Emperor+Hong+Wo

media type="file" key="casey naylor Hong Wu.mp3"[|casey naylor Hong Wu.mp3] emperor hong wo's real name was zhu yuanzhang and his temple name taizu. His emperor name Hongwu, literally means "Vast Military". During the middle of the 1300s with famine and plagues and peasant rebellions spreading across China, Zhu became a leader of an army that conquered China, ending the yuan dynasty and forcing the Mongols to retreat to the Nothern steppes. With the conquest of the Mongolian capital, da du, which is now where Beijing is located, he claimed the title son of heaven and established the Ming Dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongwu_Emperor He then gained, his temple name Ming Tàizǔ "Great Ancestor of the Ming",

Despite having fought off the gorillas of the Mongol invasion, Hongwu figured out that the Mongols were still a real threat to China. He decided that the orthodox Confucian view of the military as an ignorent evil class to the scholar bureaucracy should be renamed, as maintaining a strong military was crucial. Hongwu kept a powerful army organized on the military system known as Wei-so, which was similar to the Fu-ping system of the Tang dynasty. While at first the Ming army was very effective, it quickly lost its capacity for offensive forces after the death of the Yongle Emperorand it suffered a disgraceful defeat at the hands of the Mongols in 1449 at the Battle of Tumo Fort. Military training was reinforced within the soldiers' own military districts. In time of war, troops were mobilized from all over the empire on the orders of a Board of War, and commanders were chosen to lead them. When the war was over, all of the troops returned to their respective districts and the commanders lost their military commands. This system largely avoided obstacles. However, the downside was the Ming military, for large campaigns, was always placed under the control of a civilian official located in the capital. Zhu Yuanzhang also employed a special breed of Chinese Muslims as commanders in his army.  As time went on, Hongwu increasingly feared revolts and other forms of rebellions. He even made it a capital offence for any of his subjects to criticise him. A story goes that a Confucian scholar who was fed up with Hongwu's policies decided to go to the capital and berate the emperor. When he gained an audience with the emperor, he brought his own coffin along with him. ''After delivering his speech he climbed into the coffin, expecting the emperor to execute him. Instead, the Emperor was so impressed by his bravery that he spared his life.''  =the royal courts= Hongwu succeeded in, consolidating control over all aspects of government, so that no other group could overthrow him. As emperor, Hongwu increasingly gained power in his own hands. He bannedthe prime minister's post, which had been head of the main central administrative body under past dynasties, by compramising a plot for which he had blamed his chief minister. However Hongwu's actions were not entirely one-sided since he did create a new post, called "Grand Secretary", to take the place of the abolished prime minister. One of the many reasons why the emperor terminated the offices of grand councilor, particularly the prime minister, was due to Hu Wei-young's wanting to take over the throne. Hu was the Senior grand councilor and a very good friend of the emperor. He was later executed. His actions greatly dumbfounded the emperor and led the emperor to greatly not trust his officials. ' 'To that end, he completely eliminated all the prime ministers and established four advisors or the Grand-Secretaries to work closely with, who were intellectually able, though low ranking. Eliminating the office of the prime minister was the very step that increased the emperor's autocracy in the government.''    

law code
The legal code made up in the time of the Hongwu emperor was regarded one of the greatest achievements of the dynasty. The emperor devoted great personal care to the legal code and in his instruction to the ministers told them that the code of laws should be comprehensive and intelligible, so as not to leave any loophole for lower officials to misinterpret the law through dementing its original meaning. The Ming code possesed much emphasis on family relations. The code was a great improvement to the code of the earlier Tang dynasty in relations to the treatment of slaves. Under the Tang code, slaves were treated as a seperate species. 

religion
Backed by the Confucianism Hongwu accepted the Confucian viewpoint that merchants were mostely parasitic. Hongwu thouhgt that agriculture should be the country's main source of wealth and that trade was not noble. Perhaps this view was the result of him having been a peasant himself. As a result, the Ming economic system relied solely on agriculture, unlike the economic system of the Song Dynasty, which had preceded the Mongols and had relied on traders and merchant for revenues. Also as a result of this reluctant want to trade, Hongwu supported self-supporting agricultural communities.

Growth of Dynasty and Death
Although Hongwu's rule was occuring during the introduction of paper currency, capitalist development was stiffed from the beginning. Not understanding inflation Hongwu gave out so much paper money as rewards that by 1425 the state was forced to reintroduce [|copper] [|coins] because the paper currency had sunk to only 1/70 of its original value. During Hongwu's reign, the early Ming Dynasty was characterised by fast and drametic population growth, largely becaus of the increased food supply from Hongwu's agricultural reforms. By the end of the dynasty, the population had increased by perhaps as much as 1/2. This was stimulated by major improvements in agricultural technology, promoted by the pro-agrarian state which came to power. Under his reign, living standards also improved. Hongwu died after a reign of 30 years at the age of 69 in 1398. Not one of his reigning descendants lived as long as he did.