Chapter 81 Section 5: Kill the literati at will

Personality often undergoes drastic changes in old age.Zhu Yuanzhang's health was very poor in his later years, and years of super-intensive mental work made him psychotic.He began to do whatever he wanted, venting his bad emotions through unrestrained slaughter.In Hongwu's later years, it was hard for even well-known intellectuals to escape death. There are two main ways of death: one is literary prison, and the other is implicated in various prisons. Except for Gao Qi, none of the other three of the "Four Heroes of Wuzhong", Yang Ji, Zhang Yu, and Xu Ben, ended well. Died in the workplace.

Zhang Yu entered the Ming Dynasty and was once an official Taichang Cheng. Later, he was convicted and relegated to Lingnan.Xu Ben entered the Ming Dynasty as a servant, and later served as the Zuobu political envoy of Henan. When the Ming army on the frontier passed through Henan, he "sit and reward from time to time", that is, he failed to provide supplies in time, and died in prison. In addition to the poets and writers represented by the "Four Masters of Wuzhong", there were also a group of most talented and famous scholars in the early Ming Dynasty who were called to participate in the compilation of "Yuan History".After completing the "Yuan History", most people suffered misery, such as Wang Yi was killed by Zhu Yuanzhang, Gao Xunzhi was "banished to Qushan because of things", Fu Shu "sit back and die from exhaustion", Zhang Mengjian was criticized by Wu Yin But being killed, Zhang Xuan "relocated to Haoliang, a Taoist pawn"... Besides, there are too many famous cultural figures who died unexpectedly. Wang Xing, a literati who "dreams through a hundred schools of thought in classics and history", worked as a tutor for Lanyu, and Lanyu's case was discovered, "Xing's father and son also sat dead"; Painting, "then discuss death"; Zhao Yuan, a court painter who served in the inner government, was ordered to paint the portraits of former sages, "to deal with failure of purpose, sit down"; A jellyfish was painted on the back of the dragon, which made Zhu Yuanzhang furious: "Using a jellyfish to ride on the back of a dragon is not worthy of the purpose, so abandon the market."

There are too many similar cases to enumerate, and the talented people of the moment "survivors are unique".In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, Fang Xiaoru wrote in a letter to his friends: "Recently, well-known people in China are either poor or dead, and not dead or sick." Not only did few of these literati and ministers end well, even those great intellectuals who have been following Zhu Yuanzhang and achieved great success rarely ended well.After Zhu Yuanzhang raised his army, the most famous among the first batch of intellectuals who followed Zhu Yuanzhang were Li Shanchang, Tao Kai, and Tao An.Except for Tao Anyin who died early and got a good death, Li Shanchang was executed by Zhu Yuanzhang. .The second batch of scribes who followed Zhu Yuanzhang with the greatest contribution were Liu Ji and Song Lian. Liu Gene was not trusted by Zhu Yuanzhang, so he was dismissed from office and returned to his hometown, and was later poisoned to death by Hu Weiyong (one said Zhu Yuanzhang himself).Song Lian was implicated in the Hu Weiyong case because of his grandson Song Shen's affairs, and was exiled to other places, and hanged himself in Kuizhou on the way.

Famous civil servants in the Hongwu Dynasty, very few of them died well.Beginning with warm invitations and ending with cruelty and massacre, this kind of game between autocratic kings and intellectuals has been played out more than once in Chinese history.As for those intellectuals who survived, most of them were scared out of their wits.There is a funny and sad story that says: In Xingan, there are poets Deng Boyan, Song Qianxi (Lian)... recommended by poets.In the "Zhongshan Xiaohan Poetry" in the imperial examination, Taizu loved two lines in it, "Aozu stands on four poles, Zhongshan coils a dragon", and he unconsciously clapped his hands on the table and recited it.Bo Yan fell down on his knees, misunderstood and outraged, and died in shock.Help out the Donghua Gate, Shisu.The next day, he was awarded Hanlin.

That is to say, when Zhu Yuanzhang read two lines of his poem, he was greatly appreciated and patted the table with his hand.But he thought that the emperor had lost his temper, so of course he fainted from fright, and the eunuchs got him out of the Donghua Gate before he regained consciousness.Zhu Yuanzhang's cultural policy successfully made the intellectuals in the early Ming Dynasty walk on thin ice, restrain their personalities, whitewash the reality, blindly praise the saints, follow the rules, embellish the peace, and laid the foreshadowing of the "taige style" from Yongle to Chenghua. The basic situation of a generation of academic downturn.