Yongle Emperor
emperor of Ming dynasty China from 1402 to 1424
The Yongle Emperor (2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di, was the third emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1402 to 1424. He was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the dynasty.
In 1370, Zhu Di was granted the title of Prince of Yan. By 1380, he had relocated to Beiping (present-day Beijing) and was responsible for protecting the northeastern borderlands. In the 1380s and 1390s, he proved himself to be a skilled military leader, gaining popularity among soldiers and achieving success as a statesman. In 1399, he rebelled against his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor, and launched a civil war known as the Jingnan campaign. After three years of intense fighting, he emerged victorious and declared himself emperor in 1402.
After ascending the throne, the Yongle Emperor elevated Beiping to the status of a second capital, diminishing the importance of Nanjing. Construction of the new capital between 1407 and 1420 employed hundreds of thousands of workers. He also supervised the reconstruction of the Grand Canal, essential for supplying Beijing and the northern armies.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Yongle Emperor” as emperor of Ming dynasty China from 1402 to 1424. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as emperor of Ming dynasty China from 1402 to 1424. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9965. VIAF identifies the subject as 284435732. The Library of Congress control number is n80132282. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1360, 1424, 1402 and 1370.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yongle Emperor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.