Chapter 22 Chapter 21 The Destruction of Sapphire

Fainting is a term used in Go. It means that a good player makes mistakes that should not be made. It is very appropriate to use this word on Sapphire. Presumptuously formed an indissoluble bond for this word. On the way home, Lan Yu did something quite shameless, he bullied Yuan Zhu's wife, and this woman was also very staunch, so she committed suicide. (Private concubine, the concubine committed suicide) Lan Yu's behavior violated Zhu Yuanzhang's ethnic policy and was very unpopular. Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry, but considering Lan Yu's great contribution, he did not pursue him further, but Lan Yu thought it was a sign of acquiescence, and even more so rampant up.

Since then, his performances of this kind have increased more and more. When he returned to Xifeng Pass, because it was already dark, the officials guarding the pass had a rest. What no one can think of. He ordered his soldiers to attack the checkpoint, broke through the city wall and forcibly entered, and was quite complacent. This is too much, the officials guarding the gate are also human, they have already run to open the door, and you are not willing to wait for a while, could it be that you rushed to put out the fire? These two incidents made Zhu Yuanzhang very annoyed. He originally planned to make Lanyu the Duke of Liang, but in order to warn Lanyu, he changed the word Liang to Liang. From this, everyone can see the change of Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards Lanyu.

Sapphire seems to be alert, but he is destined to be a person who is about to open a dyeing workshop if he has two colors.Not only did he continue to indulge his behavior, but he even extended his hand to military power. Without Zhu Yuanzhang's permission, he appointed his trusted officials in the army to arrange his own power. All of this naturally did not escape Jin Yiwei's eyes, so Zhu Yuanzhang began to consider how to deal with this second Hu Weiyong. Sapphire is an excellent general, but it seems incomprehensible to do so many illegal things after his success.But in fact, as long as you contact the Naha we mentioned earlier about the surrender incident, you can reasonably explain Sapphire's behavior.

From the arrogance when he invited Naha out to the arrogance of Xifengguan, we can draw a conclusion for Lanyu, that is: this is a rough person. The so-called rough person does not mean that he is uneducated or behaves rudely, but that his behavior is thoughtless, he is inhumane, and he belongs to the kind of person who thinks about it and thinks about it later.In fact, his character has always been like this, even if he doesn't make a mistake in this matter, sooner or later he will make a mistake in that matter. This is the so-called character determines fate, and the key problem is that Lan Yu's fate is not completely in his own hands. To a large extent, his life and death only depend on Zhu Yuanzhang's tolerance and patience, and Zhu Yuanzhang is not a patient man.

Lan Yu soon made a new mistake. Considering Lan Yu's contribution, Zhu Yuanzhang made an exception and granted him the title of Prince Taifu. As we have said before, this is a first-rank official position, and ordinary officials can only get it in dreams. It can be said that he is already an extremely human minister. And Lan Yu, as if she had taken the wrong medicine, shouted in front of many people: "Can't I give a grand master to my credit?" (I can't bear the grand master?) This is not asking for progress, but thinking that I have lived too long. Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't bear it anymore. If he could bear it, he would not be Zhu Yuanzhang.

He showed the butcher knife again. It should be explained that in history, there is another theory for the reason why Lan Yu was killed. According to the "Ming Tong Jian", Lan Yu's killing has a great relationship with Yan Wang Zhu Di. Zhu Di is the fourth son of Zhu Yuanzhang. His methods and methods are very similar to Zhu Yuanzhang, so many people say that he is the most like Zhu Yuanzhang. You should know the later story of this man. Let’s not talk about him here. There are special presentations. Lan Yu is Chang Yuchun's brother-in-law, and Chang Yuchun's daughter is Prince Zhu Biao's concubine, so Lan Yu and the prince have a good relationship. After returning from the expedition to Naha, this man found the prince and said to him: "King Yan is not an ordinary person. Sooner or later he will rebel. I have asked others to look at him. If you have the appearance of the emperor, you must be careful."

