Zhu Shangkai

An Ding Wang Zhu Shangke, courtesy name Kài, was born on December 4, 1394. He was the sole generation of An Ding Wang in the Ming Dynasty's Qin region. He was the sixth son by concubinage of King Min of Qin, Zhu Shun. Zhu Shangke was born in the twenty-seventh year of Hongwu (1394) and was granted the title of An Ding Wang in the thirty-fifth year of Hongwu (1402). In the seventh year of Yongle (1409), Ming Chengzu held a coronation ceremony for Zhu Shangke. In the ninth year of Yongle (1411), Zhu Shangke traveled to Nanjing to pay homage to Ming Chengzu, and in October, he returned to Xianyang Prefecture. In December of the sixteenth year of Yongle (1418), Zhang Cheng, a hundred households protector of Xi’an, and Sun Cheng, a minor banner officer, accused Zhu Shangke of plotting rebellion and submitted documents recruiting soldiers on his behalf. Ming Chengzu ordered the eunuch Zhu Xing to go to Xi’an to demonstrate to Zhu Shangke and summoned him to the court. In the seventeenth year of Yongle (1419) January, Zhu Shangke arrived in Nanjing but was demoted to commoner and exiled to Sizhou to guard his ancestral tombs due to the crime of treason. Sizhou and his family members were reunited around 1452, under family arrangements. In the first year of Zhengtong (1436), Zhu Shangke was sent back to Xi’an to guard the mausoleum of Min Wang after violating household rules and was subsequently alternately guarded by military officers. Zhu Shangke died around 1452. In December of the 11th year of Chenghua (1475), his fifth son, Zhu Zhi-yi, requested official appointments in a memorial that was not approved; he cited ancestors' inscriptions to request appointments. Zhu Shangke's wife was of the Wang clan and was honored as An Ding Wangfei in the ninth year of Yongle. His descendants were all commoners; as of the third year of Jing Tai (1452), there were still ten remaining. The family details involved multiple generations, with restrictions on marriage, and later, marriage was affected due to children being imprisoned.