Is Zhu Yuanzhang a southerner or a northerner?
Hello! I watched [Anhui Public *** Channel] recently, and Professor Mao Peiqi, a doctoral supervisor in the History Department of Renmin University of China, was a guest at [Xin'an University Hall] and talked about the mystery of Zhu Yuanzhang's birth:
After Zhu Wusi moved to Zhongli’s Dongxiang, he gave birth to another son, named Zhu Chongba according to rank. This was Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhongli’s Dongxiang is now Fengyang County, Anhui. Geographically speaking, It is south of the Central Plains, so it is a southerner.
Related information:
Mysterious birthplace:
In "Jian Sheng Ye Wen" written by Xu Zhenqing of the Ming Dynasty, he quoted Zhu Yuanzhang's own "Zhu Yuan". The inscription on the "Shide Stele" records this: Zhu Yuanzhang, a clan named Zhu, comes from Jurong, Jinling. He lives in Zhujia Lane, which belongs to Tongde Township. The place is in what is now Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. Zhu Yuanzhang The above generations have relied on agriculture for their livelihood.
According to records, the fifth generation ancestor of Zhu Yuanzhang was named Zhu Zhongba. He married the Chen family and gave birth to three boys. The eldest is called Zhu Liuer, the second is called Zhu Twelve, and the youngest is called Zhu Bailiu. Zhu Bailiu is Zhu Yuanzhang's great ancestor, the fourth generation ancestor. Later, the great ancestor Zhu Bailiu married the Hu family and had two sons, the eldest son Zhu Siwu and the second eldest Zhu Sijiu. This Zhu Sijiu is Zhu Yuanzhang's great-grandfather. Later, great-grandfather Zhu Sijiu married the Hou family and gave birth to four children on the first, second, fifth, and tenth day of the lunar month. This Zhu Chuyi is Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather. In Zhu Chuyi's generation, he married the Wang family and had two children named Wuyi and Wusi. Zhu Wusi is Zhu Yuanzhang's father.
In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the Zhu family lived in Jurong, Jinling, and had a gold mining household registration. According to regulations, they should pay taxes for the government's gold mining. However, gold was not produced locally, so the Zhu family had to buy gold elsewhere and pay taxes to the government. As soon as Zhu Chu was trapped by the government's taxes and servitude, he abandoned his farmhouse and moved with his two children to Xuyi County in Sizhou, which is now Xuyi County on the bank of the Huaihe River in Jiangsu Province. Zhu Chuyi once bought land and property in Xuyi, but after Zhu Chuyi's death, his family became increasingly declining, to the point where he could no longer make a living.
In this way, brothers Zhu Wuyi and Zhu Wusi lived in Wuhe. Soon, Wuyi and his family moved to Dongxiang, Zhongli County, Haozhou (now Fengyang County, Anhui Province) and settled there; The May 4th family lived in Lingbi and Hongxian, and later followed the May 1st to Zhongli Dongxiang. Zhu Wuyi married the Liu family and gave birth to Zhu Chongyi, Zhu Chonger and Zhu Chongsan in Xuyi; Zhu Wusi married the Chen family and gave birth to Zhu Chongsi and a daughter in Xuyi. After arriving in Zhongli, Zhu Wuyi gave birth to Zhu Chongwu, Zhu Wusi gave birth to Zhu Chongliu in Lingbi, and Zhu Chongqi and a daughter were born in Hongxian. After Zhu Wusi moved to Zhongli's Dongxiang, he gave birth to another son, named Zhu Chongba according to rank. This was Zhu Yuanzhang. It was on September 18th in the first year of the Tianli calendar. According to the Gregorian calendar, it was October 1328 AD. 21st.
It is conceivable that Zhu Yuanzhang’s birth did not bring much joy to this poor family at that time. However, because he later became emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang’s originally ordinary life experience was attributed to many supernatural phenomena by later generations. Come————
A book called "Tianhuang Jade Certificate" tells this: Before Zhu Yuanzhang was born, one day, Zhu Yuanzhang's mother Chen was sitting in the wheat field. A Taoist priest came from the northwest. He had a long beard, a hairpin crown on his head, red clothes, and an elephant slip in his hand. The Taoist priest sat in the wheat field and fiddled with the white pills in his hands with an elephant slip. Mrs. Chen curiously asked: "What is this?" The Taoist replied: "This is the Great Pill. If you want it, I will give you one." Mrs. Chen took the Great Pill with her hand, and without paying attention, she couldn't help but Swallow it. After she swallowed the pill, the Taoist priest suddenly disappeared. Soon, Mrs. Chen gave birth to a boy, Zhu Yuanzhang. Legend has it that when Zhu Yuanzhang was born, a white air came from the southeast and penetrated the house. The peculiar fragrance permeated the whole house and did not dissipate all night long.
