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When Qin Mu was worshiping Emperor Chongzhen in Changsha, in Huai'an, Jiangsu, three unlucky children who fled south to Huai'an in panic could finally take a breather. An official named Du Guangshao in Huai'an city vacated a garden for them to stay temporarily.
One of these three unlucky guys is named Zhu Changzi, one is named Zhu Yousong, and the other is named Zhu Ciyao. At this moment, the three unlucky men did not know that the capital was breached and Chongzhen hanged himself.
Huai'an is relatively safe now because there are two very good officials here who are loyal to the Ming Dynasty. One is Lu Zhenfei, the governor of water transportation and governor of Huaiyang, and the other is Wang Xie, the governor of Huai'an.
Especially Lu Zhenfei, the governor of water transportation, he did not insult his impressive name.
Lu Zhenfei, the governor of water transport, was known for his integrity and bravery. He also commanded the local army that defended against rebels. When Chongzhen visited Fujian in the sixth year, the pirate Liu Xiang colluded with the red barbarians to invade Fujian. He once sent guerrillas Zheng Zhilong, Huang Binqing and others. With these experiences in defeating Liu Xiang, Lu Zhenfei is also very experienced in the military.
From February this year, Li Zicheng defeated Shanxi and directed his troops to Henan. Lu Zhenfei felt that the situation was urgent, so he began to actively organize regiments to train rural soldiers in Huai'an, and rewarded them with cattle and wine. In two months, he organized tens of thousands of rural soldiers. He also sent his officials to separate roads and guard the river to prevent Dashun's army from moving south.
Under Lu Zhenfei's vigorous management, Huai'an has become the safest place in the Huaihe River area and the first choice refuge for bureaucrats and nobles fleeing from the north.
The three uncles and nephews who were in trouble, Zhu Changzi, Zhu Yousong, and Zhu Ciyao, were also warmly received by Governor Lu, and they were placed together in a courtyard of the official Du Guangshao's home.
Zhu Ciyao was the son of Zhu Youfan, the king of Chong (the vassal of Runing). King Chong Zhu Youfan was captured and killed when the Dashun army attacked Runing in November of the 15th year of Chongzhen. Zhu Ciyao also had an eldest brother named Zhu Cihui, who was also killed by Li Zicheng in Biyang.
In this way, the title of King Chong should fall on Zhu Ziyao, but the world has been so chaotic in the past two years, he has been running for his life, and Chongzhen himself is also unable to protect himself, so when will he have time to canonize him.
Here we focus on the uncle and nephew Zhu Changzi and Zhu Yousong. It is necessary to sort out the three generations of their ancestors, because this is related to the subsequent battle for the throne in Nanjing, and the various reasons that triggered the battle for the throne are closely related to their grandfathers.
Zhu Yousong is the current King of Fu, and his grandfather is the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun.
Emperor Wanli was a person who could often bring surprises to people. His mother and Zhang Juzheng married a queen for him and selected nine concubines "to serve him", but he found a new way to explore his secret love:
One day, Emperor Wanli went to Cining Palace to visit his mother and met a palace maid named Wang by chance. It is said that the little hands of this palace maid were so lubricated that Emperor Wanli's hormone secretion accelerated as soon as he touched her, so he pushed her down on the spot...
Although this palace maid was also named Wang, she was exactly the opposite of Queen Wang, who had poor fertility. She actually got pregnant with one hit.
However, Emperor Wanli later regretted the affair and always wanted to cover it up, but in the end the matter was not hidden from the Empress Dowager Cisheng who wanted to have a grandson. At the urging of the Queen Mother, in June of the tenth year of Wanli. This palace maid who was pregnant with the flesh and blood of Emperor Wanli was canonized as Concubine Gong.
Two months after the canonization, Concubine Gong gave birth to a baby boy. This was the eldest son of Emperor Wanli - Zhu Changluo.
