Eye-opening and a valuable antidote to notions of the Mongols ruling over a devastated and depopulated land. Of course the new Emperor is partly doing sound politics, blaming bad officials rather than the overthrown court - there's an old injunction about not being too negative about your predecessor, lest your denunciations undermine the status of the office you seek to hold.

The communications for external consumption are interesting too, offering a rather different evaluation. But Korea and Japan each had their own beef with the Mongols, so here distancing yourself from the old regime was good statecraft. Might there also be a hint (less subtle in the Japanese case) of "Remember those fearsome Mongols? Well I'm the guy who defeated them!"?

Which is the "true" version of his thoughts? It's notable that even in the external letters he blames disorder in the last Yuan reign rather than the dynasty as a whole: Mongol and Han ways may be incompatible, but there's nothing to contradict the domestic account of the Yuan as a legitimate though "barbarian" dynasty that had outlived its usefulness by no longer being able to rule.