Is Zhu Houzhao, the Zhengde Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a good emperor or a bad emperor?

Ming Wuzong (October 26, 1491 - April 20, 1521), (reigned from 1505 to 1521), the 10th emperor of the Ming Dynasty, named Zhu Houzhao, pseudonym "Zhu Shou", His reign was Zhengde, and he was an emperor known for his absurd and deviant behavior. Zhu Houzhao was the eldest son of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty. His only younger brother, Zhu Houwei, died young and was his father's only grown-up son. He was established as the crown prince at the age of two. He is intelligent by nature, but he is extremely happy-go-lucky and indulges in pleasure and pleasure. During his reign, he often left Beijing to travel around, looking for flowers and flowers. He would be gone for several months or even as long as a year. Harassed along the road, people fled to the valley. While living in Beijing, he did not want to live in the Forbidden City, so he built a "leopard house" outside the palace to live in. He personally trained tigers and leopards and selected a large number of beauties to live in it for their enjoyment. At the beginning of his accession to the throne, he set off firecrackers with a monkey sitting on the back of a dog in the Fengtian Hall, the main hall of the solemn palace, and the monkey jumped and the dog ran away. In the first month of 1514, the Qianqing Palace caught fire because he was playing with lanterns. Zhengde was going to the Leopard Room. Looking back at the flames soaring into the sky, he actually joked about a big fireworks. He also ordered a ban on raising pigs and banning pork throughout the country. He did not like going to court, and spent his whole day in the company of foreign magicians and monks from Huihui, Mongolia, Uzbet (Tibet), and the Korean Peninsula. He also personally received the first Portuguese envoy to China, Pilayzi. He studied Lamaism and called himself Karmapa. At first, he trusted Liu Jin, Qiu Ju, Gu Dayong and other eunuchs known as the "Eight Tigers". After pacifying the rebellion of King Anhua in 1510, he ordered Liu Jin to be executed Lingchi, and later he trusted the guard Jiang Bin and others. Zhengde also loved to engage in military affairs and "was eager to use martial arts to become a hero." In October of the twelfth year of Zhengde (1518), under Jiang Bin's instigation, he proclaimed himself "Zhu Shou, the Mighty General of the Zhengguo". He went to the Xuanfu in the border area to personally conquer and defeated the little Mongolian Tatar prince. After returning, he gave himself Conferred the title of Grand Master. Known as the "Great Victory of Yingzhou" in history, it stabilized the northern border of the Ming Dynasty. In 1519, King Ning's Chenhao Rebellion led to a rebellion in Nanchang, Jiangxi. Zhengde paid no attention to it and patrolled the south of the Yangtze River in the name of the imperial commander's personal expedition. Halfway through, he learned that the imperial censor Wang Shouren had put down the rebellion. Zhu Houzhao first concealed the news and continued his southern tour. When he surrendered in Nanjing, he first pretended to release Zhu Chenhao, and then personally captured Prince Ning. When leaving Yangzhou, Zhu Houzhao asked the local magistrate Jiang Yao to convert the meals for the farewell banquet into cash for him. Although Zhu Houzhao liked to fool around and behave absurdly, on the one hand he was quite tolerant of ministers and was not bloodthirsty. There is peace between the monarch and his ministers. Eight months later, on his way back to Beijing, he went to school in Qingjiangpu, Huai'an. A fisherman slipped and fell into the water when casting his net, and became ill. In 1521, Zhengde died of vomiting blood due to excessive enjoyment. He was only 31 years old and was buried in Kangling (now Beijing Ming Dynasty). Ming Tombs), his posthumous title is Emperor Chengtianda Daoyingsu Ruizhe Zhaode Xiangonghongwensi Xiaoyi Emperor. Since he had no heirs, Zhu Houcong (Shizong of the Ming Dynasty) was selected from the clan as his successor.

In 2004, an imperial edict written by Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty was found in the hands of an overseas Chinese in the southern United States. The content describes how to be enterprising and how to be a loyal minister and a gentleman. The discovery of this cultural relic caused historians to dispute the personality of Emperor Zhengde in historical records, but more scholars believe that the content of the edict was written by the ministers and was finally transcribed by Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty.

Folklore says that Emperor Wu ordered a ban on raising pigs because he believed in Islam. The Persian traveler Sayyid Ali Akbar Hatay also recorded in his book "Travel in China": "Judging from some of the emperor's behaviors, he has embraced Islam. However, due to fear of losing power, , he cannot declare this publicly because of the customs and regulations of his country….

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