Zhu Yujian

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Zhu Yujian was a ninth-generation descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming, and belonged to the Tang princely line. The founder of that line was Zhu Jing, Prince Ding of Tang, Zhu Yuanzhang's twenty-third son, who was enfeoffed in 1391, the twenty-fourth year of the Hongwu era, and took up residence at Nanyang in 1408, the sixth year of Yongle. By the time of Zhu Yujian's grandfather Zhu Shuohuang, Prince Duan of Tang, the principality had passed through eight generations. Zhu Shuohuang favored a concubine and disliked his heir Zhu Qisheng. He confined Zhu Qisheng and Zhu Yujian together in the Chengfeng Office and intended to replace the heir with a son of the favored concubine. Despite the harsh conditions of confinement, Zhu Yujian continued to study the classics and histories.

In 1629, the second year of Chongzhen, Zhu Qisheng was suspected of having been poisoned by his younger brothers Zhu Qishuang, Prince of Fushan, and Zhu Qijun, Prince of Anyang. Zhu Shuohuang attempted to suppress discussion of the matter. After Chen Qiyu memorialized the court, the Ming government established Zhu Yujian as heir-grandson of the principality of Tang, releasing him from confinement. Zhu Shuohuang died later that same year. In 1632 Zhu Yujian formally inherited the title Prince of Tang. The Chongzhen Emperor presented him with copies of the Ancestral Instructions of the August Ming, Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, the Four Books, the Five Classics, the Twenty-One Histories, Outline and Details Based on the Comprehensive Mirror, the Classic of Filial Piety, the Classic of Loyalty, and other works. Zhu Yujian built Gaoming Tower within his princely residence, invited scholars from different regions, and organized discussions of learning.

Unauthorized Relief Expedition and Imprisonment at Fengyang

On the first day of the seventh lunar month in 1636, the ninth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Yujian beat his uncle Zhu Qishuang, Prince of Fushan, to death and injured another uncle, Zhu Qijun, Prince of Anyang, in revenge for his father's death. In the eighth lunar month, Qing forces entered the passes, captured Baodi, and advanced toward Beijing, putting the capital under emergency defense. Zhu Yujian submitted a memorial asking permission to lead troops to aid the court. The Chongzhen Emperor refused. Zhu Yujian nevertheless led one thousand guards north on his own initiative. When he reached Yuzhou, Governor Yang Shengwu memorialized the matter, and the emperor ordered Zhu Yujian to turn back. On the return journey his force encountered peasant rebels, and two eunuchs were killed. Zhu Yujian then withdrew to Nanyang. In the eleventh lunar month, the ministries deliberated his offense; he was reduced to commoner status and confined behind the high walls at Fengyang. His younger brother Zhu Yuce was appointed Prince of Tang in his place.

During his imprisonment at Fengyang, the tomb-guarding eunuch Shi Yingzhao demanded bribes and, when they were not provided, subjected Zhu Yujian to harsh restraints. Zhu became seriously ill and nearly died. Lu Zhenfei, governor of the Central Capital, later entered the prison compound, saw his condition, and memorialized the Chongzhen Emperor about the abuse of imperial relatives by the guards, asking for clemency. The emperor ordered Shi Yingzhao executed. Zhu Yujian remained imprisoned for years. After the Jiashen crisis of 1644 and the fall of the Beijing court, he was released following a memorial by Liu Liangzuo, Count of Guangchang, and redesignated Prince of Nanyang. The Ministry of Rites at Nanjing requested restoration of his former title Prince of Tang, but the Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong refused and instead ordered him to move to Pingle in Guangxi. Poor and ill, Zhu Yujian was unable to complete the journey and remained on the road.

