Emperor Hongwu: The Peasant Who Built an Empire and Embraced Islam’s Place Within It

Presented by Zia H Shah MD

Abstract

Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), known by his reign title Hongwu, The Muslim Times remains one of the most extraordinary figures in world history Wikipedia — an orphaned beggar and Buddhist novice who rose through rebellion to found the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and reunify China after a century of Mongol rule. His thirty-year reign reshaped Chinese governance through sweeping administrative centralization, the abolition of the prime ministership, rigorous land surveys, a new legal code, and devastating anti-corruption purges that claimed tens of thousands of lives. Yet alongside this ruthless consolidation of power, Hongwu demonstrated a remarkable pragmatism toward religious diversity, particularly Islam. He employed Muslim generals in his campaigns against the Yuan, ordered the construction and protection of mosques across the empire, Guidance ResidentialNouahsark and is credited with composing the celebrated Hundred-Word Eulogy (百字讃), a poem praising the Prophet Muhammad in classical Chinese that has endured for centuries Nina as a cornerstone of Hui Muslim identity. This biography traces Hongwu’s trajectory from abject poverty to supreme power, examines his administrative genius and brutal authoritarian instincts in equal measure, interrogates the scholarly debates surrounding the Muslim figures in his court and the authenticity of the Hundred-Word Eulogy, and assesses the lasting impact of his reign on the development of a distinctly Chinese Islam — a legacy invoked to this day in discussions of religious coexistence within the Chinese state.

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From famine orphan to Buddhist wanderer

The man who would become the most powerful ruler on earth was born into a world that offered him almost nothing. On October 21, 1328, in the village of Zhongli (modern Fengyang, Anhui province), Wikipedia a peasant couple under Mongol Yuan Dynasty rule named their youngest son Zhu Chongba (朱重八) Wikipedia — literally “Double Eight,” a naming convention reflecting the family’s illiteracy and poverty rather than any auspicious meaning. New World Encyclopedia His father, Zhu Wusi, had fled Nanjing to escape tax collectors; his paternal grandfather was a gold miner, his maternal grandfather a wandering fortune-teller. Wikipedia The family moved repeatedly across Anhui, always seeking land they could not afford.

In 1344, catastrophe struck with finality. A devastating confluence of drought, famine, and plague swept through central China, killing an estimated seven million people. Encyclopedia Britannica Within weeks, Zhu Chongba lost his father, his mother, and two of his brothers. Wikipedia He was sixteen years old, entirely alone, and unable even to afford burial for his parents — a neighbor eventually donated a small plot of land. Desperate for survival, the orphan entered the Huangjue Temple (皇覺寺) as a Buddhist novice, not from spiritual calling but from raw hunger. Encyclopedia Britannica The monastery itself soon ran out of food, and Zhu was sent out as a wandering mendicant. For three years he roamed the countryside of eastern Henan and northern Anhui, begging for alms, WikipediaAfakv’s Memories sleeping in temple doorways, and witnessing firsthand the full scope of peasant suffering under Mongol rule. These years of deprivation seared into him a lifelong empathy for the poor alongside a deep, permanent suspicion of anyone who held power — including, eventually, his own officials.

He returned to Huangjue Temple around 1348 and spent four years learning to read and write. When, in 1352, Yuan soldiers burned the monastery for suspected rebel sympathies, Wikipedia Zhu Chongba had no home left to lose. He joined the rebellion.

Rising through the Red Turban Rebellion

The Red Turban Rebellion that Zhu entered in April 1352 was no ordinary peasant uprising. It drew its ideological force from the White Lotus Society, a syncretic movement blending Pure Land Buddhism, Manichaean dualism, and millenarian prophecy centered on the future Buddha Maitreya, New World Encyclopedia who would descend to overthrow corrupt rulers and establish paradise on earth. Ancient War History The movement’s charismatic leader, Han Shantong, had proclaimed himself the reincarnation of Maitreya before his execution in 1351; his son Han Lin’er, China Underground the “Little Prince of Radiance,” served as the rebellion’s figurehead under the protection of general Liu Futong. New World Encyclopedia

Zhu joined the forces of Guo Zixing at Haozhou, New World Encyclopedia beginning as an ordinary foot soldier. His rise was meteoric. Within months, he had distinguished himself through intelligence, decisiveness, and physical courage, becoming Guo’s most trusted subordinate. Wikipedia He married Guo’s adopted daughter, Ma Shi Wikipedia +2 — later the celebrated Empress Ma, renowned for her wisdom and restraint — and by spring 1353 commanded a force of seven hundred men. Among his earliest recruits were twenty-four childhood acquaintances from Anhui who would become the generals of the Ming dynasty. Wikipedia

