Zhu Yuanzhang, who ascended to the throne through the peasant uprising, in order to ensure that the Ming Dynasty could rule for thousands of generations, on the one hand, strengthened the absolute monarchy and firmly held the military and political power in the hands of the emperor alone, Zhu Yuanzhang tried every means to strengthen the power of the imperial family itself.

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "The world is so big, it will build a feudal screen, defend the country on the top, and live on the people. ”

The feudal kings established royal palaces in their own fiefdoms, set up official subordinates, and their status was quite high.

The nine border kings, the king of Liao, the king of Ning, the king of Yan, the king of Gu, the king of Dai, the king of Jin, the king of Qin, the king of Qing, and the king of Su, because they have the important task of defending against the invasion of Mongolia, so there are many guards and soldiers. Zhu Di, the fourth son of Beiping, had 100,000 soldiers, and Zhu Quan, the seventeenth son of Daning, led 80,000 people and 6,000 leather carts. They were responsible for building cities and fields, training generals, inspecting key points, and supervising the manufacture of weapons.

The King of Jin and the King of Yan went out to fight many times to defeat the army of the remnants of the Mengyuan Dynasty, which was particularly valued, and the generals in the army were all subject to their moderation, and even the small matters in the army of the two kings were self-determined, and the major matters were reported to the imperial court. Especially King Yan, because of his outstanding achievements, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered him to control the soldiers and horses along the border, and his position was unique.

The expansion of the power of the feudal lords was bound to pose a threat to the central power. When Zhu Yuanzhang was crowning the kings, a minister named Ye Boju pointed out that the power of the vassal kings was too heavy, and the tail would not be able to fall off after a few generations, and then the feudal lords would be cut down at that time, I am afraid that it would lead to the tragedy of the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of the Han Dynasty and the rebellion of the Eight Kings of the Western Jin Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang not only did not listen to the advice, but instead sent him to prison and died.

In the division of feuds, he once stipulated that all the feudal kings must leave the capital and go to the fief to become a vassal. The princes were not allowed to interact with each other, and even if they entered the court, they could not come at the same time, and one king must leave the capital before the other king could set off. The purpose of Zhu Yuanzhang's move was to prevent the kings from connecting with each other and confronting the central government. Therefore, the kings became vassals, which can be said to be life and death, but Zhu Yuanzhang's good intentions failed to receive the expected consequences.

Zhu Yuanzhang has twenty-six sons, but there are not many of them, and the more he reaches his old age, the more worried he becomes, such a big country, after he dies, who will he give it to sit?

The eldest son, Zhu Biao, is of course the most suitable candidate, and Zhu Biao is the biological son of Queen Ma. As soon as Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he gave Queen Ma a reassurance, and appointed the thirteen-year-old Zhu Biao as the crown prince, that is, the future leader of the country, and he can be regarded as worthy of this strange woman. Zhu Yuanzhang hired Zhejiang celebrity Song Lian and others as the prince's teachers, hoping to train Zhu Biao into a qualified successor.

After twenty-five years of careful training, Zhu Biao is already thirty-eight years old, and he has the ability to inherit his father's throne, but Zhu Biao's body can't stand it. After Zhu Biao returned from his inspection in Shaanxi, he had a large sarcoma on his body, which made it difficult to sleep and eat, and he was extremely painful. Zhu Xiongying's eldest son died ten years ago, and his father relied on his second son Zhu Yunwen.

Zhu Yunwen is only fourteen years old, he stays by his father's side day and night, and he is considered a filial son, but he is a partial head, and Zhu Yuanzhang gave him the nickname of Half the Moon. Zhu Yunwen has lived in the deep palace since he was a child, grew up among intellectuals, is knowledgeable, and convinces people with virtue. But his character is gentle, his heart is too soft, his face is not thick, and his heart is not black.

Zhu Biao was ill for four months and unfortunately died young. For the diligent old emperor, this is an extremely rare event, and it is not an ordinary pain of losing a child, and if there is no successor, what will happen to the fate of the entire empire?