Regency and Accession

In the fifth lunar month of 1645, while traveling toward Pingle, Zhu Yujian learned at Suzhou that Qing forces had taken Nanjing and captured the Hongguang Emperor. He went to Jiaxing for refuge and in the sixth lunar month reached Hangzhou, where he met Zhu Changfang, Prince of Lu. Zhu Yujian asked Zhu Changfang to assume the regency, but Zhu refused; he also declined Zhu Yujian's request for an audience to present plans for the crisis. At that time Zheng Hongkui, commander at Zhenjiang, and Su Guansheng of the Ministry of Revenue arrived in Hangzhou. According to the source, both wept while discussing the national disaster with Zhu Yujian. Zheng Hongkui subsequently escorted him toward Fujian. While passing through Quzhou in Zhejiang, Zhu Yujian learned that Zhu Changfang had surrendered to the Qing. Zheng Zhilong, Count of Nan'an, together with Governor and Censor-in-Chief Zhang Kentang, Minister of the Ministry of Rites Huang Daozhou, and others then agreed to support Zhu Yujian as regent.

On July 21, 1645, the twenty-eighth day of the sixth lunar month in the first year of Hongguang, Zhu Yujian assumed the regency at Jianning in Fujian in his capacity as Prince of Tang. On July 29 he reached Fuzhou and stayed at the residence of the Count of Nan'an. On August 18, the twenty-seventh day of the intercalary sixth lunar month, he proclaimed himself emperor at Fuzhou and announced that the Longwu era would begin on the first day of the seventh lunar month, August 21. He remotely honored the captured Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong as Retired Emperor with the honorific Sheng'an Emperor. He redesignated the Fujian Provincial Administration Commission as the Auxiliary Capital of Fu, renamed Fuzhou Prefecture Tianxing Prefecture, used the former provincial administration offices as a temporary imperial residence, and established temporary ancestral, state, and Tang-line temples.

Zhu Yujian promoted Zheng Zhilong to Marquis Who Pacifies the Caitiffs, Zheng Hongkui to Marquis Who Pacifies the Caitiffs, Zheng Zhibao to Count Chengji, and Zheng Cai to Count Yongsheng. He appointed He Wuzou chief grand secretary; Huang Daozhou as Minister of Personnel and Grand Secretary of the Wuying Hall; Jiang Dejing as Minister of Revenue and Grand Secretary of the Wenyuan Pavilion; Zhu Jizuo as Minister of the Ministry of Rites and Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion; Zeng Ying as Minister of Works and Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion; and Huang Mingjun, Li Guangchun, Su Guansheng, and others as vice ministers in the Rites and War ministries with concurrent grand-secretary appointments.

After taking the throne, Zhu Yujian posthumously elevated four generations of ancestors to imperial rank: his great-great-grandfather Zhu Yuwen, Prince Jing of Tang, as Emperor Hui; his great-grandfather Zhu Zhouyong, Prince Shun of Tang, as Emperor Shun; his grandfather Zhu Shuohuang, Prince Duan of Tang, as Emperor Duan; and his father Zhu Qisheng, Prince Yu of Tang, as Emperor Xuan. Their principal consorts were posthumously elevated as empresses. He enfeoffed his younger brother Zhu Yuao as Prince of Tang with Nanning as his state, elevated his uncle Zhu Qipeng, Prince of De'an, to Prince of Deng, posthumously enfeoffed another brother Zhu Yuyang as Prince of Chen, and designated Zhu Linyu as heir to the principality of Chen. In the seventh lunar month of the first Longwu year, he ordered the palace halls renamed by the Jiajing Emperor—Huangji Hall, Zhongji Hall, and Jianji Hall—to resume their older names Fengtian Hall, Huagai Hall, and Jinshen Hall, and ordered the prefix “temporary court” to be added to the names of government offices.

Constraint by the Zheng Family and Collapse of the Regime

From its beginning, the Longwu government was constrained by Zheng Zhilong. The source states that Zheng supported Zhu Yujian's accession partly in order to control the emperor and dominate government. Zhu Yujian wanted to restore administrative discipline and strengthen the military, but military and financial power remained in Zheng hands. Huang Daozhou volunteered to leave the capital and raise troops against the Qing. Zhu Yujian believed the effort had little chance of success but permitted it. Huang campaigned in Jiangxi and Anhui, was defeated and captured, and died refusing to surrender.

In the fifth lunar month of 1646, the second year of Longwu, the Qing prince Bolo led troops against Zhejiang and Fujian. On August 21 Qing forces captured Jinhua; on September 19 they took Jianning; and on September 30 they passed Xianxia Pass. Shi Tianfu, Count of Wuyi, Chen Xiu, Count of Wugong, and Guo Xi, Count of Jing'an, surrendered. Zheng Zhilong likewise surrendered to the Qing, and the Longwu government quickly disintegrated. The source quotes Yang Fengbao as judging that the fall of the auxiliary capital resulted from Zheng Zhilong's negotiations with the Qing.