After Guo Zixing’s death in 1355, Zhu assumed effective command Encyclopedia BritannicaBerkshire Publishing and captured Jiqing (present-day Nanjing) in April 1356, renaming it Yingtian — “In Response to Heaven.” Wikipedia This became his base of operations. Crucially, Zhu began distancing himself from the White Lotus millennarian ideology, instead recruiting Confucian scholars such as Liu Ji (Liu Bowen) and Song Lian, Wikipedia who helped transform his image from sectarian rebel to legitimate national leader. The strategic pivot from Buddhist-Manichaean mysticism to Confucian statecraft would define his approach to governance for the rest of his life.

The decisive military turning point came at the Battle of Lake Poyang in 1363, one of the largest naval engagements in pre-modern world history. New World Encyclopedia Zhu’s rival Chen Youliang, self-proclaimed emperor of the Chen Han state, commanded roughly 300,000 troops aboard massive multi-decked tower ships. Zhu’s fleet of 100,000 men on smaller, more agile vessels Grokipedia employed fire ships and an arsenal of gunpowder weapons — fire bombs, rockets, iron bombs, and incendiary devices Wikipedia — to devastating effect. When the wind shifted toward Chen’s fleet, Zhu launched his fire ships and destroyed hundreds of enemy vessels. Wikipedia After weeks of fighting, Chen Youliang was killed by an arrow on October 4, 1363. The victory eliminated Zhu’s most dangerous rival.

He defeated Zhang Shicheng at Suzhou in 1367 KiddleWorld History Encyclopedia and, after the suspicious drowning of the puppet prince Han Lin’er, proclaimed himself emperor on January 23, 1368, founding the Ming Dynasty Encyclopedia Britannica (大明, “Great Radiance”) with the reign title Hongwu (洪武, “Vastly Martial”). Wikipedia Generals Xu Da and Chang Yuchun led the northern expedition Encyclopedia BritannicaWikipedia that drove the Mongol emperor Toghon Temür from the Yuan capital of Dadu in August 1368. Wiki Du HọcWikipedia After more than a century of foreign rule, China was reunified under Han Chinese leadership.

The architecture of autocracy: governance and reform

Hongwu’s administrative achievements were as sweeping as they were ruthless. Drawing on his peasant origins and his deep distrust of intermediaries between ruler and people, he constructed the most centralized imperial government China had ever known.

The abolition of the prime ministership stands as perhaps his most consequential institutional decision. In 1380, Grand Councilor Hu Weiyong was accused of conspiracy against the throne and executed. Hongwu seized the moment to permanently abolish the entire Central Secretariat (中書省) and the position of Chancellor, Wikipedia forbidding its restoration for all time. Beck.org The Six Ministries — Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Works — now reported directly to the emperor. The resulting purge connected to Hu Weiyong consumed more than a decade and claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. World History Encyclopedia A second great purge, the Lan Yu Case of 1393, executed approximately 15,000–20,000 more people, including one duke and thirteen marquises. Wikipedia Hongwu’s message was unmistakable: no one would stand between the emperor and his empire.

At the local level, Hongwu implemented the lijia system (里甲制), organizing every 110 households into a single administrative unit called a li. The ten wealthiest households rotated annually as village heads (lizhang), while the remaining hundred households were divided into ten groups of ten (jia), each with a headman. China Knowledge This structure handled tax collection, local governance, census-taking, and corvée labor organization, binding the peasantry to the state through an intimate web of mutual obligation.

His passion for accurate data produced two remarkable registration systems. The Yellow Registers (黃冊), first compiled comprehensively in 1381, recorded population, household composition, and property for tax and labor purposes, updated every ten years China Knowledge and stored in a vast archive on islands in Lake Houhu near Nanjing — by 1602, this archive held approximately 1.5 million registers in 667 rooms. China Knowledge The Fish-Scale Registers (魚鱗冊), named for their visual resemblance to overlapping scales, were land survey records documenting every parcel’s owner, dimensions, area, and quality, accompanied by maps that made concealment of holdings nearly impossible. Wikipedia A national cadastral survey organized in 1387–1391 increased registered arable land from 3.67 million to 3.87 million qing and boosted grain tax revenue from 26 million to 32 million dan. China Knowledge

The Da Ming Lü (大明律, Great Ming Code), finalized in 1397 Project MUSE with 460 articles Wikipedia in seven chapters organized around the Six Ministries, codified everything from criminal punishments to official duties. EBSCO Modeled on the Tang Code, it influenced the legal systems of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, and served as the template for the subsequent Qing dynasty code. Hongwu ordered it to remain unchanged after 1397 — and remarkably, its text persisted unaltered throughout the dynasty’s 276-year lifespan, though supplementary legislation accumulated around it.

