In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, the crown prince Zhu Biao died of illness, and Zhu Yuanzhang established Zhu Yunwen, the second son of Zhu Target, as the emperor's grandson. Zhu Yunwen won Zhu Yuanzhang's love because of his bright and studious nature and filial piety, and praised him: "And sincerity and pure filial piety, don't forget me." ”

However, Zhu Yuanzhang was not very satisfied with the fact that the benevolent and indecisive imperial grandson would succeed to the throne in the future, and once planned to replace the crown prince, but later did not do so because of the advice of Liu Sanwu, a scholar from Hanlin. Despite this, Zhu Yuanzhang is still at ease with Zhu Yunwen's succession.

In the thirty-first year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang died of illness, the temple name was Taizu, and Zhu Yunwen, the emperor's grandson, was enthroned as the emperor. Before his death, Zhu Yuanzhang made an edict: "The emperor's grandson Yunwen is benevolent and filial, and the world is in his heart, and he should ascend to the throne." Internal and external civil and military ministers work together to assist the government to reassure our people. ”

Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne for Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty and changed the Yuan Jianwen. Despite Zhu Yuanzhang's edict, the kings were not allowed to enter and be buried, but Zhu Di, the king of Yan, still went straight to the capital to Jiankang, and after Zhu Yunwen heard the news, he immediately sent someone to hold the edict and ordered Zhu Di to return to Yanjing, which Zhu Di was very unhappy about.

At that time, the kings guarding the northern frontier already had great power, Zhu Quan, the king of Ning, led 80,000 armored soldiers and 6,000 leather chariots, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, had the power to control the soldiers and horses along the border, but Zhu Yunwen was worried about these imperial uncles.

Soon after Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, sent Changshi Gecheng to the court. Zhu Yunwen then asked Ge Cheng about the Yan Wangfu, and Ge Cheng told him the truth, so he sent him back to the Yan Wangfu as an internal response. Ge Cheng returned to King Yan's Mansion, and Zhu Di couldn't help but be suspicious when he saw that his expression was wrong.

Immediately, Zhu Di personally entered the court, and he relied on his identity as the emperor's uncle, and went straight to the palace on the imperial road, and did not bow down when he met His Majesty. Zeng Fengshao, the superintendent of the imperial history, impeached him for being disrespectful, and Zhuo Jing, the head of the household department, also played secretly, and suggested that he be emigrated to Nanchang with the wisdom of King Yan, but Zhu Yunwen was close to him and politely refused. Zhu Di realized that the court had a bad heart for him, and after returning to the Yan Palace, he excused himself from illness to wait and see how things changed.

So Emperor Jianwen discussed with Qi Tai, the secretary of the military department, and Huang Zicheng, who was too powerful and could not be controlled. The young emperor, who had only been on the throne for a few months, had ambitions to consolidate his power by weakening the power of his uncles.

Zhu Yunwen is charitable by nature, likes Confucianism, advocates cultural governance, and yearns for Confucian benevolence, while Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Taizu who rose in troubled times, governs the country with power and discipline. Emperor Jianwen had a deep understanding of the social oppressive atmosphere caused by his grandfather's heavy rule of law, so after ascending the throne, he began to reform and rectify, trying to create a peaceful social atmosphere.

However, Emperor Jianwen is too young, he is not only full of bookishness, but also shy, unlike his grandparents who were tempered from the war, so he lacks the courage and courage necessary to be an emperor, and he was appointed as a prince in a hurry, so he doesn't know much about the way to govern the country. After succeeding to the throne, although he worked hard to carry out reforms, the negative impact of Zhu Yuanzhang's harsh punishment and strict law did not ease much.

In order to ensure the control of the feudal kingdoms, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a series of rules and regulations to restrict the behavior of the vassal kings in the "Ancestral Teachings". There was a provision that for three years after the new emperor ascended the throne, the vassal kings were not allowed to come to the imperial court, and could only remain in the vassal kingdom; however, if the traitorous vassals were in power, the kings could gather their forces so that they could wait for the edict of the new emperor at any time, but they were still to return to their fiefdoms immediately after completing the task of expelling the traitors.

Ming Taizu issued a stern warning to the descendants, strictly forbidding them to alter the instructions in the slightest, and if there was any violation, even the emperor himself, they could attack them en masse. Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang divided his sons to go to various places as kings, so that they could serve as a shield for the royal family to resist external aggression or suppress internal rebellions. However, because these vassal kings were given a lot of power and had heavy troops in their hands, they soon became the confidants of the new emperor Zhu Yunwen.

