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The first one is Qi Guogong Qiu Fu, who was born in 1343 and is known as the first hero of the Jingnan Campaign. However, there are actually three heroes personally selected by Zhu Di as the first heroes of the Jingnan Campaign, namely Qiu Fu, Yao Guangxiao and Zhang Yu.

However, compared with the latter two, Qiu Fu's performance in the Jingnan Campaign was not outstanding. Because of his seniority, he was ranked first in the reward system. Qiu Fu worked in the Prince of Yan's Mansion in his early years and was a captain of the Yanshan Central Guard, one of the three guards of Yanshan.

According to the system of the early Ming Dynasty, a prince could command three guard armies to guard the house, with the number of people ranging from 3000 to more. This was the core force of Zhu Di's rebellion.

Before the Jingnan Campaign, Qiu Fu was already one of the chiefs of the Three Guards. During the Jingnan Campaign, he made great contributions to Zhu Di. When the merits were evaluated, he was awarded the title of Duke of Qi and was granted an iron certificate, which was hereditary to his descendants.

He rose from a mid-level military officer to become the top noble of the Ming Dynasty. However, the good times did not last long. In 1409, Zhu Di sent Qi Guogong Qiu Fu to attack the Tatars. Qiu Fu underestimated the enemy and advanced rashly, and his entire army was annihilated. Zhu Di was furious and revoked his title and exiled his family to Hainan.

The second Duke of Chen, Zhu Neng, was born in 1370. When the Jingnan Campaign began, he was already a lieutenant and deputy commander of Yanshan, because his father, Zhu Liang, followed Zhu Yuanzhang in the uprising and became a guard officer of the Prince of Yan's Palace, so he could inherit his father's military position after his father's death.

At such a young age, he could stand on equal footing with the veteran Qiu Fuping. In addition to his good family background, Zhu Neng was also very brave in combat. He once led dozens of people to defeat Geng Bingwen's army of thousands.

At the last moment of the Jingnan Campaign, the Yan army was exhausted and all the soldiers wanted to withdraw and rest. Only Zhu Neng persuaded Zhu Di not to give up and made Zhu Di firm in his confidence. Finally, Zhu Gaoxu's reinforcements arrived.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he named Zhu Neng the Duke of Chen. Four years later, Zhu Neng was ordered to go to Annan, but died of illness when he reached Guangxi, at the age of 4.

The third is Zhang Yu, who was posthumously named Duke of Rong. He was born in 1343 and was from Henan.

Originally a descendant of the Privy Council of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhang Yu and his son Zhang Fu defected to the Ming Dynasty in 1385. He followed Lan Yu to the expedition to Buyuerhai and was later transferred to the palace of Yan Wang Zhu Di, becoming Yan Wang's trusted general.

The British missionaries said that Zhang Yu was good at planning and Zhu Neng was good at fighting. After the Jingnan Campaign began, Zhang Yu fought bravely and made many military achievements, defeating Li Jinglong in the Battle of Baigou River.

However, just when the morale of the Yan army was high, Zhu Di suffered a setback in Jinan. In the Battle of Dongchang, Zhu Di was besieged by Sheng Yong. Zhang Yu died in order to cover Zhu Di's retreat. He was 58 years old.

Zhu Di was very sad and held a grand funeral for him. After ascending the throne, he was posthumously named Duke of Rong. Zhang Yu's son Zhang Fu was named Marquis of Xincheng.

Zhang Fu took his father's work one step further. After Duke Chen Zhu Neng passed away, he took over the military power and continued to march to Annan. He made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty's annexation of Annan, and was therefore named Duke of Ying, a title that was inherited by his descendants.

The fourth is the black-robed prime minister Yao Guangxiao, whose Buddhist name is Daoyan. He was originally the son of a medical family. He became a monk when he was young and studied the art of yin and yang with the Taoist Xi Yingzhen. He was quite knowledgeable about military strategies.

Yuan Gong once exclaimed, "You look like a gecko, and you will definitely be someone like Liu Bingzhong in the future." Yao Guangxiao was not angry after hearing this, but was very happy, because his ambition was to assist the wise master like Liu Bingzhong and accomplish great things.

Although it was the time of chaos at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and many heroes emerged, no one believed Daoyan. After Zhu Yuanzhang unified the world, Daoyan took the exam as a Confucian monk, but was not taken seriously.