Hongwu’s agricultural reforms reflected his peasant sympathies directly. He confiscated large estates and redistributed land, offered tax-free incentives for cultivating fallow territory, China Highlights and launched a reforestation program of extraordinary scale — approximately one billion trees planted during his reign, including fifty million near Nanjing alone. delanceyplace Some 41,000 reservoirs were built or repaired. delanceyplace More land came under cultivation during the early Ming than at any previous point in Chinese history. New World Encyclopedia The Weisuo military garrison system, modeled loosely on the Tang fubing system, organized Ancientwarhistory roughly 1.8 million troops by 1393 into hereditary military households that farmed allocated land during peacetime. Hongwu boasted that he maintained “a million soldiers without costing the people a single grain of rice.”

The revival of the civil examination system (科举) in 1371, Wikipedia suspended briefly in 1373 out of Hongwu’s frustration with impractical scholars and permanently reinstated in 1384, Wikipedia established the three-tiered structure — provincial, metropolitan, and palace examinations — that would endure until 1905. Some 871 jinshi (the highest degree) were awarded during the Hongwu reign. Wikipedia +2 Yet the emperor’s anti-corruption fervor cast a shadow over every official. The Embroidered Uniform Guard (錦衣衛, Jinyiwei), Wikipedia his secret police, Wikipedia monitored officials at every level. Corrupt officials faced penalties including public flaying, with their stuffed skins displayed as warnings. delanceyplace Mandatory reading for all officials included the Dagao (Grand Pronouncements), case studies of punished corruption that functioned as instruments of state terror.

Hongwu and Islam: political pragmatism meets genuine respect

The relationship between the Hongwu Emperor and Islam is one of the most distinctive and debated chapters in Chinese religious history. While Hongwu was not Muslim, his treatment of Islam was notably favorable — a stance rooted in political calculation, personal gratitude, and what appears to have been authentic respect for the faith’s moral principles.

The context begins with the Mongol Yuan Dynasty’s treatment of Muslims. Under Yuan rule, Muslims had occupied a privileged intermediate position as Semu ren (色目人, “colored-eye people”), ranking above Han Chinese in the ethnic hierarchy. Many served as administrators, tax collectors, and merchants. ResearchGateWikipedia Yet late Yuan policies turned against Muslims — prohibiting halal butchering, circumcision, and other religious practices — driving many into the anti-Yuan rebel movements. Ethnipedia WikiWikipedia When Zhu Yuanzhang rose to power, he inherited a political landscape in which substantial Muslim communities had grievances against the Mongols and reasons to support a new dynasty that would respect their faith.

Hongwu responded with deliberate accommodation. He issued edicts protecting Muslim communities and their mosques, the most famous of which, preserved in the Fuzhou and Quanzhou mosques, reads: “I hereby give you my imperial decree in order to guard your residence. Officials, civil or military, or anyone, are not to offend or insult you. Anyone who offends or insults you against my imperial order will be punished as a criminal.” Wikipedia He ordered the construction and restoration of mosques in Nanjing, Yunnan, Fujian, and Guangdong. Wikipedia +2 Islam and Judaism were declared legal and compatible with Confucian ideology, even as Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity were banned as heterodox. Wikipedia

The most celebrated mosque associated with Hongwu is the Jingjue Mosque (净觉寺) in Nanjing, also known as the Sanshan Street Mosque — the oldest surviving mosque in the city. First built during the Hongwu period, Top China Travel it was later rebuilt with imperial funds at the request of Zheng He before his sixth voyage in 1430, TRIP.COM and underwent major reconstruction in 1492. Wikipedia The mosque remains active today, covering approximately 4,000 square meters Top China Travel with four courtyards and a distinctively Chinese architectural style. It houses a stele bearing the Hundred-Word Eulogy. Halaqa Other mosques bearing Hongwu-era inscriptions include the Great Mosque of Xi’an (Huajue Mosque, originally Tang-era but rebuilt under the Ming) Muslim Ink and the Dongguan Mosque in Xining.