Emperor Wanli's attitude towards Concubine Gong did not change because of the birth of the emperor's eldest son. On the contrary, he hated the emperor's eldest son very much. Because Zhu Changluo is the most powerful "witness" of the stains in his life.
Later, Emperor Wanli fell deeply in love with a woman named Zheng (one of the nine concubines selected by Zhang Juzheng and the Empress Dowager). She became the later Concubine Zheng. Concubine Zheng did not disappoint Emperor Wanli and gave birth to a daughter first. It was Princess Jingle, who was reborn as the third son of the emperor, Zhu Changxun.
As the saying goes, Wanli is deeply infatuated with Concubine Zheng. I love this son and son to the core.
Later, ministers planned to make the emperor's eldest son Zhu Changluo the crown prince.
However, Wanli intended to establish his third son, Zhu Changxun.
This triggered the case of "fighting for the foundation of the country". The emperor and the ministers were in a stalemate for fifteen years. In the end, Zheng Guoben was pushed to the forefront by the famous "Fighting Case".
In the mortar attack, the eldest son of the emperor, Zhu Changluo, was attacked in the palace but was unharmed. This was most likely a bitter trick, but it successfully forced Emperor Wanli to make concessions. In the end, King Fu Zhu Changxun could only take countless treasures and his son Zhu Yousong to Luoyang to join the feudal clan. Zhu Yousong had just turned eight years old this year.
But it didn't end there. Zhu Yousong and the others have arrived in Luoyang, but his grandmother is still in the palace in the capital. After the death of Emperor Wanli, his grandmother played an important role in the two successive battles for the throne and led to There are two other strange cases in the Ming Dynasty: the Hongwan case and the palace transfer case.
In the first two of the three major mysteries of the late Ming Dynasty: the Stinging Case, the Red Pill Case, and the Palace Relocation Case, Party A’s main force was Zhu Yousong’s grandmother Zheng Guifei, while Party B’s main force was the ministers headed by the Donglin Party.
The result of the attack was that Zhu Changluo, the eldest son of the emperor, was promoted to the position of crown prince. Prince Fu Zhu Changxun had no choice but to go to Luoyang to join the feudal clan.
The red pill case was that Zhu Changluo, who had just ascended the throne for a month, was seriously ill, and Li Kezhuo, the Prime Minister of Honglu Temple, offered red pills. Zhu Changluo died after taking it. The Donglin Party members suspected that Concubine Zheng was instigating the poisoning, and immediately launched a series of actions to trace the culprit. During this period, party strife and personal hatred were mixed, and many people died in the crime. Concubine Zheng was forced to live in a lonely cold palace in the Forbidden City.
It can be said that these three major mysteries laid the main factors for the demise of Nanming.
These three strange cases originally had nothing to do with classmate Zhu Yousong, but when Li Zicheng came, he captured Luoyang first and cooked his father Zhu Changxun's meat and venison in a pot, naming it "Fulu Feast".
Zhu Yousong escaped by hiding in Anguo Temple in Luoyang. After Li Zicheng's army retreated, Zhu Yousong escaped from Luoyang City and wandered all the way, first fleeing to Huaiqing.
His life in exile gave him a deep experience of the geography of mountains and rivers, and he was able to make more rational judgments about the situation at that time.
When Zhu Yousong was in Huaiqing, he wrote a memorial to Emperor Chongzhen, suggesting that his cousin should pay attention to the defense of the Yellow River to prevent rogue bandits from threatening the eastern barrier of the capital.
Being able to give such a memorial to the court shows that Zhu Yousong is not a simple idiot.
In May of the 16th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Yousong was officially canonized as King Fu. However, because Luoyang was still occupied by rebels, he had to stay in Huaiqing.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, that is, in January of this year, the Dashun Army led by Liu Fangliang marched eastward along the Yellow River and approached Huaiqing. Zhu Yousong had no choice but to continue in exile and ran all the way to Weihui, where he found a relative, his cousin. Zhu Changzi, King of Shulu.
