Jottings from the Granite Studio

On this date in 1403, Zhu Di (the Yongle Emperor) agreed to a recommendation from his Minister of Rites to move the Ming capital from Nanjing to Beiping, henceforth renamed Beijing.*

There were a number of reasons behind the move.** First, Zhu Di had usurped the throne from his nephew Zhu Yunwen in 1402, when Zhu Di’s troops stormed the Ming capital at Nanjing. Hard worker though he was, Zhu Di never felt like he quite finished the job of purging all of his nephew’s allies and supporters, and so he never really took to Nanjing as a permanent home. It’s also possible that after incinerating his own nephew and ousting a generation of officials, he may have felt like a fresh start was probably in order.

Which brings up the second reason for moving north: The Mongols. The Ming had kicked out the Mongols forty years earlier, but the Khans’ descendants were spoiling for a rematch.Zhu Di knew this. His father, Ming Taizu, had once charged him with the extremely important task of northern border defense, and the new monarch felt that Beijing offered a better vantage point to keep an eye on what was happening out in the steppe.

Of course given the manner by which he came to power, the fact that Zhu Di’s primary base of political and military support came from the Ming northern garrisons probably had a little something to do with his decision as well. Just a guess.

After the move, Nanjing was demoted to the status of ’secondary capital,’ responsible for financial and economic matters while the main seat of power resided in the new imperial residence under construction in Beijing. And, in case you’re wondering: No, there is no evidence from the archives that a Starbucks was part of the original builders’ plan.***

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*Except when they called it Jingshi (’the capital’).
** #8: Only 705 years to the Olympics! Let the countdown begin!
***Though I have unearthed a little-studied document, submitted to the throne at the time, stating that reports of worker safety violations and dust pollution from the construction of the Forbidden City were simply the fabrications of an insensitive foreign media.