When did the Ming Dynasty move the capital?
The Ming Dynasty moved its capital in the first month of the 19th year of Yongle (AD 1421), also known as the Yongle Capital Move.
The Yongle Capital Move, also known as the Ming Dynasty’s capital move to Peking, refers to the emperor Zhu Di’s move of the capital of the Ming Dynasty from Nanjing to Peiping. It is an event of great significance in Chinese history and has had a profound impact on China’s politics, economy, and culture. The influence continues into modern times. Moving the capital to Peiping will help control the political situation across the country, and at the same time help fight against the southern invasion of the northern Mongols, and also help manage the northeastern region.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the poverty in North China was quite obvious compared to Jiangnan. The construction of Peiping enabled the rapid recovery of production and population in the north. However, as a huge consumer city, the capital's large demand for supplies could not be met nearby and had to rely on the Grand Canal for transportation from the south of the Yangtze River. Therefore, water transport had an extremely important economic status in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The prosperity of water transportation led to the development of towns along the canal, such as Yangzhou, Linqing and Cangzhou, which further promoted the recovery of the northern economy.
Extended information:
This Zhu Di was influenced by his father Zhu Yuanzhang's character and theory of extravagant killing, and he was also an extremely outstanding murderer. According to the principle of bloodline theory, "I am a hero, and my son is a bastard, and I am a reactionary, and I am a bastard." Those male counterrevolutionaries who directly participated in the resistance movement were punished by skinning, frying, or boiling, causing the entire city of Nanjing to suffer. Ghosts cried, wolves howled, and there was a lot of mourning.
At the same time, all the wives, sisters, daughters-in-law, and even nieces-in-law of the current counter-revolutionaries were working as prostitutes in brothels, including a fifty-six-year-old woman. The wife is included.
Some of the above tragic scenes occurred in Nanjing, and some extended to Beijing. Since Zhu Di became emperor, he first felt that too much blood had been shed in Nanjing. In the square of the Forbidden City of the Ming Dynasty, near the court corridor, and as far away as the Yuhuatai in Fuguo, there were all stains of blood. This made it inevitable for the newly appointed emperor to witness and Feeling uneasy.
Under this stimulation, he made plans to move the capital, so that he could be out of sight and out of mind. Second, because Zhu Di had guarded Peiping for many years and was well aware of the military importance of this place, he decided to move the capital of the Ming Dynasty here.
In the fourth year of Yongle (1406 AD), officials in Peiping began to recruit millions of craftsmen and civilians to formally build the Beijing Palace. The large-scale buildings that tourists see today such as the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Ancestral Temple (Working People's Cultural Palace) were built one after another since then. I wonder if Zhu Di, the murderer king at the time, realized that his decision objectively left a precious cultural heritage for future generations.
In the fifth year of Yongle, Queen Xu (the daughter of the famous founding general Xu Da) died. After careful consideration, Zhu Di did not build a mausoleum in Nanjing for burial. Instead, he sent the Minister of Rites and the "Jiangxi School" Feng Shui master Liao Junqing and others there. Beijing is looking for "auspicious soil", which is commonly known as Feng Shui treasure land.
People's Daily Online - Revealed: Why Emperor Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing