Zhu Di was born on May 2, 1360, during the Yuan part of China's history. His father Zhu Yuanzhang was a successful leader of the Red Turbans fighting the Yuan army to change China. People don't agree about who his mother was. In the histories written by the later Chinese governments, his mother was the Empress Ma, his father's most important wife. Other people—especially people who did not like Zhu Di—said that his mother was one of Zhu Yuanzhang's live-in girlfriends and wasn't even Chinese. They said that he changed all the papers about his real mother after he got more power.