In fact, there was nothing wrong with cutting the domain, but what was wrong was that Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen cut the feudal domain in the wrong way. In the year that Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, he had just dealt with Zhu Yuanzhang's funeral, so he sent an army to attack Kaifeng, the fief of Zhu Nan, the king of Zhou, arrested Zhu Nan, abolished him as a commoner and sent him to Yunnan.

King Zhou is the half-brother of King Yan, and Zhu Yunwen was afraid that he would be in collusion with King Yan, so he decided to depose King Zhou first. Zhu Youjiao, the second son of King Zhou, accused his father of rebellion, so he sent Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao, to pass through Kaifeng in the name of Beibian, escorted the whole family of King Zhou back to Nanjing, and abolished him as a concubine.

The three princes of Qi, Xiang, and Dai were deposed as concubines, and the king of Xiang could not bear the humiliation and set himself on fire in order to protect his name; the king of Qi was placed under house arrest in Nanjing; and the king was placed under house arrest in the fiefdom of Datong. Two months later, King Min was cut and abolished as a concubine.

Acting King Zhu Gui, King Xiang Zhu Bai, King Qi Zhu Jin, and Min King Zhu Yi revoked their feudal states, and in just one year, the five important vassal kings were cleaned up. This stormy way of dealing with it made everyone in danger for the other feudal kings, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan whose fief was in Beijing, also felt frightened, knowing that the day when he was disposed of was approaching.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, originally held a grudge against Zhu Yuanzhang for passing the throne to his grandson from generation to generation, and Emperor Jianwen's reduction of the feudal domain accelerated the process of his seizure of power. However, it takes time to prepare, and it is impossible to raise troops immediately, and at this time something suspicious appeared, and Emperor Jianwen showed indecision in his treatment of King Yan, so that he missed the opportunity.

He sent someone to secretly monitor King Yan's actions, and when King Yan learned about it, he pretended to be insane, pretending to be crazy and stupid all day long, talking nonsense. Before that, Emperor Jianwen used harsh methods to deal with those vassal kings, all because those vassal kings did have some violations of law and discipline, which made him famous. However, he did not grasp any handle of Yan Wang Zhu Di, and Yan Wang Zhu Di made great contributions because of guarding the frontier. At this time, he got such a report again, and Emperor Jianwen was even more hesitant and a little unbearable.

Therefore, he did not make up his mind about the disposal of Zhu Di, and when Emperor Jianwen hesitated, Zhu Di was not idle, and began to recruit troops, manufacture weapons, and train soldiers. Later, after Zhu Di's bitter request, Emperor Jianwen actually put Zhu Di's sons back as hostages, so that he lost the last bargaining chip.

According to the system designed by Zhu Yuanzhang, the family system composed of emperors, vassal kings, relatives, and concubines should be able to firmly support the Ming Dynasty under the combined effect of power, etiquette, and family affection.

However, the weak nephew emperor and the scholars around him failed to master the method of restraining the unruly uncle, and the system originally designed by Zhu Yuanzhang finally caused a catastrophe. In this war, the relatives of the imperial family participated in the war one after another, throwing themselves into two different camps.

In order to guard against the rebellion of King Yan, Zhu Yunwen sent Zhang Yu, a squire of the Ministry of Works, as the political envoy of Beiping, and commanded Xie Gui and Zhang Xin to be the commanders of Beiping. Subsequently, he ordered the governor Song Zhongtun to garrison Kaiping, and transferred the army under the jurisdiction of King Yan in the Northern Plain.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, saw that several vassal kings were cut down one after another, and understood that he would not be able to escape this catastrophe if he continued like this, so he made preparations for war while gaining time. In order to buy time, Zhu Di first pretended to be sick and asked Emperor Hui to let his three sons go back to Beiping, and then because his subordinates were executed by the imperial court, he pretended to be crazy.

However, due to the rebellion of Shi Gecheng, the head of the palace, and the king of Yan pretending to be sick in the secret court, Zhu Di pretended to be crazy and was discovered. In his heart, he was already dissatisfied with his father's appointment of his nephew as the grandson and succeeded to the throne, so he immediately booby-trapped the generals who came to carry out the task of monitoring and arresting, and rebelled against the central government of the Ming Dynasty in July of the first year of Jianwen.