Hongwu

Vice Governor Liu Hongwu is being investigated for “serious violations of discipline and laws,” the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection said, using its standard term for graft.

J.P. acknowledges support from the Weng Hongwu Original Research Foundation under grant number WHW201502.

The Hongwu Emperor, who established the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, expected total obedience from his subjects, inflicting torture and death on those who opposed him, including, it is said, some of his own advisers.

That being so, Zhang said there were several design elements Trump might borrow from his Chinese precursors, foremost among them the gaping ditches soldiers carved into the arid soil around the Jiayu Pass, a fortress built on the orders of the Hongwu emperor in 1372.

Though Emperor Hongwu took a heavy-handed approach to corruption in the Ming Dynasty, he was never able to root it out because the system was fundamentally unaltered.