Hongwu

/hawng"wooh"/, n. Pinyin. (Zhu Yuanzhang)

Hung-wu.

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▪ emperor of Ming dynasty

Introduction

Wade-Giles romanization  Hung-wu , posthumous name (shi)  Gaodi , temple name (miaohao)  Taizu , original personal name (xingming)  Zhu Chongba , later  Zhu Yuanzhang 

born Oct. 21, 1328, Haozhou [now Fengyang, Anhui province], China

died June 24, 1398, Nanjing

 reign name (nianhao) of the Chinese emperor (reigned 1368–98) who founded the Ming dynasty that ruled China for nearly 300 years. During his reign, the Hongwu emperor instituted military, administrative, and educational reforms that centred power in the emperor.

Early life

      The future Hongwu emperor was born in 1328 as Zhu Chongba, a poor peasant of Haozhou (about 100 miles [160 km] northwest of Nanjing (Nanking), near China's east coast). Orphaned at 16, he became a monk at the Huangjue monastery near Fengyang to avoid starvation—a common practice for the sons of poor peasants. As a wandering mendicant, he often begged for food at Hefei (some 100 miles west of Nanjing) and surrounding areas, where no constituted authority existed. Indeed, all of central and northern China was suffering from drought and famine, and more than seven million people starved, a situation that encouraged the popular rebellions that started from around 1325. Led by plebeian bandits, the rebels attacked the rich, distributing their wealth and goods among the people.

Emergence as general

      One such rebel was Guo Zixing, who in 1352 led a large force to attack and take Haozhou. Zhu joined the rebel forces and changed his name to Zhu Yuanzhang, rising from the ranks to become second-in-command. Guo Zixing, a mere bandit leader, became jealous of Zhu Yuanzhang, who distinguished himself as a military leader. These problems were later mitigated when Zhu Yuanzhang married Guo's adopted daughter, the princess Ma, who was influential in reconciling the two men.

      In 1353 Zhu Yuanzhang captured Chuzhou (now in Anhui province, northwest of Nanjing). Subsequently he received important commissions, gaining a following of outstanding men, some of whom later became officials under the early Ming dynasty. In 1355 Guo Zixing died, and Zhu Yuanzhang took over the leadership of the rebel army.

      Zhu Yuangzhang attacked and captured towns and cities in eastern China and, on reaching the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) delta, encountered educated men of the gentry class. Some decided to join his movement, and Zhu had the foresight to seek their guidance. From them he learned the rudiments of the Chinese language and studied Chinese history and the Confucian Classics. More significantly, he learned the principles of government and built up an effective administration in local areas alongside the military structure. Moreover, he was persuaded by his scholars to present himself as a national leader against the Mongols rather than as a popular rebel. His choice of advisers and his shrewd ability to adopt sound governmental measures ultimately made him the most formidable leader against the Mongols.

      Now determined to overthrow the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (Yuan dynasty) (1206–1368), Zhu marched toward Nanjing and captured it in 1356. Nanjing was a strategic point, close to the rich lands of the Yangtze delta. Proclaiming himself duke of Wu, Zhu established an effective administration over the Nanjing area with the help of the scholars and on their advice refrained from roaming aimlessly from place to place to plunder. He also encouraged agriculture by granting unused land to the landless peasants, but, in spite of his successes, he was still reluctant to proclaim himself king (wang). At that time he acknowledged the Song dynasty pretender, Han Lin'er, as his superior, even though Han was ineffectual.

      Meanwhile, the northern provinces were as restless as the south, and, when various rebels defied the Mongols, the capable Mongol minister Tuotuo personally led troops to subdue them. The north, thus, had a semblance of peace, whereas the south could not be controlled by the Mongol authorities.

National military leadership

      Zhu now emerged as the national leader against the Mongols, though he had other rivals for power. Chief among them were Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng. Chen Youliang was the self-proclaimed emperor of the Han dynasty and was based in Wuchang (in Hubei province, about 400 miles [650 km] west of Shanghai), controlling a large portion of central China. Zhang Shicheng, the self-proclaimed prince Cheng of the Zhou dynasty, operated at Pingjiang (now Suzhou, in Jiangsu province adjoining the east coast and including Nanjing) in the east.

