Chapter 25: Zhū Diǎn in Waiting

  Zhu Di's Suffering

  Zhu Di actually didn't want to rebel, he wanted to be emperor, but he didn't want to rebel.

  This seems to be a contradictory proposition, but it is not. From the relationship between rights and obligations, when the emperor is right, rebellion is an obligation, because for those who have made a wrong bet or are late, in order to enjoy their rights, they must fulfill their obligations.

  From an economic point of view, the cost of rebellion is too high and it's easy to lose money. According to past data, those who lose money usually end up dead. I believe Zhu Di must have carefully read history books before rebelling, from ancient times to the present, including the small dynasties of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. The number of princes who successfully rebelled can be counted on one's fingers, probably without even needing toes.

  If the scope is narrowed down a bit, only counting large unified dynasties like the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di would be delighted to find that the current record is still zero. And Zhu Di doesn't seem too confident about breaking this record either. If someone told Zhu Di that he could make a fortune by rebelling and just pay back the money if the rebellion fails, I reckon Zhu Di would even take out a bank loan to scrape together the cash.

  Unfortunately, there is no such opportunity in this world, nor is there a guarantor. For Zhu Di, the cost of rebellion was too high. In those years, Zhu Chongba was a desperate man with nothing to lose - his parents had died early, he had no property, and he had no steady job or savings. He was born to rebel. Yet, even so, before rebelling, he hesitated and wavered.

  Zhu Di was different, he was born into the royal family, had his own house and wife and children, and had tens of thousands of people under his command. The palace had all the leisure and entertainment facilities one could want, and if one wanted to find some excitement, a short walk outside would bring you face to face with your neighbors - the Mongols, and you could get a fix of battle at the same time. But if the rebellion failed, he would lose his house, wife, children, and followers, and his own life would be forfeit as well.

  Doing such a deal really needs careful consideration.

  Because I have walked this path, I can no longer turn back.

  At this time, there was a person who broke Zhu Di's hesitation and changed his fate.

  Zhu Di was still hesitating, but the two powerful ministers of Jianwen Emperor, Huang Zicheng and Qi Tai, had already made their move. It's ironic that although both were scholars, they were learning from each other, instructing the various princes on how to eliminate one another, which soon led to disputes. Both were extremely arrogant, with one claiming to have a belly full of strategies and the other believing himself to be more cunning than others, neither willing to submit to the other.

  In fact, they didn't have to argue, because the number one strategist in the world at that time was someone else. Unfortunately, this person was their enemy, and he was the one who changed Zhu Di's fate.

  Another monk

  In the 18th year of Hongwu (1385), Zhu Yuanzhang selected ten monks from among the people and prepared to assign them to various princes to lecture on scriptures and recommend good fortune. For these monks, whose minds were not entirely pure, choosing which prince to follow became an important matter. Before the princes arrived, the monks discussed among themselves, wondering who was wealthier, who had more power, and where the best place with good water and soil was.

  There was only one monk named Dao Yan who remained motionless, seemingly indifferent to all this, but in reality, his heart was more excited than anyone else's, because he had been waiting for this moment, and that person, for a very long time.

  The vassal kings entered soon after, and the previously noisy monks immediately fell silent, knowing that the moment to decide their fate had arrived.

  Dàoyǎn used his peripheral vision to see the person he was waiting for, and he finally arrived!

  Zhu Dian walked with a smile like a signboard, and he didn't notice Dao Yan. Just as he was about to pass by, the silent monk suddenly spoke up: "Your Highness King of Yan, I am willing to follow you."

  Zhu Dian was stunned. He turned his head to take a look at the self-recommended monk, smiled slightly and asked what seemed like a very necessary question: "Why?"

  "I have a great gift to see you off."

  This time Zhu Dian was really interested, as a noble king, he had everything he wanted, what could this poor monk possibly give him as a gift?

  "Oh, what's the gift?"

  It's come to a critical moment, can't hesitate anymore, this gift must be able to move him!

  "If Your Majesty can use me, I am willing to give you a white hat!"

  Zhu Dian's face changed suddenly when he heard these words. Although he had limited knowledge, he was clear about the character "Wang Shang Bai". He quickly walked up to Dao Yan and scolded in a low and stern voice: "What kind of person are you? Are you tired of living?"

  At this time, Dao Yan was smiling but didn't speak, as if he hadn't heard the words, and closed his eyes to meditate.

  The temptation is too great, he will definitely come looking for me.

