Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang

Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang is the representative work of Wu Han, a historian and one of the pioneers of Ming studies. Taking Zhu Yuanzhang's life as its main thread, the book also portrays the political landscape and institutional changes of the late Yuan and early Ming. It opens with Zhu's family background and boyhood: becoming a monk at the Huangjue Temple, wandering as a mendicant, and being driven to rebellion in a time of chaos. It then follows his entry into Guo Zixing's army, where he rose from personal guard and minor officer to become an independent commander and grand chancellor; his decisive battle with Chen Youliang at Poyang Lake, the pacification of Zhang Shicheng in Eastern Wu, and his southern and northern campaigns that overthrew the Yuan and founded the Ming. The second half turns to institutions and governance: the relationship between Manichaeism and the dynastic name Great Ming, early Ming policies toward peasants and their limits, the training of new officials through schools and recommendation, the army and bureaucracy as the two "wheels of imperial power," the choice of capital and defense arrangements, and the divisive policies under great unification. Chapter Five, "Terrorist Politics," concentrates on massacres, literary inquisition, the secret police network, and the extreme concentration of imperial power; Chapter Six returns to private life, covering Empress Ma, the imperial sons and grandsons, Zhu's upbringing and character, and his loneliness and sorrow in old age. An appendix provides a chronology of Zhu Yuanzhang. Meticulously researched yet accessible, the book is both a biography of an emperor and an introductory history of the founding of the Ming dynasty.