Chapter 344 Chapter 343: Daizong Zhu Qiyu

On the sixth day of September in the 14th year of Zhengtong (AD 1449), Zhu Qiyu, the king of Yi, ascended to the throne of God under the support of his officials.Respect Ming Yingzong, who was captured by Yexian, as the Supreme Emperor. The reason why Emperor Jing Zhu Qiyu was able to ascend to the throne of God was related to the capture of Ming Yingzong during the civil engineering change. The news of the "Civil Change" spread to Beijing, and all civil and military officials were stunned. Zhu Qiyu, the king of the Daiying Suzerain Dynasty, should be said to be psychologically prepared for the "Civil Change", but he did not expect that his brother Yingzong will be captured.In the tenth year of Xuande (1435 A.D.), when Zhu Qizhen succeeded his father as Emperor Yingzong, his younger brother Qi Yu, who was 13 years old, was also named King Ying. After that, the two had little contact.After Yingzong succeeded to the throne, he blindly pursued fun and seldom interfered with state affairs.The eunuch Wang Zhen monopolized the power in the court and was arbitrary and arrogant.Qi Yu was very disgusted by this.When Yingzong was instigated by Wang Zhen to prepare to lead an army of 500,000 to relieve the siege of Datong and the border, many ministers believed that the court was not fully prepared and advised Yingzong not to conscript himself. It will not be too late to lead the troops to support after you are ready.But Yingzong only listened to the words of the treacherous eunuch Wang Zhen in his ears, and he didn't listen to the advice of Qi Yu and the ministers. As a result, he was defeated and captured.

In August of the fourteenth year of Zhengtong (AD 1449), in order to reassure people's hearts, the Queen Mother ordered Zhu Jianshen, the son of Yingzong, to be crown prince.However, at a time when the country is in deep trouble, how can a child who is only two years old be enthroned as emperor?Therefore, based on the suggestions of the ministers, Empress Dowager Zhang ordered Qi Yu to supervise the country and be the prime minister of state affairs. Qi Yu made up his mind to stick to Beijing, and in view of the fact that most of the soldiers guarding the capital were old, weak, sick, and disabled, and people were frightened, he adopted Yu Qian's suggestion, and sent the military preparation troops in the two capitals and Henan, and the Japanese military troops in Shandong and Nanjing coastal areas. At that time, all the grain transport troops in Jiangbei and other prefectures in Beijing were transferred to Beijing.After Yu Qian's personal planning and deployment, and strengthening the defense, the hearts of the people were a little more stable.What Yu Qian did won Qi Yu's praise.Soon, Qi Yu promoted him to Minister of the Ministry of War.

Although foreign aggression is prevented, internal disasters are not eliminated.One day, when Qi Yu went to the court, hundreds of civil and military ministers jointly submitted a memorial to impeach Wang Zhen, which read: "Wang Zhen has endangered the country, and I request King Tan to copy Wang Zhen's family and exterminate his family, so as to outrage the common people. If King Zhen If you do not agree to the request of the ministers, you will not retreat from the court until you die."After reading the memorial, the officials burst into tears.What the ministers played was exactly what Zhu Qiyu wanted, so he immediately delivered an edict in the name of supervising the country, confiscating all Wang Zhen's fields and property, ransacking his family and exterminating his family.

After eradicating Wang Zhen's henchmen, Qi Yu's prestige was further enhanced, and the hearts of the people in the capital were basically stable.However, he still threatened Yingzong to harass the border continuously, trying to force the Ming Dynasty to pay compensation and cede territory.The ministers believed that although the capital was somewhat peaceful, the country was in a crisis and the people were in panic, and they needed to establish another emperor to calm people's hearts. Therefore, they wrote to the Queen Mother, suggesting that Qi Yu should be promoted to the throne as soon as possible.Seeing that there was no hope of Yingzong's return, the queen mother passed on a decree: the crown prince is young, and the king should be upright as soon as possible to secure the country.At first, Qi Yu repeatedly refused to persuade the ministers to advance, but later saw that the Empress Dowager had issued an order, so she obeyed her mother's order.After he ascended the throne, he was named Jingtai, so he was called "Emperor Jingtai" in history.

Although Emperor Jingtai did not have a complete plan for how to consolidate the regime at the moment of national crisis, compared with his brother Yingzong, he can be regarded as a monarch who worries about the country and thinks about governing the country.Facing the harsh reality, he abandoned the idea of ​​negotiating for peace and survival, and adopted almost all of Yu Qian's suggestions.In October, he also took Yingzong first, broke through Zijing Pass, and pointed directly at Beijing.Facing a powerful enemy, Emperor Jingtai appointed Yu Qian as the commander-in-chief, and at the same time flew a horse to report to the governors of the provinces to send troops to aid Beijing.Due to the careful arrangement of Emperor Jingtai and the excellent command of Yu Qian and other generals, all the soldiers served their orders. Even the people in the capital also climbed onto the roofs and threw bricks and stones at the enemy.The two armies held each other for 5 days, and the Oirat army was defeated in a row, and hurriedly withdrew from the siege to the west.The defense of Beijing was a brilliant victory.This battle also laid the foundation for Emperor Jing's rule.

