but was too much in the hands of relatiyes and fa?ourites. During his reign there was some desultory fighting about Hami, and occasional Tartar raids, while- the aborigines of the south- west rose more than once and the Yellow River gaye much trouble. He consulted his Ministers, and curtailed the power of the ennuchs. In 1491 the population of the empire was returned at 52| millions. He left his young son under the regency of three high ofiScials. Canonised as ^ ^ ^j[ ^ ^ .
482 Chu Yü-chien Died A.D. 1646. The Prince of T'ang, a descendant of the first Ming Emperor, who was set up by Ch^ng Chih-lung on the fall of Hangchow in 1645. He was himself energetic, but his partisans in Hu-Euang would not obey his orders. The Manchu forces steadily advanced through Fuhkien into Eiangsi, aud the Prince, who in his distrust of Ch^ng Chih- lung had reached Kan on his way to Ch'u-chou, was forced to flee. He was ultimately captured, and starved himself to death.
483 Chu Yüan-chang (T. g]^). A.D. 1828-1399. A native of ^ ffj^ Chung^li in Anhui. His family was poor, and his early years were spent in tending cattle. At the age of 17 he lost both his parents and an elder brother. It was a year of famine, and they died from want of food. He had no money to buy coffins, and was forced to bury them in straw. He was then advised by his dead parents, who appeared to him in a dream, to enter the Buddhist priesthood; and accordingly he enrolled himself as a novice at the ^ ^ Huang-ch^eh monastery near F6ng-yang. At this time Shun Ti, the last Emperor of the Mongol dynasty, had degenerated into a voluptuary and was a mere puppet in the hands of his Ministers. Misgovernment and rebellion prevailed. The priests, unable to provide for their own wants, dismissed the novices. Chu proceeded to Ho-fei, where he led a wandering life for some three years, and at length returned