On September 29, the twenty-first day of the eighth lunar month, the Longwu Emperor departed Yanping with his palace women, intending to flee toward Jiangxi. On October 5 he reached Tingzhou and used the prefectural offices as a temporary palace. At the fifth watch the next morning, eighty-three Qing cavalry disguised themselves as imperial escorts and knocked at the Lichun Gate. The defenders opened the gate, allowing the cavalry to attack the temporary palace. Zhou Zhifan, Count of Fuqing, commander Wang Liangwu, and others were killed. The source says that the emperor was hungry and ordered a palace attendant to buy two glutinous-rice dumplings; as he raised his chopsticks, Qing troops loosed arrows and he was struck in the back and died, aged forty-five by traditional reckoning. Local people buried him at Luohan Ridge. Other accounts preserved in the source state instead that he was captured and died after refusing food, that he died at Tianxing Prefecture in the auxiliary capital, or that he died at Jianning.

On October 27, the nineteenth day of the ninth lunar month, Tianxing Prefecture fell. In the eleventh lunar month, Vice Minister Su Guansheng enthroned Zhu Yuao, a younger brother of the Longwu Emperor and known as the Younger Prince of Tang, at Guangzhou with the era name Shaowu. The Shaowu and Yongli governments then fought one another. Qing commanders Tong Yangjia and Li Chengdong took advantage of the conflict to capture Guangzhou; Su Guansheng died in the fighting, and the Shaowu Emperor was captured and hanged himself.

After the Yongli Emperor took the throne, rumors persisted that the Longwu Emperor had survived in disguise. The Yongli court gave him the honorific Siwen Emperor and sent agents to investigate. Stories claimed that Zhu Yujian had escaped to Miaofeng in Anxi County and become a monk, or that he had ridden alone out of Tingzhou, hidden with a local Jiang family, and later entered religious life at Damao Mountain. In 1651, the fifth year of Yongli, Vice Minister Wang Mingxuan was sent to investigate but found no conclusive evidence. In 1657, the eleventh year of Yongli, the court finally accepted that Zhu Yujian had died and conferred the temple name Shaozong and the posthumous name Peitian Zhidao Hongyi Sumu Siwen Liewu Minren Guangxiao Xiang Huangdi.

Descent, Imprisonment and the Tang Princedom

Zhu Yujian, whose courtesy name was Changshou, was a ninth-generation descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming founder, and of the house of the princes of Tang; he was born in the palace of the Tang prince on the fifth day of the fourth month of the thirtieth year of Wanli, 25 May 1602, his mother being the consort Mao, a native of Nanyang county. His grandfather the prince Duan of Tang, doting on a favourite concubine and striving to displace the rightful heir, loved the son of that concubine and hated Zhu Yujian's father, then heir to the princedom, and so secretly had Zhu Yujian and his father imprisoned in the office of the household, meaning to starve them to death. That imprisonment lasted some eight years, and with the imprisonment he had shared with his father from the age of three he was shut up for thirty-four years in all. During his confinement the eunuch who guarded the imperial tombs at Fengyang, having got no bribes, tormented him with the piled-shackles method, so that he was nearly dead of sickness; and he read the Confucian books even in confinement. Later the grand coordinator of Fengyang, Lu Zhenfei, on his rounds, went to the prison to see him, and Zhu Yujian, whose edge had by then been much worn away, treated him with such courtesy that Lu Zhenfei took a great liking to him and had him specially cared for; and Lu Zhenfei memorialised the throne on the cruelty of the prison officers to the imperial clan and asked that favour be shown them, whereupon the stone supervisor Shi Yingzhao, who had maltreated the prince of Tang, was ordered put to death. After seven years he at last kept his life. In the fifth year of Chongzhen, 1632, he succeeded as prince of Tang with his fief at Nanyang, and the Chongzhen emperor gave him the Ancestral Instructions of the Ming, the Collected Statutes, the Four Books and Five Classics, the Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror and the Classic of Loyalty and Filial Piety; and he built the Gaoming tower in his palace and invited scholars from every quarter.

