As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang is a famous grassroots emperor in history. Born poor, self-made, with no background power. Such a background led to distrust of his own strength. Because he did not have any family power behind Zhu Yuanzhang, he sat in this position completely by himself and a group of brothers.
These people are all high-ranking and powerful, and no one can keep them together, and one day they will not create a rebellion against Zhu Yuanzhang. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Jinyi Guard to closely monitor the courtiers. Of course, this is not enough, Zhu Yuanzhang, as the founding prince of the country, his merit is higher than the sky, so in fact, he is not too afraid of them. However, Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that after his death, the old Zhu family would have no backing, and those high-ranking ministers might overthrow the emperor at any time.
Therefore, at the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang began to learn from Liu Bang, and wantonly divided the princes of various surnames, and then divided these princes into various places to defend the imperial family. Ming Taizu created twenty-six kings throughout the country, including his twenty-fifth son (the twenty-sixth son Zhu Nan, who was not crowned king), and his nephew Zhu Shouqian. However, the premise is that they are all in the fiefdom for me, and they are not allowed to enter the capital blindly.
According to the Ming Dynasty, "In the beginning, Taizu greatly sealed Zong Zhen, so that all the worlds ate the age of Lu, did not give office and appointment, and had a great friendship with relatives. ”
They had private soldiers, land properties, years of lu, and even inquired about local affairs around the territory, so it shows that the power of the princes in the early days of the dynasty was very large. In particular, the king of the Border Domain, like Zhu Di, the King of Yan, had to fight against the Mongols and guard the frontier. Their power is often greater, and their private soldiers can even exceed 10,000.
The king of the Ming Dynasty generally lives in his own royal palace in the local area, the palace of the Ming Dynasty is not the same as that of the Qing Dynasty, the royal palace of the Qing Dynasty is generally a mansion, and the royal palace of the Ming Dynasty is not a "house", but a "city within the city", the king of the clan will generally build a royal city when he arrives at the local level, and the Ming Dynasty law "Daming Huidian" stipulates that the prince's royal city, the height of the city wall is two feet nine feet (nearly 10 meters), and the circumference of the royal city is three miles (1.5 kilometers).
Kaifeng Zhou Wangfu and Beiping Yan Wangfu were built on top of the Song Jin Forbidden City and the Yuan Capital, Kaifeng Fucheng On Tuesday Eighteen Li, Zhou Wangcheng Zhou Hui Jiuli, Miyagi Zhou Hui WuLi, Wangcheng and Miyagi were equivalent to the size of Luoyang County, Henan Province, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the size of ordinary county towns of the ming and qing dynasties.
Therefore, the royal city of the Ming Dynasty king was a city within a city and a country within a country, not a courtyard or a villa with a large garden.
For example, the Palace of the Qin Dynasty is in Xi'an, and the Palace of the Jin Dynasty is in Taiyuan, and their royal city in Xi'an and Taiyuan is their direct territory, and they can issue orders in their own royal city, and the local officials cannot control him.
Their power is so great that it can be directly related to the appointment of each local official, and in the Zhu Yuanzhang era, in order to increase the power of the king of the domain at the local level, it was generally necessary to let the subordinate officials of the royal palace concurrently serve as important local officials, such as the left minister of the Qin Dynasty who concurrently participated in the government of Shaanxi Province (vice governor of Shaanxi Province), the left minister of the Jin Dynasty who concurrently participated in the government of Shanxi Province (vice governor of Shanxi Province), and the left fu of the Jin Dynasty also served as the commander of Taiyuan Wei. In this way, the local military and political officials are basically subordinate officials of the royal palace, and the king of the clan is their natural leader.
Taking Zhu Yuanzhang's second son, Zhu Zhu, the King of Qin, as an example, there were more than 40,000 soldiers and horses guarding the Qin King's palace, this force was completely obedient to the Qin King, not subject to the control of others, in the face of war, all the soldiers and horses in Shaanxi Border Plug were all under the control of the Qin King, obeying the command of the Qin King, at the same time, the subordinate officials of the Qin King's Palace also served as local commanders or envoys, except for the emperor, no official dared to challenge the authority of the Qin King, and the founding prince was also unable to do anything.
Therefore, the princes in the early Ming Dynasty had great power.
However, the relationship between the ming dynasty feudal lords and local officials was different in different eras. After experiencing the two dynasties of Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di, the power of the Ming princes was greatly reduced.
Because the king of the clan supported the self-esteem of the army, he was too independent and threatened the central government. Therefore, after Emperor Jianwen succeeded to the throne, he began to consider dealing with his uncles, Zhu Xu the King of Zhou, Zhu Gui the Dai Wang, Zhu Bai the Prince of Xiang, Zhu Yu the King of Qi, and Zhu Yu the Prince of Min, who were deposed within a year.
In order to protect himself, Zhu Di, the King of Yan, launched the Battle of Jingnan and replaced it. And Zhu Di himself started by rebellion, and he naturally understood better than any other what the consequences would be if the king of the clan had too much power.
Therefore, after Zhu Di ascended to the throne, in order to avoid his own phenomenon being imitated by future generations, he began to continue to cut the domain.
