came out, and in the end, the situation in the DPRK was chaotic, and the small court in Nanjing was destroyed on this issue. See: How Shi Kefa excavated a grave for Nanming's rapid death
Therefore, the new emperor would not recognize his merits, and the Jiajing Emperor himself never thought that the position of emperor was given to him by Yang Tinghe or Empress Zhang. He believed that according to the etiquette, the patriarchy, and the truth, he should be the emperor.
Emperor Xiaozong of The Emperor's brother, King Xingxian's eldest son Hou Xi, the wise and benevolent filial piety, the virtue instrument Su Cheng, and the Lunxu were the first. He has followed the ancestral precept "Brother and Brother and Brother" and told the Temple of Literature...
In the absence of a new emperor, how did Yang Tinghe know what the new emperor's attitude was toward the civil officials? Is the new emperor easier to deal with than Emperor Wuzong? Is it a gamble to use the lives of the whole clan (killing the king is a felony to exterminate the clan)?
In fact, there was no emperor in the Ming Dynasty who liked civilian officials (that is, Emperor Renzong was slightly better) and did not work against them. It's just that different emperors have different abilities and means of struggle.
In fact, Yang Tinghe was Emperor Wuzong's teacher, and the personal relationship between the two had always been quite good (Emperor Wuzong entrusted the government to Yang Tinghe when he went out on a tour). The new emperor has changed, and you don't need to say two things.
In fact, the Jiajing Emperor, who ascended the throne later, did the most important thing in the first few years to fight Yang Tinghe, and more importantly, the status of the civil officials of the Jiajing Dynasty was far inferior to that of the Wuzong Dynasty (Jiajing actually turned the civilian officials into his own slaves). Do you say that Yang Tinghe lifted a stone and smashed his own foot, or did he say that he killed the king and stood up separately, but the posterity gave him a hat that was forced to buckle?
In the end, Jiajing rectified the civilian-official clique to the extreme, and he was able to put a Li Fuda case on the line of continuous expansion. If Yang Tinghe (or other civil officials) really killed jun, would Jiajing let go of this opportunity?
So what was the reason for Emperor Wuzong's sudden illness? Someone found a clue in the Records of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming and the Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming.
In November of the fifteenth year of Hongzhi, Liu Jian, a member of the Cabinet University, said: "Since this winter, due to the medicine in the Eastern Palace, shangxiao sheng is worried, and it is better to play things late in a few days, and this has not been restored for two months. "Records of Emperor Ming Xiaozong"
That is to say, this winter, Zhu Houzhao fell ill and was treated for two months before getting better. In addition, in the second and fourth years of Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao fell ill in winter and only got better after many months. That is to say, Zhu Houzhao has a root cause due to his own physiological reasons and is very easy to recur in winter.
When Zhu Houzhao was crown prince, In order to take care of his body, Emperor Xiaozong specially ordered him to be exempted from receiving worship from his courtiers in winter. This also circumstantially proves that his body is prone to illness in winter.
Zhu Houzhao's falling into the water was only the trigger (it may be an infection or inflammation caused by choking on water in the lungs), and in the winter, his old problems were committed again. At that time, the reason why the imperial physician Wu Jie persuaded Wuzong to stay in the Capital Division was that "the disease is urgent, and it can only be returned to Ouchi".
Wu Jie's popular point of saying this is to quickly arrange the aftermath. This Wu Jie is not an ordinary imperial doctor, he has served Zhu Houzhao for a long time, it can be said that he knows Zhu Houzhao's body very well, and he can see that Zhu Houzhao's actual condition is much more serious than it seems on the surface. Zhu Houzhao also trusted him, otherwise He would not have listened to Wu Jie's advice to him to return to Beijing.
In addition to Wu Jie, another imperial physician, Lu Zhi, also gave the same conclusion. When he persuaded Emperor Wuzong, he even uttered the shocking words "I wish to appoint the crown prince and to ann guoben". Both Wu Jie and Lu Zhi were only imperial doctors, not cabinet scholars. Not to be fairly sure of their own diagnosis, they would not dare to say these taboo words.
Therefore, many people believe that Zhu Houzhao eventually developed a terminal illness because he had an incurable root cause. It was just that the way his illness showed in the last few months, coupled with the reasons why Zhu Houzhao was strongly supported, made some people who did not understand medical skills at that time mistakenly think that his condition was not serious.
Regarding whether Zhu Houzhao's physical foundation is good or not, some friends have given other circumstantial evidence. First, his younger brother (one year old) and younger sister (four years old) both died. Secondly, among the portraits of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Wuzong is the thinnest one.