Emperor Hong Wu

The Hongwu Emperor (September 21, 1328 – June 24, 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, was the founder and first emperor (1368 – 1398) of the Míng Dynasty of China. His era name, Hongwu, means "Immensely Martial." He also is known as Emperor Tai Zu.

The previous Mongol Yuan Dynasty was perceived as "foreign", and the Chinese had strong feelings against its rule. Zhu Yuanzhang led a peasant revolution that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian Steppes. He established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. Hongwu was one of only two Chinese dynasty founders who emerged from the peasant class. The other was Han Gao Zu of the Han Dynasty. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping are the two other peasant revolutionaries to have ruled the world's most populous nation.

Early life

Zhu Yuanzhang worked as a cowherd in his youth, and, according to legend, was fired after roasting and eating a cattle with other young cowherds; it was more likely that he was forced to enter a Buddhist monastery later on, where he learned to read, because of a plague that took the lives of his parents and brothers. He was forced to leave the monastery after it received insufficient funds and he had to go around China to beg. Later, he joined a gang of rebels, where because of his natural leadership talents he was made leader. Soon, as a strong-willed rebel leader, he came into contact with well-educated Confucian scholars and gentry, from whom he received an education in state affairs. He acquired training in the Red Turban Movement, a dissident religious sect combining cultural and religious traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, and other religions. No longer a Buddhist, he positioned himself as a defender of Confucianism and neo-Confucian conventions, rather than as a mere popular rebel. Despite his humble origins, he emerged as a national leader against the collapsing Yuan Dynasty. His charisma attracted talents from all over China, and one of his advisors, Zhu Sheng, proposed the theory of 'Build high walls, stock up rations, and don't be too quick to call yourself a king.' Instead of attacking the Mongols, he decided to absorb the smaller, weaker rebels leaders in Southern China before turning against his main enemy. In 1368, he finally proclaimed himself the Ming emperor in Nanjing and adopted "Hongwu" as the title of his reign. He used the motto 'Exiling the Mongols and Restoring Hua as a call to rouse the Han Chinese into supporting him, and after capturing Dadu, China was unified again under Ming.

Emperor of China

After defeating rival national leaders, Zhu proclaimed himself emperor in 1368. The capital was established at Nanjing, and "Hongwu" was adopted as the title of his reign.

Under Hongwu, the Mongol bureaucrats who had dominated the government for nearly a century under the Yuan Dynasty were replaced by Chinese. He revamped the traditional Confucian examination system, which selected state bureaucrats or civil servants on the basis of merit and knowledge of literature and philosophy. Candidates for posts in the civil service, or in the officer corps of the 80,000-man army, once again had to pass the traditional competitive examinations, as required by the Classics. The Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century, once again assumed their predominant role in the Chinese state.

Historians consider Hongwu to be one of the greatest Emperors of China. From the beginning, great care was taken by Hongwu to distribute land to small farmers. It seems to have been his policy to favor the poor, whom he tried to help to support themselves and their families. For instance, in 1370 an order was given that some land in Hunan and Anhui should be distributed to young farmers who had reached manhood. This order was made in part to preclude the absorption of this land by unscrupulous landlords, and as part of this decree it was announced that the title to the land would not be transferable. During the middle part of his reign an edict was published to the effect that those who brought fallow land under cultivation could keep it as their property without it ever being taxed. The people responded enthusiastically to this policy, and in 1393 cultivated land rose to 8,804,623 ching and 68 mou, a greater achievement than any other Chinese dynasty.

Having come from a peasant family, Hongwu knew only too well how much the farmers suffered from the gentry and the wealthy. Many of the latter, relying on their influence with the magistrates, not only encroached unscrupulously on the land of farmers, but even contrived through bribing lower officials to transfer the burden of taxation to the small farmers they had wronged. To prevent such abuses Hongwu instituted two very important systems: "Yellow Records" and "Fish Scale Records". These systems served to guarantee both the government's income from land taxes and the people's enjoyment of their property.

In 1372, Hongwu ordered the general release of all innocent people who had been enslaved during the anxious days at the end of the Mongol reign. Fourteen years later he ordered his officials to buy back children in the Huinan province who had been sold as slaves by their parents because of famine.

Despite having fought off the calamities of the Mongol invasion, Hongwu realized that the Mongols still posed a real threat to China. He decided that the orthodox Confucian view of the military as an inferior class to the scholar bureaucracy should be reassessed. Maintaining a strong military was essential. Hongwu kept a powerful army organized on a military system known as the Wei-so system, which was similar to the Fu-ping system of the Tang dynasty. According to Ming Shih Gao, the political intention of the founder of the Ming dynasty, in establishing the Wei-so system, was to maintain a strong army while avoiding the forming of personal bonds between commanding officers and the soldiers.

