It is certain that before Zhu Di became emperor, his fertility was absolutely no problem, if there was a problem, he would not have Zhu Gaozi, Zhu Gaoxu, Zhu Gaoxuan's three sons, and he would not give birth to four sons Zhu Gaoxu at the age of 32, and the birth of four sons was enough to prove that Zhu Di's fertility was absolutely normal in the early days.
However, with Zhu Di's ascension to the throne, something puzzling appeared, that is, Zhu Di never gave birth to a son, not even a daughter. This makes people very confused, it is reasonable to say that Zhu Di still has the ability to have children at the age of 32, indicating that his fertility should be no problem, but why did Zhu Di never have a son to give birth to as soon as he ascended the throne until he died? What is the reason for this?
First of all, from our current point of view, there are only two possibilities for the birth of no heirs, one is not to be born, and the other is not to be born. Inability to give birth is naturally the loss of fertility, infertility is not a rare thing in today's society, or due to excessive indulgence, or because of overwork, or because of man-made, non-human harm, or because of congenitality, or because of acquired, in short, infertility is a common thing in today's society.
And the problem of not wanting to have children, in the current society is also very common, due to the increase in the pressure of life, some people may not be able to keep up with the development speed of society, or are accustomed to the life of two people, so they do not want to have children, only willing to do a dink, in order not to have children, they will use a variety of contraceptive measures.
Then, after Zhu Di became emperor, he was born without heirs, is it one of the above two reasons?
First of all, there is no record of Zhu Di's infertility in Chinese history books, the only visible one is in the book "Records of the Lee Dynasty" compiled by the Joseon Dynasty, in which the Korean historian records this: "And concubines, falsely accused lü clan of poison in chajinzhi, emperor fury, The Lü clan and hundreds of palace eunuchs. After Jia Lu and the palace mermaid clan eunuchs, the emperor was quite aware, but the two did not send hair, and the two feared hanging themselves. Emperor Fury, Jia Lu, jia lu servants, all falsely obeyed the clouds: "Want to do rebellion" All 2,800 people who sat in succession came to shave it. Or there is a face to criticize the emperor: "My own family is in decline, so the people of the private young temple, why blame them?" ”。
It is said that after Zhu Di returned from the northern expedition to Mongolia, he found that his favorite concubine Quan had been killed, and then Jia Lu framed Lü Shi for poisoning and killing Quan Fei, Zhu Di was furious, and he cursed The Lü clan and more than a hundred palace people. After that, Jia Lu had an adulterous affair with the Palace Mermaid Clan and was detected by Zhu Di, but Zhu Di was very fond of the two of them, so he kept it hidden, but when Jia Lu and yu Clan learned about it, they were very afraid and soon hanged themselves. After that, Zhu Di was angry with others because of the death of Jia Lu and Yu Shi, and more than a thousand people were implicated, in order to relieve the hatred in his heart, Zhu Di slashed them with a thousand knives, and had to personally observe each execution. And on one occasion, a palace maid said, "Whoever called you useless forced us to have an affair with a eunuch is not our fault at all."
From this record, we can clearly see that Zhu Di has a physiological problem, and it is likely that he is not a problem. It is for this reason that when Jia Lu and Yu Shi had an affair with the eunuch, Zhu Di found out but did not pursue it, because he knew that he could not do it.
Of course, the record in the "Records of the Li Dynasty" is only an isolated evidence, except for the record of Zhu Di's physiological diseases here, other historical books have no record, so whether Zhu Di did not lift in the end, it is difficult for us to accurately give a conclusion now, of course, this record at least gives us a direction to verify why Zhu Di was childless after he ascended the throne, perhaps it is really because Zhu Di had this problem of not lifting after he ascended the throne, and he will be childless after that.
Secondly, Zhu Di may not have any problem with infertility, just because he simply does not want to have children. We all know that Zhu Di is one of the few emperors in history who is known as an emperor on horseback, and half of his life was spent in war, even after he ascended the throne, there was no change, and the Five Dynasties of Mongolia spent the second half of Zhu Di's ascension to the throne until he finally died of illness on the way back from the Northern Expedition. Therefore, for Zhu Di, perhaps he really has the idea of not wanting to have another heir, after all, he already has heirs, even grandsons, in his opinion, his son Zhu Gaozi and his grandson Zhu Zhanji are all a generation of Ming Lords in the future, so Daming has at least two generations of worry, so he has no need to make a baby, and then find trouble for his son and grandson. Therefore, he devoted all his energy to the action of governing Daming, and he gave everything to make Daming strong and prosperous, and for the north of Yongzhen.
However, perhaps Zhu Di is childless, there is another way of saying, first explain in advance, this explanation is completely my own imagination, let's take a look. Personal speculation, the reason why Zhu Di was childless later, this may be the punishment given to him by heaven, we all know that after Zhu Di ascended the throne, although he was a clear lord, he was also a tyrant, after the Battle of Jingnan, in order to consolidate his rule, he killed tens of thousands of ministers and his family members loyal to Emperor Jianwen, including the killing of Fang Xiaoru and the ten clans, it can be said that he killed innocents like this, it is really harmful to Tianhe. Therefore, perhaps it was Zhu Di who was so cruel that he finally angered the heavens, and in order to punish him, the heavens and let him be born without any more children, and also made his son Zhu Gaozi and grandson Zhu Zhanji a short-lived person.
Of course, the above statement is just a personal groundless speculation, you can just look at it, there is no need to take it seriously.