who included salt-smugglers, boatmen, sorcerers, itinerant artisans, and sturdy peasants—was an ordained monk named Zhu Yuanzhang, of Anhui.
In alliance with a heterodox religious group called the Red Turbans, Zhu won victory after victory until he occupied Nanjing and the surrounding region in the spring of 1356.1 Four years later, on May 2, 1360, his fourth son, Zhu Di, was born. While the wars decimated the peasantry in the Chinese countryside, the birth of Zhu Di—the future emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty—was cloaked in mystery. By this time, the thirty-two-year-old Zhu Yuanzhang was well supplied with assorted concubines. According to Ming o‹cial records, Zhu Di’s mother was Empress Ma (1332–82), who also had borne Zhu Yuanzhang’s first three sons—Zhu Biao (1355–92), Zhu Shuang (1356–95), and Zhu Gang (1358–98)—and fifth son, Zhu Su (1361–1425). Other Ming sources reveal that Zhu Di’s mother could well have been a Mongol or a Korean woman whom his father took from the harem of a Mongol prince by force or simply as desirable booty. Historian Li Dongfang, on the other hand, insists that the Mongol Gold History, in which this legend is found, is not reliable because Zhu Di was already nine years old when his father occupied the Yuan capital.2
Regardless of whether Zhu Di’s mother was Empress Ma or a lesser consort by the name of Gong, or someone else altogether, his father saw to it that the healthiest and best wet nurses were provided for Zhu Di and his half-sister—
the future Princess Linan—who was also born in 1360. When Zhu Di was one 20
the formative years
month old, his hair was cut for the first time, but his father would not give him a real name until he was seven years old. At the name-giving ceremony, a eunuch once again cut his hair, and his severed locks were put into a special, exquisitely made sack for storage. His father gave him a pair of hemp sandals and a travel bag—symbols of frugality, diligence, and humility.3 During the first few months of his young life, the Mongol empire was on the verge of disintegra-tion, but Zhu Di lived in Nanjing, where his father had accumulated ample provisions and had just built high walls around the beautiful city along the banks of the Yangzi River. Indeed, Zhu Di’s father’s a¤airs were going well, and he assumed the title of Duke of Wu in 1361. However, it was not until 1368, on the fourth day after the lunar New Year, that Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed the establishment of the Ming dynasty in Nanjing.4 Zhu Di took part in the solemn and tedious coronation activities, including kowtowing to his mother (the new empress) and his eldest brother (the newly designated heir apparent).
In the meantime, his father’s troops continued to rout the Mongols, who had by then lost the valor and vitality that were the hallmarks of Chinggis Khan’s warriors. In the summer of 1368 the Ming army, under the command of Xu Da (1332–85), Zhu Di’s future father-in-law, crossed the Yellow River and, before the autumn set in, captured the Yuan capital without a fight. On September 10, 1368, the last Mongol emperor—Toyon Temur (also known as Shundi, 1320–
70)—and his court fled on horses to Shangdu, and when that fell, they fled still deeper into Mongolia. Two years later Toyon Temur died of dysentery in Yingchang, northwest of Jehol. In the meantime Zhu Yuanzhang changed the name of Dadu (Great Capital) to Beiping (Northern Peace), which was renamed Beijing (Northern Capital) by his son Zhu Di in 1402.
Maturing in such a volatile environment, Zhu Di had learned quickly about the people surrounding him. He knew that his father had been born on October 21, 1328, into a poor peasant family in Zhongli, Haozhou Subprefecture (present-day Fengyang), along the Huai River. In this impoverished, sprawling, and turbulent region of Anhui, his father was forced to work as a shepherd and a migrant farmhand when he was still a child but could barely find enough food to survive each day. Consequently, his parents had to arrange adoptions for their second and third sons and marry o¤ their young daughters. When Zhu Yuanzhang turned seventeen, both of his parents and his eldest brother died of plague, and Yuanzhang placed himself in the care of Buddhist monks at Huangjue Monastery as a novice. He had been there only fifty-two days when, for lack of food, the abbot had to let all of his disciples go. Yuanzhang endured crushing poverty by begging for food in neighboring towns until 1348, when he returned to the same monastery.
21
the formative years
In his new life as a monk, he daily burned incense, beat drums and bells, carried water, and gathered fuel for the kitchen. But he also found the time to learn how to read and write. Blessed with a retentive memory and practicing diligence, Zhu Yuanzhang quickly accumulated a fair amount of knowledge and developed a fine writing style. In February 1352 the Red Turban rebels entered Fengyang, and the Mongol defenders burned Huangjue Monastery before abandoning the city. A few weeks later—in the leap month of March 1352—Zhu threw his lot in with the Red Turbans and began recruiting some seven hundred young men from Fengyang to join the anti-Mongol rebellion.