Soldier training also was conducted within the soldiers' own military districts. In time of war, troops were mobilized from all over the Empire on the orders of a Board of War, and commanders were chosen from Wu chin tu-tu fu to lead them. As soon as the war was over, all of the troops returned to their respective districts and the commanders lost their military commands. This system largely avoided troubles of the kind which so often had been caused, under the Tang and Song dynasties, by military commanders who had great numbers of soldiers directly under their personal control. The Wei-so system was a great success in the early Ming because of the Tun-tien system. Hongwu, well aware of the difficulties of supplying such a number of men, adopted this method of military organization, to assure that the empire had a strong military force without burdening the people heavily for its support.

Hongwu also noted the destructive role of court eunuchs under the previous dynasties and drastically reduced 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 court of castrated servants of the emperor, epitomized by a tablet in his palace stipulating: "Eunuchs must have nothing to do with the administration." However, this aversion to eunuchs' being in the employ of an emperor was not popular with Hongwu's successors, and eunuchs soon returned to the emperors' courts after Hongwu. In addition to Hongwu's aversion to eunuchs, he never consented to any of his imperial relatives becoming court officials. This policy was fairly well-maintained by later emperors, and no serious trouble was caused by the empresses or their relatives.

The legal code drawn up in the time of the Hongwu emperor was considered one of the great achievements of the era. The Ming Shih mentions that as early as 1364 the monarchy had started to draft a code of laws. This code was known as Ta-Ming Lu. The emperor devoted great personal care to the whole project, and in his instruction to the ministers told them that the code of laws should be comprehensive and intelligible, so as not to leave any loophole for lower officials to misinterpret the law through twisting its language. The Ming code laid much emphasis on family relations. The code was a great improvement on the code of the earlier Tang dynasty in regards to the treatment of slaves. Under the Tang code, slaves were treated as a species of domestic animal; if they were killed by a free citizen the law imposed no sanction on the killer. Under the Ming dynasty, however, the law protected both slaves and free citizens.

Hongwu attempted to, and largely succeeded in, consolidating control over all aspects of government, so that no other group could gain enough power to overthrow him. He also buttressed the country's defenses against the Mongols. As emperor, Hongwu increasingly concentrated power in his own hands. He abolished the prime minister's post, which had been head of the main central administrative body under past dynasties, by suppressing a plot for which he had blamed his chief minister. Many argue that the Hongwu emperor, wishing to concentrate absolute authority in his own hands and having abolished the office of prime minister, removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors[citation needed]. However Hongwu's actions were not entirely one-sided since he did create a new post, called "Grand Secretary", to take the place of the abolished prime minister. Ray Huang argued that Grand-Secretaries, outwardly powerless, could exercise considerable positive influence from behind the throne[citation needed]. Because of their prestige and the public trust which they enjoyed, they could act as intermediaries between the emperor and the ministerial officials, and thus provide a stabilizing force in the court.

Backed by the Confucian scholar-gentry, Hongwu accepted the Confucian viewpoint that merchants were solely parasitic. Hongwu felt that agriculture should be the country's source of wealth and that trade was ignoble and parasitic. Perhaps this view was the result of his having been a peasant himself. As a result, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike the economic system of the Song Dynasty, which had preceded the Mongols and had relied on traders and merchant for revenues. Also as a result of this aversion to trade, Hongwu supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities.

However Hongwu's prejudice against the merchants did not diminish the numbers of traders. On the contrary, commerce increased significantly under Hong Wu due to the growth of industry throughout the empire. This growth in trade was due in part to poor soil conditions and overpopulation of certain areas, during the dynasty, which forced many people to leave their homes and seek their fortunes in trade. A book entitled, Tu Pien Hsin Shu[citation needed], written during the Ming dynasty, gives a very detailed description about the activities of merchants at that time. So trade did not decline at all during Hongwu's reign.

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 because the paper currency had sunk to only 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. The population rose by perhaps as much as 50 percent by the end of the Ming Dynasty. This rise was stimulated by major improvements in agricultural technology, promoted by the pro-agrarian state which came to power in the midst of a pro-Confucian peasant's rebellion. Under his tutelage, living standards greatly improved.

Hongwu 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 the emperor, he brought his own coffin along with him. After delivering his speech he climbed into the coffin, expecting the emperor to execute him. Instead, the Emperor was so impressed by his bravery that he spared his life.

Hongwu died after a reign of 30 years.

He had 24 sons, all of whom became princes.