      In 1363 a decisive naval battle at Lake Poyang (Poyang, Lake) (south of the Yangtze in the north of Jiangxi province) was fought between Chen Youliang's huge fleet of war junks and Zhu's small but swift barges. The three-day battle ended with Chen's death and the destruction of his fleet. Wuchang, Chen's stronghold, was captured in 1364, followed by the capture of Hubei, Hunan (a large province west of Jiangxi), and Jiangxi provinces. In the same year Zhu proclaimed himself prince of Wu.

      With the death of Chen Youliang, events moved quickly to a climax. In 1367 the Song pretender Han Lin'er felt so threatened by the Mongols at his headquarters at Chuzhou that he decided to flee to Nanjing for protection. Escorted by one of Zhu's men during the trip, Han died by drowning when his boat capsized—an event perhaps contrived by Zhu. In the same year Zhang Shicheng was captured and brought to Nanjing, where he committed suicide. Other rebels decided to submit or were eliminated. One such was Fang Guozhen, one of the first to rebel against the Mongols, who had operated as a pirate along the coast; when he surrendered to Zhu, he was given honours and a stipend but no real power. On the other hand, Chen Youting, a Yuan loyalist who protected Fujian province (on the southeast coast, opposite Taiwan), was captured and brought to Nanjing for execution.

Reign as emperor

      With the south pacified, Zhu sent his generals Xu Da and Chang Yuchun to lead troops against the north. At the beginning of 1368 Zhu finally proclaimed himself emperor of the Ming dynasty, establishing his capital at Nanjing. Hongwu (“Vastly Martial”) was adopted as his reign title, and he is usually referred to as the Hongwu emperor, though Taizu is more strictly correct.

      The troops sent to conquer the north were highly successful. Shandong and Henan provinces submitted to Ming authority. By August 1368, Ming troops had entered the Yuan capital of Dadu (later renamed Beijing). The Mongol emperor Shundi fled to Inner Mongolia, and, although Mongol power was not immediately destroyed, historically the Yuan dynasty now came to an end. The rest of the country fell easily as Ming troops subdued first the northwest, then the southwest (Sichuan and Yunnan). Unification was completed by 1382.

      The Hongwu emperor was cruel, suspicious, and irrational, especially as he grew older. Instead of eliminating Mongol influence, he made his court resemble the Mongol court, and the despotic power of the emperor was institutionalized for the rest of the dynasty.

      One of his political acts was to grant principalities to all his sons, ostensibly from fear of another Mongol invasion, so that the imperial princes could be given military powers to aid the regular armies. A contributing factor was his interest in maintaining personal control over the empire through his sons' principalities.

Despotic tendencies

      The trend toward political despotism can be seen in the Hongwu emperor's various other actions. In 1380 the prime minister Hu Weiyong was implicated in a widespread plot to overthrow the throne and was executed along with 30,000 members of his clique. The emperor consequently abolished the prime ministership in perpetuity as well as the central chancellery. Thus, the next highest level of administration, the six ministries, became merely advisory to the emperor himself, who now exercised direct control. This change had serious defects, the most important being the inability of even the most vigorous emperor to attend to all the affairs of state. In an attempt to overcome this difficulty, the emperor made use of six or more grand secretaries, who were responsible for routine administration. The institution of the grand secretaries evolved from that of the Hanlin Academy, the original function of which was to assist in the education of the heir designate. Although superior in practice to the six ministries, the grand secretaries (later institutionalized as the grand secretariat) were mere servants of the despotic emperor.

      The Song emperors, learning from the Tang dynasty's experience, had felt that the militarists were the most dangerous group in the country and had purposely encouraged the scholar class, but the Hongwu emperor felt that, after the Mongol expulsion, the scholars formed the most dangerous group. Nevertheless, his interest in restoring traditional Chinese values involved rehabilitating the Confucian scholar class, and from experience he knew that effective government depended upon the scholars. He therefore encouraged education and purposely trained scholars for the bureaucracy. At the same time he used methods to deprive them of power and position and introduced the use of heavy bamboo as a punishment at court, often beating to death scholar-officials for the slightest offense. He felt that scholars should be mere servants of the state, working on behalf of the emperor. Because of the emperor's attitude, a great many members of the gentry were discouraged from embarking on official careers.

