The Thirteen Ming Tombs, a famous tourist attraction in Beijing.
In 2010, I traveled with a group to Beijing, also to the Thirteen Tombs to play a card, but also in the scenic area to buy a folding fan printed with the emperors of the Ming Dynasty. But spread out a look, suddenly emerged a mathematical problem:.
There were 16 emperors before and after the Ming Dynasty, how come there were only 13 tombs? The numbers don't add up!
Before explaining the above, let's correct the name of the 13 Ming Tombs. To be more strict, the Ming Tombs should be called "Ming Beijing Thirteen Tombs".
The word "Beijing" was added because the capital of the Ming Dynasty was not originally located in Beijing.
In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang became the emperor and established the Ming Dynasty, with the capital temporarily set in Nanjing, the capital of the Six Dynasties. Why is "tentative"? Because although Zhu Yuanzhang was in Nanjing, he was always thinking of moving the capital to other places.
Zhu Yuanzhang's initial vision on the capital of the country was to return home with his clothes on. In the second year of his accession to the throne, he sent his chief minister, Li Shanchang, to his hometown of Fengyang, Anhui Province, to build the capital city.
But Fengyang, there is really no economic development potential. Otherwise, the year Zhu Yuanzhang will not starve to death, forcing him to mix a meal, the head on the waistband of the pants rebellion.
Another layer is to consider that the founding fathers are basically Huaixi hometown, fixed capital Fengyang, will only make the power of the founding fathers more solid. At that time, the meritorious courtiers threaten the power of the emperor, has been the first signs, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally do not want to intensify the momentum.
Since Fengyang can not, then pick other cities, such as the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty Bianliang, the Tang Dynasty imperial capital Chang'an, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty Luoyang.
But with the passing of Crown Prince Zhu Biao, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was already in his later years, was anxious to build a new team for the Imperial Grandson, Zhu Yunhuang, to pave the way and build a bridge to move the capital, and it was put on hold. This shelving, the early Ming Dynasty's capital, retained in Nanjing.
The capital is in Nanjing, the imperial tomb must not be too far away.
From the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the construction of the imperial mausoleum at the southern foot of Purple Mountain, under the Dulongfu Playju Peak. The following year, Queen Ma died and was buried in the imperial tomb. Since the posthumous name of Empress Ma was "filial piety", the imperial tomb was called "filial tomb".
In the thirty-first year of Hongwu (1398), Zhu Yuanzhang died, and the underground palace of the Xiaoling Tomb was opened, in which the emperor and the empress were buried together.
Therefore, Ming Xiaoling is the first imperial tomb of the Ming Dynasty, which is not in Beijing but in Nanjing.
After the death of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor's grandson, Zhu Yunhuang, assumed the throne, that is, the unlucky and miserable Jianwen Emperor.
In order to solve the problem of the tail of the vassal kings, Zhu Yunhuang introduced the decree of cutting the vassal. But in the process of implementation, the methods were too aggressive. In just a few months, King Zhu of Zhou, King Zhu of Qi, King Zhu of Xiang, King Zhu of Dai and King Zhu of Min were abolished as commoners. The worst of all was King Zhu Bo of Xiang, whose family burned itself to death.
He was about to have his power withdrawn, and even his empty head of clan establishment and economic treatment would be deprived, and he might even lose his life.
Thinking of this, the king of Yan, Zhu Di simply against the hell, fighting more than 3 years of war, surprisingly unprecedented reversal of success!
The only downside is that when Nanjing was captured, the whereabouts of Zhu Yunhuang were unknown. For the rest of his life, Zhu Di was worried about when his nephew would suddenly emerge.
However, after all, Zhu is a politician, are you not playing missing? The first thing you need to do is to get the best out of it. I will give you an "official sentence of death". He found two scorched bodies from the ashes of the palace fire and decided that they were the Jianwen Emperor and his wife.
In order to show the legitimacy of his rebellion, Zhu Di erased the identity of the emperor of Zhu Yunhuang again, hard after the thirty-first year of Hongwu, allowing Zhu Yuanzhang to become emperor for another four years.
As a result, Emperor Jianwen, Zhu Yunhuang, became the first Ming emperor without an imperial tomb.
As mentioned earlier, the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen were unknown and had been a piece of Zhu Di's mind. After he became the emperor, his heart had been unsettled.
For one thing, Zhu Di is a vassal king of the basic plate, relying on the rebellion to the throne, and thus very worried about other vassal kings to follow suit. For this reason, he also engaged in cutting the clan, the king of all the internal relocation to open the "foster Zhu mode", but also left the side effects of the northern border unguarded.
The second is that Zhu Di got the position of the name is not right, Nanjing is, after all, the base of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Yunhuang, live here, always let him some distracted, lack of security.
Eventually, he made an important decision - to move the capital to Beijing.
The former name of Beijing was Beiping, which was Zhu Di's fiefdom when he was a vassal, and he was quite familiar with it inside and out, and the civil and military officials were all personally trained by him.
