Zhu Yuanzhang was born to poor tenant farmers in what is now Anhui province. At about sixteen he lost his parents and elder brother to drought and epidemic and entered a monastery, but the monastery had no food either, and he spent several years wandering as a begging monk. Those years of tramping through the provinces taught him how the country actually worked, and it served him later.
He joined the Red Turbans in 1352 and rose fast. His methods set him apart from the other rebel leaders: he banned looting in captured cities, took surrendered soldiers into his own ranks, and recruited literate scholars to run his administration. After making Jiqing (today's Nanjing) his base in 1356 he had the rich rice country of the lower Yangtze behind him, and his victory over Chen Youliang at Lake Poyang in 1363 made him master of the south.
In 1368 he took the imperial title, naming his dynasty Ming and his reign Hongwu. Not since Liu Bang founded the Han had a farmer's son become emperor. He redistributed land and rebuilt the tax system to restore a ruined countryside, but in his later years he purged his own founding officials on a massive scale, and tens of thousands died. He is remembered as a man who showed both faces of what absolute power can do to someone who grew up with none.