In 1382 AD, Empress Ma died. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to select eminent monks for his sons to pray for her. Daoyan was spotted by Prince of Yan Zhu Di at first sight. I want to give the king a white hat.

Li Jinglong of the Qing Dynasty saw that this man had extraordinary conversation and took him back to the palace. It can be said that the entire Jingnan Campaign was inseparable from Daoyan's instigation, but in addition to instigating Zhu Di to rebel, Daoyan was also Zhu Di's military advisor and reassurance.

When Zhu Di went out to fight, Daoyan ensured the logistical supply of the Yan army. When Zhu Di was blocked by the city of Jinan, Daoyan came up with a brilliant plan to let Zhu Di bypass Jinan and attack Nanjing directly.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he conferred titles on his meritorious officials, but Daoyan was only conferred the title of Zuo Shanshi of the Monks' Registrar. Later, he was promoted to the position of Prince's Junior Tutor, where he taught the crown prince Zhu Zhanji and presided over the compilation of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" and "The Veritable Records of Ming Taizu".

He was also very respectful and refused the palace maids awarded by Zhu Di. He usually lived in the temple and wore monk's clothes. In 1418, Daoyan died of illness at the age of 83 and was posthumously named Duke of Rong.

The last one is Xu Zengshou, who was posthumously named Duke of Dingguo. Although he did not directly participate in the Jingnan Campaign and died before Zhu Di ascended the throne, his descendants became the biggest beneficiaries of the Jingnan Campaign, and were granted the title of Duke of Dingguo, which was inherited by the family and lived and died with the country.

Zhu Di's wife, Empress Xu, was the eldest daughter of Xu Da, a founding hero of the Ming Dynasty, and Xu Zengshou was Empress Xu's younger brother. After Xu Da's death, his eldest son Xu Huizu inherited the title of Duke of Wei, and Xu Zengshou, as the youngest son, could only hold a sinecure.

However, Xu Zengshou had always had a good relationship with his brother-in-law Zhu Di. When Emperor Jianwen suspected that Zhu Di would rebel, Xu Zengshou assured Emperor Jianwen that his brother-in-law would never rebel. But not long after, Zhu Di raised an army under the banner of "Fengtian Jingnan".

As Zhu Di's in-laws, the Xu brothers were trusted by Emperor Jianwen. To show their loyalty, the nobles distanced themselves from their brother-in-law and volunteered to lead troops to stop the Yan army many times. However, Xu Zengshou had been secretly passing on information for Zhu Di and tipping him off.

At the last moment of the Jingnan Campaign, Xu Zengshou was caught by Emperor Jianwen and thrown into Tianlao. At this time, the Yan army was about to approach Nanjing. As long as the Yan army entered the city, Xu Zengshou would be Zhu Di's calm hero.

However, Emperor Jianwen did not give him this opportunity. In order to vent his anger, Emperor Jianwen killed Xu Zengshou himself, then set a raging fire in the palace and disappeared from then on. After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he imprisoned his elder brother-in-law Xu Huizu, posthumously conferred the title of Duke of Dingguo on his younger brother-in-law Xu Zengshou, and ordered his son Xu Jingchang to inherit the title.

Empress Xu was worried that Xu Jingchang was too young and would become arrogant after being suddenly conferred the title of Duke. In 1420, Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, and the Duke Ding's residence was also moved north. Four years later, Zhu Di passed away. Duke Ding's Xu Jingchang was impeached by the censors at Zhu Di's funeral, but was pardoned by Emperor Renzong of Ming.

[A review of the history of the Chinese emperors who purged the emperor's court]

Our ancestors have used this combination of punches countless times, but only a few have defeated the central government with this set of punches. Today, let us take a look at the history of Chinese dynasties.

The first time in Chinese history that the emperor's side was purged was during the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion during the reign of Emperor Jing of the Western Han Dynasty. The root of the exchange was actually planted as early as the beginning of the Han Dynasty. At that time, Liu Bang promoted and increased the salaries of Liu's children, allowing them to become princes and protect the central government.

However, his enfeoffment not only failed to protect the Han Dynasty, but also laid a mine for future rebellions. In 157 BC, as soon as Emperor Jing of Han ascended the throne, he had to face the problem of the princes becoming increasingly powerful.

