The Yongle Emperor — personal name Zhu Di — was the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 1424.
Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dynasty. He was originally enfeoffed as the Prince of Yan in May 1370, with the capital of his princedom at Beiping. Amid the continuing struggle against the Mongols of the Northern Yuan dynasty, Zhu Di consolidated his own power and eliminated rivals such as the general Lan Yu. He initially accepted his father's appointment of his eldest brother Zhu Biao and then Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen as crown prince, but when Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne as the Jianwen Emperor and began executing and demoting his powerful uncles, Zhu Di found pretext for rising in rebellion against his nephew. Assisted in large part by eunuchs mistreated by the Hongwu and Jianwen Emperors, who both favored the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats, Zhu Di survived the initial attacks on his princedom and drove south to launch the Jingnan Campaign against the Jianwen Emperor in Nanjing.