The founding emperor of the Míng dynasty 明朝 (1368–1644), posthumously honoured as Tàizǔ 太祖 (the Grand Ancestor), reigning under the era-name Hóngwǔ 洪武 (1368–1398). One of the most consequential rulers in Chinese history — the second emperor (after Liú Bāng 劉邦 of the Hàn) to rise from true peasant origins — and the only founder-ruler to compose a substantial scriptural commentary of his own, the [[KR5c0058|Dà Míng Tài zǔ Gāo huáng dì yù zhù Dàodé zhēn jīng]] (DZ 676, 1374–75).
Origins. Born on 21 October 1328 (戊辰年九月十八日) in a peasant family of Zhōnglí 鍾離 (present-day Fèngyáng 鳳陽, Ānhuī 安徽). His given childhood name was Chóng bā 重八 (“Eighth Double”) or Guó ruì 國瑞; he took the name Yuánzhāng 元璋 as a young adult. Orphaned during the epidemic and famine of 1344, he entered the Huáng jué sì 皇覺寺 Buddhist monastery as a novice monk at age seventeen, where he spent three years of mendicant wandering across the Huái river valley — the formative experience of his life.
Rise through the Red Turban rebellion. Joined the Hóng jīn jūn 紅巾軍 (“Red Turban Army”) of Guō Zǐxīng 郭子興 in 1352 as a common soldier during the late-Yuán 元 (Mongol) dynastic crisis. Rose rapidly to command; married Guō’s adopted daughter Mǎ xiù yīng 馬秀英 (later Empress Xiào cí gāo 孝慈高皇后, d. 1382); on Guō’s death in 1355 inherited his army. Consolidated control of the Yangtze river valley from his capital at Yīng tiān fǔ 應天府 (Nánjīng 南京) from 1356 onwards; defeated rival warlords Chén Yǒuliàng 陳友諒 (1363, battle of Lake Poyang 鄱陽湖) and Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠 (1367); drove the last Yuán court out of Dàdū 大都 (Běijīng) in the autumn of 1368.
Accession and reign. Proclaimed the Míng dynasty on 23 January 1368, with the era-name Hóngwǔ 洪武 (“Vast Martial”). Reigned thirty years (1368–1398) — a long, complex reign that established the institutional framework of Míng government and set the ideological tone of Míng authoritarian rule. Key measures included: the purging of the old Yuán aristocratic class and the redistribution of land; the abolition of the prime-ministership in 1380 (after the Hú Wéiyōng 胡惟庸 case, in which some 30,000 officials were executed as purported co-conspirators); the construction of a comprehensive new legal code (the Dà Míng lǜ 大明律, 1367–1397); the promotion of the civil-service examinations and their close linkage to the Zhū Xī 朱熹 Neo-Confucian orthodoxy; the institution of a population-register and corvée-service system (the huáng cè 黃冊 “yellow registers”); and the construction of an enormous imperial palace complex and funerary monuments at Nánjīng.
Religious and ideological policy. Raised a Buddhist novice, but as emperor patronised multiple religious traditions in a strategically ecumenical manner. Supported the Zhèngyī 正一 Daoist lineage under the Celestial Master Zhāng Zhèngcháng 張正常 (41st Celestial Master, d. 1377) and successors. Authorised the full reprinting of the Chinese Buddhist canon (the Nán zàng 南藏, completed 1403 under Yǒnglè). Composed imperial commentaries on the Dàodé jīng (1374–75, KR5c0058), the Xīn jīng 心經 (Heart Sūtra), and the Jīn gāng jīng 金剛經 (Diamond Sūtra) — the Lǎozǐ commentary being the longest and most politically articulate of the three.
Character and reputation. A figure of great complexity: a genuinely learned autodidact with an acute political intelligence; a warm family man (the correspondence with Empress Mǎ is famously touching); but also one of the most suspicious and violent rulers in Chinese history, responsible for several massive purges (the Hú Wéiyōng case of 1380, the Lán Yù 藍玉 case of 1393) in which tens of thousands of officials and their families were executed. Modern historians (John Dardess, Edward Farmer, Frederick Mote, Lawrence Liu, Ray Huang) have written extensively on this complexity; see especially Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy (Berkeley, 1983) and Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang and Early Ming Legislation (Brill, 1995).
Death and succession. Died on 24 June 1398. Buried at the Xiào líng 孝陵 mausoleum at Nánjīng (still standing, a UNESCO World Heritage site). Succeeded by his grandson Zhū Yǔnwén 朱允炆 (the Jiànwén 建文 emperor, r. 1398–1402), who was displaced within four years by Zhū Yuánzhāng’s fourth son Zhū Dì 朱棣 (the Yǒnglè 永樂 emperor, r. 1402–1424). The early-Míng intellectual and religious projects begun under Hóngwǔ — including the compilation of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (begun under Yǒnglè, completed 1445) — continued under his successors.
No CBDB record required (he is a universally well-documented figure; see the Míng shǐ 明史 2–3 běn jì 本紀 and the standard Western-language biographies in the Dictionary of Ming Biography 1:381–92).