Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 731: Two Emperors Shine Together
“Although it is called a country, it is not a country in reality.”

Listening to these harsh words, without even trying to distinguish the tone, Li Shimin knew that these words must have come from Wei Zheng's mouth.

As a Confucian scholar, especially one from Shandong and Hebei who upholds the kingly way, it is only normal for him to have opinions about the Mongols.

In Li Shimin's view, although the Yuan Dynasty originated from Mongolia, its grassland habits were too obvious.

The leaders of the grassland tribes have unparalleled prestige and are lawless. Almost everything can be decided by a single word. In essence, isn't this similar to the Li Jin Law?

Kublai Khan was in power for a long time but failed to eliminate this problem and frequently waged war. It is conceivable that all important positions in the court and the army were probably controlled by the nobles.

The problems it ultimately leads to are the same as those in the early Han Dynasty.

The common people are slaves of the powerful and wealthy. They only know the powerful and are unaware of the existence of a ruler. In the end, the powerful and the central government will go to war.

If compared with the Early Han Dynasty, Emperor Yuan was far inferior to Emperor Han in terms of skills.

He neither knew how to use cruel officials nor how to live in harmony with the people's livelihood. He only dreamed of eliminating all evils with a single imperial decree, but he never thought about where the emperor's power came from.

The result was that the three generations of Han emperors weakened the powerful, suppressed annexation and abolished feudal states, which became the achievement of Emperor Wu of Han.

The Yuan Emperor was assassinated three years into his reign, and the demise of the Yuan court was inevitable.

Li Shimin couldn't help but give his son a warning:

"Cheng Qian must know that the court is like a battlefield, and reforming corruption is like a war. Those who can accomplish things must shed blood and die."

These words are very meaningful, but they are undoubtedly too advanced for the fourteen-year-old prince.

Li Shimin didn't care about this. After all, he still had plenty of time to slowly regulate the prince.

And you just need to keep these words in mind, and you will remember them one day in the future.

Later generations only said how unwilling the Mongolian nobles were when their interests were damaged, but could the emperor and the crown prince willingly accept the damage to their own interests?
When Cheng Qian travels around the country and encounters corrupt officials who undermine his authority, he will understand the meaning of what I said today.

Wei Zheng, who was standing by, opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but when he thought about what he knew about the Song and Yuan dynasties from the light curtain, he finally sighed.

Du Ruhui seemed to have guessed Wei Zheng's thoughts and said softly:
"Being gentle, kind and fond of Confucianism is not a person's shortcoming, but a king's shortcoming, which is enough to disrupt the Han Dynasty."

Wei Zheng was suddenly startled. He was also well-versed in history books, so he naturally knew that Du Ruhui's description of being gentle, benevolent and fond of Confucianism was the evaluation of Crown Prince Liu Shi in "The Book of Han". Emperor Xuan even sighed, "The one who has brought chaos to my family is the crown prince."

So how can we avoid ruining the family? Wei Zheng softly repeated the words that Emperor Xuan of Han used to teach the crown prince:

"The Han family has its own system, which is originally a mixture of hegemony and kingship..."

[Emperor Yingzong of Yuan was the only one who legitimately inherited the throne from his father to his eldest son in the Yuan Dynasty, and he was assassinated. But seriously speaking, the fact that his father's "Manager Yanyou" didn't even last a year shows how big the internal problems of the Yuan Dynasty were.

The problem faced by Emperor Yingzong of Yuan was still the same old tune as the Song Dynasty's reform. The redistribution of interests was bound to be accompanied by bloodshed. If you don't let the powerful and wealthy bleed, they will only make you bleed.

As good as the Mongolian nobles were at murder, they were just as weak at political struggle.

Now that the emperor has been killed, the next step is naturally to support a puppet emperor. The easiest person to control is undoubtedly a child who is still wet behind the ears. The kindergarten of the Eastern Han Dynasty has already set a template, so all we have to do is copy it.

