At that time, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang knew that Tuotuo was a descendant of a Mongolian nobleman and might have some effect in the future, so he specially ordered someone to be sent to raise him. After Yongle Emperor Zhu Di succeeded to the throne, he treated him as his own son and served as a close guard in the court.
Tuotuo's uncle Anke Timur was more friendly to the Ming court after becoming King Hami. He not only took the initiative to propose "Easy to the Horse Market" and actively carried out commercial exchanges with the Ming Dynasty. In addition, in the second year of Yongle, he came to meet Zhu Di in person, accepted Zhu Di's enthronement and became the first generation of King Zhongshun. Since then, Hami has officially become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Anke Timur got too close to the Ming Dynasty and attracted dissatisfaction with Northern Yuan . At that time, the Khan of the Northern Yuan Guili Chi was a descendant of the gangster of Ogedei , and the Hami area has long been regarded as the sphere of influence of Ogedei's queen. Therefore, in Guili Chihan, Anke Timur accepted the enthronement of the Ming Dynasty and became a complete Mongolian traitor.
In order to teach Anke Timur a lesson, he re-controlled the Hami area. Guili Chihan directly poisoned him in the third year of Yongle and successfully controlled the Hami area for a short time. At that time, Zhu Di considered that the entire society had just suffered from the destruction of Jingnan Battle and urgently needed to restore the economy, so he did not choose to conflict with Guili Chihan.
Fortunately, the Northern Yuan Dynasty soon fell into civil strife. The conflict between the Tatar tribe of the Eastern Mongolian and the Wala tribe of the Western Mongolian had completely intensified, and there were constant disputes between them. Guili Chihan himself was also killed by his subordinate Alutai . Under such circumstances, the Northern Yuan naturally could not take into account the Hami area, and Hami quickly turned to the Ming Dynasty.
In the same year, Zhu Di specially ordered Tuotuo to inherit the title of king, allowing him to successfully become the third generation of Hami King and the second generation of King Zhongshun who accepted the title of Ming Dynasty. A year later, Zhu Di officially established Hamiwei locally to carry out stronger control and management. In the fifth year of Yongle, Song Sheng , who was responsible for guarding Gansu, reported to the court that there was a situation of a leader named Lu Shi in Hami, who had been pacified by King Zhongshun Tutuo. Zhu Di was afraid that Hami would be in trouble, so he still asked Song Sheng to select 500 or 1,000 troops and let a talented person lead him to guard Hami.
Tuotuo was relatively scheming during his tenure as King Hami and had no other intentions towards the Ming Dynasty. He died in the ninth year of Yongle.
