Hongwu Emperor

The Hongwu Emperor (Chinese: 洪武帝; pinyin: Hóngwǔ Dì; 21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) and courtesy name Guorui (國瑞), was the founder and first emperor of the Ming dynasty of China. His temple name was Ming Taizu (明太祖), which literally means "Grand Ancestor of Ming". Hongwu, the era name of his reign, means "vastly martial".

In the middle of the 14th century, with famine, plagues, and peasant revolts sweeping across China, Zhu Yuanzhang rose to command the force that conquered China and ended the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, forcing the Mongols to retreat to the Central Asian steppes. Following his seizure of the Yuan capital, Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing), Zhu claimed the Mandate of Heaven and established the Ming dynasty in 1368. Trusting only in his family, he made his many sons powerful feudal princes along the northern marshes and the Yangtze valley. Having outlived his first successor, the Hongwu Emperor enthroned his grandson via a series of instructions; this ended in failure when the Jianwen Emperor's attempt to unseat his uncles led to him being overthrown by one of his uncles, Zhu Di, who later became the Yongle Emperor.

Founding Emperor of Ming Dynasty

Founding Emperor of Ming Dynasty is a Chinese television series based on the life of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty. Directed by Feng Xiaoning and starring Hu Jun as the emperor, the series was first aired on CCTV in China in 2006.

Plot

Turmoil engulfs China in the final years of the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty as the government degenerates into corruption while rebel forces sprout throughout the land to overthrow the Yuan regime. Somewhere in the wilderness, Zhu Chongba, a young cowherd, stands on a huge rock and proclaims to his friends, "I, Emperor Zhu, will reward each of you with a large piece of rice cake when I ascend the throne one day!" Around the same time, his parents died of starvation at home.

To give his parents a proper funeral, Zhu becomes a novice monk at a local monastery and spends part of his childhood there. A few years later, the monastery is destroyed so he has no choice but to become a beggar. One day, he encounters Yuan soldiers and narrowly escapes death, but is captured by some rebels, who suspect that he is a spy and want to kill him. At this critical moment, he is saved by a girl, and he joins Guo Zixing's rebel army later.