Chapter 51 Chapter One

Among ancient Chinese emperors, Zhu Yuanzhang is one of the most legendary figures.He jumped from a lowly cowherd boy to the founding monarch of the Ming Dynasty. Not to mention others, even he himself often feels as if he is in a dream.His fabulous experience has added countless imaginative wings to the thinking of future generations, especially in rural areas, where there are many anecdotes about him like dense clusters of catkins floating around under the blowing of the spring breeze.I remember when I was a child, my grandma told those amazing stories about Zhu Yuanzhang under the melon shed. I always listened with great interest and was fascinated. To make an emperor Dangdang.The emperor is supreme and unattainable. Only Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was born in a peasant and started in a slight cold. Inspired by a glimmer of hope.This is probably the main reason why Zhu Yuanzhang has occupied the "broad market" in the countryside for a long time!

Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestors were poor peasants for generations. They were so poor that they didn't even have a piece of land of their own, so they had to rent and plant the land of landlords.Tossing in the wind and rain, working hard, over a year, most of the harvested food is often paid in land rent, and the rest can only barely survive.His father, Zhu Wusi, had just made the fields more fertile, and thought that he could harvest more grain to make his life a little more nourishing. Unexpectedly, the profit-greedy landlord immediately increased the rent.It's really not worthwhile to calculate, so I had to move and find another big family.Just like rootless duckweed, they drag their sons and daughters around to search and move here and there. They are even worse than ordinary farmers who live on a field, and they are not much better than vagrants.

After Zhu Yuanzhang became the emperor, he also wanted to recognize the famous family and climb the dragon and the phoenix. He tried his best to find out the truth, but he didn't find a well-founded ancestor of the Zhu family who could be "on the table".He wanted to recognize Zhu Xila, a famous scholar and master of Neo-Confucianism in the Song Dynasty, as his ancestor, but he was afraid that he would be seen through and make people laugh, so he simply admitted that he was "from a humble background", "from the fields", "I am originally a commoner in Huaiyou", "Jiangzuo Commoner".

Zhu Yuanzhang was born shortly after his father Zhu Wusi moved to Guzhuang Village, Zhongli Taiping Township, Haozhou (now Fengyang, Anhui).That year was the first year of Yuan Wenzong's Tianli (1328 A.D.), and the land of China was under the rule of Mongolian aliens. The whole country was divided into four classes, Mongolian, Semu, Han, and Nan.The Zhu family belongs to the lowest class of southerners, and they are the poorest and most humble farm laborers among the last class of southerners.Zhu Yuanzhang was reborn in the Zhu family, and he was destined to be a member of the bottom of the society as soon as he emerged from his mother's womb.

Prior to this, Zhu Wusi had given birth to seven children, and Zhu Yuanzhang was the eighth, so he named him Chongba. Yuanzhang was taken after he joined Guo Zixing's rebel army.Of the eight children, only six survived, four boys and two girls.When Zhu Yuanzhang was born, Zhu Wusi was already over half a hundred years old, so he could be regarded as an old man.It's just that this newborn child has nothing to cheer him up about. It's just that an inconspicuous "consumer" has been added to the series of little creatures waiting to be fed. Everything seemed so plain and peaceful, not as exaggerated in "History of Ming Dynasty", when Zhu Yuanzhang was born was full of all kinds of auspiciousness, noise and strangeness.Being at the bottom of society, without special care, lack of milk, lack of food, and malnutrition, Zhu Yuanzhang was born yellow-skinned, thin, and sick.

The body is the capital for farmers to settle down.Without a strong body, how can we farm and support our family in the future?Although there is no special care and joy, it is a fresh life after all. Zhu Wusi and his wife saw Yao's son Zhongba like this, and they were naturally very anxious.After thinking about it, there is no practical and good way, so I have to sacrifice my life for him and entrust the protection of gods and Buddhas.So, he went to a nearby temple to burn incense, prayed to the Bodhisattva for peace, and made a wish that when he grew up, he would be a monk serving gods and Buddhas.

