Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming, began construction of the complex in the first,[3] 18th,[3] or 19th year of his reign[1] using the Chinese lunisolar calendar (c. 1368, 1385, or 1386).

[3] In the 19th year of the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing (c. 1680),[3] the Yellow River—then still flowing south of Shandong—changed its course and fully merged into the Huai.

This quickly accumulated river sediment that blocked the previous course of the Huai, redirecting most of its flow into Hongze Lake, which submerged the mausoleum complex along with the nearby city of Sizhou.

[3] In the spring of 1963 or 1964,[3] the waters of Hongze Lake receded enough that locals began to notice Tang and Song-looking statues appearing along the muddy shore.

[3] Its original Golden Brook Bridge (金水橋, Jīnshuǐ Qiáo) was so damaged that it had to be entirely replaced, although surviving fragments are preserved at the site's exhibition hall.

One holds that a Taoist monk selected the site for the Hongwu Emperor based its superlative fengshui and qi.

[3] Another is that the area was dear to the emperor's heart because a separate Taoist in Sizhou had told Zhu Wusi that his son would later rule all China.

[6] The entrance of the way was a portico with several doors for visitors of differing status, after which it passed through or beside several courtyards and buildings including a reception pavilion and a commemorative pavilion housing the deceased's tablets of divine merit, followed by rows of paired stone statuary (石象, shíxiàng) representing symbolic animals and effigies of ministers and generals.

[3] After stone bridges over geomantically placed streams and a dragon and phoenix portico, a second complex of buildings offered a hall of meditation and a memorial tower leading to the burial mound.

[3] A feature carried over from the Tang and Song but not later repeated was the surrounding of the site with three successive walls, the outermost and middle made of earth and the innermost from red brick.