Ming Jiangshan: Lin

He launched the Jingnan Campaign under the pretext of "purging the court of corrupt officials" and ultimately seized the throne.

He issued proclamations full of excuses and ruled the realm, brutally executing former ministers in a purge that hunted down their entire families.

Stubborn and suspicious, he had three thousand palace women put to death in a fit of rage for no reason in his later years.

He left countless problems behind for the eunuchs who would govern in later generations.

He sent Zheng He sailing across the seas, bringing envoys from every land to pay tribute.

He spent fifteen years building the Forbidden City and moving the capital to Beiping.

He was Zhu Di. After his fifth victorious campaign against the Mongols, he died on his return journey. Emperor Shizong of Ming bestowed on him the temple name Ming Chengzu, and he was enshrined at the center of the Imperial Ancestral Temple alongside Ming Taizu as one of the "emperors who will never be removed from the ancestral shrine."

He joined Chengzu in launching the Jingnan Campaign, was granted half the empire, yet gave it away.

He was exceptionally courageous and strategic, yet confined himself to a small retreat to devote himself to religious practice.

He mastered poetry, music, medicine, divination, and the teachings of Laozi and Huangdi, reaching the heights of every art.

Though Chengzu could least tolerate him, he lived through six reigns and died peacefully.

He was Zhu Quan, Prince Xian of Ning, an unsurpassed master of the qin. He brought the Guangling San back to the world, left behind the timeless masterpiece The Mysterious and Marvelous Qin Manual, and made the "Flying Waterfall and Linked Pearls Qin" ring through the ages.

Part of the Great Ming Dynasty series: Ming Jiangshan: Lin. Begun over three years ago under the original title Plum Blossoms in the Splendid Realm. Reposted after a full revision.

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