In 1399, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, led his army south, crossed the Yellow River, occupied Nanjing, overthrew the rule of Zhu Yunwen, the then Jianwen Emperor, and successfully proclaimed himself emperor. On his way to raise his army, he once passed through a small town, which was very important as a transportation artery when he led his army south. After Zhu Di successfully ascended the throne, in order to commemorate his ascension to the throne, he named this strategic place he passed through, but he did not expect that this town has become an international metropolis today.
Legendary Emperor - Ming Chengzu Zhu Di
When it comes to Zhu Di, the legendary emperor, we generally think of the title of "Yongle Emperor", however, in fact, his throne came by usurpation. When describing Zhu Di's life, we have to first understand his father who opened up the Ming Dynasty - Zhu Yuanzhang, because Zhu Di was influenced a lot by his legendary father.
Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but his background was very poor. During the turbulent war years at that time, Zhu Yuanzhang did not even have land to bury his relatives when they died, so he could only borrow a piece of land from a neighbor's house to bury his relatives. After that, he chose to become a monk, but at that time, even monks could not make a normal living. So he was sent to wander around and live a wandering life. When he was twenty-five years old, he was invited by his childhood friend Tang He to join Guo Zixing's rebel army.
Because of his outstanding ability, he soon won Guo Zixing's trust and reuse, after that, he recruited troops while attacking the city and plundering the land, and recruited talents from all over the world, and listened to the strategy of his advisers "building high walls, accumulating grain, and slowly becoming king", and he was strict with his soldiers, and understood the people's hearts, for a time, Zhu Yuanzhang was very loved, and his troops became very strong. After capturing Yingtian, he eliminated Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and others, and waved the Northern Expedition, finally overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and opening up the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang's reign is known in history as the rule of Hongwu, and under his rule, the national strength recovered rapidly, and the society gradually stabilized. But Zhu Yuanzhang's later years can be described as very bleak, because he is the emperor of the first generation of the Ming Dynasty, his subordinates have made great contributions to the development of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang is afraid that these subordinates will not be able to control after his death, and he hates the corruption in the court, so he went on a killing spree, killing batch after batch of heroes.
As for the appointment of the next emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang is very optimistic about his eldest son Zhu Biao, Zhu Biao is not only capable, but also very benevolent and generous, with prestige, and he is Zhu Yuanzhang's wife, that is, the child of Queen Ma. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to pave the way for Zhu Biao in his later years, which was also one of the reasons why he got rid of a large number of heroes, for fear that Zhu Biao's benevolence would not be able to control these arrogant soldiers.
But unfortunately, Zhu Biao died young, Zhu Yuanzhang was also very sad, seeing that Zhu Biao's son was very filial, Zhu Yuanzhang made him the emperor's grandson, inheriting the Ming Dynasty he built. But Zhu Yunwen only reigned for four years before he was seized the throne by his uncle Zhu Di.
Zhu Yuanzhang actually attaches great importance to his sons, Zhu Di, as Zhu Yuanzhang's fourth son, naturally also received the education of his father Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang let them study more, and trained them with a hard environment when they were young. And not long after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the system of vassal kings was opened, and several sons were named vassal kings, and Zhu Di was named the king of Yan, guarding Yanjing, an important town of the Ming Dynasty. Although Zhu Yuanzhang knew that the vassal system was flawed, he still chose to believe that his sons could protect the royal family.
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang married his own founding father, who later called him the daughter of Xu Da, the first hero of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, to Zhu Di, which shows that Zhu Yuanzhang actually has high hopes for Zhu Di. And Zhu Di did not live up to this expectation, he was diligent and fruitful after going to the domain, and humbly asked his father-in-law Xu Da for military strategy, as a legendary general who followed Zhu Yuanzhang to fight in the world for half his life, Xu Da's ability is naturally undoubted, and Zhu Di has learned a lot from it.
So, since Zhu Di is so valued by Zhu Yuanzhang, why didn't he become his heir to the throne? The main reason is that Zhu Yuanzhang attaches great importance to his eldest son Zhu Biao, after all, Zhu Biao has outstanding ability, and is in line with the identity of his eldest son, and is the child of his wife Queen Ma, it can be said that Zhu Yuanzhang pinned all his hopes on him when Zhu Biao was still alive.
So after Zhu Biao's death, did Zhu Yuanzhang consider Zhu Di to inherit his throne? In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di has been recorded in historical materials:
Twenty-five years of summer and April, the crown prince. The emperor's grandson was born with a slightly biased forehead, is sexually intelligent, good at reading, and is benevolent and soft. Every time Taizu gives poems, he doesn't like it. One day, the order is right, and it is not worthy of the purpose; Returning to the king of Yan, the language is good. Taizu often intends to be easy to store, Liu Sanwu said: "If so, where are the two kings of Qin and Jin?" "Taizu is stopped.