Punishment for Raising Troops

Zhu Yujian, eager in the affairs of the state, memorialised asking to lead troops to the rescue, which the Chongzhen emperor would not allow; and disregarding the ancestral rule that princes of the blood should not command troops, he raised men and horses and set out north at the head of a thousand guards to relieve the throne. Reaching Yuzhou, the grand coordinator Yang Shengwu memorialised and the emperor ordered him back; and afterwards, meeting no Qing troops but falling in with peasant rebels on the way, he fought several confused engagements with varying success and led his troops back to Nanyang. The Ming watched its princes most strictly: by the rule a prince might take his pleasure in his palace but might not raise troops and lead them away from his fief; and though Zhu Yujian's motives were pure, the reigning Chongzhen emperor was enraged, and in the eleventh month of that winter the matter was put to the council, he was reduced to commoner, and the imperial guard shut this prince of Tang in the imperial prison at Fengyang, the emperor transferring the princedom to his younger brother Zhu Yuxie. Zhu Yujian was at this time conspicuous, and clashed with the ministers of the Chongzhen court over the exchange of offices within the imperial clan and other matters, offending many of them; and to avenge the poisoning of his father he went so far as to beat two of his uncles to death and near-death on the first day of the seventh month of the ninth year of Chongzhen, 1636. In the eighth month of that year the Qing prince Ajige led troops against Beizhili and broke through the frontier, taking Baodi and pressing on Peking, and the capital was put under martial law.

From Regent to Emperor

In 1644, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the emperor hanged himself at Peking, and Nanjing set up as emperor the son of the prince of Fu who had fled from Luoyang, who took the throne at Nanjing and changed the era name to Hongguang. The ministry of rites at Nanjing asked that Zhu Yujian be restored to the princedom of Tang, but Zhu Yousong would not allow it and ordered him moved to the prefecture of Pingle in Guangxi, though Zhu Yujian was too poor and ill to travel far. In the fifth month of 1645, the second year of Shunzhi and the first of Hongguang, on his way to Pingle he heard at Suzhou that the Qing had taken Nanjing and the Hongguang court had fallen, and took refuge at Jiaxing; in the sixth month he reached Hangzhou and met the prince of Lu. On the way, at Quzhou in Zhejiang, he heard that the prince of Lu had already surrendered to the Qing at Hangzhou, whereupon the earl of Nan'an Zheng Zhilong, the grand coordinator Zhang Kentang and the minister of rites Huang Daozhou and others asked him to take the regency. On 15 June 1645 Huang Daozhou for the third time memorialised asking Zhu Yujian to take the regency; on 28 June Zhu Yujian assumed the regency at Jianning in Fujian; on the seventh day of the intercalary sixth month he reached Fuzhou and made the mansion of the earl of Nan'an his palace; and twenty days later he formally took the imperial title at Fuzhou and changed the era name to Longwu. Before taking the throne he had reached Quzhou in Zhejiang and, reviewing troops there, issued an oath declaring that he would lead the six armies himself to recover the central plain. On the day of the great ceremony the wind rose in a great fog, tearing up trees and whirling sand, and the horse of the keeper of the seals was frightened so that the imperial seal fell and a corner was broken, and all were dismayed and thought it an ill omen; yet the Longwu sovereign and his ministers were full of resolve to pacify the realm and restore it.

Styles, the Contest of Legitimacy and the Zheng Hold

After taking the throne, the Longwu emperor granted the four generations of imperial titles to his forebears; the four consorts of those generations were all given posthumous empress titles. He made his younger brother Zhu Yu'e prince of Tang with the fief of Nanning, granted his younger brother Zhu Yujue posthumously the title prince of Chen with his son Zhu Linmei as heir, and sent up to the Hongguang emperor the posthumous style of the Sage and Peaceful Emperor. In the seventh month of the first year of Longwu he ordered the names of the three halls of the Jiajing period, the Halls of Supreme, Central and Ultimate Perfection, restored to the Halls of Revering Heaven, the Flowery Canopy and Self-Reverence, and the words travelling court prefixed to the names of every office; he renamed the Fujian provincial administration the southern capital, the travelling court at Fuzhou the prefecture of Tianxing, established the travelling ancestral temple and the altars of land and grain and the ancestral temple of the house of Tang.