But the Mongolian nobles refused to do so. After assassinating the 20-year-old emperor, they carried up the 30-year-old grandson of Crown Prince Zhenjin.

After Emperor Taiding of Yuan Dynasty came to power, he did not hesitate to kill all the rebels who helped him to the throne. However, when it came to governing, he was the least sinicized among all the emperors of the Yuan Dynasty, so the Yuan Dynasty fell into a struggle between sinicization and not sinicization.

But all this is not very important, because thanks to the excellent style of Mongolia, Emperor Taiding of Yuan Dynasty died hastily after eight years in office. What happened next basically exposed the nature of the Yuan Dynasty as a makeshift team.

As soon as Emperor Taiding died, the regent looked at the nine-year-old prince and thought, why can't I sit on the throne?
However, on the road to usurping the throne, with countless people serving as examples for him, including Wang Mang, Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Sima Yi, Sima Shi, etc., this prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty chose the stupidest option and forcibly suppressed the crown prince from holding the coronation ceremony, leaving the throne vacant for more than a month.

This gave another prime minister, Yan Temur, an opportunity. He quickly brought Yuan Wuzong's son to Dadu to ascend the throne, becoming Yuan Wenzong.

This move caught the regent off guard, and he could only hastily hold a coronation ceremony for the nine-year-old prince, intending to kill the traitors first.

The two emperors fought each other, and the regent was defeated at lightning speed and had his head chopped off. The victorious Emperor Wenzong of Yuan said that according to the agreement between his father and uncle, the throne should have been mine, and you are the traitors.

Emperor Taiding and his son were stripped of their posthumous titles and temple names by Emperor Wenzong of Yuan and thrown out of the ancestral temple, which is why they are called that way today, using their reign titles.

But Yuan Wenzong was not done yet. Perhaps he had read too many Confucian books. He said that his brother was the eldest son and he was the second son, so the throne should be given to his brother. So he forced his brother Heshili, who was herding sheep on the Mobei grassland, to come back and put him on the throne. He was known in history as Yuan Mingzong. Wenzong served as emperor for three months with his brother before officially abdicating.

Wenzong voluntarily abdicated, and Mingzong, who was replaced by him, was very surprised. He named his younger brother the crown prince, saying that his brother would not take the throne for nothing and that he would eventually give it to him.

As a result, after Emperor Wenzong had played this trick, when he stood at the bottom of the steps as the crown prince and greeted his brother together with the civil and military officials, he regretted it again. Instead of being a good emperor, he demoted himself to a crown prince and waited for his brother to die. Wasn't this shameful?

So just three months later, Emperor Mingzong of Yuan died suddenly, and Emperor Wenzong of Yuan ascended the throne smoothly again. Later generations unanimously believed that Emperor Mingzong of Yuan was murdered by Emperor Wenzong of Yuan and Prime Minister Timur. After all, for Mongolia, this was an old trick and not surprising.

But Yuan Wenzong's work was not over yet. He ruined his body due to alcohol and sex after only three years in power. Before his death, he regretted that he had let his brother down and wanted to return the throne to his brother's descendants. The ministers of the Yuan Dynasty were all numb at the time. Would this ever end?

However, the empress of Yuan Wenzong ignored the opposition and sent the seven-year-old son of Yuan Mingzong to the throne. But this unfortunate child died suddenly again after two months in office. He was Yuan Ningzong.

The young emperor died suddenly, and the ministers had no choice but to hold their noses and go through untold hardships to bring back the eldest son of Yuan Mingzong from Guangxi. This son was Yuan Huizong, the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, but now generally called him by another posthumous title bestowed by Zhu Yuanzhang: Yuan Shundi.

As we said before, since the death of Emperor Taiding and the emergence of two emperors at the same time in the Yuan Dynasty, the fate of this dynasty has been like a wild dog that cannot be stopped.

In addition to the great event of the death of the two emperors of Taiding, another great event this year was the birth of a son by the old Zhu family in the Randeng Temple Village of Fengyang, Anhui, who was named Zhu Chongba.

(End of this chapter)