Abstract
The post-Qing Mongol histories of the seventeenth century all contain two stories about the Ming dynasty: a legend ascribing Mongol origins to the Yongle emperor, Zhu Di, and a lengthy and detailed history of Zhu Yuanzhang's rise to power and ultimate conquest of the Yuan.’ The Yongle legend is well known. 2 The story of Zhu has languished in obscurity, perhaps because its total historical inaccuracy has led scholars to doubt that the main character, Lord Juge, is in fact Zhu Yuanzhang. Scholars who have raised this question certainly did so for valid reasons, because if indeed there is anything certain about this story, it is that it probably does not contain a single historically accurate fact. But in the eyes of seventeenth- century Mongol historians, the identification was clear, and by studying the story we can learn what they thought of Zhu and how they used him to contemplate their own history.
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