Zhu Yujian came to the throne as a distant prince of the Ming, and though he much wished to do something and rebuild the Ming realm, he had been a criminal of the imperial clan behind high walls, had no following of his own and no sufficient legitimacy, and this native weakness obliged him to rely on the men of real power in Fujian who had been first to raise him, the brothers Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Hongkui. On taking the throne he at once rewarded those who had raised him, making Zheng Zhilong marquis of the pacified barbarians, Zheng Hongkui marquis of the settled barbarians, Zheng Zhibao earl of Chengji and Zheng Cai earl of Yongsheng; and to gather men's hearts he appointed more than twenty men, among them Huang Daozhou, Jiang Dejing, Su Guansheng, He Wuzou, Huang Mingjun, Chen Zizhuang, Lin Yuji, Zeng Ying, Zhu Jizuo and Fu Guan, as grand secretaries and members of the cabinet, a larger number than in any cabinet in Ming history. Yet the Longwu regime was on all three sides beset: held in check by the Zheng family, obliged to guard against the army of the prince of Lu, and pressed ever nearer by the Qing troops under Li Chengdong. The court of the prince of Lu was eager to take Nanjing, and when it learned that the Longwu emperor had taken the title it did not at once retire to its fief, each side's ministers urging their master not to yield for the sake of the merit of having raised an emperor and holding up their own signboards; and when Zhu Yujian sent envoys with reward money asking the prince of Lu to acknowledge his sole sovereignty, the prince of Lu in his reply called him imperial uncle and not majesty, showing that he did not acknowledge the Longwu regime, and Zhu Yujian in anger ordered the envoy killed.

The Personal Campaign and the Fall at Tingzhou

The Longwu emperor repeatedly ordered troops out to recover the lost provinces, and the Zheng brothers put him off on one pretext or another; he was inside the Zheng family's zone of control and could not move the armies. Unwilling to waste his days, he resolved at last to take the field in person and shake off the Zheng brothers' manipulation. To meet the situation he set out a great strategy whose heart was his own personal campaign into Jiangxi, where Ming and Qing contended hardest, joining He Tengjiao in Hunan on the west, controlling Zheng Zhilong in Fujian on the east and resting on Guangdong behind him, so as to hold the whole situation in his hands; and if Jiangxi were mastered, the forces of the prince of Lu in eastern Zhejiang could be used to pin down the Qing rear, and He Tengjiao's army could come down the Yangtze from Hubei and sweep the south. To carry this into effect he left Fuzhou on the sixteenth day of the twelfth month and reached Jianning on the twenty-sixth, and began to prepare for the advance west on Ganzhou. In 1646 the Qing troops won victory after victory in Zhejiang, taking Shaoxing, Dongyang, Jinhua and Pingzhou and soon storming the Xianxia pass held by Zheng Hongkui, entering Fujian, taking Jianning and pressing on Yanping; and Zheng Zhilong had long since agreed in secret to surrender, so that none of the passes of Fujian was guarded. On 6 October 1646, the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month of the second year of Longwu, the Longwu emperor fled to Tingzhou. Accounts of his end differ greatly: the Outer History of Taiwan says he was overtaken by Qing troops at the shrine of Guan Yu outside Tingzhou; the Veritable Records of the Qing say that the southern expeditionary general, the prince Beile Bolo, entering Fujian took Jianning and Yanping, and hearing that the false prince of Tang had fled to Tingzhou sent the guard commander Ajige Nikan and Du'erde in pursuit, who came up to the walls, took and beheaded him together with the false princes and officials and settled Tingzhou, taking nine false seals and countless horses and baggage. Others say that he and the empress were taken, that the empress drowned herself in the Nine Dragon pool, and that the emperor died by fasting, or by arrows, or in the hall of the prefecture of Tingzhou; and there are also folk tales that the man killed at Tingzhou was a double, and that he himself fled to Mount Wuzhi in Guangdong and became a monk, or hid on Mount Miaofeng in Anxi under the name the southern monk, at first reading and practising arms in the hope of restoring the Ming and at last, seeing all was lost, living out his days as a monk at Huitou. After the Yongli emperor came to the throne, not knowing what had become of him, he first gave him the style of the Emperor of Thought and Culture; in 1651, the fifth year of Yongli, he sent the vice minister Wang Mingxuan to seek him, and in 1657, the eleventh year of Yongli, being certain that he was dead, gave him the temple name Shaozong and the posthumous style of the emperor who was companion to Heaven, of the utmost way, magnanimous, resolute, grave and reverent, of thought and culture, martial and fierce, quick and benevolent, broad and filial. Soon after his death Tianxing fell, and the princes of Yangqu, Songzi, Yicheng and Fengxin were killed, and in the tenth month Zhangzhou fell; and it is also said that the local people buried him at Luohan ridge.