  As expected, after a while, a low voice sounded in his ear: "Follow me."

  A faint smile crept onto his lips, my era has arrived, and this world will be turned upside down!

  Minister in Turbulent Times

  There are many people in this world, engaged in different occupations, farmers who till the land, businessmen who do business, artisans who repair and make things, they are all part of the multitude of people in this world. And among them, there are some who are not content with these occupations, they have chosen another path - reading books.

  From the words of saints to the ways of the world, they read all kinds of books and grasped some essential and regular things from these books, which enabled them to look at the world more rationally and objectively. At the same time, the imperial examination system also made reading a crucial channel for entering officialdom. As a result, many bookworms became vassals of feudal emperors along this road, assisting emperors in governing the country.

  Among these ministers, some more excellent ones became the elite of the elite through their own abilities. They are better at judging things than others, know how to seize opportunities and can solve problems better. We call these people able ministers.

  What is referred to as a capable minister does not only refer to loyal ministers or upright ministers, but also includes so-called treacherous ministers; it is used to describe a person's ability, rather than their stance.

  These people are all genuine elites, but they can also be further divided into three levels according to the number and different purposes.

  The first type is called the minister of governance, and almost every dynasty has them. They grasp the words of saints and the way of gentlemen. Their common characteristic is that they can handle official duties relatively well, clarify national affairs, and with such ministers, emperors can create a peaceful and prosperous world. There are many representative figures, such as Yao Chong and Song Jing of the Tang Dynasty. These people are not rare, and they belong to the builders.

  The second type is called the minister of chaos. They are not the so-called treacherous ministers, but rather chaotic ministers who master intrigue and cunning means, are well-versed in the art of darkness, and have a clear understanding of the dark side of life after experiencing many ups and downs in society for many years. These people's energy is extremely large, often able to ruin a good dynasty, with An Lushan as their representative figure. Such people are not common, they belong to the destroyer category.

  The third type is called the Savior of the World, a rare breed with a lower genetic rate and birth rate than giant pandas, often only one in hundreds of years. These people have the characteristics of both types mentioned above, learning from Confucius and Mencius, as well as being skilled in cunning and strategy. They can flexibly use various means to govern the world and use their abilities to extend the life of a declining dynasty. The representative figure is Zhang Juzheng, such people are rarely seen, they belong to the maintainers.

  And this Daoyan is a typical minister of a chaotic era.

  He was not a real monk, before he became a monk, he had also read extensively and experienced hardships, with a strong desire to serve the country but nowhere to settle, his name was Yao Guangxiao.

  Yao Guangxiao

  Yao Guangxiao, a native of Changzhou (now Wu County, Jiangsu), was born in the 15th year of the Zhiyuan era, only seven years older than Zhu Yuanzhang. Born into a chaotic world, he was studious from an early age and excelled at poetry and painting. At the age of 14, he became a monk and took the name Dao Yan. He had extensive social connections and got along well with famous scholars such as Yang Ji and Song Lian.

  But what he learned was not the popular Cheng-Zhu Confucianism and practical knowledge of the time. In fact, learning from Buddhist scriptures is also useless. What's even more surprising is that he didn't learn Buddhist scriptures either! Even more astonishing is that as a monk, he took a Taoist as his master! It's indeed a rare case where religious beliefs can be internationalized.

  His Taoist master was no ordinary person, his name was Xi Yingzhen, this man was also a strange person, as a Taoist, he did not practice alchemy and cultivation, but specialized in the study of yin-yang numerology.

  The so-called Yin Yang academic numerology has a long history, with complex content, including divination, astrology, astronomy, and strategy. These things were considered heretical by the people of that time, and gentlemen often disdained them. However, in reality, the study of Yin Yang contains profound understanding and analysis of social reality, summarizing and generalizing the experiences of our predecessors.

  To get back to the topic, people who study this kind of learning are generally not upright individuals. Upright individuals do not learn these things because the imperial examination does not test divination studies. However, those who possess this knowledge often have ambitions that swallow up heaven and earth, plans to overthrow the dynasty, or in today's words, they are unstable elements in society. Moreover, studying this subject also has a certain guarantee of livelihood. If one cannot succeed in plotting, one can still set up a fortune-telling stall to achieve re-employment.

  A Taoist who doesn't refine elixirs, a Buddhist monk who doesn't recite scriptures, an unorthodox school of thought. Dao Yan grew up in such an environment, step by step becoming a mastermind. He read many books, saw the big world, understood human nature's ugliness, grasped the means of power struggle, and more importantly, he hoped to achieve something.