This, coupled with the loud slogan "The Son of Heaven guards the gates of the country", would give the capital a lofty reason to move and would also give the Mongols on the northern border a sense of shock.
The capital of the country to Beijing, of course, after the death of the emperor can not be sent back thousands of miles to Nanjing for burial. So Zhu Di chose the address for his own tomb at the southern foot of the main peak of Tianshou Mountain, and this is the first of the Thirteen Tombs - the "Changling".
Afterwards, Emperor Renzong Zhu Gaochi's Xianling and Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji's Jingling were built in the vicinity of Changling, and the Ming imperial tombs in Beijing gradually took shape.
After Zhu Zhanji, Ming Emperor Yingzong Zhu Qizhen took the throne.
But this bear child, really is not a worrying master. He reused the eunuch Wang Zhen, making the unity within the Ming court very problematic. And he also worshipped his grandfather Zhu Di, who went on five expeditions to Mongolia, and the imperial court personally conquered Walla, resulting in a battle off 500,000 Ming troops, and even he himself tied a meat ticket to the Walla people.
Fortunately, the Ming court's response was quick, and with the help of Yu Qian and other ministers, the supervising king Zhu Qi Yu was crowned emperor, and in the ensuing battle to defend Beijing, the soldiers of the Wataras, who were on the verge of the city, were pushed back.
Seeing that the emperor's captives were useless, the Walars were furious and did not want to return empty-handed, so they agreed to the Ming Dynasty's request to redeem Zhu Qi Zhen in exchange for gold and silver.
But after Zhu Qizhen returned to the court, the situation became very awkward.
It is reasonable to say that Zhu Qi Yu is only an agent of the emperor, but the young man has done a really good job, much better than the disgraced brother. All aspects of a total, Zhu Qiyu continue to be the emperor, but the crown prince to establish Zhu Qizhen's son Zhu Mianshen.
But over time, when the emperor tasted the sweetness of Zhu Qi Yu, the set of succession plan, a little unhappy. For this reason, he has done a number of things out of the ordinary.
One is the brother Zhu Qi Zhen house arrest in the South Palace, the door locked, on the chain of holes are filled with lead juice to death.
The second is to depose the original crown prince Zhu Mianshen and replace him with his only son Zhu Mizi as his successor.
It is a pity that man's calculation is not as good as God's calculation, Zhu Qiji did not have the emperor's life, he gave an untimely death. Zhu Qi Yu is naturally resigned, riveted to engage in the male "Zhu" breeding, the results of the whole whole to go, the son did not create, but to make the body empty a sickness.
This illness, which provided an opportunity for several conspirators. The general Shi Heng secretly contacted the eunuch Cao auspicious, the left deputy imperial historian Xu Youzhen and others to launch a mutiny to seize the door and support Zhu Qi Zhen to regain the throne.
And half-dead Zhu Qi Yu, was deposed as the king of the Xia, a month after a bleak death.
As Zhu Qiyu previously engaged in action too much, re-flipped Zhu Qizhen, but also nonchalant. He ordered the demolition of Zhu Qiyu built life, only to be buried in the west of the mountain with the Prince's rite, and also gave his brother a bad posthumous "hostile".
In this way, Zhu Qi Yu became the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty without an imperial tomb.
As for Zhu Qizhen, his tomb is the fourth of the Thirteen Tombs - the Yu Tomb.
The next two are Emperor Xianzong's Maoling, Emperor Xiaozong's Tailing, Emperor Wuzong's Kangling, Emperor Shizong's Yongling, Emperor Muzong's Zhaoling, Emperor Shenzong's Dingling, Emperor Guangzong's Qingling, and Emperor XiZong's DeLing.
Finally, it was the turn of the late emperor Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Yuqian.
In 1644, Li Zicheng broke into Beijing and Chongzhen hanged himself under an old crooked tree on Coal Hill. The Da Shun army left the bodies of Chongzhen and Empress Zhou at the entrance of the palace and followed up.
Later, or Changping minor official Zhao Yigui raised money, Chongzhen couple's remains, buried in the tomb of Tian Guifei. After the Qing army, the Regent Dorgon to collect hearts and minds, the foreign propaganda of the Qing army is to avenge the Ming Dynasty, for this tomb of Tian Guifei, and a decent repair.
This mausoleum, which picks up ready-made modifications, is the last of the Thirteen Tombs - Si Ling.
In addition, in Anlu, Hubei, there is a Ming imperial tomb.
It came about because Ming Wuzong Zhu Houzhao had no son and no heir, so his cousin Zhu Houchou picked up the slack. After becoming emperor, Zhu Houchao, who was already Emperor Jiajing, went to great lengths to give his biological father, King Xingxian Zhu Youxiang, the title of emperor, and thus his tomb was upgraded to an imperial tomb.
But after all, Zhu Youxiang was never an emperor, so the "Xianling" tomb was not very famous outside of Hubei.
