Jianwen Emperor - Fate

Fate

Aided by eunuch spies and turncoat generals, the Prince of Yan succeeded in capturing the emperor's Yangtze fleet and entered the capital Nanjing through an opened gate in 1402. Although his propaganda had portrayed him as the Duke of Zhou, who famously supported his young nephew King Cheng by waging war on the king's evil advisors, Zhu Di's entrance to the capital was almost immediately followed by the torching of the imperial palace and the presentation of three charred bodies as the emperor's, his consort's, and his heir's. The Jianwen era was declared void and its records systematically altered or destroyed, while the prince established himself as the new Yongle Emperor. Thousands of scholars and their families who opposed these measures were executed – the most famous were Fang Xiaoru and three others remembered as the Four Martyrs.

Many rumors stated that the Jianwen Emperor – on his own or thanks to the Hongwu Emperor's foresight – managed to escape the sack of Nanjing disguised as a monk. Some records reported that one year after he became emperor, the Yongle Emperor sent two agents to discover him; one did and chatted with the escaped emperor but did not return him. Passages in the official History of Ming even present the initial impetus to Zheng He's voyages as discovering whether countries to the south had provided him haven. Still other records relate that decades later the Jianwen Emperor returned to the imperial palace and lived the rest of his life in obscure retirement.

The bodies presented as the imperial family by the Yongle Emperor were not given a full burial and there is no known grave of the Jianwen Emperor. He was initially denied a temple name and left unhonored at Ming family shrines. The Prince of Fu, self-proclaimed emperor of the Southern Ming, granted him the temple name Huizong (惠宗) in 1644, but this name is not generally remembered or accepted in the official Chinese histories.