Zhu Yunwen took very good care of his three younger brothers, and Zhu Yuanzhang saw all this. But Zhu Yuanzhang had to choose an heir again, and King Zhou, King Jin, King Yan, etc. all had ambitions. King Qin is absurd, he is a mess of mud that can't support the wall, and he was almost abolished. The King of Jin is brutal and lawless, but he is essentially a coward. King Lu is a big fool, in order to live a long life, he took pills indiscriminately and blinded his eyes. Some of the other princes committed murder, some indulged in alcohol, and a few became artists, but they were artists who danced and wrote without any political experience.

The old emperor sighed, and now only the fourth son Yan Wang Zhu Di and Zhu Biao's second son Zhu Yunwen are left. Zhu Yuanzhang has a complicated feeling for Zhu Yunwen, he is happy and worried about his benevolent character, and can his weak shoulders bear the heavy responsibility of governing the country? To be an emperor, you must have the tough guy character of a lion and a tiger, otherwise you will definitely be eaten by lions and tigers in the political arena.

Zhu Yuanzhang once quietly consulted the ministers on the issue of establishing a prince, and he asked Liu Sanwu, a scholar from Hanlin: "The crown prince is dead, the emperor's eldest grandson, Zhu Yunwen, is young and ignorant, and the right person must be chosen to govern the country, how about I want King Yan to succeed him?"

Liu Sanwu is an intellectual, and if you ask him who is the prince, of course he only recommends his own kind. His head shook like a rattle: "King Liyan is absolutely not good, if King Liyan, then what about King Qin and King Jin? ”

The civilian officials supported Zhu Yunwen because he was a man of letters, a great filial son and a good man, and after coming to power, he could implement civilized and moral governance, rather than a militarized high-pressure dictatorship. Zhu Yuanzhang's rule was too violent, the officials secretly complained, the people lived in dire straits, and no one could afford it for a long time, and the country objectively needed a feminine and benevolent emperor to let the people rest and take a breath.

Zhu Yunwen is very filial, and in the struggle for the throne, filial piety is the secret weapon to seize the right to inherit the throne, so Zhu Yunwen must carry out filial piety to the end.

For the fourth son Zhu Di, Zhu Yuanzhang really appreciates it very much, especially his martial arts, which is a special advantage that Zhu Yunwen does not have.

Zhu Di grew up smelling the smoke of war, he was born in Nanjing, the year Chen Youliang attacked Nanjing. He was crowned King of Yan at the age of eleven, married Xu Da's eldest daughter at the age of seventeen, and became a feudal lord of Beiping at the age of twenty. Zhu Di's talent is not under Zhu Yuanzhang, it is not a problem to bend the bow and shoot the eagle, he especially likes to fight, he is resourceful, and he knows how to win battles. As a rare warrior and wise figure, Zhu Di can be described as a generation of war gods, and now he is thirty-three years old, just in his youth.

In terms of talent and mind, Zhu Di is better than Zhu Yunwen. Once, when everyone was watching a horse race in the palace, Zhu Yuanzhang came out with a couplet: "The wind blows a thousand lines of horsetail." Zhu Yunwen had no experience in fighting, and what he saw was just ordinary trivial matters, so he held back his strength and came up with all his strength: "The rain hits the wool and feels a blanket." "It's fluffy, it doesn't smell good. And Zhu Di has seen the world, and he is right: "The sun shines on the dragon scales and is ten thousand points of gold." The spirit was magnificent, and Zhu Yuanzhang was very happy to hear it.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, took Beiping as the head of all the vassal kings, and the king of Ning, the king of Jin, the king of Su, the king of Qin, etc., sealed the country along the line of the Great Wall, guarded the border for the Son of Heaven, resisted the invasion of the northern Mongols, and was known as the king of Sai. Zhu Yuanzhang allowed them to have 3,000 guards, and the maximum could reach 19,000.

With the strongest power of King Yan, King Jin, and King Qin, they have been edicted to attack Mongolia many times, and even generals like Fu Youde and Lan Yu have to obey the command of King Sai. In particular, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, has the heavy responsibility of controlling the northern gateway, and can directly command an army of up to 300,000 people.