Yet Hongwu’s approach was not unqualified embrace. He also imposed assimilation policies that significantly affected Muslim life. Wikipedia An intermarriage edict around 1372 outlawed marriages within non-Han ethnic groups, pushing Muslims toward cross-ethnic unions. ResearchGateMuslim Ink He prohibited foreign languages and certain forms of dress, restricting the Arabic recitation and traditional attire central to Muslim identity. Wikipedia His maritime restrictions (海禁, haijin) and relative isolationism curtailed the Hajj pilgrimage. This dual policy — protecting religious practice while pressuring cultural assimilation — created a paradox that profoundly shaped Chinese Islam. Forced to express their faith in Chinese terms, Muslims developed indigenous educational institutions Wikipedia (jingtang jiaoyu), Chinese-language theological texts, and a distinctly Sinicized Islamic identity Wikipedia that would flower in the celebrated Han Kitab literary tradition of subsequent centuries.

Hongwu’s broader religious policy was consistently pragmatic rather than doctrinaire. Despite his own years as a Buddhist monk, he heavily regulated Buddhism, Halaqa +3 banned the White Lotus societies that had fueled his rise, Beck.orgWikipedia and required monastic examinations for ordination. Beck.org He wrote a personal commentary on Laozi’s Daodejing Beck.org yet regulated Daoism with equal firmness. His criterion was not theological preference but political utility: religions that promoted social order and loyalty to the throne received protection; those associated with heterodox movements or foreign political threats faced suppression.

The Hundred-Word Eulogy: a poem across civilizations

The Chinese text

The Hundred-Word Eulogy (百字讃, Bǎi Zì Zàn), Wikipedia formally titled 《御製至聖百字讚》(Yùzhì Zhìshèng Bǎizì Zàn, “Imperial Composition: Hundred-Word Praise of the Most Holy”), consists of exactly one hundred characters in classical Chinese, Wikipedia arranged in four-character couplets. The standard text, as reproduced across multiple mosque inscriptions and scholarly sources, reads:

乾坤初始，天籍注名。 傳教大聖，降生西域。 授受天經，三十部冊， 普化眾生。 億兆君師，萬聖領袖。 協助天運，保庇國民。 五時祈祐，默祝太平。 存心真主，加志窮民。 拯救患難，洞徹幽冥。 超拔靈魂，脫離罪業。 仁覆天下，道冠古今。 降邪歸一，教名清真。 穆罕默德，至貴聖人。

The header inscription typically reads: 明洪武元年太祖御制百字赞 (“Composed by imperial decree of Emperor Taizu in the first year of Hongwu”).

The English translation

The most authoritative scholarly translation, by Haiyun Ma and Brendan Newlon (published in Islam and New Directions in World Literature, Edinburgh University Press, 2022), De Gruyter Brill renders the poem as follows:

The universe began with the heavenly tablet recording his name. The religion-delivering great sage, born in the western realm. Islamic Travel Conferring and receiving heavenly scripture in thirty parts, universally transforming all created beings. Master of the trillion rulers, leader of the ten thousand sages. Assisted by destiny, protector of the community. In each of the five prayers, he silently supplicates for their total well-being. His heart directed towards Allah, remembering the needy. Deliver them from tribulations to safety, Knower of the unseen. Exalted above every soul and spirit, free from any blameworthy deeds. A mercy to all of the worlds, whose path is preeminent for all time. Renouncing spiritual ignorance; returning to The One — that is the religion called Islam. Muhammad is the most noble sage. Wikipedia

Scholarly analysis of the poem

The Hundred-Word Eulogy is a remarkable document precisely because of what it accomplishes linguistically and theologically. In just one hundred characters of classical Chinese, the text articulates core Islamic doctrines with precision and elegance, translating concepts from an Abrahamic monotheistic tradition into the idiom of Confucian-inflected literary Chinese.

The opening line — 乾坤初始，天籍注名 — invokes the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfuz, Quran 85:21–22), the Islamic concept that all of creation was foreordained and recorded before time began. The phrase 天籍 (“heavenly register”) maps a Quranic concept onto Chinese cosmological language with striking economy. The reference to 三十部冊 (“thirty volumes”) corresponds precisely to the Quran’s division into thirty juz’ (sections), demonstrating the author’s specific knowledge of Islamic scripture. The line 五時祈祐 (“five times praying for blessings”) identifies the five daily salat — a practice with no parallel in Chinese religious tradition, signaling that the author understood Islam’s distinctive devotional structure. The term 真主 (Zhenzhu, “True Lord”) became the standard Chinese term for Allah. The phrase 仁覆天下 (“his mercy covers the world”) echoes Quran 21:107: “We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds” Afakv’s Memories — suggesting either direct knowledge of the Quran or close consultation with Muslim scholars. Afakv’s Memories

The poem’s concluding couplet — 降邪歸一，教名清真 (“Vanquishing evil, returning to The One — the religion called Qingzhen”) — articulates the Islamic doctrine of tawhid (the absolute oneness of God) and applies the Chinese term 清真 (“Pure and True”) to designate the faith. This term, originally used in Daoist and literary contexts to describe purity and naturalness, was appropriated during the Yuan-Ming transition to denote Islam, UM Online Journal mosques (qingzhen si), and later halal practices. Wikipedia Its adoption was a deliberate strategy to frame Islam within Chinese moral vocabulary UM Online Journal — presenting it not as foreign but as consonant with the highest Confucian-Daoist ideals of purity and truth. Scholar Dru Gladney has argued that qingzhen encompasses far more than dietary rules, describing “a way of life” Brill that Chinese Muslims have constructed at the intersection of Islamic practice and Chinese cultural identity.

