A different shoe - Jingnan Campaign

Kaze

Banned
The Jianwen Emperor began to show independence from his uncles and cousins. He began relaxing the purges, rehabilitating the victims of the secret police, and began the process of looking outwards. Then his uncles and cousins started a rebellion.
With the capital in flames the Jianwen disappeared from history...

What if the Jianwen defeated his uncles?
How would Ming Dynasty History Go?
Remember at this time Timurlane was looking towards expansion - he dreamed of Genghis Khan and of conquest of China.
 
On the third point, Tamerlane was indeed thinking of a Great Eastern Campaign but he was still getting up there in age and I don't think the Jianwen Emperor staying on the throne would prevent Tamerlane from dying of illness if he did march towards China in the winter, as he did historically. If the Jianwen Emperor manages to keep on Tamerlane's good side, though, it might keep the latter alive longer (no winter march), which in turn might keep the Timurid realm from ripping itself to pieces in the 15th century.

Regardless, Tamerlane's prospects of defeating the Ming after marching thousands of kilometers through Central Asia are not too great. He's getting up there in age (on the march, even if it's not winter, he's got a fair chance of coming down with something and dying or suffering an accident or suffering an 'accident') while the Ming are still reaching their zenith.

Otherwise, not having the Yongle Emperor come to power means the Imperial Capital stays in Nanjing, not Beijing, at least for the time being. A bit less power projection into the northern steppes and the North gets harried more but a great deal more safety from nomadic incursions (no Tumu Crisis, likely) while the South flourishes to a greater extent. A more southern oriented Ming would be a bit less vulnerable to something like the Qing conquest, for example, but it's got a fair chance at going down the Song route of contesting northern China with northern conquest dynasties.

Lots of potential butterflies, in any case.
 
Jianwen Emperor's advisers were terrible. They were impatient and short sighted. Something would go wrong in near future.
 
Not to mention factional.

I feel that Ming dynasty would be short lived if Jianwen Emperor was in charge for long period time.

Unless he had a brain transplant and started to reverse most of Hongwu's economic policies on trades, commerce and agriculture.
 
I feel that Ming dynasty would be short lived if Jianwen Emperor was in charge for long period time.

Unless he had a brain transplant and started to reverse most of Hongwu's economic policies on trades, commerce and agriculture.
It’s not like Zhu Di did so either.All Zhu Di really did was finish what Jianwen started and eliminated the princes’ control over armies.

On the other hand,I do feel it’s possible that he might raise the salary of the bureaucrats.
 
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