In August 1399, Zhu Di, the King of Yan, accused Emperor Jianwen of violating his ancestral precepts and listening to rumors, and in the name of this, he launched a rebellion under the banner of "Qing Jun's side, Jingguo difficulty". After three years of the "Battle of Jingnan", Zhu Di defeated Emperor Jianwen and successfully seized the throne, becoming the third emperor in the history of the Ming Dynasty, known as the Yongle Emperor.
Zhu Di's abnormal way of ascending to the throne brought his lineage to the peak of the power of the Ming Dynasty, but at the same time it also played a very bad leading role, that is, to prove to the world that even if it was not the first emperor to appoint an heir, it could still seize imperial power by force.
Zhu Di had three sons, all of whom had participated in the Battle of Jingnan to varying degrees. After Zhu Di ascended the throne, the eldest Zhu Gaoxu was made crown prince, the second eldest Zhu Gaoxu was made the King of Han, and the third elder Zhu Gaoxuan was made the King of Zhao. Since ancient times, China has pursued the system of primogeniture, and Zhu Gaozi, Zhu Gaoxu, and Zhu Gaoxuan are all concubines, so according to the principle of orderly longevity and childhood, there is no problem for the eldest to become the legal heir to the throne. However, the second eldest, Zhu Gaoxu, believed that he had contributed the most and made the greatest contributions in the "Battle of Jing", and had also turned the tide on the battlefield many times. Now that the great cause has been accomplished, it is really difficult for him to convince him to let the boss pick up the ready-made cheap. More importantly, during the most difficult stage of the "Battle of Jing", Zhu Di personally said to Zhu Gaoxu: "Mian Zhi! The world is sick. "The implication is: work hard, your brother is not in good health, and he will have to rely on you to take over in the future." However, after Jiang Shan sat down, Zhu Di never mentioned the promise of that year, which made Zhu Gaoxu angry, but there was nothing he could do.
During Zhu Di's reign, Zhu Gaoxu behaved very disobediently. According to the ancestral system of the Ming Dynasty, adult princes had to go to the fiefdom to take the domain, but Zhu Gaoxu shirked it for various reasons and insisted on waiting for the opportunity in Nanjing. Zhu Di loved his son and felt that he really owed something to Zhu Gaoxu, so he always put up with it again and again.
In the fifteenth year of Yongle (1417), Zhu Gaoxu was furious because of his repeated violations of law and discipline. After the crown prince's intercession, Zhu Di finally decided to leave from the light, and Zhu Gaoxu set off for Le'an Prefecture (樂安州, in modern Huimin, Shandong) on the same day. Zhu Gaoxu left Nanjing with a grudge.
In the twenty-second year of Yongle (1424), Zhu Di died of illness, and the crown prince Zhu Gaozi succeeded to the throne, known as the Hongxi Emperor. When he learned of his father's death, Zhu Gaoxu immediately acted foolish and sent his henchmen to the Beijing Division to wait for the opportunity to rebel. However, although the Hongxi Emperor knew all this well, the benevolent emperor chose to reward the second and third brothers, hoping that they would take care of the brotherhood and turn back to the shore. Zhu Gaoxu was also afraid of the power of the Hongxi Emperor, so he had to hide his anger.
However, it also happened that Zhu Gaozi died of illness only eight months after becoming emperor, and his young son Zhu Zhanji succeeded to the throne as crown prince. At this time, the situation of the Ming Dynasty was the same as that of Jianwen in the first year: on the one hand, the new emperor Zhu Zhanji, who was only in his twenties; on the other hand, the battle-hardened and ambitious emperor's uncles Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Gaoxuan.
In the first year of Xuande (1426), Zhu Gaoxu accused the emperor of violating the rules set by the Yongle Emperor and the Hongxi Emperor and using people improperly. These reasons were almost identical to Zhu Di's rebuke of Emperor Jianwen. On September 2, Zhu Gaoxu officially rebelled in Le'an, intending to re-replicate the "Battle of Jingnan" of that year. However, Zhu Gaoxu guessed the beginning but did not guess the result. On 9 September, Zhu Zhanji decided to march on the imperial conquest. On the 21st, the veteran general Xue Lu led 20,000 forward troops to besiege Le'an. The rebels quickly disintegrated after only symbolic resistance, and Zhu Gaoxu was escorted to the capital after surrendering, and finally died of terrible torture.
Zhu Gaoxu made preparations for many years before he started the army, and he himself has been in the battlefield for a long time and has extremely rich military experience. Why was his father Zhu Di successful in his rebellion, but his rebellion was so miserable? In fact, the main reasons are as follows.
First, the Xuande Emperor Zhu Zhanji was more decisive than the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao. At the beginning of Zhu Di's army, the imperial court also sent a large army to encircle and suppress. Emperor Ke Jianwen was worried about the insult of killing his uncle, so he told the front-line generals to be captured alive, which was equivalent to giving Zhu Di a gold medal to avoid death, so that he could freely travel through the millions of troops, while the imperial army was thus tied up, so when Zhu Di was still a spark of stars, he failed to extinguish it, and eventually caused a burning trend. On the other hand, Zhu Zhanji did not have such a woman's benevolence, he was worried that the front-line generals would not be able to execute effectively, so he simply went to supervise the battle by himself, and from the very beginning he wanted to use the ultra-luxurious lineup to strangle his second uncle in the "cradle".
Second, lack of allies. At that time, Emperor Jianwen cut the clan and let everyone in the whole country endanger themselves, and Zhu Di's rebellion was equivalent to giving the clan kings a head, so he won the secret support of some clan kings, and Zhu Quan, the king of Ning, led all his men and horses to follow Zhu Di. When Zhu Gaoxu raised his army, only his own family was alone, and the only "ally" Zhu Gaoxu was still hesitating whether to work with his second brother, and before Zhu Gaoxu could understand, Zhu Gaoxu had already been laid down.
Third, the strength of the king of the clan is not as good as before. When Zhu Di raised an army, the kings of Zhu surnamed Zhu had their own personal guards all over the country, and the army of the King of Sai (the king of the Ming Dynasty who guarded the border plug) was particularly strong. By the time Zhu Gaoxu rebelled, the private guards of the kings of various regions had long been banned, and although Zhu Gaoxu himself had secretly saved up a considerable number of troops, this team was all untrained recruits, which could not be compared with Zhu Di's veterans of the Yan army who had experienced hundreds of battles. An army of this strength can compete with the entire imperial army, which is naturally a mantis arm as a car, and it will kill itself.
Fourth, the geographical location is not good. Zhu Di raised an army in Beiping, which was close to Guanwai at that time, and if the army was defeated, he could flee to Guanwai to join the Mongols. However, the location of Zhu Gaoxu's army was located in Shandong, just between Beijing and Nanjing, and the "two capitals" of the Ming Dynasty were stationed with most of the country's troops on weekdays, Zhu Gaoxu chose to raise troops in the middle of the "two capitals", and the imperial court did not need to arrange any tactics to make him fall into a heavy siege. This strategic position is not to say that it is zhu Gaoxu, even if his grandfather Zhu Yuanzhang and his father Zhu Di come to operate, it is impossible to turn over.
Therefore, from the perspective of the above four aspects, Zhu Gaoxu's military defeat was an ironclad matter. It is estimated that he wants to be crazy when the emperor wants to be mad, and he dares to rebel if he can't see such a disparity in strength. Power can lose a person's mind, and this is really the most appropriate word to apply to Zhu Gaoxu.