How to Barbecue a Relative and Win Friends

2016-09-13  Source: theworldofchinese.com

If you’re going to kill an emperor and take his throne, be sure he’s dead first. Poke him with a stick. Check for a pulse. Put his head on a pike. Whatever. Make it obvious. Because if you light his palace on fire, wait the appropriate amount of time, and then pull his charred corpse out and deliver it still smoking to his officials there are going to be those who refuse to believe that the briquette at their feet is their dead emperor.

Such was the mistake of Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, and son of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang.

On July 15, 1402, Zhu Di attempted to make Nanjing even warmer when his armies burned the imperial palace with his nephew inside.

Or was he? It’s been a historical mystery for over six centuries.

Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Empire in 1368 after his forces kicked the Mongolian descendants of Chinggis and Kublai Khan out of China and back into the steppe. Trouble was: They didn’t kick the Mongolians far enough. The northern frontiers, near present-day Beijing, remained a dangerous place.

To pacify the north, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Zhu Di, one of his most talented and capable sons. For the next thirty years, Zhu Di, then known as the Prince of Yan, organized the defenses along the northern march. He built walls, led sorties into the steppe and drove back the remnants of the old Mongolian empire. Zhu Yuanzhang was pleased with his son’s efforts, but not enough to make Zhu Di his heir.

The Ming founder had some very specific rules — about a lot of things actually — but in particular about who ought to succeed him as emperor. Generally speaking, the heir should be the first son born of the first consort.

Zhu Di was the fourth son and there was some question of who gave birth to him. Later histories — especially after Zhu Di became emperor — list his mother as the Empress Ma, the principal consort of Zhu Yuanzhang. But Zhu Di was born in a tumultuous age. His father was busy leading the rebellion against the Mongolians and there is evidence that Zhu Di’s mother might have been somebody else.

Ultimately, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to pass the throne to his first son, Zhu Biao. The challenge with this, as observers were quick to point out, was that Zhu Biao had predeceased his father by several years. Undeterred, Zhu Yuanzhang decreed that Zhu Biao’s first son, Zhu Yunwen, would do just fine. In 1398, 21-year-old Zhu Yunwen, the first son of the first son, took the throne as the Jianwen Emperor.

Having been passed over for his brother galled Zhu Di. But he couldn’t stand the thought of some snot-nosed kid giving him orders. As it turns out, Zhu Yunwen wasn’t thrilled about the arrangement either and began a systematic campaign against Zhu Di and the rest of his uncles just in case they got any ideas.

Ultimately, Zhu Yunwen pushed his uncle too far. In 1399 uncle and nephew went to war. After three years of skirmishes and battles fought in and around present-day Beijing, Zhu Di took the fight to the Ming capital at Nanjing.

In July 1402, the forces of Zhu Di stormed the gates of Nanjing. In the fighting, the palace of the young emperor erupted in flames. When the fighting stopped and the fire burned low, soldiers stormed the ruins, bringing out three bodies which they claimed were the Jianwen Emperor, his empress, and one of his two sons.

But there were still doubters. At this point, the emperor and his family were basically chuan’r. Is it lamb? Is it cat? Is it a dead emperor? Who can really tell?

But Zhu Di wasn’t taking any chances. Once enthroned as the Yongle Emperor, the new monarch wasted little time in rooting out any officials who might have the temerity to question his legitimacy.

One official, Fang Xiaoru was so incensed that when the emperor threatened to kill Fang’s relatives to nine degrees of kinship, Fang retorted, “Make it ten.” Not sure his family agreed with his bravado but Fang remained steadfast, allegedly staying alive after being SAWED IN HALF at the waist to write the Chinese word for “usurper” in his own blood on the ground.

Whatever else you can say about Zhu Di/the Yongle Emperor, the man did not play.

It turns out that for all of his public bravado and sawing people in half, that the Yongle Emperor himself might not have been quite so sure that his nephew was actually dead. There has long been speculation that one of the objectives of the historic ocean voyages led by the admiral Zheng He was to search the western lands for his nephew.

Ultimately, the Yongle Emperor turned out to be a pretty good ruler. Having made Nanjing too hot — both politically and literally — to hold him, the Yongle Emperor moved the Ming capital to his old power base and ordered the reconstruction of the city that would become modern Beijing. His minions built the city walls that are today the Second Ring Road and Line 2 Subway. He also ordered the construction of the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven.

And he never forgot why he was in the north. The Yongle Emperor died in 1424 out in the steppe, still leading campaigns against the Mongols and, just in case, keeping an eye out for any stray nephews.