Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di)明成祖朱棣

Style & Daoist names

Yongle Emperor, Zhu Di (the Yongle Emperor), Emperor Wen (posthumous title)

Period

Ming

Dates

1360 — 1424

Role

EmperorsDaoism-Venerating Emperors

Birthplace

Nanjing

Places of activity

Wudang Mountains

Life

Zhu Di, the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming, became the third Ming emperor after seizing the throne in the Jingnan campaign, and reigned under the era name Yongle. Citing Zhenwu's "hidden protection" of his campaign, he vigorously venerated Zhenwu, and from the tenth year of the Yongle reign (1412) mobilized more than 300,000 soldiers and laborers to build, over more than a decade, a complex of nine palaces, eight temples and thirty-six hermitages and halls on the Wudang Mountains, bestowing on the range the title "Great Marchmount of Taihe"; he ordered Zhang Sanfeng's disciple Sun Biyun and Zhang Xin, Marquis of Longping, to supervise the construction, making the Wudang Mountains a center of imperial Daoist ritual and of the cult of Zhenwu in the Ming, its architectural complex being inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The Yongle Emperor also repeatedly sent envoys to seek out Zhang Sanfeng throughout the empire, ordered the forty-third-generation Celestial Master Zhang Yuchu to compile the Daoist Canon, built Chaotian Palace and Dade Temple in Beijing, and employed Daoist priests such as Zhou Side and Zhou Dian, laying the foundation for the Ming dynasty's policy of favoring Daoism.

Contributions & Influence

• Undertook large-scale construction of the temple complex on the Wudang Mountains, venerating Zhenwu
• Ordered the compilation of the Daoist Canon, initiating the compilation of the Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era
• Established the pattern of imperial devotion to Daoism that characterized the Ming dynasty

Legends

The account of "Zhenwu's hidden protection of the Jingnan campaign" was official propaganda, and belongs to a legendary mode of narrative.