A battle made Zhu Di, who was only thirty years old, famous, and just after New Year's Day that year, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the King of Yan and the King of Jin to divide their troops and attack together, defeating the Prime Minister of the Northern Yuan Dynasty and biting it, and Pingzhang Naier did not spend.

Zhu Di first sent several sentries out to reconnoiter and find out the exact location of Nai'er Buhua. In March, it snowed heavily, and the thousands of miles of wasteland were covered in snow, and it was very difficult for the carriages and horses to march, and the soldiers shivered with cold. The generals asked King Yan to set up camp and wait for the heavy snowstorm to pass before finding a way.

Zhu Di said: "The fighter plane is placed in front of you, why can't you see it? This is a great opportunity to win by surprise." ”

He ordered the army to march quickly against the wind and snow. When the army appeared in front of Na'er Buhua, he was still cooking in the tent.

Zhu Di surrounded but did not annihilate, and sent Nai'er Buhua's good friend and general Guantong to persuade him to surrender, but Nai'er Buhua knew that it was an egg touching a stone, so he had to surrender. Zhu Di set up a banquet with wine, and the wine was very refreshing, so that Nai'er was so moved that tears flowed, and he took the initiative to ask for persuasion to bite it.

Zhu Di's first large-scale expedition, the soldiers won a complete victory without blood, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very happy, rewarded him with one million ingots, and praised Zhu Di: "It is all up to you to sweep away the Mongols in the desert." ”

On the other hand, the king of Jin, who was cowardly by nature, as soon as he set foot on the land where Genghis Khan fought back then, his legs were weak, and he stopped and walked, not daring to go deep into the hinterland of Mongolia, and he couldn't even hit a rabbit.

Zhu Di and Zhu Yuanzhang are the same kind of people, eloquent and strategic, and their abilities are more outstanding than Zhu Yunwen in all aspects, and they are more suitable to be emperors. Of course, Jiangshan can only be handed over to his own flesh and blood, and he must be a purebred dragon breed, that is, he was born to Queen Ma. The inheritance system of the eldest son has lasted in China for thousands of years, and Zhu Yuanzhang cannot jump out of this box.

Zhu Di was not born to Queen Ma, so Zhu Yuanzhang would not choose Zhu Di to succeed him. Zhu Di was born to a concubine, this concubine is still an ethnic minority, whether it is from Goryeo, whether it is the northern Goryeo ethnic group, or from the Korean Peninsula, many people do not know that Zhu Di's mother turned out to be the concubine of Emperor Yuan Shun, and may even be Mongolian. Concubine Li gave birth to King Qin and King Jin, and another concubine gave birth to Zhu Di, and this concubine is Concubine Shiye.

Zhu Yuanzhang made a difficult decision to set up the sixteen-year-old Zhu Yunwen as the emperor's grandson, and only the eldest son inherited the throne will everyone support it. Zhu Di is not Queen Ma's own son, so after weighing, Zhu Yuanzhang made an extremely difficult decision to appoint the sixteen-year-old Zhu Yunwen as the emperor's grandson. This made Zhu Di very annoyed and unconvinced.

Once, he patted the back of the emperor's eldest grandson, Zhu Yunwen, with his hand, and said sarcastically: "I didn't expect my nephew to have today's glory." ”

This scene happened to be seen by Zhu Yuanzhang, and he scolded Zhu Di sharply: "How dare you be so rude to the emperor's eldest grandson?" Zhu Yunwen hurriedly played a round game, so as not to embarrass Zhu Di very much.

In the second year of the emperor's grandson, Zhu Yuanzhang was still worried that Zhu Yunwen was too weak, unable to suppress his position, and unable to control the army, so he began to kill heroes, and Lan Yu and Hu Weiyong's groups were purged successively.

From a historical point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang's original choice was a mistake, if Zhu Di had been elected emperor, there would have been no civil war that lasted for four years. But history does not believe in morality, nor in tears, it believes only in strength.

Zhu Di launched a war and ousted Zhu Yunwen from power and replaced him, in order to erase the image of usurping power and prevent the people of the world from being unstable, Zhu Di lied hard to prove that he was the son of Queen Ma. Referring to the horse as the mother, as a last resort.