Administration

      To train scholars for the bureaucracy, the Hongwu emperor in 1369 ordered the establishment of schools at each local level. Students were subsidized and were privileged to apply for admission to the Hanlin Academy, which presumably formulated policy and supervised the local schools. As a result of this edict, more schools developed during the Ming than in previous periods of Chinese history, and education became inseparable from civil-service (Chinese civil service) recruitment by examination, the realization of which had been an ideal during the Tang and Song dynasties. Imperial authorities controlled the system of examination as far down as the provincial examinations that provided candidates for the metropolitan and palace examinations at the capital. The examination system made it possible to recruit the best minds for governmental service, though examinations stressed only the Song Neo-Confucian interpretation of the Classics and forced candidates to write in an artificial literary style, discouraging the development of originality.

      The Hongwu emperor's military system, the weiso (“guard-post”) system, was of earlier origin. The practice of granting land to soldiers for cultivation in peace realized his ideal of having the troops support themselves so as not to burden the people.

Foreign affairs

      In foreign relations the Hongwu emperor extended the Ming empire's prestige to outlying regions: southern Manchuria was brought into the empire; outlying states, such as Korea, the Liuqiu (i.e., Ryukyu) Islands, Annam, and other states, sent tribute missions to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Ming emperor; and, not satisfied with the expulsion of the Mongols, he sent two military expeditions into Mongolia, reaching the Mongol capital of Karakorum itself. Ming forces even penetrated Central Asia, taking Hami (in the Gobi) and accepting the submission of several states in the Chinese Turkistan region. When Ming emissaries traversed the mountains to Samarkand, however, they were met with a different reception. Timur (one of history's greatest conquerors) was building a new Mongol empire in that region, and the Chinese envoys were imprisoned. Eventually, they were released, and Timur and the Ming exchanged several embassies, which the Chinese regarded as tributary missions. Timur was preparing an invasion of China when he died in 1405.

      The Hongwu emperor was less successful with Japan, the buccaneers of which ravaged the Chinese coast. Three missions went to Japan, armed with inducements and threats, but were unable to curb piracy, because the Japanese authorities were themselves helpless.

The succession

      A great problem for the Hongwu emperor was the succession. His first choice, made when he was prince of Wu, was Biao, his eldest son, later known as the heir designate Yiwen. As the Hongwu emperor's reign progressed there were indications that he favoured his fourth son, Di (Yongle), the prince of Yan, whose principality was at Beijing and whose personal qualities and military ability were more impressive. In 1392, when the heir designate Yiwen died, the Hongwu emperor was persuaded to appoint Yiwen's eldest son as his successor, rather than the prince of Yan, who was angered by this decision. After the Hongwu emperor's death in June 1398, he was succeeded by his grandson Yunwen, known in history as Huidi, or the Jianwen emperor, who reigned until 1402, when the throne was usurped by the prince of Yan (the Yongle emperor).

Assessment

      In his progress from a mendicant monastery to the imperial palace, the Hongwu emperor illustrates the chaos into which China had fallen under the preceding late Yuan dynasty. The Yuan rulers were alien Mongol conquerors who had nevertheless absorbed many Chinese features during their reign. Their administration was faltering by the Hongwu emperor's time, and his achievement, first as rebel leader and then as emperor, was to focus national resentment against the foreign rulers and to resuscitate a more truly Chinese way of government. This he did so forcefully that his reign has been seen as a culmination of the despotic trends that had been in evidence since the Song dynasty (960–1279). He considered certain groups (for instance, maternal relatives; court eunuchs, who were often entrusted with power; and the military) as having been peculiarly prone to intrigue in the past, and vigorously stamped out such tendencies. He prohibited eunuchs, for instance, from participating in government, forbade the empress to meddle with court politics, and appointed civilian officials to control military affairs. Of lowly peasant origins, he always was aware of the popular misery that administrative corruption could engender, and he savagely punished malpractices.

David B. Chan

Additional Reading

No biography or definitive works dealing with the Hongwu emperor exist in English. However, The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, part I, ed. by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds.), gives detailed accounts of his life and times, notably chapter 1, “The Rise of the Ming Dynasty,” and chapter 3, “The Hung-wu Reign (1368–1398).” In addition, Charles O. Hucker (ed.), Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies (1969), contains articles based on research covering the political, military, and educational aspects of the Ming.

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