Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming dynasty of China.
The Yongle Emperor (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Yngl D; WadeGiles: Yung-le Ti; pronounced [jl t]; 2 May 1360 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di (Chinese: ; pinyin: Zh D; WadeGiles: Chu Ti), was the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 1424.
Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dynasty. He was originally enfeoffed as the Prince of Yan () in May 1370, with the capital of his princedom at Beiping (modern Beijing). Zhu Di was a capable commander against the Mongols. He initially accepted his father's appointment of his eldest brother Zhu Biao and then Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen as crown prince, but when Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne as the Jianwen Emperor and began executing and demoting his powerful uncles, Zhu Di found pretext for rising in rebellion against his nephew. Assisted in large part by eunuchs mistreated by the Hongwu and Jianwen Emperors, who both favored the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, Zhu Di survived the initial attacks on his princedom and drove south to launch the Jingnan campaign against the Jianwen Emperor in Nanjing. In 1402, he successfully overthrew his nephew and occupied the imperial capital, Nanjing, after which he was proclaimed emperor and adopted the era name Yongle, which means "perpetual happiness".
Eager to establish his own legitimacy, Zhu Di voided the Jianwen Emperor's reign and established a wide-ranging effort to destroy or falsify records concerning his childhood and rebellion. This included a massive purge of the Confucian scholars in Nanjing and grants of extraordinary extralegal authority to the eunuch secret police. One favorite was Zheng He, who employed his authority to launch major voyages of exploration into the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. The difficulties in Nanjing also led the Yongle Emperor to re-establish Beiping (present-day Beijing) as the new imperial capital. He repaired and reopened the Grand Canal and, between 1406 and 1420, directed the construction of the Forbidden City. He was also responsible for the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, considered one of the wonders of the world before its destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1856. As part of his continuing attempt to control the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, the Yongle Emperor also greatly expanded the imperial examination system in place of his father's use of personal recommendation and appointment. These scholars completed the monumental Yongle Encyclopedia during his reign.
The Yongle Emperor died while personally leading a military campaign against the Mongols. He was buried in the Changling Mausoleum, the central and largest mausoleum of the Ming tombs located north of Beijing.
A regnal name, or regnant name or reign name, is the name used by monarchs and popes during their reigns and, subsequently, historically. Since ancient times, some monarchs have chosen to use a different name from their original name when they accede to the monarchy.
The regnal name is usually followed by a regnal number, written as a Roman numeral, to differentiate that monarch from others who have used the same name while ruling the same realm. In some cases, the monarch has more than one regnal name, but the regnal number is based on only one of those names, for example Charles X Gustav of Sweden. If a monarch reigns in more than one realm, they may carry different ordinals in each one, as some realms may have had different numbers of rulers of the same regnal name. For example, the same person was both King James I of England and King James VI of Scotland.
The ordinal is not normally used for the first ruler of the name, but is used in historical references once the name is used again. Thus, Queen Elizabeth I of England was called simply "Elizabeth of England" until the accession of Queen Elizabeth II almost four centuries later in 1952; subsequent historical references to the earlier queen retroactively refer to her as Elizabeth I. However, Tsar Paul I of Russia, King Umberto I of Italy, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia and Pope John Paul I all used the ordinal I (first) during their reigns, while Pope Francis does not. In spoken English, such names are pronounced as "Elizabeth the First", "George the Sixth", etc.
In some countries in Asia, monarchs took or take era names. While era names as such are not used in many monarchies, sometimes eras are named after a monarch (usually long-lived), or a succession of monarchs of the same name. This is customary; there is no formal or general rule. For example, the whole period during which a succession of four Georges (George I, II, III, and IV) of the Hanoverian dynasty reigned in Great Britain became known as the Georgian era. Conversely, although there were many Edwards, the Edwardian era always refers to the reign of Edward VII at the beginning of the 20th century.