Interview

 Interview with Emperor Hongwu

Reporter- Hello and welcome Emperor Hongwu. We appreciate your presence and have some questions for you to be answered.

Emperor Hongwu- No problem. I would be happy to answer any questions you have for me.

Reporter- Great! Let's get started. So Emperor Hongwu, what was the importance of the Forbidden City and how has it impacted China.

Emperor Hongwu- Well, the Great Wall of China was an imperial palace built that was the home of the most recent 24 emperors. We had a city located in Nanjing and we had then created the Forbidden City which was created in Beijing. No common people were allowed inside or they would have a curse set upon them. This was so we could show the respect for the last emperors who had ruled and this shows the respect we have for them. When an emperor died, they were buried here and were protected by the terracotta army that had been built. The Forbidden City impacted China in many ways. First off, people had governed China by holding important ceremonies and court sessions here. Also the Forbidden City indicates that their are important bodies inside that are representing China. The Forbidden City is a home to them and this gives them a way to stay connected to China.

Reporter- That sounds very interesting. But you had mentioned something about a terracotta army? What is the terracotta army, what was it used for and what was it's importance?

Emperor Hongwu- The terracotta army consists of over 8000 army men and horses that protect the emperors that are buried in the Forbidden City. These statues had been discovered while work was being put into action. The army was first used when Emperor Qin had died that signified in ancient beliefs that he was still in reign in the afterlife. Now this is used for all the emperors that are buried in the Forbidden City. The terracotta army consists of life sized figures and the army is set up as if they were ready for battle. The army is placed in order of when it was discovered. The terracotta soldiers had been made out of clay. Their are thousands of clay soldiers that had been found. When they were first dug up, it was noticed that these soldiers were positioned in order of their rank. They had unique expressions that were carved on their faces. On some of the soldiers their are patches of some paint that show the bright colors that they had once been painted in the tradition of the Qin dynasty.

Interviewer- Wow, we learn something new every day! Thank you for clarifying that. Time for your next question. Emperor Hongwu, what are the struggles you face with the Ming Dynasty?

Emperor Hongwu- There are many hardships I face during this journey. One struggle would be trying to prevent any uprisings to occur. If there are any peasant uprisings then I lose my role as emperor. Also the Mandate of Heaven can be a struggle. The Mandate of Heaven is a belief that if any natural disasters occur then it means I am not doing a good job as emperor. Therefore, I also lose my job as emperor. Also creations can be hard to lead although it is a great accomplishment to me when I help to create an importance for China. It takes lots of courage, time and hard work. But in the end it always pays off. Another hardship that I faced is when the invention of paper occurred. Later on after paper had been created, someone got the idea of creating paper money. I thought it was a way to encourage my workers and soldiers to finish their jobs. I would reward them with money but I never understood inflation but now I have learned. Inflation is when the amount of money increases and is given out all the time, it becomes less valuable. If people are receiving tons of money in one day, they won't see money as valuable because they already have a lot and they know it is easy to get. Whereas, for example diamonds are rare because they are extremely hard to find so it is very valuable. Anyways, since paper money became not as valuable, people had switched back to coin money. The issue was that we had not created enough because we had been too busy working on making more paper money. There was an increasing need of coin money during the growth of trade which led to the coin money also losing it's value.

Interviewer- That is very amazing to hear. That really does sound like a struggle. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't know how to handle a job like that. Emperor is a tough job to handle it sounds like. Let's hear more of how you did it all. Emperor Hongwu, what was the importance of the Great Wall and how has it affected China?

Emperor Hongwu- The Great Wall of China was a wall that I instructed to be built. The Great Wall is a structure built for defense and military bases. In other words, it helped protect China and everyone felt safer. Pieces of the wall had been created in earlier dynasties but when the Ming Dynasty ruled, I had my workers and soldiers work to connect all the pieces together to form one long wall. The Great Wall of China is the longest wall in the world. The wall is important to China in many ways. First off, the wall is important because the wall blocks off outsiders from entering through China. Also if a Mongol tried to steal an item, they would mostly likely be caught because the wall made it more of a struggle to get away. The wall is also important because it protects the terracotta army. The wall is approximately 50,000 kilometers. The wall took over 200 years to build and was very tough and took long to build. What wasn't so good was that 2 to 3 million people had died just by working on this wall. But all the hard work had payed off.

Interviewer- 2 to 3 million people is a lot that had died. That must have taken many people to build the wall then. I didn't know so many people were needed to build the wall. That sounds very fascinating. Thank you for joining me in this interview We very much appreciate it.

Emperor Hongwu- I am pleased that I could help. Thank you for having me participate.