The Yongle Emperor seized power from his nephew and moved China's capital to Beijing
Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Ming dynasty's founder and was never meant to rule. In 1399 he rebelled against his nephew, the reigning emperor, and after three years of civil war took the throne. As the Yongle Emperor he built a new capital at Beijing and sent Zheng He's fleets as far as East Africa.
Zhu Di was born in 1360, while his father Zhu Yuanzhang was a rebel leader fighting the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty. In 1368 his father founded the Ming and became the Hongwu Emperor. Official records name Empress Ma as Zhu Di's mother, but other sources suggest a concubine who may have been Mongolian or Korean. After taking the throne, Zhu Di had the records edited to call himself one of only two sons of the empress, a claim so implausible that a later edition listed five.
As a boy in Nanjing he loved archery and riding, unlike his bookish younger brother Zhu Su, who preferred literature and gardening. His favourite history was the Han dynasty, though as emperor he often cited the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Made Prince of Yan in 1370, he moved to Beiping, present-day Beijing, by 1380 to guard the northeastern frontier and proved an able, popular commander.
Once emperor, he raised Beiping to a second capital and, from 1407 to 1420, used hundreds of thousands of workers to build it, while rebuilding the Grand Canal to feed the city and the northern armies. He backed both Confucianism and Buddhism, and some two thousand scholars compiled the enormous Yongle Encyclopedia. Unlike his father, he rarely purged officials, which gave China a steadier, more professional government.
Abroad he pursued dominance through missions to Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Central Asia, and the eunuch admiral Zheng He sailed to Southeast Asia, India, Persia and East Africa. The Mongols remained the chief threat, and moving the government north was largely about watching that frontier. He personally led five campaigns into Mongolia, yet neither they nor his long war in Đại Việt, in what is now northern Vietnam, achieved lasting success. He died in 1424.
Source: Yongle Emperor
