Ming & Qing China

In 1368, a former Buddhist monk and beggar named Zhu Yuanzhang did something extraordinary. He led a peasant rebellion that overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty and established the The ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, founded by Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor) after the expulsion of Mongol rule. The Ming period saw the restoration of ethnic Han governance, massive infrastructure projects including the rebuilding of the Great Wall, the construction of the Forbidden City, and the famous maritime expeditions of Zheng He., which would govern China for 276 years. He took the reign name Hongwu, meaning "vastly martial," and set about rebuilding a state that had suffered decades of famine, plague, and foreign occupation.

Zhu Yuanzhang was not a gentle ruler. He was paranoid, vindictive, and capable of ordering mass executions on thin evidence. He abolished the office of prime minister after suspecting his chancellor of treason, personally assuming control of all government ministries. He created the Jinyiwei, a secret police force whose agents answered only to the emperor. He purged tens of thousands of officials.

But he also rebuilt. The Hongwu Emperor repopulated devastated regions through forced migration, redistributed land to peasant farmers, reformed the tax system, and planted a billion trees. That number is not an exaggeration. Imperial records document a massive reforestation campaign across the Yangtze basin. He understood that the foundation of Chinese power was not armies or palaces but agriculture, and that agriculture required functioning ecosystems.