  The key to the problem lies here. Although he made friends with famous scholars and had a military mind, there was no way for him to serve his country because the main content of the imperial examination was literature, not the extracurricular knowledge he had learned. Moreover, what he had learned seemed useless even in peacetime. He had talent but couldn't use it, nor did he have anywhere to use it, so Dao Yan remained depressed for a long time.

  It's possible that he will never amount to anything in this lifetime, and he started to become pessimistic.

  Since he was bored at home, he went out to play. Since it's a monk tour, the destination is still a temple. Temples all over the country have left his footprints, and when he visited Songshan Temple, he met someone who affected him for life. This person gave Dao Yan an accurate prediction of his future career and destiny, which was good at calculating fate.

  This man is called Yuan Gong, and unlike the amateur fortune teller Dao Yan, his profession is that of a physiognomist. Physiognomy is also an ancient profession with a great reputation in history, mainly because they often accurately predict a person's future decades in advance, more accurate than weather forecasts, and the celebrity effect has increased the mystique of this group. The most representative one is the comment on Cao Cao as a "hero of chaos".

  Yuan Gong had not previously known Dao Yan, but when he saw him, he was shocked and chased after him to give him a fortune-telling (it's unknown whether he charged for it or not). He gave him an evaluation: "How can there be such a strange monk in the world! With a pair of triangular eyes, like a sick tiger. People with your nature are fond of killing, you will definitely become someone like Liu Bingzhong!"

  If someone on the street fortune-telling gave you such a comment, I estimate that you would not only not give money but also scold him. However, Dao Yan's reaction was quite different, he was very happy, and comments like " triangular eyes" and "bloodthirsty" actually made Dao Yan so joyful. From this, it can also be seen that this person is indeed a dangerous element.

  Here's what needs to be said about Liu Bingzhong: What kind of person is he? Why does Dao Yan want to idolize him?

  Liu Bingzhong was also a monk. In retrospect, considering the later Zhu Chongba and Dao Yan, being a monk at that time was indeed a dangerous profession, often gathering lawless elements. Liu Bingzhong was a person of the Yuan Dynasty. When Kublai Khan was still a prince, he was spotted by Kublai Khan and became an important strategist under him, making great contributions to Kublai Khan's ascension to the throne.

  With someone like that as an idol, it's not hard to guess what Dao Yan wants to do.

  Dao Yan was not a man of few desires, during the Hongwu period, Zhu Yuanzhang once ordered monks with knowledge to go to the Ministry of Rites to take an examination. Dao Yan seized this opportunity to take the civil service examination, but it is unclear how he did, anyway, he was not given an official position, which made Dao Yan very disappointed, and he had to continue waiting.

  He finally seized the opportunity in 1385 and followed the King of Yan to Beiping, where he became the abbot of Qinglong Temple.

  If he really just hosted, then so many things wouldn't have happened.

  This monk who should be chanting sutras in the temple is really incompetent, his main activity area is not the temple, but the palace, he day after day, year after year, uses the same proposition to persuade Zhu Di - rebellion.

  Looking back at the historical facts, Dao Yan is not greedy for official positions and does not love money. A person who seeks neither fame nor profit yet constantly talks about rebellion, fearing that the world will not be chaotic, is very strange. What exactly does he want?

  Ambition

  It is clear that Daoyan is a normal person, and he is not the kind of person who has nothing to do after eating. Rebellion is not a good form of entertainment, so why is he so enthusiastic about it? If we analyze his experience, we should be able to find the answer easily. The driving force behind him is two words - ambition.

  Dao Yan was a frustrated man, well-versed in ancient and modern knowledge, with strategic ideas in his mind, but due to various reasons, he couldn't get reused. In the year when Zhu Di brought him back to Beiping, he was already fifty years old. The passing of youth left irretrievable memories, and the passage of time added wrinkles to his face, yet also tempered his heart. Time and again, he waited, time and again, he was disappointed, turning a man who should have been enjoying his retirement at home into a powder keg, ready to explode with just the right fuse and timing.

  Zhu Di is the fuse, and this era of great change is the opportunity.

  Jianwen's actions

  Huang Zicheng and Qi Tai were about to take action, but they had a disagreement on the target. Qi Tai thought it was better to start with King Yan first, while Huang Zicheng believed that they should eliminate other kings first, cut off King Yan's wings, and then deal with him.

  Looking back at the two plans today, both seem to make sense. Later generations often think that Qi Tai's approach was correct, but I think this conclusion seems to have a winner-takes-all bias. Huang Zicheng's plan also has its own rationality. After all, starting with the weak first does have some effect.

  This is a game of chess that will decide the fate of the world, with Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di as the two players. Zhu Yunwen, who is now the emperor, guessed the first move and made his opening move on the board.

  First come first served

  Zhou King Zhu Huang was the same mother brother of Yan King Zhu Di, in Zhu Yunwen's view, he would be Zhu Di's powerful assistant, and it was because of this reason that he became one of the first to be eliminated. The person who carried out this task was Li Jinglong, son of Li Wenzhong whom we have introduced many times before.

  It turned out that this brother might not be good at fighting, but he was good at catching people. He led a large army to rush to the Zhou Wangfu in Henan, and brought Zhou Wang's wife and children, along with himself, to the capital. Zhu Yunwen was not polite to his uncle, demoting him from a national first-class cadre directly to an ordinary citizen, and exiling him to Yunnan. At that time, Yunnan's tourism resources had not been fully developed, and it was still in a semi-primitive state of desolation. Zhou Wang was sent to this place to be a hermit.

  At this time, Jianwen Emperor had been on the throne for only one month. But he apparently did not have the shyness and humility of a newcomer to a new unit, and began to clean up his uncles, with Zhou Wang being the first but by no means the last, and Zhou Wang would soon find that compared to what happened later, going to Yunnan for tourism was not a bad thing.

  In the same year, in December, someone reported that King Duan was "greedy and cruel", Emperor Jianwen showed a strong sense of justice, resolutely enforced the legal principle that princes who committed crimes would be punished equally with commoners, and had his uncle transferred to Shu for supervision.

  In May of the second year, Jianwen Emperor once again demonstrated his great righteousness by arresting Zhu Yun, Prince of Min, on charges of "unlawful acts" and demoting him to a commoner. In the end, it was not clear what this "unlawful act" referred to, similar to the famous phrase "Mo Xuyou", it seems that in history, there is no need to find too many reasons to deal with someone.

  Before everyone could react, Jianwen Emperor again took action against Zhu Bo, the King of Xiang, on charges of disrupting finance - privately printing paper money. In fact, during that era, paper money was not well-planned and Jianwen Emperor himself was the one who printed the most. Of course, this was just an excuse, and soon the court sent envoys to the territory of the King of Xiang to capture him. They thought it would be as smooth as before, but unexpected things happened.

  Xiang King Zhu Bo is indeed a worthy descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, with great backbone. Upon learning that someone was coming to arrest him, he smiled and said to his subordinates: "I have seen many high-ranking officials who were guilty under the Taizu Emperor's rule refuse to be humiliated and die by their own hands. I am the son of the High Emperor, how can I be insulted by prison officers for the sake of seeking a way out?"

  He did not open the door to welcome the envoy, but instead gathered his wife and children, closed the palace gate, and burned himself to death.

  Such a tragedy did not stop the pace of Jianwen's actions, and he swiftly captured Qi Wang Zhu Yi and Dai Wang Zhu Gui, both of whom were demoted to commoners.

  It's really clean and ruthless, showing no mercy! At this point, even a fool would know what Jianwen Emperor wants to do.

  Everyone may wonder why these vassal kings did not resist at all. In fact, the reason is very simple. On the one hand, they did not have the capital to resist like the King of Yan, and on the other hand, they had no reason to resist.

  In that era, the emperor was the highest ruler, and all vassal kings were under his command. To put it bluntly, even if you were the emperor's uncle or grandfather, as long as he was the emperor, you had to listen to him. To say something unpleasant, demoting vassals and punishing them was still being polite, giving them face; if a vassal king refused to submit openly, there would naturally be severe punishment waiting for them.

  By this point, the Jianwen Emperor had completely violated his own promises to Zhu Yuanzhang. His moral authority was gone, and he was like a boxer who had just stepped into the ring, wildly throwing a flurry of punches that seemed powerful but were actually ineffective.

  This is a brutal political struggle and also a boxing match.

  Naive Zhu Yunwen didn't know that the boxing match he was participating in wasn't a three-round amateur match, but a twelve-round professional match. In such a match, it's impossible to defeat Teacher Fu with wild punches, and the key to victory lies in patience and accurate judgment.

  Zhu Yunwei seized the initiative but failed to gain an advantage.

  Zhu Di is about to make his own response.