The Ming founding in 1368: from taking capitals to governing an empire

01A proclamation in Nanjing

The Ming began not in Beijing but in present-day Nanjing. In 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed the Great Ming at Yingtian, adopting Hongwu as his reign title. His rise belonged to a prolonged struggle among forces competing for cities, people and supplies at the end of the Yuan. A base in the lower Yangtze helped make his military success possible. Proclaiming an emperor announced a new order; it did not mean that fighting had ended.

A simple rags-to-riches biography misses the larger question. How could resources gathered for war become a durable government? The new capital was the centre of that project, not its completion.

02Taking Dadu was another turning point

Later that year Ming troops entered Dadu, the Yuan capital, and the Yuan court withdrew north. This connects the founding to present-day Beijing, but the Ming political centre remained in Nanjing. Establishing a court in the south and changing the military balance in the north were related events, not a single ceremony.

The end of Yuan rule in the central Chinese heartland did not instantly erase its surviving forces. Warfare and territorial consolidation continued. A dynasty’s foundation therefore has several clocks: the proclamation of sovereignty, effective control over territory, and the recovery of everyday production. Those processes need not finish together.

03Making households visible to the state

Years of conflict had moved people and disrupted records of land and obligations. To collect grain, allocate labour and maintain armies, the new government needed to know where households lived, what they held and what services they owed. Hongwu-era registration turned those questions into administrative records.

The Yellow Register system established in 1381 recorded households, their members, property and related information, in connection with local lijia organisation. These were not population surveys in the modern sense: they helped determine taxation, service and status. Registration could make assessment more systematic while also binding residents to continuing obligations. A more legible population did not automatically mean a freer one.

04Reorganising central power in 1380

In 1380 Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the chancellorship and the central Secretariat, placing the Six Ministries directly under the emperor. The useful question is not simply which title disappeared, but how a decision now travelled through government. The change reshaped the coordination of central business.

Concentration also increased the ruler’s workload. Subsequent experiments with advisers and palace grand secretaries show that complicated administration still required assistance. These arrangements should not be confused with the more developed Grand Secretariat of later Ming reigns. Abolishing one powerful office neither eliminated bureaucracy nor made an emperor capable of governing without it.

05Recovery and coercion belonged to the same reign

Registration and administrative reform helped a state function after prolonged war. Yet Hongwu government was not a story of recovery alone. Surveillance, severe punishment and restrictions on subjects formed part of the same political structure.

Assessing the foundation means asking more than how many cities were captured. Who carried the costs of the new arrangements? The court sought to prevent officials and commanders from becoming independent centres of power, while households faced demands for revenue and service. Reading institutional purpose alongside its practical burdens reveals why order could offer stability and impose pressure at the same time.

06From Nanjing to the later Beijing capital

Keep 1368 in mind when looking at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Its construction belongs to the later Yongle project, not to a palace already serving as the Ming capital at the foundation. Ming remains in Nanjing and the Yuan–Ming–Qing urban layers of Beijing represent connected but distinct stages.

The next questions lead towards the succession conflict known as the Jingnan campaign, Yongle’s development of Beijing and Zheng He’s voyages. The founder left a more centralised state, together with tensions over succession and the role of imperial princes. His successors inherited both the tools of government and problems embedded in their design.

• When Was the Forbidden City Built? Yongle’s Beijing →
• Zheng He and the treasure fleets →