The Hongwu Secret Files: The Untold History of Zhu Yuanzhang

🔥 Tomato’s masterpiece of mystery and investigation, Hongwu Secret Files: The Untold History of Zhu Yuanzhang, unveils the forbidden secrets of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Great Ming!

📜 Born into abject poverty, the cowherd Zhu Chongba went from begging as a monk at Huangjue Temple to becoming a warlord of the Red Turban Army. In the end, he climbed to the throne over the corpses of Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng. Yet behind this legendary rise lurk bloody mysteries that official histories have kept buried:

⚔️ The Dark Side of Imperial Statecraft

- A “Four Dishes and One Soup” banquet ends in executions for extravagance: In the third year of Hongwu, Zhu hosted his ministers at what appeared to be a frugal banquet of radishes and greens. In secret, he executed Li Chang, a Vice Minister of Works who had expanded government offices, using “benevolence” as a cover for political scheming;

- The art of controlling a suicide squad: Before the Northern Expedition, he released 200 death-row prisoners and promised, “Die in battle and your crimes are forgiven; survive and you can start anew.” Only 17 survived the Battle of Xuzhou, yet the people cried out, “The sage emperor is benevolent!”;

- The terrifying rule of the fish-scale registers: Household registers meticulously recorded people’s birthmarks and limps. Every brick in Nanjing’s city walls was marked with its maker’s name, and anyone responsible for a collapse was immediately executed. Even 600 years later, no one dared swap them.

🩸 A Shocking Scheme of Bloody Power Struggles

- 30,000 heads in the Hu Weiyong case: Abolishing the chancellor’s office strengthened imperial authority and implicated the “Four Eminent Scholars of Eastern Zhejiang,” including Liu Ji and Song Lian. The Record of Exposing the Treacherous Party was issued, implicating 30,000 people;

- 15,000 souls lost in the Lan Yu case: The Embroidered Uniform Guard secretly accused the general of treason. Zhu Yuanzhang personally proclaimed, “I know you have not rebelled, yet the whole court hopes you will die!” That night, Lan Yu “took his own life.” His skin was stuffed and displayed along the empire’s northern frontier;

- The cruel practice of palace human sacrifice: Zhu restored the human-sacrifice custom abolished since the Qin and Han dynasties. Forty-six consorts were buried alive with Zhu Yuanzhang, and the practice was not abolished until the reign of the Ming Emperor Yingzong.