The next day, before dawn, Zhu Yunxi had already gotten up.
He had an extremely restless sleep last night. The majestic imperial city in Zhongdu was too deserted and desolate. This palace was built for people to see, not for people to live in.
Today is an auspicious day, so today is the day to pay homage to the imperial mausoleum.
Zhu Yunxi freshened up, and without even having breakfast, he led the civil and military officials from Zhongdu to form a huge team. They set out from the imperial city and walked to the imperial mausoleum outside the city to worship.
The imperial mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty was called Huangling. In the second year of Hongwu's reign, it was first named Yingling, but it was not adopted.
Out of Fengyang, the capital of Zhongdu, ten miles away, on a piece of land that is uneven and somewhat hilly, the majestic imperial mausoleum comes into view.
The imperial mausoleum is also a city, even more magnificent, more majestic and more ingenious than the Forbidden City in the capital and the imperial city in Zhongdu.
According to the training of the emperor, descendants of the Zhu family are not allowed to wear fancy clothes when worshiping the emperor's mausoleum. They must be simple to show their filial piety!
Zhu Yunxi was dressed in coarse cloth and plain clothes, and wore straw sandals without even hemp ropes on his feet. He had walked in the water, and there was a hole in the gap between his toes. Every step he took was heartbreaking pain.
In the words of the old man, it's okay to feel pain. The pain of future generations is nothing compared with the suffering suffered by the ancestors of the Zhu family.
Only pain can keep one's origins from being forgotten.
In the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, the world was in misery. The people had no food to eat and people died of hunger everywhere.
The Zhu family is an authentic peasant family. After working hard for a year, they can't even have a full meal. They just look like people, but they live like no one at all. In fact, people like them in Guizhou, under the authority of those in power
In the eyes, they are not considered people, just a series of numbers.
I have suffered from hunger since I was a child, but I still have a family.
In the third year of the Zhengzheng Period, there was a severe drought in Huaixi, followed by an insect infestation and a plague. There was no overnight food at home, and my eyes were red from hunger. I could only drink cold water in large gulps and tighten my belt.
Feel free to be hungry, but people are still there!
Who knew that God was unfair, and within half a month, the old man's parents and his eldest brother all died of illness and starvation.
According to the old man, when he carried his mother's body, his mother was so thin that she weighed less than a few firewood.
That year, the old man was fifteen years old.
When people are alive, they need to eat. When they die, they need to be buried in the ground.
But the Zhu family can't do either of these things.
The scrawny fifteen-year-old, accompanied by his second brother and sister-in-law, looked at the family's bare-walled house with only a straw mat and no coffins but no parents. He wanted to cry but had no tears.
After drinking, the old man said feebly, "We thought at that time, if someone gave our parents and eldest brother a coffin, we would be fine even if we gave him our lives!"
It’s okay if they don’t have a coffin. They don’t even have a cemetery where their parents are buried. They have no property due to the tyranny of the government and natural disasters.
Later, the old man and his second brother kowtowed to their neighbor, the landowner surnamed Liu, in exchange for a piece of sloping land that could not produce food, and used it to bury Anshen.
On the day of the burial, there was a heavy downpour. The two brothers dug a hole while trying to prevent the rainwater from pouring in. The long-term hunger made their hands and feet weak, but the two brothers worked hard, using tools and hands to dig for their parents in the heavy rain.
A place to stay.
There was a crack of lightning, illuminating the old man's childish face.
He burst into tears because the bodies of his parents and eldest brother had been soaked in the rain.
At the age of fifteen, he couldn't even give his parents and brothers a dry place to stay. The two brothers cried loudly and buried their relatives in the puddle. They stubbornly inserted a branch and then knelt down.
In the rain.
After burying my loved ones, the weather cleared up.
The fifteen-year-old old man, his sick second brother, the sister-in-law who almost went blind from crying, and the nephew who complained that he was hungry. These are the last few members of the Zhu family.
The kind-hearted aunt next door gave me half a bowl of rice bran, and the kind-hearted uncle in the village gave me a bowl of bran. The whole family sat together, as if they were reunited during the New Year. They endured the sadness and cooked a pot.
Then, the whole family shared the meal. These rich people fed the pigs, but the pigs didn’t even eat the stuff. They all went their separate ways!
My sister-in-law took her nephew back to her parents' home.
The second brother, leaning on a tree branch, went out to beg for food. We never saw him again in this life.
The fifteen-year-old man had the best life and entered a temple to become a monk.
Zhu Yunxi had never experienced these past events, and they were even unfamiliar. After he walked through the main entrance of the imperial mausoleum, which was two feet high and seventy-five feet long, they came to his mind. The pictures were particularly clear and sad.
This kind of sadness made his eyes overflow with tears unconsciously.
The emperor's grandson burst into tears, and the courtiers following behind him burst into tears.
Passing through the main entrance of the imperial mausoleum, stepping on the long shrine, and looking at the majestic imperial mausoleum buildings in the distance. Zhu Yunxi suddenly understood why the old man knew that building the imperial mausoleum and the imperial city was a waste of people and money, but he ruthlessly built the whole sky.
The biggest, best, most magnificent tomb.
Even if this grave is just for viewing. Even if the people in this grave have never lived a good life!
The saddest thing in the world is that a son wants to be taken care of but refuses to be loved. There is nothing like being a son who has a promising future, but his parents never enjoy the blessings.
Even if he is already the emperor, even if he is the Nine-Five Supreme!