This King of Lu, Zhu Changzi, was the nephew of Emperor Wanli. His father was Zhu Yili, the only half-brother of Emperor Wanli. He was conferred the title of King of Lu at the age of four. In the 17th year of Wanli, he became a vassal of Weihui Mansion in Henan. After the death of King Lu I, his son Zhu Changzi took over.
One of them is the grandson of Emperor Wanli, and the other is his nephew. Very dear, but it's a pity that King Lu couldn't provide shelter to poor classmate Zhu Yousong, because Liu Fangliang chased Wei Hui all the way.
They had no choice but to pack up their belongings and flee south together.
At this time, Li Zicheng swept through Shanxi, and Liu Fangliang's partial army swept through Henan and surrounded the capital. On their way to escape, the uncle and nephew met the King of Zhou in Kaifeng and Zhu Ciyao, the eldest son of King Chong of Runing.
Sigh that a few of my direct descendants have moved away, and when we meet each other, let alone say that the Forbidden City is prosperous, while other places have fallen into ruin.
Hurry up, I heard that even Xuzhou has been occupied by rebels.
During this stormy time, several descendants of the Zhu family fled south together on a boat as if to keep warm. They were frightened and anxious. On the boat fleeing south, the King of Zhou could not bear the panic and fatigue, so he gave up and went west. His body was found He hasn't been buried yet.
Zhu Yousong and his uncle and nephew were left to flee to Huai'an. Fortunately, Governor Lu Zhenfei was kind and allowed them to have a hot meal at Du Guangshao's house. The three of them had been running for their lives for a long time. They were tired and scared. They planned to Let’s rest in Huai’an for a few more days first;
As a result, on March 28, news suddenly came that the capital city had been destroyed and the emperor had hanged himself. Although these news were all hearsay and what everyone else said, no one dared to confirm whether the news was true or false. Anyway, rumors were flying all over the city.
For the three wandering descendants, this is undoubtedly a bolt from the blue. Everyone knows that when dynasties have been overthrown by force, the original descendants will suffer the worst fate.
No matter how high the officials are, they can surrender, but they, the direct relatives of the royal family, do not even have the chance to surrender. If they are caught, they will either be beheaded immediately or imprisoned until death.
When the three grandsons and phoenixes received the news in Huai'an, their first reaction was to burst into tears. They cried more sadly than when their respective fathers died, because after their father died, they lost their fiefdoms and were still under the control of the emperor of Beijing. Food, now even the emperor of Beijing is dead, who will take care of the food
The three of them cried heart-breakingly, and the tears poured down in torrents. They shed endless tears for their home and country, and endless worries about their jobs. They poured all the water in the East China Sea, and it was difficult to wash away the worries at this time.
After crying, the three of them remembered that the emperor was gone and could be re-established. Beijing was gone and there was still Nanjing. The difference between the Ming Dynasty and previous dynasties was that it had always retained a complete set of leadership teams in Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty. All the nine ministers, including the eunuch Li Bingbi, are all available. As long as an emperor is established, according to common sense, the entire empire's institutions can resume normal operation.
The problem lies in this emperor, who will be the emperor? The capital was breached, and Chongzhen's family was probably doomed.
The eyes of Zhu Changzi and Zhu Ciyao were suddenly focused on Zhu Yousong. Without him, after excluding Chongzhen's sons, they were close by blood. King Fu, King Gui and King Hui became the first choices.
King Gui and King Hui are far away in southern Xinjiang. At this critical moment when the country is ruined and the family is destroyed, it is impossible to wait for the remote King Gui and King Hui to come and establish a new king.
Zhu Yousong, the lucky king, has just fled to Huai'an, Nanjing. Compared with Zhu Youlang, who is far away in Guangxi, Huai'an is ten times closer to Nanjing.
Suddenly, the shameless Zhu Yousong became the first choice of the new emperor, but things are not that simple...
*******************(To be continued...)
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