Early Life
His father Zhu Biao was the son and crown prince of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming Dynasty. When Zhu Biao died young in 1392, the Hongwu Emperor – after several months' deliberation – upheld the strict rules of primogeniture laid out in his instructions to the dynasty and favored the bookish and 14-year-old Zhu Yunwen over his other sons, despite the powerful feudal grants he had provided them throughout the empire.
Read more about this topic: Jianwen Emperor
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“In an early spring
We see th’appearing buds, which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair
That frosts will bite them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I’ll defy them to do it. They have n’t got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)