diymy Chapter 3: Who was the Yongle Emperor?!
Chapter 3: Who was the Yongle Emperor?!
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze returned to the scene where Empress Ma's worried face appeared beside him.
"Jupachi."
Zhu Yuanzhang pressed his temples, and the pain seemed to lessen somewhat.
"Is the sky... still there?"
"Still alive, still alive."
The eunuch standing nearby quickly replied.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked up again and saw Liu Yan's face, which made his blood pressure soar.
At this moment, Liu Yan led Xu Miaoyun to appear in front of a main hall.
Inside the sky screen, Liu Yan spoke into the live stream.
"Friends, we are now at the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum's Fangcheng Minglou, which is equivalent to the gate of the underground palace."
"Behind us is the underground palace's treasure roof, which is currently not open to the public."
Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang breathed a sigh of relief, thankfully he hadn't turned his own coffin upside down.
"Is this our mausoleum? It's quite fitting for our status."
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Fangcheng Minglou and the surging crowd inside and couldn't help but sigh.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat dissatisfied that his mausoleum had become a tourist attraction.
But seeing so many people from later generations come to pay their respects is some consolation.
"The Minglou Pavilion in Fangcheng records the magnificent life of this Hongwu Emperor."
"Starting with a bowl, ending with ruling the country. Expel the Tartars and restore China."
"It was Emperor Hongwu who ended the chaos at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, unified China, and restored the orthodox status of Chinese civilization. He can be said to be an emperor of all time, comparable to the Tang and Song emperors."
Xu Miaoyun's eyes lit up when she heard this.
"Wow, His Majesty is actually that amazing?"
Hearing Liu Yan's evaluation, Zhu Yuanzhang's lips unconsciously curled up slightly.
The phrase "Emperor of a Thousand Ages" truly resonated with Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang could be proud to be compared to emperors like Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of Han, Emperor Taizong of Tang, and Emperor Taizu of Song.
"This assessment is fairly fair."
Empress Ma, who was standing to the side, seemed to sense Zhu Yuanzhang's arrogance and couldn't help but smile.
As a couple who had gone through thick and thin together, Empress Ma naturally knew that Zhu Yuanzhang's lifelong pursuit was to become the greatest emperor of all time.
However, before Zhu Yuanzhang could even enjoy his happiness for three seconds, Liu Yan's voice came again.
"However, no one is perfect. His abolition of the prime minister led to the excessive concentration of imperial power, which laid the groundwork for the later usurpation of power by eunuchs."
"The four major cases during the Hongwu reign involved the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, which can be described as brutal."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's expression froze.
The eunuchs serving nearby were so angry they wanted to poke their ears out. How could they possibly listen to this nonsense?
"However, while officials considered the Hongwu Emperor to be cruel, the common people considered him a wise ruler."
Above the sky, Liu Yan held Xu Miaoyun's hand and slowly descended the stone steps.
His voice was unhurried, carrying a relaxed and casual quality unique to later generations, yet every word he uttered struck Emperor Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, like thunder.
"Actually, the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum has a very interesting feature: it is the only Ming Dynasty imperial mausoleum located in Nanjing."
Xu Miaoyun tilted her head and asked.
"The only one? Does that mean none of our other Ming emperors were buried here?"
"Good question."
Liu Yan smiled and tapped the tip of her nose.
"That brings us to what happened after your time."
Upon hearing this, Zhu Di, a minister in the Yongle court, suddenly felt a pang of anxiety.
Oh no! There's a murderous aura!
Zhu Di suddenly spoke to Zhu Gaochi beside him.
"Do you think this kind of celestial canopy might only appear during our Yongle reign?"
Zhu Gaochi was immediately stumped by Zhu Di's seemingly nonsensical question. He shifted his bulky body and pondered for a moment.
"This canopy cannot be made by human hands, and I do not know how to make it either."
Zhu Di was a little nervous for a moment, after all, if this canopy really came from the future, it was very likely that his own father also had one.
If he knew that Zhu Di of the Hongwu era had seized the throne from Zhu Yunwen through the Jingnan Campaign, what would he do? The scene would be too beautiful to bear!
Inside the sky, Liu Yan continued his eloquent speech.
"After Emperor Yongle ascended the throne in response to the imperial mandate to quell the rebellion, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beiping, which was renamed Beijing. For the next two hundred years, the capital of the Ming Dynasty remained in Beijing."
"Later emperors were also buried one after another at Tianshou Mountain north of Beijing, forming the famous 'Ming Tombs'."
"And the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing became the only Ming Dynasty imperial mausoleum left alone in the south. From then on, no Ming emperor ever returned to accompany his ancestor."
As Liu Yan finished speaking, he smiled and patted Xu Miaoyun's head.
"So, apart from Zhu Yuanzhang, Empress Ma, and Crown Prince Zhu Biao, all the descendants of the Zhu family went to Beijing. The old man was all alone in Nanjing, which was quite lonely."
Upon hearing this, Xu Miaoyun remained silent for a moment before speaking.
"It's alright, His Majesty has his father here in Nanjing to keep him company. We'll just visit them more often in the future."
......
In the fifth year of the Hongwu reign, in front of the Fengtian Hall.
A dead silence.
The eunuchs knelt on the ground, wishing they could hold their breath.
Zhu Yuanzhang sat in the chair, his body stiff as a stone statue. His eyes were fixed on the sky, his pupils trembling slightly.
"Emperor Yongle?"
He murmured those four words repeatedly, his voice so low it sounded like it was being squeezed out from the depths of his throat.
"To quell the rebellion in Fengtian? To move the capital to Beiping?"
Empress Ma tightened her grip on his arm, staring incredulously at the sky. Her lips moved slightly, but she couldn't utter a single word.
As a woman, she didn't care about the succession of the throne; as long as her family members were the ones who ascended the throne in the end, that was all that mattered.
However, leaving the elderly couple in Nanjing while their descendants went to Beijing made this virtuous empress, considered the greatest empress of all time, somewhat uncomfortable.
Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stood up, causing his chair to overturn with a loud crash.
"Who gave them the audacity!"
Zhu Yuanzhang's roar shook the roof tiles of the main hall, veins bulged on his forehead, and his face turned bright red.
"We've established our capital in Yingtianfu! We've built our mausoleum here! We want our descendants to take Nanjing as their foundation, forever guarding the south!"
"What's wrong with them? They all ran off to Beiping! Beiping was the Yuan dynasty's capital! It was the Tartars' stronghold!"
Zhu Yuanzhang paced back and forth, panting heavily, his boots making a heavy thud on the gold bricks.
"Who is this Yongle Emperor? If Zhu Biao didn't ascend the throne, who would have? Could it have been his second son, Zhu Shuang?"
At this moment, Zhu Yuanzhang was like a volcano about to erupt. He was panting heavily as he gave his orders, word by word.
"Someone come here!"
"Go and summon the Crown Prince, the King of Qin, the King of Jin, the King of Wu, the King of Chu, and the King of Qi!"
"The fourth prince has also sent people to search for us! I want to see all the princes within half an hour!"
"Send someone to invite Xu Da into the palace as well!"
"And bring our riding whip too!"
"We need to see which of these wicked sons is the one who moved our capital!"