Questions of authenticity

The Hundred-Word Eulogy is traditionally dated to 1368, the first year of Hongwu’s reign. Afakv’s MemoriesWikipedia However, no original manuscript or contemporaneous Ming-era inscription has been definitively authenticated to that year. The earliest known textual sources reproducing the poem include Wang Daiyu’s Zhengjiao Zhenquan (late Ming, though the earliest surviving edition dates to the Jiaqing era, 1796–1820), Sun Ke’an’s Qingzhen Jiao Kao (Kangxi era, 1662–1722), and Liu Zhi’s Tianfang Zhisheng Shilu (Yongzheng era, 1723–1735). Afakv’s Memories Liu Zhi’s text references a 1492 stele commemorating the Eulogy, but that stele no longer survives. Afakv’s Memories A contradiction also exists between the poem’s dating to 1368 and Liu Zhi’s own record that the Jingjue Mosque was built in Hongwu Year 21 (1388). Baidu Baike

The scholarly consensus, as articulated by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite in The Dao of Muhammad (2005), treats the Eulogy as reflecting official Ming state ideology toward Islam rather than necessarily a personal devotional composition by Hongwu himself. Halaqa Whether Zhu Yuanzhang personally composed the poem, dictated its themes to a court scribe, or authorized a Muslim advisor to draft it in his name, the text represents an official imperial endorsement of Islam’s legitimacy. The presence of the characters 敕賜 (chì cì, “bestowed by imperial decree”) on surviving steles reinforces the connection to imperial authority. Afakv’s Memories The poem’s sophisticated knowledge of Islamic theology — the Preserved Tablet, the thirty juz’, the five prayers, Quranic phrasing — strongly suggests the involvement of Muslim scholars or advisors at the early Ming court. Academia.edu +2

Claims by the historian Bai Shouyi that Hongwu was born into a Hui Muslim family remain speculative and are not accepted by mainstream scholarship. Afakv’s Memories +2 The more defensible interpretation is that the poem served a clear political function: legitimizing Islam within the new imperial order, rewarding Muslim loyalty during the anti-Yuan campaigns, and detaching Islam from its association with the fallen Mongol regime by reframing it as compatible with Chinese civilization under Ming rule. Halaqa

Where the Eulogy was inscribed

Copies of the Hundred-Word Eulogy have been inscribed on stone steles and plaques in mosques throughout China, Wikipedia +2 most notably:

• The Jingjue Mosque (净觉寺) in Nanjing — the most famous and historically significant inscription Wikipedia
• The Great Mosque of Xi’an (化觉巷清真大寺) — a mosque originally founded in 742 CE but substantially rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty Wikipedia
• The Dongguan Mosque in Xining, Qinghai — where a photographed copy survives
• Various mosques in Yunnan, the province most deeply shaped by Ming-era Muslim military settlement

These inscriptions have served for centuries as tangible evidence of imperial protection, cited by Chinese Muslims during periods of persecution as proof that their faith carries the endorsement of a dynasty’s founder.

Muslim figures in the Hongwu court: history and tradition

Few topics in Chinese Islamic history generate more debate than the question of which of Hongwu’s generals and officials were Muslim. Hui Muslim community tradition claims that as many as ten of his key military commanders were Muslim — a group sometimes called the “Ten Muslim Defenders of the Ming” (十回保明). Mainstream academic scholarship is considerably more cautious. As Jonathan Lipman wrote in Familiar Strangers: “There is considerable doubt among non-Muslim scholars as to the ‘Muslim’ identity of most of these generals, but Sino-Muslims assert their ‘Huiness’ unequivocally.” Chinese Text ProjectPeoplepill The distinction between historical documentation and communal memory matters for scholarly integrity while remaining sensitive to the deep significance these figures hold for Hui identity.

