Why did Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, move the capital to Beijing?

In the first year of Yongle, the capital of the Ming Dynasty was Nanjing, China today. This ancient capital of the Six Dynasties has been considered kingly since the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, set his capital here and built the Royal Palace by integrating the essence of Chinese palace architecture for two thousand years. Today only these ruins remain of the palace, but it still retains its original splendor.

At this time, the city of Beijing was still on the territory of the Ming Dynasty and was a chief secretary of the imperial court, called Peiping. There are few people here. Zhu Di was named King of Yan when he was 11 years old. He and his old subordinates were familiar with this place and were full of affection for it.

On the 13th day of the first lunar month in the first year of Yongle, Zhu Di returned to the palace after performing sacrifices to heaven and earth according to the ancestral system. When the monarchs and ministers gathered together, a minister named Li Zhigang, the Minister of Rites, made a suggestion. He said, I thought Beiping was the place where the emperor carried the dragon's fortune. We should follow Emperor Taizu Gao's system of setting up another capital city and make Peiping the capital. Emperor Yongle immediately agreed happily. In the next few hours, an imperial edict was announced to the world, elevating Peiping to Beijing and becoming the second Kyoto of the dynasty.

The news soon spread throughout the country, and a great palace would be born.

Emperor Yongle, who had just ascended the throne, used such an imperial edict to declare to the world and express his philosophy of governing the world.

From the historical data we have seen so far, we can find that Zhu Di in 1403 AD was in a very subtle and uneasy atmosphere. As an emperor who had just ascended the throne after seizing the imperial power from his nephew, he faced too many difficult problems. The killings of former officials of Emperor Jianwen who opposed him continued.

After killing many people, Zhu Di felt very uneasy. He also asked Ru Chang, a minister next to him, if I would offend the ancestors of heaven and earth by doing this?

What made him even more uneasy was that when Nanjing was invaded, his nephew Emperor Jianwen mysteriously disappeared in a fire, and his life and death were unknown. Although he held a grand funeral for his nephew according to the etiquette of the emperor. However, many historians of later generations believed that it was not Emperor Jianwen himself who was buried at that time. The real Emperor Jianwen was probably on the run. This incident became Zhu Di's biggest worry.

One day later, when he went to court, Zhu Di was almost assassinated by the imperial censor Jing Qing.

After this incident, Zhu Di often had nightmares in Nanjing. He may have begun to miss his hometown Beijing more strongly.

Standing among the ruins of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, it is not difficult to imagine that Emperor Yongle, who had lived in the north for many years, might dislike living in Nanjing less and less. He began to plan the move of the First Kyoto to Beijing.

Soon in May of that year, during a court appearance, he told the ministers that Beijing was my old feudal state. With the state society and the state, the ritual governance of the capital will be implemented. However, the emperor's suggestion met with fierce opposition from the ministers. From then on, Zhu Di became much more cautious. He began to make systematic and meticulous preparations for moving the capital in a roundabout and secret way.

In 1403 AD, the city that had just been renamed Beijing from Peiping suddenly had many southerners from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places. They received the imperial court's permission to move to Beijing and receive preferential treatment of being exempt from paying taxes for five years. These people were generally relatively wealthy and soon started doing business in Beijing that they had done in the south. At the same time, many more farmers began to cultivate wasteland in the suburbs of Beijing, and large-scale immigration projects began.

When the vast team of immigrants rushed to Beijing, on the northwest grasslands thousands of miles away from Beijing, the cavalry army commanded by Timur Khan of Mongolia had already set off towards the Central Plains. The north of the Ming Dynasty faced another threat.

However, just as Emperor Yongle was preparing to deploy his defenses for battle, Timur suddenly died of illness during the march. A great war disappeared without a trace.

In June 1405 AD, when the southeast wind blew, Zheng He was dispatched by Emperor Yongle to lead a fleet on an ocean voyage. With the mission of Emperor Yongle to show the might of the Ming Dynasty to the world, he sailed across the vast ocean. It is said that this voyage was also to find the missing Emperor Jianwen.

In August 1406 AD, when Zheng He's fleet was marching mightily, something happened in the Nanjing Imperial Palace that made Zhu Di happy. We have been unable to verify whether it was the secret instruction of Emperor Yongle himself or the result of the ministers' own speculation. Anyway, at the court on this day, a group of ministers headed by Qiu Fu suggested building a new palace in Beijing. Emperor Yongle accepted this suggestion very happily.