Since then, the power of the Ming princes has been greatly weakened. In the appointment of local officials, the Ming dynasty royal family will directly appoint them, and the Ming dynasty princes can no longer interfere. The ming princes could not go directly to the capital without the summons of the Son of Heaven. Even if his birth mother died in the palace, the Ming dynasty princes could only make sacrifices in the fiefdom. Even if you are allowed to go to the capital to pay homage, you cannot enter the interior of the capital.
Especially after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, although the king of the domain had a high status, he did not have the power to direct the prefect of the city, the envoy of the province and other local officials to do things, such as Zhu Youqi (son of Ming Xianzong and brother of Ming Xiaozong) whose fief was in Baoning Province (Langzhong, Sichuan), once because the governor of Baoning beat his subordinate officials, he was very angry, so he let his changshi take his own princely order to go to Sichuan to inspect Yamen, and ordered the governor of Sichuan to dismiss the governor of Baoning and investigate. As a result, the Governor of Sichuan did not listen to him at all, and reported the matter to the imperial court, and Emperor Xiaozong of Ming ordered that changshi should not obey the "chaotic orders" of the king of the clan, and if the order of the king of the clan was wrong, he should be dissuaded, and if the governor of the clan was to carry out the chaotic orders of the king of the clan, interfere with the local administration, and allow the governors of the provinces to punish Changshi.
Although the princes no longer had supreme power, their noble status made it difficult for local officials to easily provoke. The princes still had power in the palace, but they could not command local officials at will, and if they found that the princes had illegal things, the local officials could only report to the imperial court and had no right to dispose of them.
In other words, the king of the clan has no right to direct the local officials to do things, but the local officials also have no right to control the king of the clan, especially the royal city, which is the country within the kingdom of the kings of the clan, and what the kings of the clan do in the royal city, the magistrate has no right to ask. Even if the king of the clan violated the law and discipline at the local level, the local officials could not deal with it directly, but could only report the situation to the imperial court and wait for the court to deal with it.
"There are ming and all the treasures, divided and sealed but not tin soil, knights but not the people, food and lu but not governance" - "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty"
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty princes actually experienced a turning point in the series of processes from the very beginning of having real power to finally being deprived of their rights.
The Ming Dynasty prince, who had nothing to do, had to idle at home. Seeing nothing to do all day, the Ming Dynasty prince later found a great pleasure, that is, he kept marrying his wife and having children at home. If a Ming dynasty prince had more children, then he would be able to get a large amount of money to raise children.
According to the "Emperor Ming Event", only sons gave birth to more than a hundred, as for the number of daughters, there is no statistics, it is estimated that there are no more than a hundred people, so that the brothers and sisters of the royal palace party do not know each other, which is also a big strange news.
Of course, it doesn't matter how much you have, anyway, there is a court to raise.
The descendants of the Zhu clan all have titles, except for the heirs to the throne, the rest of the princes are all crowned princes, that is, the one-word kings that we are familiar with, such as the King of Qin, the King of Yan, and the King of Lu. Except for the heirs of the princes, the rest of the princes were all crowned as county kings, such as xiangcheng wang, huaiyin king, etc., which were distinguished by two character kings. The King of Jingjiang was a special case, and was granted the title of Prince of Jingjiang. By analogy, under the county king there are also Zhenguo generals, auxiliary generals, Fengguo generals, Zhenguo lieutenants, auxiliary lieutenants, and Fengguo lieutenants. Lieutenant Fengguo is also the lowest in the title, but the sons of Lieutenant Fengguo are all hereditary, regardless of concubines, that is to say, as long as they are descendants of the Zhu clan, at least they are also a Lieutenant of Fengguo, and food and clothing are the most basic guarantees.
The prince has 10,000 stones a year, and the king of the county has 2,000 stones, which is the lowest Fengguo lieutenant who has about 200 stones per year.
We all know that the low of the Ming Dynasty's Feng Lu almost created the highest in all the dynasties, even if the official to a pin, the annual Feng Lu is only about 1,000 stones, if it is a Seven Pin County Order, only 90 stones per year of the Feng Lu, not to mention rich, is that the family can not afford to raise, but Zhu Yuanzhang for his own descendants is to do the best of benevolence.
This is the so-called "national nutrition pig system" of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang originally wanted to settle the jiangshan that Zhu Yuanzhang had worked so hard to lay down once and for all, so that his descendants would no longer suffer from the crisis of not being hungry, and he stipulated that all the descendants of the Zhu clan would not have to pay grain as errands, that is, as soon as they were born, they would all be supported by the state finances, and they would not have to work hard, and they would be able to live a lifetime without worrying about food and clothing.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants were like explosive fission, according to Qing estimates, in the early years of Chongzhen, zhu's descendants had exceeded the 2 million mark, the huge financial burden coupled with the arrogance and extravagance of the nobles, making the people overwhelmed, it can be said that the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty all over the princes contributed indelible "merit".
This was an important reason for the outbreak of the peasant army uprising in full swing in the late Ming Dynasty.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, in view of the Ming Dynasty's huge and bloated feudal king system, all the princes were left in the capital, except for the iron hat king who had made great contributions, the rest of the titles were also reduced in turn, so that the state treasury no longer had such a big burden, which can be regarded as the most effective dynasty in the entire feudal dynasty to deal with the problem of the king of the domain.