Hu Dahai (胡大海, ?–1362) possesses arguably the strongest evidence for Muslim identity among the major generals. An early and trusted subordinate of Zhu Yuanzhang, Hu Dahai is described in Hui tradition as being of Persian extraction, his family having traveled to China via the Silk Road and settled in Anhui. WikipediaWikipedia Though illiterate, he was renowned for discipline — his famous orders to troops forbade killing civilians, violating women, or burning homes. WikipediaIslam in China He recommended several crucial scholars to Zhu’s service, including the brilliant strategist Liu Ji. Wikipedia He was killed in 1362 by treacherous chieftains who feigned surrender before ambushing him. WikipediaWikipedia His Persian ancestry claim, while rooted in oral tradition rather than Ming Shi primary sources, is specific enough to distinguish his case from vaguer assertions about other generals.

Chang Yuchun (常遇春, 1330–1369) represents the most debated case. One of Hongwu’s supreme military commanders — nicknamed “Chang Hundred-Thousand” for his prowess Wiki Du Học — he played decisive roles at the Battle of Lake Poyang and co-led the northern expedition that captured the Yuan capital. Hui scholars including Bai Shouyi, Wikipedia Fu Tongxian, and Jin Jitang, as well as Western scholars Dru Gladney and Jonathan Lipman, have identified him as Muslim. WikipediaWiki Du Học However, historian Wen Yong-ning has argued against this identification based on Chang’s family traditions and the status of Semu people under the Yuan. Wikipedia His Muslim identity is plausible but not conclusively established.

Mu Ying (沐英, 1345–1392), Hongwu’s adopted son, is the case where the gap between tradition and evidence is most thoroughly documented. Orphaned at age eight during the rebellion and raised in Zhu Yuanzhang’s own household, he became the hereditary military governor of Yunnan after its conquest in 1381–1382, administering the province until his death. His descendants governed Yunnan for the entire 276-year duration of the Ming dynasty. Wikipedia +2 The eminent historian Bai Shouyi himself admitted he “failed to find any reliable proof” that Mu Ying was Hui — yet still included his biography in A History of the Chinese Hui People. Chinese Text ProjectWikipedia Scholar F.W. Mote found no evidence of Muslim birth, and Free Journal Michael Dillon concluded that Mu Ying was “probably descended from an old Muslim family but there is no evidence that he was a practising Muslim.” Wikipedia The case illustrates how community memory and academic historiography can diverge while each carrying its own form of truth.

Lan Yu (蓝玉, ?–1393) was the brilliant and ultimately doomed general Fandom whose 1388 victory at the Battle of Buir Lake Wikipedia — where he led 150,000 Ming troops across the Gobi to decisively defeat the Northern Yuan — effectively ended Mongol hopes of reconquering China. WikipediaWikipedia His Muslim identity is claimed by Hui tradition, partly through his family connection to Chang Yuchun Wikipedia (Lan Yu was Chang’s brother-in-law), but mainstream scholarship finds no independent evidence for the claim. Fandom His story ended in the catastrophic Lan Yu Case of 1393, when he was accused of plotting rebellion, Wikipedia publicly dismembered, and his clan exterminated. Wikipedia The subsequent purge killed an estimated 15,000 people Fandom — a slaughter widely interpreted as Hongwu’s strategic elimination of military threats to his young grandson and chosen successor.

Ding Dexing (丁德兴) Fandomand Feng Sheng (冯胜, ?–1395) are listed among the Muslim generals in Hui tradition. Guidance ResidentialFandom Feng Sheng was a major commander who conquered the Gansu Corridor and defeated the Mongol chieftain Naghachu in Manchuria. WikipediaWikipedia However, for both figures, no substantive evidence beyond communal tradition supports their Muslim identity; their Wikipedia biographies and the Ming Shi make no reference to Islam.

Beyond the generals, confirmed Muslim presence in Hongwu’s court is well documented in other domains. The emperor maintained a Muslim Astronomical Bureau (回回司天监) staffed by Muslim scientists inherited from the Yuan. Wikipedia In 1383, he ordered the translation of Islamic astronomical tables (Zij) by the Muslim astronomer Mashayihei and the Chinese scholar Wu Bozong, producing the Huihui Lifa (回回历法), which remained in use for centuries. Wikipedia Sai Hazhi (赛哈智), seventh-generation descendant of the famous Yuan-era Muslim governor Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din, received a personal imperial decree in 1392 to safeguard Islamic religious customs. The Si Yi Guan (Translators Bureau) employed specialists in Arabic and Persian. Top China Travel This documented administrative and scientific Muslim presence provides a more secure historical foundation than the contested military claims.