Major Activities

Political Activities

The source presents Zhu Yujian as one of the more active Southern Ming emperors. After proclaiming himself emperor at Fuzhou, he attempted to restore Ming institutions, established the auxiliary capital and Tianxing Prefecture, restored older names for major palace halls, and sought to regularize court administration. He lived frugally, did not drink alcohol, took close interest in administrative affairs, and was described as knowledgeable about both antiquity and current affairs. Huang Daozhou is quoted as praising the emperor's abstinence from alcohol, administrative ability, and historical learning in unusually high terms.

Zhu Yujian also tried, with limited success, to manage relations with Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu, whose court at Shaoxing had declared a regency. When Qing forces attacked Shaoxing, Zhu Yihai sent an envoy to Fuzhou requesting military aid. The letter addressed Zhu Yujian as “imperial uncle” rather than “Your Majesty.” Angered by the perceived challenge to his status, Zhu Yujian ordered the envoy killed. According to the source, this action deepened divisions within the Southern Ming and weakened resistance to the Qing.

Travels

Zhu Yujian's life took him from the princely residence at Nanyang to confinement behind the high walls at Fengyang, and after release across Jiangsu and Zhejiang on the route toward Guangxi before he reached Fujian and proclaimed himself emperor. His movements included the unauthorized 1636 march north toward the capital, which was halted at Yuzhou, and his 1645 journey through Suzhou, Jiaxing, and Hangzhou before Zheng Hongkui escorted him into Fujian. In 1646 he fled from Yanping through the region toward Tingzhou, where he died.

Relations with Contemporaries

Zhu Yujian had a close political relationship with Huang Daozhou, a major Longwu official who served as Minister of Personnel and Grand Secretary of the Wuying Hall and spoke highly of the emperor. Huang volunteered to leave the court to recruit troops against the Qing; Zhu Yujian permitted the plan despite doubts about its prospects. Huang was defeated, captured, and executed after refusing to surrender.

His relationship with Zheng Zhilong was one of mutual dependence and distrust. Zheng helped place Zhu Yujian on the throne but also sought to dominate the government. Zhu Yujian needed Zheng military power to resist the Qing while remaining dependent on Zheng-controlled finances and forces. Zheng's eventual surrender to the Qing directly precipitated the collapse of the Longwu government.

Change of Policy and Reform of Administration

The Longwu emperor, drawing the lesson of the fall of Hongguang and the surrender of the prince of Lu, abandoned the Hongguang policy of joining the Qing to destroy the rebels and made the resistance to the Qing rather than the suppression of rebellion the main task, in good time raising the banner of resistance, which answered the wish of the Han people to withstand the Manchu policy of forced shaving of the head and change of dress; ten days after taking the throne he had the Qing envoy Ma Dechang, who had come to summon him to submit, put to death, declaring that he could not live under the same sky with the Qing, and he would himself take the field. Against the harm done to the state by the factional strife since Wanli he set out the principle of impartial use and dismissal of men and of extinguishing factions, taking no account of officials involved in the strife; and when he assumed the regency he himself wrote three proclamations, on the gentry, on military government and on the scholars, calling on the officials of the court to lay aside their factional quarrels and work together for the restoration; and in the first month of the second year of Longwu, 1646, he again declared in an edict that no account would be taken of officials who had taken part in the factions.

