Zhu Yuanzhang was born in an extremely poor peasant family. He was born in Zhongli County, Haozhou (now Fengyang County, Anhui Province, directly southeast of the important railway crossing and industrial city Bengbu) on October 21, 1328. His childhood was very difficult. His parents and grandparents were tax defaulters, hiding from debts everywhere in the Huaihe River Basin, trying to find a place to be tenants in this drought-stricken area. Living a hand-to-mouth existence in a land plagued by epidemics. He was the youngest of his parents' four sons and two daughters to survive the disaster. Except for the eldest child, all the other children were given away or married off because the family could not afford to raise them. By the 1330s the Huaihe region had become the cradle of the Red Turban rebellion, and its messianic teachings attracted increasing support from the suffering people. People believe that in this darkest and lonely moment, a transformation will occur, the light of Mingjiao will reappear, and Maitreya Buddha will rule the world from the Western Paradise, bringing about a dramatic utopian change in people's destiny. The young Zhu Yuanzhang's maternal grandfather, a fortune teller and veteran warriors who had resisted the final phase of the Mongol conquests in the 1370s, filled the boy's ears with fantastic tales of magical events and high adventure. These were the environments in which Zhu Yuanzhang grew up. In 1344, when Zhu Yuanzhang was 16 years old, within three weeks of May and June, the epidemic, accompanied by locusts and drought in the summer, killed most of his family members - his father, mother and the children who were still living at home. The life of the married eldest brother. His eldest sister-in-law, their youngest son and another estranged married brother were the only survivors besides him. Those who survived were too poor to bury their deceased relatives well, let alone support Zhu Yuanzhang. At the end of October, he was sent to a nearby Buddhist monastery to work as an errand boy in order to fulfill the wish his father had made when the child was ill. At the same time, he had grown up and turned into a tall, strong young man. His distinctive features were wrinkles and acne spots on his face and a protruding jaw. This strange appearance was intimidating and seemed to indicate something extraordinary in the future. quality.

The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty divided the ethnic groups in China into four classes. The Mongolians were the first class, the Semu people were the second class, the northerners (the original population living in the Jin Dynasty) and the southerners were the third and fourth classes. people. The Mongols could enjoy all the property of the Han and other ethnic groups without labor, and they only had to pay the price of a donkey to kill a southerner.

Portraits of Zhu Yuanzhang (11 photos) The reason why the northerners have a slightly higher status is simply because they were killed and there were not many left. Han people are not even allowed to have a name, they can only be named by their date of birth, they are not allowed to own weapons, and even a kitchen knife must be shared by several families. With heavy taxes and servitude, coupled with constant famines, the majority of the people were struggling on the verge of death. In 1343, a drought occurred in Haozhou. Unexpectedly, a serious locust plague occurred again the following spring, and the crops were completely eaten by locusts. Misfortunes never come singly, and another plague occurred. Suddenly, every household was dead. In one village, more than a dozen or even dozens of people died in one day. Soon, Zhu Yuanzhang's family was also infected with the plague. Within half a month, his 64-year-old father, eldest brother and mother Chen died one after another. Zhu Yuanzhang and his second brother watched their relatives die one by one. The family had no money to buy coffins, and they did not even have land to bury their relatives. It is a pity that Zhu Shizhen worked hard all his life and had no place to stand in life and no place to bury him in death. Zhu Yuanzhang and his second brother burst into tears, which alarmed their neighbor Liu Jizu, so Jizu gave them a cemetery. The two brothers finally found some tattered clothes, wrapped the bodies, and buried their parents on the Liu family's land. Thirty-five years later, when Zhu Yuanzhang recalled this incident, he could not suppress his grief. He wrote in the "Imperial Mausoleum Stele": "There is no coffin for the funeral, the body is covered with poor clothes, and it is three feet high. !" In less than half a month, the harmonious and warm home of the past no longer exists, and the love of my parents is gone forever. The tragedy of family destruction and death deeply affected Zhu Yuanzhang's state of mind, making him seem to have fallen into a bottomless abyss. At this time, in order to survive, Zhu Yuanzhang, his second brother, sister-in-law and nephew were forced to separate and escape separately.

In order to accumulate grain, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered a ban on alcohol. However, Hu Sanshe, the son of his general Hu Dahai, and others broke the law and made money by secretly brewing wine. When Zhu Yuanzhang found out, he ordered Hu Sanshe to be killed. Someone came forward and said that Hu Dahai was attacking at this time. Shaoxing, I hope Zhu Yuanzhang can let Hu Sanshe go for Hu Dahai's sake. Zhu Yuanzhang, who enforced the law like a mountain, was furious and insisted on strict military discipline, so he killed Hu Sanshe himself. While winning the hearts and minds of the people, Zhu Yuanzhang also continued to recruit talents, especially intellectuals from the landlord class. Zhu Yuanzhang also specially built a Lixian Hall in Yingtian to receive them. These people played an important role in Zhu Yuanzhang's unification of the country, such as Li Shanchang and Zhu Sheng. Zhu Yuanzhang respected Confucian scholars very much. In 1358, he summoned the Confucian scholar Tang Zhongshi (also known as Tang Guifang, with a character line) and asked Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty, Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, and Emperor Shizu of the Yuan Dynasty how to pacify the world. This also showed that Zhu Yuanzhang was determined to create a world. The new feudal dynasty.