In response to this, Emperor Jing of Han started a difficult and arduous minesweeping activity. He and the scholar-official Chao Cuo played a double act, with Chao Cuo responsible for picking on the princes, while Emperor Jing took advantage of this to go to a fiefdom today and another fiefdom tomorrow.

Emperor Jing of Han's act of cutting meat with a blunt knife completely chilled the princes' backs. They thought that instead of waiting for the central government's butcher knife to fall on their heads, it would be better to take the initiative, kick out the boss and become the king themselves.

At this time, King Liu Bi of Wu extended an olive branch to these princes. He secretly sent envoys to recruit the princes of the six countries to be his teammates, waiting for the opportunity to rebel.

In 154 BC, when Emperor Jing of Han issued an edict to seize Yuzhang County and Kuaiji County from King Wu, King Liu Bi of Wu was furious and raised an army to purge the emperor's court.

The person they wanted to purge was Chao Cuo, the "Ready Player One" who advocated the reduction of feudal fiefdoms. The rebels raised the banner of purging the emperor and killing Chao Cuo. Seeing this, Emperor Jing of Han chose to push Chao Cuo out as a shield.

Since the princes hated Chao Cuo, he simply killed Chao Cuo first. If the princes did not withdraw their troops, it would be a rebellion. At this point, Emperor Jing of Han was a step ahead, taking the lead in occupying the righteousness of the world and squeezing King Liu Bi of Wu down from the moral high ground.

However, Chao Cuo died, but the rebellion was far from over. Emperor Jing of Han had no choice but to send Zhou Yafu to lead troops to quell the rebellion. Facing more than 30 troops from Qi, Zhou Yafu knew that a head-on confrontation would only lead to a defeat for the rebels.

The only way to win was to take the enemy by surprise, so the military genius Zhou Yafu decided to let King Liang Liu Wu hold back the rebels first, and he would take the opportunity to cut off the rebels' supplies. The rebels would be defeated if they had no food to eat.

The situation was just as he expected. The rebels were out of food and had to resort to blitzkrieg. They attacked the southeast of the Han army camp overnight. At this time, Zhou Yafu made another surprising move. He sent troops to defend the northwest of the Han camp.

Facts proved that Zhou Yafu was indeed a god-level prophet. The attack from the southeast was just a feint, and when the rebels concentrated their firepower on the northwest, they found that Zhou Yafu had already stood in front of the battle, waiting for them to come and kill him.

After this battle, the rebels were defeated, and King Liu Bi of Wu was killed. The Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms ended with the complete victory of Emperor Jing of Han.

The campaign to purge the imperial court in the early Han Dynasty ended successfully, but the campaign to purge the imperial court in the late Eastern Han Dynasty ended in failure. In 189 AD, Emperor Ling of Han died, and Emperor Shaodi Liu Bian succeeded to the throne.

However, it was not the young emperor who held the power of the country at that time, but the eunuch group headed by the foreign relative He Jin and Zhang Rang. The two groups disliked each other and wanted to kill each other and turn the power in each other's hands into their own private property.

Among them, the relative He Jin took the lead in taking action. Based on the principle of asking for foreign aid if you can't win, He Jin had to issue an imperial edict in the name of God, asking Dong Zhuo to come to the capital to support the king and kill Zhang Rang.

This imperial edict brought Dong Zhuo the pie of power for his close relatives. He was overjoyed and personally went to the Minister of State, saying that he would expel the evildoers from the emperor's side. Then he packed up his things and rushed to the capital Luoyang.

Unexpectedly, before he arrived in Luoyang, He Jin was expelled from the world by Zhang Rang and his gang.

Zhang Rang did not expect that someone would immediately attack him after He Jin's death. This person was Yuan Shu. Upon learning of He Jin's death, Yuan Shu burned down the Nan Palace and then chased Zhang Rang thousands of miles away. Zhang Rang had no choice but to hold the young emperor Liu Bian and Chenliu Prince Liu Xie hostage and started a game of chase with Yuan Shu.

By the time Dong Zhuo led his army to the capital, He Jin and the Shao Emperor had already fled to the bank of the Yellow River. Zhang Rang committed suicide by jumping into the river while pursuing him. Dong Zhuo found the Shao Emperor without any effort and from then on began to use the emperor to control the princes.

The reason why the young emperor had no say in the Dong Zhuo's plan to purge the emperor was because of the situation, while the reason why Emperor Hui of Jin had no say in the Eight Kings Rebellion in the Western Jin Dynasty was because of his own ability problems.