One chief point of his government was to set the administration in order and to punish corruption severely, providing that for small corruption there should be beating with the rod and for great corruption death. When the supervising censor Wu Chunzhi impeached the assistant prefect of Shaowu Chen Zhumo, the magistrate of Gutian Wu Shiyao and the prefect of Tingzhou Wang Guomian for corruption and oppression of the people, he at once ordered that their crimes were hateful, that they were tigers and wolves under gauze caps, that unless severely punished the people's livelihood would have no support, and that they should all be stripped of office, arrested and sent to the capital by the grand coordinator and questioned, their spoils recovered to pay the troops. And hearing that soldiers and people forced by the Qing to shave their heads were often killed by the Southern Ming soldiery, he issued a special edict that those with hair were obedient subjects and those without were the distressed, and strictly forbade indiscriminate slaughter. He also valued the examinations, holding that only the worthy should be sought, and on the twenty-seventh day of the eighth month of the first year of Longwu himself set the question for the selection of assistant judges. He lived simply, wearing a robe of coarse yellow cloth even after taking the throne and forbidding gold and silver vessels and brocade in the palace; and he had no favourite concubine in the palace save the empress Zeng, who was well read and a good helpmeet.

Alliance with the Peasant Armies and the Death of Huang Daozhou

In military policy the Longwu emperor abandoned the old Hongguang plan of joining the Qing against the rebels and made alliance with the peasant armies against the Qing the core of his strategy, taking in the remnant troops of the Dashun and recovering places such as Jingde in Anhui, and this set the ground for the later cooperation of the Daxi army with the Yongli court — as events afterwards showed, without the alliance of the peasant armies of Dashun and Daxi with the Ming, the Southern Ming could not have lasted nearly twenty years. At that time the old Ming minister Huang Daozhou, seeing the Zheng family hold their troops and the various commands stand timidly by, and being himself past sixty, told the Longwu emperor that rather than sit and wait for ruin they should go out together, sovereign and minister, and that he, as a great minister, should go before the emperor as an example to all servants; and so he went north against the Qing before the emperor. Huang Daozhou, with pure loyalty, put up his own money and the help of friends, took with him only some ten thousand taels of silver and a few disciples, and set out generously, and the loyal people of every part of Fujian, hearing of it, came to him, near ten thousand joining his command; and the Longwu emperor, much moved, took leave of him with tears, but as men, money and goods were all in the hands of the Zheng family, he could give this old loyal minister only a hundred blank warrants and not a tael of pay or a single soldier. Huang Daozhou organised a carrying-pole army against the Qing and went out of Fujian into Jiangxi as far as Guangxin; the Qing had forestalled him and taken Huizhou, which he had meant for his base; and in his anxiety the magistrate of Wuyuan, the county seat being in Qing hands, who was Huang Daozhou's disciple, sent his master a secret letter saying that he could act as an agent within, and that his master must come at once to take the place. But the man had already taken service with the Qing, and Huang Daozhou, not knowing the trick, rashly sent three columns, which were broken separately by the waiting Qing; with only three hundred men and ten horses left he still charged straight on without turning, was wholly destroyed in one battle, and was taken and kept in the prison of Wuyuan. After more than two months the Qing ordered him killed, and as he was led to the east flowery gate at Nanjing he sat down on the ground and would not rise, crying aloud that this place was near the tomb of the Taizu emperor and there he should be killed; and turning his head and seeing a Fujian signboard in the market he was the more resolved to die there, and having bowed twice to the south in the manner owing to his sovereign he went generously to his death, with the secretary of the bureau of operations Zhao Shichao and several disciples and followers dying with him.