The strengthening of the Ming Dynasty's frontiers and the defense of the capital made it impossible for him to take advantage of it, and Emperor Jingtai saw through Wala's conspiracy to threaten Yingzong, and refused to negotiate peace with him, forcing him to do nothing.In order to resume the tribute and mutual market with the Ming Dynasty, Yingzong had to be sent back to Beijing in August of the first year of Jingtai (AD 1450).When the two brothers met in the hall, their clothes were wet with tears.A year of bumpy life made Yingzong look much older.Seeing that his younger brother Qi Yu had officially ascended the throne and managed the country well, Yingzong considered that he had been weak for a year and could just be the Supreme Emperor, so he went out of Nangong to stay away from the court.

The reorganized regiment battalion played a role in defending the capital and guarding the frontier.But at this time, the Ming Dynasty was far less stable than the early Ming Dynasty.Emperor Jingtai knew very well that in order to stabilize and govern the country well, he must be guided by Confucian orthodoxy, implement enlightened politics, open up his voice, recruit talents, and govern the country with benevolence.Due to successive years of wars, harassment by Oala, and the fact that the Yellow River must be destroyed every flood, there are many disaster areas in the country, and hungry people are almost all over the Yellow River Basin.In response to these situations, Emperor Jingtai adopted a lenient policy for the disaster-stricken areas, and gave different degrees of tax reduction and exemption to the hard-hit Henan, Shanxi, Shandong and other places, and distributed food to the hungry people.The Yellow River gave birth to the Chinese nation, but she also brought many disasters to the people.Since Yingzong was in power, the Yellow River has been flooding from time to time. Although it has been repeated several times, it ended in failure due to improper management measures.In October of the fourth year of Jingtai, Emperor Jingtai summoned Xu Youzhen to Beijing and ordered him to serve as the censor of Youqin Capital and be responsible for governing the Yellow River.Xu Youzhen summed up the lessons of previous failures in controlling the Yellow River, and adopted the method of dredging the upper reaches of the river when the river level was slow, and then digging the rivers in the middle and lower reaches, solidly building embankments, and building Guangji Canal.In April of the seventh year of Jingtai, Xu Youzhen ruled Huang successfully.

After two years of rectification, the country appeared in a relatively stable situation. After some tricks, in the third year of Jingtai, Emperor Jingtai finally abolished Yingzong's son Zhu Jianshen and made his own son Zhu Jianji the prince. Qi Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief. But who knows that in that year, Zhu Jianji, who was established as the prince, fell ill and died.The prince is the only son of Emperor Jingtai, which is a huge blow to Emperor Jingtai.In the first month of the eighth year of Jingtai, Emperor Jingtai finally fell ill, and the stability that had appeared after the civil engineering changes took a sharp turn for the worse.

The ministers began to privately discuss the matter of establishing a reserve. Among them, Wuqing Hou Shiheng, minister Xu Youzhen and eunuch Cao Jixiang were the most active.Shi Heng is very greedy. Although he was recommended by Yu Qian to be named Marquis, he was often reprimanded by Yu Qian for revealing his greed and received cold treatment from Emperor Jingtai, so he was dissatisfied with Qi Yu and Yu Qian.Although Xu Youzhen, Cao Jixiang and others were praised by Emperor Jingtai for their respective contributions, they have not been reused, so they are very dissatisfied in their hearts.Both Shi Heng and Cao Jixiang were warriors and treacherous eunuchs with short-sighted eyes, and they both advocated establishing a deep view as the prince.On the contrary, Xu Youzhen was very scheming. He thought that if he was the crown prince again, it would be better to take advantage of Qi Yu's illness and take advantage of the conflict between him and the Yingzong brothers to launch a palace coup and invite the Supreme Emperor Yingzong to return.In this way, after the event is completed, in terms of the merits of welcoming the recovery, everyone will naturally be able to increase their official position and career advancement.Xu Youzhen's idea was approved by Shi Heng, Cao Jixiang and others.

In the middle of the night on the 16th day of the first lunar month, according to the plan, a group of soldiers, led by Xu and Shi, rushed into Nangong, Yingzong's residence, surrounded Yingzong and went straight to Fengtian Hall. All civil and military officials in Fengtian Palace were waiting for the early court, and they were asking each other about Emperor Jingtai's condition while waiting for Emperor Jingtai to visit the court.Suddenly, Xu Youzhen and Shi Heng arrived with troops and helped Yingzong to the throne.Xu Youzhen shouted to all the ministers: "The emperor has been restored."Due to the haste of the incident, all the ministers were stunned, puzzled, terrified, and looked up, and it was really the Supreme Emperor Yingzong sitting on the throne, so they had to go to congratulate him.This palace coup was so successful.In history, it was called "the Restoration of Nangong", and it was also called "the change of seizing the gate".After the restoration of Yingzong, Emperor Fei Jingtai was still the King of Yi, and changed this year to the first year of Tianshun.Immediately, the ministers Yu Qian, Wang Wen, scholars Chen Xun, Shang Ren, Shangshu Shi Yuyue, Jiang Yuan, etc. who were reused by Emperor Jingtai were all arrested and imprisoned.Among them, Yu Qian was hated by Xu Youzhen and killed by Yingzong.For Shi Heng, Xu Youzhen, etc., Yingzong made great achievements in welcoming and recovering, and was greatly favored and appointed.The hope of revitalizing the Ming Dynasty was thus shattered.

A few days later, Emperor Jingtai also died in the West Palace.After the death of Emperor Jingtai, he was buried in Xishan, Beijing with the etiquette of a prince.It was not until 1475 AD that the title of emperor was restored, and he was posthumously named "Emperor Jing" and the temple name "Daizong".