Sapphire is considered a good friend, and I told the prince these words, just hoping that the prince will be careful, but he forgot the idiom "Separate and inseparable", your Sapphire is at best a foreign relative, how can you compare with your brothers! The prince later told Yan Wang Zhu Di what Lan Yu had said to him while chatting, so Zhu Di sued Lan Yu severely.Zhu Yuanzhang did not attack Lan Yu until Zhu Di provoked him. Of course, this is just a theory. In my opinion, the main reason why Lan Yu was killed should be his arrogance and lawlessness. In any case, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to attack Lan Yu.

Now that he has decided to do something, he must first charge Lan Yu with a crime, after all, the procedure still has to go.You can't be pulled out and beheaded for no reason. If you want to sue Lanyu for petty theft, no one will believe it. At that time, life style issues such as having a mistress seemed to be an honor. It seems that the crime of treason is better. The title is eye-catching, the theme is clear, and it is convenient and practical to understand at a glance. We have been using it. In February of the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, the commander of Jin Yiwei, Jiang Yu, reported Lan Yu's treason, and the last case of Hongwu's four major cases-the Lan Yu case finally kicked off.

Countless heads are about to fall to the ground. After Jin Yiwei's report, Zhu Yuanzhang quickly arrested Lan Yu and put him in prison for trial. To be fair, there is real evidence for Lan Yu's arrogance and lawlessness, but there is no real evidence for rebellion.As an upstart general, Sapphire dared not rebel without a solid foundation and sufficient preparation. If you want to add a crime, there is nothing to worry about. It is estimated that Lanyu suffered a lot of black sticks in prison, because this person who had no intention of rebellion actually wrote a long confession, not only explaining his rebellion attempt, but also the method and location of the attempted rebellion. He should have played the leading role in a prison situation in prison.

Now that Lan Yu has confessed, let's kill Lan Yu and close the case.But as mentioned earlier, if Zhu Yuanzhang really did this, he would not be Zhu Yuanzhang anymore. But if there is any rebellion, there must not be only one person. This is the clue, and we must continue to investigate, so Zhang San Li Si Wang Er Mazi all came out. Jin Yiwei is also very experienced in this kind of practice (see the Hu Weiyong case for the specific operation process and methods). How many people did they get out in the end? After investigation, there were 15,000 people in Lan Yu's party.Judging from this figure, Sapphire's usual interpersonal relationship is still good.

