born Oct. 21, 1328, Haozhou [now Fengyang, Anhui province], China died June 24, 1398, Nanjing
![The Hongwu emperor; in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.[Credits : Courtesy of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China]](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/92/24792-003-F8C107B8.gif)
reign name (nianhao) of the Chinese emperor (reigned 1368–98) who founded the Ming dynasty that ruled China for nearly 300 years. During his reign, the Hongwu emperor instituted military, administrative, and educational reforms that centred power in the emperor.
The future Hongwu emperor was born in 1328 as Zhu Chongba, a poor peasant of Haozhou (about 100 miles [160 km] northwest of Nanjing, near China’s east coast). Orphaned at 16, he became a monk at the Huangjue monastery near Fengyang to avoid starvation—a common practice for the sons of poor peasants. As a wandering mendicant, he often begged for food at Hefei (some 100 miles west of Nanjing) and surrounding areas, where no constituted authority existed. Indeed, all of central and northern China was suffering from drought and famine, and more than seven million people starved, a situation that encouraged the popular rebellions that started from around 1325. Led by plebeian bandits, the rebels attacked the rich, distributing their wealth and goods among the people.
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