Another book called "Longxing Ci Ji" said: When Zhu Yuanzhang was born, the Erlang Temple, which was originally located on the west of the road, moved to the east of the road dozens of steps away near the river. side place. So, his mother took the newborn and took a bath in the river. At this time, a square of red rose suddenly floated in the water, and his mother used this square of red rose to make the baby's swaddling clothes. Later, the place where Hongluo drifted was called "Hongluo barrier".
The book also adds: When Zhu Yuanzhang was born, there was a red light in the house. The monks of Yuhuang Temple (later renamed Huangjue Temple) saw it from a distance, and they were all surprised and suspected that there was a fire. When I inquired the next morning, I found out that a child had been born.
Bizarre legends
As for the birth of Zhu Yuanzhang, various versions of mythical legends have been dizzying. So, naturally, there are many questions about why the Zhu family gave birth to such a noble man. There is such a legend————
There is a Yangjia pier in Sizhou, and there is an earthen nest under the pier. One day, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather was lying in it to rest after working. At this time, two Taoist priests passed by here. One of them pointed to the place where Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather lay and said: "If a person dies and is buried here, his descendants will be the emperor." The other Taoist priest - the one in front The disciple of the Taoist priest who spoke asked: "Why?" The Taoist priest replied: "The air here is warm. If you don't believe it, if you plant dead branches here, leaves will definitely grow within ten days."
At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather suddenly stood up from his nest. The Taoist priest was surprised to see him, so he asked: "Did you hear what I said just now?" Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather pretended to be deaf, waved his hands, and He shook his head to show that he didn't know anything. So the Taoist priest planted a dead branch there and left. Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather took the Taoist priest's words to heart and waited for dead branches to grow leaves day after day. Ten days passed, and the dead branches grew leaves. But Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather was very scheming. He didn't want others to know that this was a geomantic treasure, so he pulled out the dead branches with leaves and inserted another section of dead branches.
Ten days later, the two Taoist priests came to the nest again. The apprentice found the dead branches stuck on the ground and asked in surprise: "Why are there no leaves?" The master pointed at Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather said: "This person must have pulled it out." Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather could not hide it, he admitted it. The Taoist priest said: "You are blessed. You should be buried here after your death. Your family will have an emperor." Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather was buried there after his death. During the burial, a surprising thing happened: the soil that was removed gathered itself and became a grave. This Yangjiadun is about ten feet in diameter and can still be found, but there is no vegetation growing there.
Ten years after Zhu Yuanzhang was born, the Zhu family moved to Xixiang, Zhongli, and then to Guzhuang Village, Taiping Township County. There are also some anecdotes about Zhu Yuanzhang's youth:
When Zhu Yuanzhang was with his cattle herding friends, he often played the game of worshiping the emperor. They used the spokes of the car as a crown, the broken boards as a wat, and the baskets as a dragon chair. Then, everyone takes turns to be the "Emperor", and the person sitting on the "Dragon Throne" accepts the "worship" of others. However, the strange thing is that when other people sat on the basket, they could not sit firmly and fell off after a few times, but when Zhu Yuanzhang sat on it, it was stable. When everyone saw this, they were convinced by Zhu Yuanzhang, and they all took the "Wat" to pay homage to him. From then on, Zhu Yuanzhang became the little leader among the cowherd boys. Although these legends are inevitably attached or deified, it can still be seen that Zhu Yuanzhang was smarter and more naughty than ordinary children when he was a child.
Hardships in the Grass
After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he also had to recall his ancestors. At the same time, many people also had doubts about the family background of this unknown and unfounded person. interest. They emotionally and subjectively believed that Zhu Yuanzhang must have had a great ancestor. Therefore, some people tried to figure out Zhu Yuanzhang's psychology and must find a great ancestor for Zhu Yuanzhang to show that he was of noble birth. They searched around and found Zhu Xi, a great scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Zhu Xi was from Wuyuan, Huizhou (now Wuyuan, Jiangxi). According to the geographical classification at that time, he and Zhu Yuanzhang were considered the same hometown. He served in four dynasties in the Southern Song Dynasty, served as editor of the Secret Pavilion, and wrote the "Collected Commentary on the Four Books" - with such a great scholar and high-ranking official as an ancestor, the Zhu family is very proud. However, Zhu Yuanzhang disapproved of this. He was unwilling to use others to glorify himself, and there was no need to find an ancient celebrity to put gold on his face.