But deep down in his heart, he was still the son of those two poor farmers. He would rather, willingly use all the treasures in the world to be happy at the knees of his parents.
He regarded all the glory and wealth as floating clouds and only thought, even in his dreams, of seeing his parents and family with his own eyes and having a full meal.
He built the largest tomb in the world, not to tell the world how promising he was!
But to make up for the debt I owe to my parents and brother.
The Shinto is very long, and Zhu Yunxi's feet on straw sandals were covered in blood and flesh, with bloody marks on every step.
On both sides of the road, there are tall and lifelike stone statues. They seem to be witnesses of this memorial ceremony. These nobles who were previously considered unreachable by the Zhu family are now silently and diligently guarding the underground palace.
Cross the Shinto Road and walk on the Royal Bridge. On both sides are golden palaces and bright towers. They are magnificent, luxurious and majestic!
What used to be common people's graves is now the emperor's mausoleum.
In the imperial mausoleum, Zhu Yunxi's great-grandparents are buried, as well as the old man's three brothers, a sister-in-law, and two nephews.
Going further, there are two huge stone monuments on the east and west sides, one is a Chinese character monument, and the other is a monument to the imperial mausoleum written by the old man himself.
After Li Shanchang built the imperial mausoleum, the old man became furious when he saw the inscription.
These are all whitewashed articles by civil servants, and they may not serve as a warning for future generations!
So I took up the pen myself and wrote the inscription while crying.
Standing in front of the imperial mausoleum monument, Zhu Yunxi looked up.
Unfilial Son, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang would like to tell you!
kneel!
While officials from the Ministry of Rites were singing and drinking nearby, Zhu Yunxi knelt under the monument and read aloud the emperor's autograph.
In the past, my father lived in this place, where agriculture was difficult and he was wandering day and night.......
Behind Zhu Yunxi, the hunchbacked old eunuch Gou Ren suddenly stood up straight and shouted, Your Highness, speak louder!
Natural disasters are prevalent in Er, and family members are suffering...
Zhu Yunxi almost roared, and under the gaze of his courtiers, he roared and recited.
The landowner has no regard for my morality, shouts and shouts loudly, and has no regard for the land. The neighbors are melancholy. Suddenly Brother Yi's generosity has benefited this yellow soil. There is no coffin or coffin, the body is covered with poor clothes, and it is three feet high. How can I pay tribute...
........
What can I do? I have nothing to do. I am humiliated by myself. I look up to the vast sky. There is no place to lean on. The shadows of my friends are facing each other. I rush toward the sudden smoke from the cooking stove. I stumble in the ancient temple at dusk. I look up at the cuiwei of the poor cliff and lean on the green. Listening to the cries of the apes.
The moonlight night is desolate, the soul is wandering but looking for parents has no one, the ambition is down and wandering!
(In the morning, when I see smoke from cooking, I rush there to ask for alms. At night, when I see an ancient temple, I run there to stay. Sometimes, I look up at the towering cliffs and lean on them, listening to the apes moaning under the moonlight.
And I feel extremely desolate. My soul is long, my parents are not here, I am lost, wandering around, the west wind is rustling, and the flying frost is pattering. I am swayed by the wind like a flying pod, and my heart is as uncomfortable as boiling soup.)
As he read and shouted, Zhu Yunxi gradually understood. When he was young, the old man was once confused and asked the world, where is my future? He was also secretly sad, and he was also sad and heartbroken!
Zhu Yunxi also knew that the old man wanted to build Fengyang, the central capital, despite the disapproval.
Fengyang, the central capital, is not a decoration. Like the imperial mausoleums, it was built for the ancestors of the Zhu family.
Obviously he did not believe in ghosts and gods, but he still proudly told his ancestors how their descendants, Zhu Chongba, who used vegetation to satisfy his hunger and was so hungry that he could not even dig a grave, are doing well now. This is to comfort his parents, relatives, and the Zhu family.
In the future, we will no longer die of poverty, disease, or embarrassment.
He personally conquered Jingchu, conquered Pinghu, Xiang, and Sanmiao, and entered Guanghai into Xinjiang. He ordered the generals to conquer Wuyue in the east, Qilu Yaozhuang, and Yiluohan in the west. The land was dangerous and the river was Huang, and they entered Hudu and entered the city.
It's not easy, Si Huchen shows his sharp edge and shines like a star.
Dad and mom, look at your son Zhu Chongba, he has finally become a hero.
Brother, sister-in-law, look at your brother, dominating the world!
To Your Highness.........Carry dirt!
As Gou Ren shouted, several palace officials placed a heavy pole carrying two loads of soil on the shoulders of Zhu Yunxi, who had never done any work.
The ceremony begins!
Zhu Yunxi knelt, his back bent by the weight of the pole, and his shoulders felt bone-chilling pain. He gritted his teeth. He knelt up and down the stone staircase along the diamond wall.
Are you tired? Gou Ren shouted loudly.
Not tired! Zhu Yunxi gritted his teeth and replied.
Your Highness, please speak louder!
Not tired!
Yes, if your shoulders can’t even carry this little thing, how can you carry the world on your shoulders in the future?
The knee was also broken and covered with blood, and the plain clothes turned dark red.
Finally, we climbed to the top of the treasure.
Zhu Yunxi seemed to have been drained of all his strength, and the pain in his body was unbearable. But he still persisted and sprinkled the new soil on the top of the imperial mausoleum.