Theories about Muslim connections in Hongwu’s own family deserve mention for completeness, though they lack scholarly support. The surname of Empress Ma (马) is indeed the most common Chinese Muslim surname, AlternateHistory.com and some popular Islamic sources claim Muslim ancestry for her. Guidance Residential However, Chinese historiography does not corroborate this Islamic Travel — she was raised by the non-Muslim rebel leader Guo Zixing, and no account of her life mentions Islamic practice. Afakv’s Memories Fringe theories that Zhu Yuanzhang himself was of Muslim descent Wikipedia — based partly on the observation that the old city area of Fengyang is heavily Hui Oreate AI — remain speculative and unsubstantiated by primary evidence. Wikipedia

Foreign policy between pragmatism and isolationism

Hongwu’s foreign policy reflected the same paradox that defined his domestic governance: expansive ambition constrained by cautious pragmatism. After expelling the Mongols from Beijing in 1368, he launched repeated northern expeditions to neutralize the remnant Northern Yuan state. The Muslim Times A massive 1370 two-pronged offensive under generals Xu Da and Li Wenzhong captured over 84,000 troops and drove the Mongols toward Karakorum. But a 1372 three-pronged campaign aimed at Karakorum itself ended in failure — Xu Da and Li Wenzhong suffered defeats in the Mongolian steppe, shattering Hongwu’s dream of inheriting the full Yuan territorial legacy. Wikipedia He pragmatically acknowledged a de facto division: “You rule the deserts, I rule the Central Plains.”

The 1380s saw a return to offensive operations. The conquest of Yunnan in 1381–1382 completed the reunification of China proper, with 300,000 troops under Fu Youde, Mu Ying, and Grokipedia Lan Yu overwhelming the last Yuan holdout. Wikipedia In 1387, Naghachu surrendered in Manchuria. Lan Yu’s 1388 victory at Buir Lake in Mongolia dealt the Northern Yuan its death blow. These campaigns permanently secured the empire’s frontiers, though Hongwu wisely shifted to a defensive posture of frontier garrisons and watchtower networks rather than attempting permanent steppe occupation.

Relations with the Timurid Empire turned dangerously hostile. Hongwu’s envoys treated Timur as a vassal — calling the Ming emperor “lord of the realms of the face of the earth” The Diplomat — an insult that provoked the Central Asian conqueror to detain the ambassadors Biographics and plan a massive eastward invasion. Timur departed Samarkand in late 1404 with an estimated 200,000 troops aimed at overthrowing the Ming, but died on February 17, 1405, Silkroadfoundation at Otrar in modern Kazakhstan, averting what could have been one of history’s most consequential military confrontations.

The Huang Ming Zuxun (皇明祖訓, Ancestral Injunctions), composed between 1369 and 1395, codified Hongwu’s strategic vision for his descendants. Most famously, it listed fifteen “countries not to be invaded” — including Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Vietnam, Champa, Cambodia, Siam, Sumatra, Java, Pahang, Brunei, and others — with the injunction: “If they do not trouble our borders, we should not trouble them.” Only the Mongol frontier demanded “chosen generals, trained troops, and constant vigilance.” His son the Yongle Emperor would violate this injunction spectacularly by invading Vietnam and launching five Mongolian campaigns.

Hongwu established the tributary system as China’s primary framework for foreign relations and trade, prohibiting private maritime commerce through the haijin policy. He received envoys from across Asia — Ryukyu sent twenty missions during his reign, Korea twenty, Champa nineteen, Siam eighteen — but increasingly restricted contact, breaking off diplomatic relations with most overseas countries by 1394.

How one reign shaped Chinese Islam for centuries

The Hongwu Emperor’s thirty-year reign fundamentally shaped the trajectory of Islam in China, creating conditions that Chinese Muslims have regarded as a golden age. The direct effects — mosque construction, protective edicts, Muslim military settlement — were significant in themselves. But the indirect consequences of his assimilation policies proved even more transformative.

The paradox of Hongwu’s dual policy toward Muslims — protecting religious practice while demanding cultural integration — generated the creative pressure that produced a distinctly Chinese Islam. Forced to express their faith in Chinese linguistic and philosophical terms, Muslim intellectuals developed the jingtang jiaoyu (经堂教育, “Scripture Hall education”) system, which combined Islamic texts with Chinese-language instruction. This system laid the groundwork for the Han Kitab (漢克塔布) tradition — the extraordinary corpus of Chinese-language Islamic scholarship that represents one of the world’s most sophisticated experiments in cross-civilizational theology.