His poor family background and hard experiences in his early years appear repeatedly in his articles, the most representative of which is "The Imperial Tomb Stele" written by him in the eleventh year of Hongwu (1378) , this stone tablet is now standing in front of the Zhu family's ancestral grave in Fengyang, Anhui. The inscription reads:
When I looked up at the scene, I saw the pale face and bright head, and suddenly thought about the hardships of the past. The inscriptions on the tombstones of Emperor Kuang's mausoleum are all whitewashed by Confucian officials, and are not enough to serve as warnings for future generations. They specifically describe the hardships and illustrate the prosperity for future generations to see.
He said, I often look in the mirror and see that my face is getting older and my hair is graying, and I suddenly think of the hardships of the past years. The inscriptions on imperial tombs written in the past were whitewashed words by Confucian officials and were not enough to leave a warning to future generations. Therefore, I want to deliberately record my difficult life experience so that future generations can understand how our family grew to prosperity step by step. My history of struggle must be visible to future generations.
The inscription goes on to say: In the past, my father lived here, farming was difficult, and he was wandering day and night.
The father is Zhu Yuanzhang’s father. His name is Zhu Shizhen (i.e. Zhu Wusi). He is actually an ordinary farmer. After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he was honored for four generations, and his father was honored as Renzu. Emperor Chun. It's Fang, where is it? It is Zhongli, Haozhou, where the imperial mausoleum is located, in the northeast of Fengyang County, Anhui today.
The Zhu family was very poor in Zhongli. It could be said that they had nothing. They barely made a living by renting other people's fields. But at this time, natural disasters and plagues happened, making the already extremely difficult livelihood impossible. Maintained it.
The plague spread, and relatives died one after another. First, his father died, then his eldest brother died, and then his mother also died. Needless to say, Zhu Yuanzhang was sad. What made him most painful was that his brothers were unable to bury their parents - the land at home was rented and they were not allowed to bury the dead. The landowners ignored their pleas and "screamed loudly" at them, saying that "the land is not owned, and the neighbors are in despair." When the brothers were helpless, the landlord's brother showed kindness and gave them a piece of land to bury Zhu Yuanzhang's eldest brother and parents. Despite this, the burial conditions are still pitifully simple: "There is no coffin for the funeral, and the body is covered with poor clothes. There is nothing to cover it with." As you can see, they don't have coffins to bury their relatives, and they only use tattered clothes to wrap them. The body was buried with loess, and there was nothing to use as a memorial.
However, in the legends of later generations, the death and burial process of Zhu Yuanzhang’s parents were deified: after Zhu Yuanzhang’s parents died of the plague, Zhu Yuanzhang’s eldest brother died soon after, and the Zhu family was too poor to afford a coffin. , let alone buy land to bury the dead. Zhu Yuanzhang and his second brother carried the bodies of their relatives and wanted to bury them in the valley. Unfortunately, halfway through, the rope carrying the body broke again. Upon seeing this, the second brother hurried back to find the rope and asked Zhu Yuanzhang to guard the body. At this time, there was a sudden storm and thunder and lightning in the sky. Zhu Yuanzhang ran to a tree to take shelter from the rain. He suddenly heard someone talking in the air: "Who is occupying my land?" At the same time, there seemed to be another person in the air who answered. , mentioned the name of Zhu Yuanzhang’s father. The first person heard this and said, "If it's just to bury this person, forget it." After a while, another storm blew up, blowing sand and breaking trees, and the sky became dark. When it got light again, Zhu Yuanzhang ran over and took a look. There was a crack in the ground, and the bodies of his parents and eldest brother had been buried. This land is where the Fengyang Imperial Tomb is now located.
The Wandering Monk
After burying his parents and eldest brother, Zhu Yuanzhang separated from his second brother. The second brother was older, so he had to leave home to make a living elsewhere. Zhu Yuanzhang was alone and could hardly survive. The kind-hearted neighbor Mama Wang saw that he was pitiful, so she gave some gifts to the abbots of the nearby temples and persuaded them to accept Zhu Yuanzhang. She wanted Zhu Yuanzhang to become a monk in order to have enough food and clothing. For Zhu Yuanzhang, becoming a monk was a desperate choice. At the beginning, Zhu Yuanzhang was not an ambitious person. There are also some legends or attachments about why Zhu Yuanzhang became a monk.
Legend has it that after Zhu Yuanzhang was born, he could not eat for some unknown reason. One day, Emperor Chun (referring to Zhu Yuanzhang's father) was on his way back from seeking medical treatment when he saw a strange-looking monk sitting by the door.