In Zhu Yuanzhang's hazy memory, the most profound feeling may be hunger.When they were just born, they didn't have enough milk, and when they got older, they didn't have enough rations. Even if they ate in their stomachs, they were rough or diluted food.His appetite has always been in an unsatisfied state of depression, and he dreams of being able to eat a delicious meal with a full stomach.Later, when he was a cowherd boy, he finally found a good opportunity to explode. He and several children of similar age slaughtered a calf of the landlord Liu De in the wild, picked some dry wood and leaves, and roasted it on the spot. , One by one, the belly was full and round.Afterwards, Zhu Yuanzhang came up with another way to bury the calf's skin and bones, and inserted its tail into a crevice in the stone, deceiving the landlord that the calf had drilled into the cave by himself.As a result of the incident, Zhu Yuanzhang was beaten severely by the landlord Liu De and was driven home.Although Zhu Yuanzhang's suppressed hunger was really satisfied, he paid a heavy price for it.

Hunger, scolding, beatings, oppression... These unavoidable tribulations and humiliations at the bottom of the society whizzed like a long leather whip and whipped his young heart vigorously. The disaster-ridden world is enduring, waiting, and accumulating, imagining that one day it will take revenge madly and happily like slaughtering a calf. What he remembers most is the story of his grandfather Kangyuan that his mother told him many times.Fifty or sixty years ago, my grandfather served as a personal soldier under Zhang Shijie, a general of the Song Dynasty.When the Southern Song Dynasty was defeated, Zhang Shijie and Lu Xiufu escaped to Yashan in the South China Sea while protecting the little emperor of the Song Dynasty.The Yuan soldiers continued to attack, and the Song army was defeated. Lu Xiufu picked up the nine-year-old emperor and jumped into the sea, while Zhang Shijie protected Queen Yang and broke out by boat, hoping to make a comeback and restore the territory.Unfortunately, a hurricane occurred four days later, and the ship sank. Zhang Shijie and other people were all drowned. Grandpa was rescued and survived by luck.The idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and serving the country and the concept of resisting foreign oppression in the story had a strong influence on Zhu Yuanzhang. Since childhood, he had the awareness of political unpredictability, dynasty change, and the emperor could be replaced.

The game he played the most when he was a child was "playing the role of emperor".He found a wooden plank to put on his head as a flat sky crown, and used pieces of wood as a wat. He sat down majestically on the mound, and ordered the other friends to kneel down before him one by one, shouting "Long live" in unison. , "Like a king". Although the childhood life was poor and poor, it was also full of the unique "self-satisfaction" of the poor. What really made him feel hungry and disaster was the fourth year of Yuan Shundi Zhizheng (1344 AD), when Zhu Yuanzhang was sixteen years old, which was the so-called age of "eating a long meal" and waiting for a meal.Since spring, drought, locust plague and plague have been raging one after another in Haozhou, Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown.Hunger and disease were tightly entangled and tormented all the poor peasants in the three townships and four neighbors, and Zhu Yuanzhang's family was doomed.In less than half a month, the father, eldest brother, eldest nephew, and mother died successively.The elder sister and the second elder sister were already married, and the third elder brother came to someone to find a son-in-law, so there were only him and the second elder brother left in the family.The two brothers were so poor that they had no money. Apart from barely saving their own lives, they had nothing to do about the illness and torture of their relatives. They could only cry bitterly.At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang really felt what it means to have nowhere to call and nowhere to ask for help.

Facing the corpses of their relatives, not only do they have no money to buy coffins, but there is even no cemetery for burial.Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to go to beg the landlord Liu De, begging him to show kindness and give him a small burial place for his relatives.Unexpectedly, Liu De not only refused, but also threw him out of the gate with a swearing curse.Fortunately, the neighbor Liu Jizu was kind and kind, and offered to be buried in Liu's field.The two brothers found a few rags, wrapped up the dead body of their relatives, and carried them to the cemetery for a hasty burial. The parents' spirits in heaven finally found a place to "stay".

The misery of the disaster, the cruelty of the rich, and the charity of the poor, all of these were deeply imprinted on Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, and he will never forget them all his life.Disaster had forged him, cultivated him, made him mature prematurely.After experiencing the natural and man-made disasters of the death of his parents, Zhu Yuanzhang could bear the greatest pain; in the face of the ruthlessness of fate and the cruelty of the rich, he also "trained" a hard heart; after he became emperor, he never forgot Liu Jizu He specially bestowed upon him the title of Marquis of Yihui and his wife, Mrs. Lou, as the Marquis of Yihui. It can be seen that his resolute attack on the rich and his preferential policy on the poor are also related to this unforgettable experience.