Sapphire himself was exterminated, and the number of people implicated by him was countless. A total of one duke, thirteen marquises, two earls, and more officials at all levels were killed in this case. Those who survived the Hu Weiyong case were once lucky , but what they would not have imagined was that they had only lived for more than ten years, and they had not escaped the knife after all. These people who were killed because of the Sapphire case did not rest in peace after death. Their names were compiled into "Ni Chen Lu". I estimated that if the names of 15,000 people were listed, the list would be at least two words , plus the word is five words.This "Rebellious Minister Record" is about 30,000 to 75,000 words, which can catch up with the word count of a master's thesis. But this paper is different in that every word in it is written in blood. The Sapphire case wiped out almost all the heroes and generals in the Hongwu period. It started with Hu Weiyong in the thirteenth year of Hongwu, and it should come to an end here. Kill those who should be killed, and those who should not be killed. Everyone rest Bar. Sapphire's life was extremely dramatic. His first half of his life was always shrouded in the shadow of a famous general, and he didn't have many opportunities to perform. History did not treat him badly. In the second half of his life, he became the protagonist and established his own He has a lot of achievements, but pulled him off the horse when he was most in the limelight. Is this God's will? Of course not, Sapphire's tragedy was not caused by history, but the inevitable result of his character flaws, but it is gratifying that he lived up to the name of a famous general after all, and proved himself with illustrious military exploits. Into the annals of history, recalled for future generations. From this point of view, he seems to be lucky again. That night, I dreamed of a million soldiers. There are deeper reasons why Zhu Yuanzhang wielded the butcher knife in the Lanyu case. In fact, everyone can also think that killing a little Lanyu would involve so many people, and Lanyu is not Hu Weiyong, and his accomplices are not many.Zhu Yuanzhang continued to kill many innocent people as Lanyu's accomplices.This is worthy of our careful analysis. What is the purpose behind Zhu Yuanzhang's behavior? It's time for our detective to play again. As I said before, many seemingly irrelevant things are actually closely related.The truth of the facts is often hidden in the boring historical materials, just waiting for you to discover. It is the same in the Sapphire case. The answer may lie in the complicated historical events. Let the detectives start their own investigations. Let me talk about my thinking first. The Sapphire case happened in February of the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu. Let us use this as a clue to see what happened around this year?These events should have had a profound impact on the handling of the Sapphire case. After searching and analyzing for a while, I found my answer. Historical records: In April of the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, the prince Zhu Biao died of illness, and his son Zhu Yunwen succeeded the prince. If you think about it carefully, Zhu Yuanzhang's behavior is not difficult to understand.Zhu Biao is the eldest son of Zhu Yuanzhang, but he is not the first son (his mother is a concubine), but Zhu Yuanzhang made him the prince early, which shows that he is very satisfied with Zhu Biao.Zhu Yuanzhang's deep affection for Zhu Biao made him choose Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunqi to inherit the throne after Zhu Biao's death. This choice should be said to be good. Judging from the later situation, Zhu Yunqi is also a good heir.But the problem is that Zhu Yunqi is too young. Unlike his father, he has experienced the arduous tests during the founding of the country, and he has no means to control the officials. Lan Yu, a group of founding heroes, is capable of planning and making good decisions. Only Zhu Yuanzhang can control them. Zhu Biao is still a bit prestige. As the saying goes, he can barely hold the line, but Zhu Yunqi can't help it at all. up.How can the country that I have worked so hard to hand over to others, Liang Gong and lackeys must be cleaned up first, so as to ensure Zhu Yunqi's throne. Modern history books also basically hold the above-mentioned views on Zhu Yuanzhang's motives and purposes for killing heroes, but we cannot follow others' opinions. We should draw our own conclusions through the analysis of historical materials. This is the scientific view of history. Zhu Yuanzhang killed those capable ministers, but he also had to consider that someone must defend the country, and those nerds who have not experienced the test of war cannot complete this mission.Zhu Yuanzhang solved this contradiction perfectly (at least he thinks so). He divided his sons into various places. These people were called vassal kings in history and allowed them to have armies. We have to admire Zhu Yuanzhang. He also thought that these vassal kings might rebel, so he created a whole system to check and balance the power of the vassal kings. We will introduce this system in detail later.It should be said that the vassal check and balance system he formulated is quite perfect, but not perfect.No matter how careful people are, there will be omissions, and Zhu Yuanzhang is no exception. There is a small loophole in his system. Later facts proved that although this loophole is small, it is fatal. Another story can also explain Zhu Yuanzhang's motive for killing heroes. Once, Zhu Yuanzhang was about to kill a large number of heroes again, Zhu Biao couldn't see it, and advised him: "Your Majesty kills too many people, I'm afraid it will hurt the peace." Zhu Yuanzhang kept silent, and asked someone to find a barbed stick and throw it