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The Hongwu Emperor (September 21, 1328 – June 24, 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, was the founder of the Ming Dynasty of China, and the first Emperor of China|emperor of this dynasty from 1368 to 1398. His era name Hongwu means "Immensely Martial." Among the Chinese populace there were strong feelings against the rule of "the foreigners" under the Mongols|Mongol Yuan Dynasty which finally led to a peasant revolution, led by Hongwu, that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes and established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, was one of the only two dynasty founders who emerged from the peasant class. The other one was Gaozu of Han|Han Gao Zu of Han Dynasty. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping are the two other peasant revolutionaries to have ruled the world's most populous nation. Orphaned as a teenager, he entered a Buddhism|Buddhist monastery to avoid starvation. This is where he became literate, and at age 25 joined a rebel band, where his native ability soon brought him on top. Later, as a strongwilled rebel leader, he came in contact with the well-educated Confucianism|Confucian scholar gentry from whom he received an education in state affairs. He acquired training in the Red Turban Movement, which was a dissident religious sect combining cultural and religious traditions of Buddhism, Daoism, and others. No longer a Buddhist, he positioned himself as defender of Confucianism and neo-Confucian conventions and not as a popular rebel. Despite his humble origins, he emerged as a national leader against the collapsing Yuan Dynasty. Defeating rival national leaders, he proclaimed himself emperor in 1368, establishing his capital at Nanjing and adopting Hongwu as his reign title. Under Hongwu, the Mongol bureaucrats who had dominated the government for nearly a century under the Yuan dynasty were replaced by the Chinese. The traditional Confucian examination system that selected state bureaucrats or civil servants on the basis of merit and knowledge of literature and philosophy was revamped. Candidates for posts in the civil service or the officer corps of the 80,000-man army, once again, had to pass the Imperial examination|traditional competitive examinations in the Chinese classic texts|Classics. The Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century once again assumed its predominant role in the Chinese state. Having fought off the calamities of the Mongol invasion, and given the realistic threat to China still posed by the Mongols, Hongwu reassessed the orthodox Confucian view regarding the military as an inferior class to be subordinated by the scholar bureaucracy. Simply put, maintaining a strong military was essential since the Mongols were still a threat. As an aside, the name Hongwu means "Vast Military" and reflects the increased prestige of the military. Hongwu attempted to, and largely succeeded in, consolidating control all aspects of government so that no other group could gain enough power to overthrow him and to buttress the country's defenses against the Mongols. As emperor, Hongwu increasingly concentrated power in his own hands and abolished the Imperial Secretariat, which had been the main central administrative body under past dynasties, after suppressing a plot for which he had blamed his chief minister. When the emperorship became hereditary, the Chinese recognized this and established the office of prime or chief minister. While incompetent emperors could come and go, the prime minister could guarantee a level of continuity and competence in the government. Hongwu, wishing to concentrate absolute authority in his own hands, abolished the office of prime minister and so removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors. Hongwu was succeeded by his grandson, but he was soon usurped by his uncle Chengzu, a younger son of Hongwu, who ruled as the Yongle Emperor from 1403 to 1424 (Yongle was responsible for moving the capital back to Beijing). Hongwu noted the destructive role of court eunuchs under the Song Dynasty, drastically reducing their numbers, forbidding them to handle documents, insisting that they remained illiterate, and liquidating those who commented on state affairs. Hongwu had a strong aversion to the imperial eunuchs (a castrated court of servants for the emperor), epitomized by a tablet in his palace stipulating: "Eunuchs must have nothing to do with the administration". Under his successor, however, they began regaining their old influence. The emperor's role this became even more autocratic, although Hongwu necessarily continued to use what he called the Grand Secretaries to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, which included memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. During his rule he also laid out the foundation of organizations resembling modern-day secret police. The role of state support is the focus of much of this debate on the official downgrading of commerce. Hongwu laid the foundations for a state uninterested in commerce and more interested in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. With little understanding of economic processes of markets, Hongwu, backed by the Confucian scholar gentry, just accepted the Confucian viewpoint offhand that merchants were solely parasitic. In a typically Confucian viewpoint, Hongwu felt that agriculture should be the country's source of wealth and that trade was ignoble and parasitic. Perhaps this view was accentuated because of his background as a peasant. As a result, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song Dynasty, which had preceded the Mongols and relied on traders and merchant for revenues. With an aversion to trade, he also supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song and Yuan Dynasty|Yuan times were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Yongle, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to social harmony and removed the worst of the poverty of the Mongol era. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Song dynasty, but now the remaining foreign merchants of Mongol time also fell under these new laws, and their influence quickly dwindled. Although Hongwu's rule saw the introduction of paper currency, capitalist development would be stifled from the beginning. Not understanding inflation, Hongwu gave out so much paper money as rewards that by 1425 the state was forced to reintroduce copper coins given that the currency was worth 1/70 of its original value. During Hongwu's reign, however, the early Ming Dynasty was characterized by rapid and dramatic population growth, largely due to the increased food supply and Hongwu's agricultural reforms. Population probably rose by at least 50 percent by the end of the Ming Dynasty, stimulated by major improvements in agricultural technology promoted by the pro-agrarian state, which came to power in midst of a pro-Confucian peasant's rebellion. Under his tutelage, living standards greatly improved. The Hongwu Emperor increasingly feared rebellions and coups. He even made it a capital offence for any of his advisors to criticize him. A story goes that a Confucian scholar who was fed up with Hongwu's policies decided to go to the capital and berate the emperor. When he gained an audience with him, he brought his own coffin. After delivering his speech, he climbed into the coffin, expecting the emperor to execute him. Instead, the Emperor was so impressed by his bravery he spared his life. Hongwu died after a reign of 30 years. He had 24 sons, all of whom became princes. They include:
Hongwu is also known as Hung-Wu. That name is also applied to the period of years from 1368 to 1398 when Chu Yuan-chang ruled. Other names for him include , his temple name Ming T??iz?? (?????????) "Great Ancestor of the Ming", and the "Beggar King," in allusion to his early poverty.
start box succession box two to one|before1=Dynasty founded|title1=List of Emperors of the Ming Dynasty|Emperor of Ming Dynasty|years1=1368–1398|after=Jianwen Emperor|before2=Emperor Huizong of Yuan China|Emperor Huizong|title2=Emperor of China|years2=1368–1398 end box Category:History of China Category:1328 births Category:1398 deaths Category:Ming Dynasty emperors Category:The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber de:Zhu Yuanzhang fr:Hongwu ja:朱元璋 zh:朱元璋 This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hongwu Emperor".
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