This is the record in the "Ming History Chronicle, Volume 16", which means that after the death of the crown prince Zhu Biao, although the crown prince Zhu Yunwen was very smart and liked to read, his character was too indecisive, and Zhu Yuanzhang was not satisfied with many of his answers every time he asked Zhu Yunwen to answer. One day, he asked Zhu Yunwen to answer again, but he was still not satisfied, and then he asked Zhu Di, the king of Yan, to answer, and the answer was even more satisfactory to him. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang actually has the intention of replacing the prince. But Liu Sanwu said to Zhu Yuanzhang: If you set up King Yan as the heir to the throne, where will you put the King of Qin and the King of Jin? Then Zhu Yuanzhang dispelled this idea.
Liu Sanwu was a minister of the Ming Dynasty and a literary scholar. His suggestion to Zhu Yuanzhang means that the King of Qin and the King of Jin, as the elder brothers of King Yan, have been established since ancient times to consider the order of the heirs, and if the fourth Zhu Di is the emperor, it is not in accordance with the rules. Zhu Yuanzhang felt that this made a lot of sense, so he continued to pave the way for Zhu Yunwen's future. Before Zhu Yuanzhang died, he asked Zhu Di to assist Zhu Yunwen well, and Zhu Di was also very in awe of his father, so it is speculated that Zhu Di should have no intention of usurping the throne at that time.
The Battle of Jingjing - Zhu Di's path to the throne
Zhu Di's usurpation journey also began with Zhu Yunwen's policy of cutting the feudal domain. After Zhu Yunwen took office, he felt that the power of several vassal kings was too great, which posed a threat to him. Although these vassal kings were his uncles, as emperor he had to think about his own imperial power.
In the process of cutting the domain, the fate of several vassal kings was very miserable, Zhu Di saw this situation and began to prepare for the rebellion, when the cutting of the domain was almost carried out, Zhu Di was also ready. In fact, he was actually very worried about the failure of his army, because the side of the "Qing monarch" in history often did not end well, at this time his subordinate strategist Yao Guangxiao stood up for Zhu Di's plan, and expressed great support for Zhu Di, in the historical material "Ming History, Yao Guangxiao Biography" has recorded such a paragraph:
Cheng Zu said: "The people's hearts are to them, what can I do? Dao Yan said: "The minister knows the way of heaven, so what about the people's heart." ”
It means that Zhu Di is on the side of the Heavenly Dao, and he doesn't need to care about the people's hearts. In the end, Zhu Di did it. Because Zhu Di is very decisive in decision-making, in contrast, Zhu Yunwen is very immature, and many of the decisions he makes are wrong, and because Zhu Yuanzhang killed a large number of heroes in his later years, including many generals with outstanding military achievements, the generals in Zhu Yunwen's court did not have the ability to be very outstanding and could fight against Zhu Di's generals. In the end, after four years, Zhu Di won the battle for the throne.
The rise of Tianjin, an international metropolis
As a military location of Zhu Di in the process of seizing the throne, Haijin Town played a very important strategic role before the Ming Dynasty, during the construction of the canal in the Sui Dynasty, and during the reign of the Song Dynasty. The former is where the canal needs to be built, and the latter is a strategic point on the front line. One of the important reasons why Zhu Di changed "Haijin" to Tianjin is to commemorate his success in seizing the throne, and "Haijin" to "Tianjin" means that he is destined to return. Zhu Di not only paid great attention to the naming, but also sent troops to garrison this important place, treating him as a barrier to the imperial city.
From the perspective of our later generations, Tianjin is actually very suitable for trade development due to its port and convenient maritime transportation, but at that time, the Ming Dynasty did not attach importance to overseas exploration and trade, and the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang did not even allow the people to go to the sea to trade. The scale of trade was greatly controlled. This is actually one of the policies of closing the country to the outside world. However, due to the limited exploration of the world at that time and the limitations of the times, the Ming Dynasty also did this for a reason.
In modern times, the mainland attaches more and more importance to maritime trade and transportation, but it is too late when the Qing Dynasty wants to develop maritime power, because the development of foreign powers has far surpassed ours, although the Westernization movement in the late Qing Dynasty is the temporary life of the mainland's maritime power, but the First Sino-Japanese War destroyed the mainland's maritime power again, it is worth mentioning that when developing foreign affairs, Tianjin is the residence of the governor of Zhili, and the status is very high. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Tianjin fell, and it was not until the end of the Anti-Japanese War that Tianjin was recovered by the mainland.
It can be seen from this that externally, Tianjin is the bridgehead of the naval war, and internally, it is the only way for the mainland's strategic points, reaching Beijing up and Jiangnan below. According to statistics, in 2023, Tianjin's GDP will increase by 4.3% compared with last year, and the primary, secondary and tertiary industries will all show a growth trend. The development of emerging industries has not been left behind, and high-tech industries such as new energy vehicles and intelligent robots are also in full swing.
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