at Zhu Biao. In front of him, let Zhu Biao pick it up.Zhu Biao is not an idiot either, he naturally doesn't do anything when he sees a thorn.Zhu Yuanzhang looked at him coldly and said, "I killed people to remove the thorns from this wooden stick for you. These are dangerous people." This incident clearly explained Zhu Yuanzhang's motives, but there is still a second half of this story. From this part, we can understand what kind of person Zhu Biao is. As a prince, Zhu Biao has never enjoyed the respect of the emperor. Rong, but he is also an important figure, we need to introduce him. To Zhu Yuanzhang's surprise, his tone did not frighten Zhu Biao. This soft-spoken son dared to refute, and his words were very ugly. Zhu Biao said in the same indifferent tone: "The emperor is a virtuous monarch like Yao and Shun, and the ministers are the subjects who support Yao and Shun." This sentence carries too much weight. The implicit meaning is that what kind of emperor there is, there will be what kind of courtiers. If you are not wise, how can you blame the ministers? Zhu Yuanzhang was stunned. This honest son dared to make fun of himself!He flew into a rage, and took out the weapon with which he used to conquer the world, the seat, and threw it at the prince. Zhu Biao was agile and dodged it, but Zhu Yuanzhang's brick still frightened him a lot. When he returned, he became seriously ill. From this story, we can see that Zhu Biao is indeed a benevolent monarch, and he dares to stick to principles, which belongs to the character of being soft on the outside and strong on the inside.Zhu Yuanzhang had a good way of seeing people all his life, and the heir he chose should also be quite good. It is worth noting that we can also see from Zhu Biao's words that he has excellent insight. The sentence "The emperor is a virtuous monarch like Yao and Shun, and the ministers are the subjects who support Yao and Shun" is really insightful. If the later Chongzhen If the emperor can understand this, his world may not be lost so quickly, let alone sigh that "all ministers can be killed". No matter from which point of view, Zhu Biao is an ideal successor. He followed Zhu Yuanzhang since he was a child, treated people with humility, and had a good relationship with ministers. Zhu Yuanzhang also attached great importance to Zhu Biao. He had already handed over many political affairs to Zhu Biao in the tenth year of Hongwu (1377), and told Zhu Biao the four-character formula "benevolence, brightness, diligence, and determination" to deal with national affairs. It can be said that there were only two people Zhu Yuanzhang trusted most at that time, one was Queen Ma, and the other was the prince. However, God seemed to punish Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Biao died earlier than Zhu Yuanzhang. This bad news completely destroyed Zhu Yuanzhang. He disregarded the dissuasion of his ministers and passed the throne to Zhu Yunqi, who was still young.This also shows the depth of his affection for this son. We can see from it that Zhu Biao is indeed a well-deserved heir. However, there are completely different records in some historical materials. How is this going on? One of the most important historical materials recording Zhu Yuanzhang's deeds is recorded in the "Records of Ming Taizu". First of all, it is an old-fashioned way.Then he said that Zhu Yuanzhang liked Zhu Di very much, but he didn't like the prince and grandson.It is even said that Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to change his will many times and pass on the throne to Zhu Di before his death, but was stopped by the prince's edict. We all seem to be familiar with these plots, and there is nothing new, but these are records in historical materials after all, so we have to distinguish carefully. We have said that this article not only narrates that period of history, but also tells you some methods of analyzing history. As I said before, when reading a piece of historical material, we must first identify who the author of the material is and what his tendencies are. Mastering this law can allow us to Avoid many detours. The so-called "Ming Shilu" is the historical record of Ming Dynasty historians. Since Yongle seized the throne, there has been a lot of tampering with the history of the previous dynasty. , these records should not be unexpected. What is even more convincing is that neither historians nor orthodox historical materials of later generations adopted these statements. These experienced historians carefully identified and screened historical materials, and their attitudes towards these records are very revealing. Based on the above situation, we should be able to infer that Zhu Biao and Zhu Yunqi are well-deserved successors.It is undeniable that Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di have similar personalities and ways of doing things, but this does not prove that Zhu Yuanzhang wants to pass the throne to Zhu Di. In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang later realized that he was too strict in his administration. He taught the prince to "govern the country with benevolence" and made many revisions to his early policies.Zhu Yuanzhang is a mature politician, he understands Zhang Chi's principle of governing the country, and it is reasonable and reasonable to choose the benevolent Zhu Biao as his successor. Zhu Biao is an unfortunate person. He has lived in the huge figure of Zhu Yuanzhang all his life. He has no right to autonomy and self-determination, and his lifeline is not long. His son Zhu Yunqi is even more unfortunate.The father and son can be regarded as difficult brothers. Although hundreds of years have passed in history, and Huang Sha has already buried those old memories, we should still find out the truth from the pile of old papers and return justice to Zhu Biao and his son. For justice late is still justice.