Yongle Emperor Born: Builder of the Forbidden City

The Yongle Emperor dispatched more ships to sea than any ruler before him and then his successors burned them all. Born Zhu Di on May 2, 1360, the fourth son of the Ming dynasty founder, he seized the throne from his nephew in 1402 through a civil war and spent the rest of his reign proving that an usurper could be the most dynamic emperor China had ever known. He moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, where he built the Forbidden City. He commissioned the Yongle Encyclopedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world at that time, comprising over 11,000 volumes. Most consequentially, he authorized the voyages of Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch who commanded treasure fleets of unprecedented size. Between 1405 and 1424, Zheng He led six massive naval expeditions through Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the East African coast. The largest ships were over 400 feet long, dwarfing anything in European navies of the period. The fleets carried diplomats, merchants, and soldiers, establishing tributary relationships with dozens of states. The Yongle Emperor died on August 12, 1424, during a military campaign against the Mongols. His successors, facing fiscal pressure and Confucian criticism that the voyages were extravagant and unnecessary, gradually curtailed maritime activity. Zheng He's seventh and final voyage occurred in 1430-33 under a subsequent emperor. After that, the imperial court ordered the destruction of the treasure fleet and the burning of naval records. China withdrew from oceanic exploration and never returned to it under imperial rule. The decision remains one of history's great what-ifs: had China maintained its maritime presence, the European age of exploration might have played out very differently.