In 290 AD, Emperor Hui of Jin ascended the throne, but he was the most intelligent emperor in the Western Jin Dynasty. At this time, the people who controlled the government were Empress Dowager Yang Zhi and his brother Yang Jun.

The Yang brothers and sisters' control of government affairs caused dissatisfaction to Empress Jia Nanfeng. Although the empress was ugly, she had beautiful dreams and wanted to taste the power. So she secretly contacted Sima Liang, the King of Runan, and Sima Wei, the King of Chu, and asked them to lead troops to eliminate the emperor and kill Yang Jun.

In 291 AD, Empress Jia Nanfeng asked Emperor Hui of Jin to order Yang Jun to be accused of treason. Then King Sima Wei of Chu went to Yang Jun's house and personally delivered a box lunch to the powerful official.

After Yang Jun's death, Jia Nanfeng was in power, and it was only a matter of time before she was promoted to the empress dowager. However, she soon found that there was a stumbling block on her road to promotion and salary increase: the crown prince Sima Yi, the crown prince's mother and Jia Nanfeng were at loggerheads.

If the prince is allowed to ascend the throne, his future days may not be easy.

Recently, Jia Nanfeng started to stir up trouble again. She first got the prince drunk, and then asked him to copy a petition for the abdication of Emperor Hui of Jin. After the petition was handed to Emperor Hui of Jin, the decree to depose the prince was also delivered to the prince.

After the crown prince was deposed, Sima Lun and Sun Xiu saw an opportunity to seize power, and they first persuaded Jia Nanfeng to kill the crown prince to eliminate future troubles. But after the crown prince died, they raised the banner of revenge for the crown prince and continued to raise troops to purge the emperor's side.

But this time, Jia Nanfeng was the one who was kissed. In 300 AD, Jia Nanfeng was killed by Sima Lun, and the situation in the Western Jin Dynasty became a complete mess from then on.

There are many cases of purging the emperor's court throughout Chinese history, but the most famous campaign that can be regarded as a template for purging the emperor's court is the Jingnan Campaign.

In 1398, Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne. Before that, Zhu Yunwen had been unhappy with the princes of various places for a long time. As soon as he ascended the throne, he immediately joined forces with Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, two officials who advocated the reduction of the princes, to deal with his disobedient uncles.

As the King of Zhou, the King of Dai, the King of Qi, and the King of Xiang were successively deposed, Zhu Yunwen's fourth uncle Zhu Di could no longer sit still. If he did not take action, the butcher's knife would fall on his head.

But at this time Zhu Di's strength was not enough to challenge Emperor Jianwen, so he used a variety of tricks to buy time for himself and make preparations for the war, even pretending to be sick and crazy.

In 1399, the imperial court ordered Zhang Xin to arrest Prince of Yan Zhu Di. However, Zhu Yunwen never expected that Zhang Xin would defect at this critical moment.

He stood on Zhu Di's side and revealed all the plans of the court. After learning the news, Zhu Di ordered the generals Zhu Neng and Zhang Yu to lead 800 soldiers to ambush in the Prince of Yan's mansion.

Afterwards, Jia Yi destroyed the officials under his command, and invited the officials who had led the troops to the Prince of Yan's Palace to come in and personally inspect the court officials. As soon as the officials entered the palace, they were surrounded by ambushes.

That night, Zhu Di captured Beijing and launched an attack on Zhu Yunwen under the banner of "Zhou Qi's clearing of the emperor's entourage". The court sent Geng Bingwen to fight, but after Geng Bingwen was defeated, Emperor Jianwen actually replaced the generals on the battlefield and let the useless and armchair playboy Li Jinglong lead the troops to suppress the rebellion.

Li Jinglong led an army of 50, which easily crushed Zhu Di in terms of military numbers, but he stepped on all five key points that would inevitably lead to his defeat: endless government orders, insufficient food and fodder, an isolated army deep in the enemy's territory, an eagerness to win, and disunity in the troops.

Under such circumstances, Zhu Di easily defeated Li Jinglong, and then pursued the victory all the way, defeated the imperial army, kicked Zhu Yunwen off the throne, and ascended the throne himself. The campaign of clearing the court of evil officials came to a perfect end.

Do you know of any other dynasties that purged the emperor’s court? Feel free to leave a message in the comment section.