The greatest Han Kitab scholars — Wang Daiyu (ca. 1590–1658), Liu Zhi (ca. 1670–1724), and Ma Zhu (ca. 1640–1711) — systematically translated Islamic theology into Neo-Confucian categories, arguing that Confucius was an “Eastern Saint” and Muhammad a “Western Saint” within a shared moral universe. Wang Daiyu’s Qingzhen Daxue (清真大學, “The Great Learning of the Pure and Real”) deliberately echoed the title of a Confucian classic. Liu Zhi’s Tianfang Xingli mapped Islamic metaphysics onto the Neo-Confucian concepts of Wu Ji and Tai Ji. Scholar Sachiko Murata has called this tradition an early example of Islamic “ecumenical thought,” and it owes its existence to the cultural conditions the Hongwu era established.

Ming-era mosque architecture embodies this synthesis physically. Mosques built during and after Hongwu’s reign adopted traditional Chinese architectural forms — upturned roofs, courtyard layouts, pavilion structures — while integrating Arabic calligraphy with Chinese decorative motifs. The result is a built environment that is simultaneously Chinese and Islamic, visually declaring the compatibility the Han Kitab scholars argued theologically.

The military settlements in Yunnan proved equally consequential. After Mu Ying’s permanent garrison was established in 1382, Muslim troops were given hereditary military status and farmland under the tuntian system. These settlements became the foundation of permanent Hui Muslim communities in southwestern China that persist to the present day. Among those displaced by the Ming conquest of Yunnan was a young Muslim boy from a Hui family who was captured, castrated, and eventually became the most famous Chinese Muslim in history: Zheng He (郑和, born Ma He, 1371), whose seven great maritime voyages under the Yongle Emperor carried Chinese power and Islamic faith across the Indian Ocean.

The contrast between Hongwu’s legacy and subsequent treatment of Muslims underscores its significance. Later Ming emperors generally maintained favorable policies — the Yongle Emperor employed Zheng He, the Hongzhi Emperor reportedly showed personal inclination toward Islam, and the Zhengde Emperor’s fascination with Muslim culture generated speculation (never confirmed) that he adopted the faith. But the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) brought severe deterioration. Muslim Ming loyalists — Milayin, Ding Guodong, Ma Shouying — revolted in 1646 to restore the Ming Prince of Yanchang, with roughly 100,000 killed in suppression. The 18th and 19th centuries saw catastrophic Muslim rebellions and massacres, from the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan to the Dungan Revolt in the northwest. That Muslim communities fought and died to restore Ming rule testifies to the depth of loyalty Hongwu’s policies had cultivated.

The emperor’s enduring meaning for religious coexistence

The legacy of Hongwu’s relationship with Islam operates today on multiple levels simultaneously — as historical memory, as political instrument, and as genuine precedent for religious pluralism within an authoritarian state.

For Hui Muslims, the Hundred-Word Eulogy and the protective edicts remain powerful symbols of belonging. They function as historical proof that Islam is not a “foreign” religion in China but one that received explicit endorsement from a dynasty’s founder. During periods of discrimination, these documents have served as shields — textual evidence that the faith carries the weight of imperial legitimacy. The poem’s inscription in mosques across China is not mere decoration but an ongoing declaration: we were here at the founding; we are part of this civilization.

For the Chinese state, Hongwu’s legacy has been invoked in strikingly contemporary ways. In 2023, the CCP’s United Front Work Department developed plans to “meld Islam with Confucianism” using the Han Kitab texts as a model — directly invoking the Ming-era tradition of Sinicized Islam as a template for the current campaign of “sinicization of religion” (宗教中国化). The historical precedent of Hongwu’s accommodation is thus mobilized to legitimize contemporary policy, though the modern context carries coercive dimensions that the original lacked.

For scholars of religious pluralism, Hongwu presents a genuinely complex case. He was no liberal pluralist — his tolerance was conditional on loyalty, his protection coexisted with assimilation pressure, and his purges consumed Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Yet within the constraints of medieval autocracy, he achieved something remarkable: the integration of a major Abrahamic faith into a Confucian civilizational order through a combination of political recognition, institutional accommodation, and cultural translation. The result was not mere tolerance but the creation of conditions for a new form of Islam — Chinese in language, architecture, and philosophical expression; Islamic in theology, practice, and spiritual orientation.

Zhu Yuanzhang began his life with nothing — no family, no home, no name worth remembering. He ended it as the architect of one of history’s most enduring empires and, improbably, as the author of a poem praising the Prophet Muhammad that Chinese Muslims still recite more than six centuries after his death. The peasant emperor who trusted no one somehow found it within his strategic calculus — and perhaps within his character — to extend genuine respect to a faith not his own. In an age when the relationship between state power and religious identity remains as fraught as ever, the complicated legacy of Hongwu reminds us that coexistence has always required both political will and creative imagination, and that its results, however imperfect, can outlast the empires that produce them.