Zhu Di 朱棣
The future Yongle Emperor spent more than twenty years in northern China, commanding his father's armies — his father being the founder of the Ming dynasty. It was from there that Zhu Di launched his war for the throne, and once he became emperor, he built a new capital in his former fiefdom. In King and Emperor he receives a foreign sovereign, while in The Imperial Age the audience meets him before he raises his troops against his nephew.
Zhu Di (朱棣) was born in 1360, eight years before his father Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming dynasty. He was the fourth son of the future emperor. In 1370 his father granted him the title of Prince of Yan, and ten years later Zhu Di moved to his fief, centred on Beiping, present-day Beijing. The principality lay by the northern border, and by the end of his father's reign Zhu Di was already leading troops on campaigns against the Mongols.
Zhu Yuanzhang's eldest son, the heir to the throne Zhu Biao, died during his father's lifetime. The next heir was Zhu Biao's son, Zhu Yunwen, who ascended the throne in 1398 and soon set about curtailing the power of the regional princes. In 1399 the Prince of Yan raised his troops, declaring that he wished to rid the emperor of bad advisers. Three years later his army entered Nanjing. A fire broke out in the palace, and Zhu Yunwen vanished. By one account he perished in the flames, by another he managed to escape. Zhu Di took the throne, executed several of his nephew's closest advisers and ordered the years of his nephew's reign to be counted as if Zhu Yuanzhang had remained on the throne all along. The first year of the Yongle era was 1403. This is how the Palace Museum describes these events.
Beiping was renamed Beijing in 1403, though the court still remained in Nanjing. In 1406 Zhu Di ordered a new palace to be built in the north. Timber and bricks were brought in from various provinces, and artisans, soldiers and peasants were rounded up for the work. The construction of the palace complex was completed in 1420, and at the beginning of the following year Beijing officially became the capital. The Forbidden City, on the site of the former fief of the Prince of Yan, became the main imperial residence.
While the transfer of the capital was being prepared, Zhu Di sent ships into the Indian Ocean. In 1405 he put the court eunuch Zheng He in charge of the first expedition. Zheng He negotiated with local rulers, brought envoys back to China and, when necessary, resorted to arms. The first expeditions reached the western coast of India, the later ones Arabia and East Africa. Six voyages fell during Zhu Di's reign; the seventh was completed in 1433, already under his grandson.
By the emperor's order, scholars compiled works on history, literature and other fields of knowledge into a vast encyclopaedia, the Yongle Dadian. He received Tibetan Buddhist masters, and the court workshops produced Buddhist statues and ritual objects for him. In his final years Zhu Di still personally commanded troops in the north. He died in 1424 on the way back from a campaign. The throne passed to his eldest son, Zhu Gaochi.
In the Chinese-Filipino film King and Emperor (1987), Wang Xin-Gang plays Zhu Di, who is visited by the ruler of Sulu. In the series Zheng He Xia Xi Yang (2009), the emperor was played by Tang Guo-Qiang. Here Zhu Di is shown above all as the patron of the maritime expeditions. The action of the series The Imperial Age (2022) begins much earlier. The young Zhu Di is played by Cheng Yi, the mature one by William Feng Shao-Feng. According to the series, court politics forced the prince to raise his troops.