Letters, Religion and Surviving Traces

The Longwu emperor was a great lover of books, and even in so desperate a moment carried ten cartloads of books with him, which further slowed the flight of the party. He also favoured the Catholic faith: of the church built by the Italian missionary Giulio Aleni and the eldest grandson of Ye Xianggao he complained that it was cramped, and ordered it enlarged; and when it was finished he wrote with his own hand the words church built by imperial order to be set on a stone before it, the church bearing above it a tablet reading God is with you. It is said that after he took the throne Zheng Zhilong, created marquis of the pacified barbarians, asked leave to build a monastery of requited grace to show his loyalty, and the Longwu emperor granted with his own hand the tablet reading monastery of requited grace built by imperial order. In the first year of Longwu, 1645, he had coins cast at Fuzhou, commonly called Longwu money, Southern Ming coin of the end of Ming, and the large flat coin with Nan on the reverse has a star, or none, or on the reverse the characters for revenue, works, south or retention, those with south and retention being the rarest. While he held position by the defiles with the support of the Shanxi commander Xie Zhiliang and other ministers, and as he was seen every day standing before the hall gazing north with tears on his face, Xie Zhiliang and a musician named Li took counsel and called in more than ten handsome young men and women to compose the dance called Gold Coins Falling on the Ground, to give the Longwu emperor a little ease in his desolation; and so that folk dance with the strong flavour of northern rice-planting song had its origin at Chagan and was handed down among the people of Pingyuan.

Personal Relations

• Zhu Yuanzhang: dynastic ancestor
• Zhu Jing: Prince Ding of Tang and founder of the Tang princely line
• Zhu Shuohuang: grandfather, Prince Duan of Tang
• Zhu Qisheng: father, Prince Yu of Tang
• Lady Mao: mother, posthumously Empress Xuan
• Zhu Yuce: younger brother
• Zhu Yuao: younger brother, later Shaowu Emperor
• Zhu Yuyang: younger brother
• Lady Zeng: Empress Xiaoyi Xiang
• Zhu Linyuan: son, Crown Prince Zhuangjing
• Huang Daozhou: senior official and intellectual associate
• Lu Zhenfei: governor who intervened against Zhu Yujian's mistreatment at Fengyang
• Chen Qiyu: regional official who memorialized for Zhu Yujian to be established as heir-grandson of Tang
• Zheng Zhilong: principal supporter of the accession; later surrendered to the Qing
• Zheng Hongkui: supporter and escort to Fujian
• Su Guansheng: supporter who later enthroned the Shaowu Emperor
• He Wuzou: chief grand secretary
• Jiang Dejing: Minister of Revenue
• Zhu Jizuo: Minister of the Ministry of Rites
• Zeng Ying: Minister of Works
• Zhu Qishuang: uncle beaten to death by Zhu Yujian
• Zhu Qijun: uncle injured by Zhu Yujian
• Shi Yingzhao: tomb-guarding eunuch at Fengyang who abused Zhu Yujian
• Zhu Yousong: Hongguang Emperor, who refused to restore Zhu Yujian's former title Prince of Tang
• Zhu Yihai: Prince of Lu, whose regency conflicted with the Longwu court

Historical Assessment

Ming / Contemporary

Huang Daozhou praised the Longwu Emperor as a ruler who did not drink alcohol, was skilled in administration, and understood both ancient and contemporary affairs, adding that such qualities were rarely seen even among earlier emperors. The source notes that the praise may have been excessive but treats it as evidence that contemporaries regarded Zhu Yujian as unusually serious among Southern Ming rulers.

Yang Fengbao wrote that the fall of the auxiliary capital came from Zheng Zhilong's negotiations with the Qing, identifying Zheng's defection as a decisive immediate cause of the Longwu regime's collapse.

Early to Mid-Qing

The Qing-compiled History of Ming generally treated Southern Ming emperors critically, but the source notes that its account of Zhu Yujian is comparatively restrained. It acknowledges his diligence and frugality while also emphasizing that he was constrained by Zheng Zhilong and unable to turn his intentions into effective power.

Late Qing and Republican Period

With the rise of anti-Manchu political thought in the late Qing and early Republican period, interest in Southern Ming history increased. Scholars often treated the Longwu Emperor sympathetically, regarding him as one of the more capable Southern Ming rulers but as unable to reverse the dynasty's decline because his resources were limited and his government depended too heavily on the Zheng family.

Modern Period

Modern historian Gu Cheng, in History of the Southern Ming, discusses the Longwu Emperor in detail and regards him as personally stronger in character than several other Southern Ming rulers. At the same time, Gu treats the regime's failure as the result of multiple causes: Zheng Zhilong's surrender was an immediate trigger, while internal Southern Ming division, the absence of a secure territorial base, and heavy dependence on Zheng-controlled finance and military power were also important structural weaknesses.