Unexpectedly, the monk suddenly spoke to him and asked: "Donor, where are you going?" Emperor Chun said: "I gave birth to a son, but he can't eat." The monk said: "It doesn't matter! By midnight tonight (night 23 to 1 a.m.), he will be able to eat naturally." After Emperor Chun thanked the monk, he said that if it was true as he said, he would accept the child as his disciple. After saying this, Emperor Chun went in to get tea to entertain the monk, but when he came out, he found that he had gone somewhere. By midnight, the monk's words came true, and Zhu Yuanzhang could eat.
There is also a legend that Zhu Yuanzhang often fell ill when he was a baby. In order to make the child easy to support, the family put the child in a temple according to local customs. When the child grew up, he was allowed to become a monk. When Zhu Yuanzhang grew up, Zhu Yuanzhang's father allowed his son to become a monk, but the child's mother quit, which delayed the matter, and Zhu Yuanzhang did not enter Buddhism early. There was an unexpected situation, and later a plague broke out in the village. In desperation, Zhu Yuanzhang asked his second brother to agree to worship the monk Gao Bin as his disciple at Yuhuang Temple in his hometown. His neighbor Wang Wen helped him complete the monkhood ceremony.
Both of these two materials come from "Tianhuang Jade Certificate".
The temple that Zhu Yuanzhang entered was called Yu (wū) Huang Temple, and was later renamed Huangjue Temple. After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, in the 16th year of Hongwu (1383), Huangjue Temple was rebuilt fifteen miles northeast of the original site and renamed Dalongxing Temple. When famine also threatened the temple, the monks had no food to eat - "After two months of residence, the temple owner closed the warehouse. Everyone worked for a living, and the clouds and rivers drifted." Zhu Yuanzhang only stayed in the temple for fifty days and worked as a "walking boy" for less than two months. Before he could understand anything, he left the temple due to the pressure of livelihood and traveled around. In 1344, Zhu Yuanzhang was only seventeen years old.
As a wandering monk, Zhu Yuanzhang was like a beggar, and he could be said to have gone through many hardships. Zhu Yuanzhang "traveled to Jin and Dou in the south, to Guang and Xi in the west, and to Yingzhou in the north" and traveled through the mountains and rivers of Huaixi and southern Henan. More than three years passed in this way. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang was already in his early twenties. During these three years, he broadened his horizons, gained life experience, and sharpened his ability to survive in adversity. But Zhu Yuanzhang missed his hometown after all, so he returned to Huangjue Temple.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang was just an ordinary monk at that time, his life in the temple was still deified: when he lived in the temple, his room would often be seen from a distance at night. It emits a red light, and when the person approaches, the red light disappears. Everyone is surprised by this. This is about the first two months when he first entered the temple. When he returned to the temple from traveling abroad, the situation became even more mysterious. One day, a Taoist priest in red appeared in the northwest of the temple and said, "There are good people in this temple." In other words, this temple will have great nobles in the future.
It is also said that one day, Zhu Yuanzhang was sweeping the floor and when he reached the feet of the Buddha statue, he felt that the stretched out Buddha's feet were in the way, so he casually said: "Take it back!" Unexpectedly, the feet of the Buddha statue were really beautiful. "Shrink" obediently. Another time, a mouse ate the incense candle in front of the Buddha statue. Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry and thought to himself, how come you, the Buddha, don't care about anything? So with a stroke of a pen, five big characters were written on the back of the Buddha statue: "Send away three thousand miles." At night, other monks in the temple all had a dream. They dreamed that the Buddha in the temple was leaving. They were surprised. The earth asked: "Why did you leave?" The Buddha said: "The Lord of the world sent you three thousand miles ago." The next morning, the monks found words on the back of the Buddha statue and asked who did it. Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Haha, that was a joke on my part, so I'll let him go now." Sure enough, at night, the monks dreamed that the Buddha came to express thanks. The Buddha already knew that Zhu Yuanzhang was the "Master of the World".
Three years passed in the blink of an eye while Zhu Yuanzhang was in the temple. If no accidents happened, Zhu Yuanzhang, the monk, might continue to work. With his intelligence and diligence, he may become an eminent monk who is proficient in Buddhist scriptures and preaches scriptures throughout his life. However, in the eleventh year of Zhizheng (1351), a new world opened before his eyes. By some mistake, a hero hidden in the wilderness has embarked on his entrepreneurial journey.
Zhu Yuanzhang's purpose of joining the army was to survive, but when he galloped on the battlefield, he discovered that he was not a weakling. He could not only command thousands of troops, but also control his own destiny and that of many people.
It’s a bit long, and it answers your question. The question I asked [Does anyone know the genealogy of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty? ] has also been resolved, so happy!