Twenty-four members of the so-called “Fengyang mafia” (a secret society), including Xu Da and Tang He (1326–95), would play very significant roles in the founding of the Ming dynasty. In fact, several of them also were to become Zhu Di’s tutors. From Zhu Yuanzhang’s comrades-in-arms, Zhu Di learned that his father was an extremely hard worker, quick at making plans and arriving at decisions, and one who would not allow his troops to kill innocent people and plunder the populace. Indeed, the young Zhu Di was very proud of the fact that his father—who had a robust body and an indomitable will—devoted himself to relieving the su¤erings of the people and had never lost a major battle. (Emperor Hongwu—as Zhu Yuanzhang was called—hired artists to draw several of the toughest battles so that his sons could learn from them.) Zhu Di was also told that his real mother was the future Empress Ma, a foster daughter of the rebel leader Guo Zixing (d. 1355), for whom his father had served as a bodyguard. She was a powerful girl in the stables and was fit to do the work of two men. Zhu Yuanzhang was drawn to her by her remarkable dexterity and emotional clarity. Although she had to put up with brutality from the husband she loved, he loved her and never left her. When Guo Zixing died, the command of his army passed to Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Di’s mother, who was physically strong and active, was required to perform the duties of the first lady of a revolutionary leader. To Zhu Di’s perplexity, the first lady of the palace often wore clothes of coarse silk, and her worn-out cotton apparel had been much restitched and mended. In fact, Zhu Di’s own clothes had been washed many times, and his mother not infrequently had to patch and stitch them with her own needle and thread. And whenever there was a famine, she would refuse to eat meat, although she always made sure that her sons’ food was palatable and well served. She frequently exhorted her sons to spurn the deadly draft of pleasure and stay away from vice, and to have sympathy for the poor.5 Such were the pedigrees from which Zhu Di drew his strength and resourcefulness. It was in this environment that he grew up to be a tall, strong, and athletic young boy. Clearly, his parents had successfully inoculated the ado-22
the formative years
lescent prince against extravagant expectations, as he indeed cultivated a lifestyle of frugality and self-discipline, strictly avoiding riotous living. In his own writings years later, he often talked rhapsodically about the successes of his parents in rearing their children.6
When his father ascended the throne as the Emperor Hongwu of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368, Zhu Di’s eldest brother, Zhu Biao, who was about thirteen years of age, was designated heir apparent. Zhu Biao seemed to have inherited the gentle and humane characteristics of Empress Ma and was generally nice to the young Zhu Di. His older brother Zhu Shuang was about three-and-a-half years older than Zhu Di, and Zhu Gang only two years his senior.
When Zhu Di was eight years old, his father captured a young sister of the best-known Mongol general, Koko Temur (Wang Baobao, d. 1375). To demonstrate his admiration for the courage and integrity of Koko Temur, Emperor Hongwu had his brother Zhu Shuang marry this well-bred Mongol princess on October 15, 1371.
During the deca
de of the 1370s, the imperial family continued to grow, and Zhu Di soon found new playmates. Among his favorites were his younger sister, Princess Ningguo (1364–1434), his young half-brother Zhu Fu (1364–1428), and particularly his younger brother Zhu Su. Zhu Su was only fifteen months younger than Zhu Di, and they became best friends among the palace young-sters. Whenever there was a fracas among the royal siblings, Zhu Su was always on his side. While Zhu Di enjoyed archery, horseback riding, and other physically demanding games, Zhu Su spent much of his time brooding and studying plants, flowers, and herbs. Zhu Su later became an expert on botany and pharmacology, identifying 414 food plants and publishing books on his collection of prescriptions.7
No sooner had his father ascended the dragon throne than he recruited some sixty eunuchs to sta¤ the imperial household and began a massive refurbish-ing of the palace, which was located at the center of Nanjing, as well as construction of the capital city. By the time Zhu Di was seventeen, in 1377, Nanjing had two walls—an inner one of brick and an outer one of clay and mud. The outer wall, which was approximately sixty kilometers in length, had eighteen gates. More than thirty kilometers in length and between fourteen and twenty-one meters in height, the inner wall was designed to be an impregnable barrier, with twenty-three arsenal depots hidden inside. Enclosed by the inner wall was the palace, which had a bridge called the Five Dragons (Wulongqiao), which crossed over the Qinhuai River. Four gates in the inner wall—Meridian, Eastern Flower (Donghuamen), Western Flower (Xihuamen), and Northern Military (Xuanwumen)—provided access to and from the capital city.
23
the formative years
table 2.1
Emperor Yongle’s Immediate Family
Zhu Yuanzhang
m.
Empress Ma
1328–98
1332–82
(Emperor Hongwu)
Zhu Biao
Zhu Shuang
Zhu Gang
Zhu Di
Zhu Su
1355–92
1356–95
1358–98
1360–1424
1361–1425
(Heir Apparent)
(Prince of Qin)
(Prince of Jin)
(Prince of Yan)
(Prince of Zhou)
(Emperor Yongle)
Zhu Yunwen
1377–1402?
Zhu Gaozhi
(Emperor Jianwen)
1378–1425
(Emperor Hongxi)
Zhu Zhanji
1399–1435
(Emperor Xuande)
Emperor Hongwu had bestowed honors on some twenty thousand wealthy families who gleefully moved their families to Nanjing, thus contributing to the prosperity and expansion of his newly established capital.8 Since the Eastern Jin dynasty set up its court in Nanjing around c.e. 317, this lower Yangzi valley city had been the capital of six dynasties and had existed for over a thousand years, frequently amid drama, crisis, and panic. It was a center of great wealth, and its silk and cotton industries achieved wide reputation. Soon Nanjing became a national center of scholarship, astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences and also a favored place of bohemian literati and eremitic poets and artists. Nanjing was where Zhu Di began his education, developed the foundations of his demagoguery, and cut his political teeth.
During his years of struggle, Zhu Yuanzhang had always sought out signal figures and well-learned people to advise him and to teach his children. He appointed prominent scholars to high places in government and endorsed the tenet of wisdom through classical study. One such person was Song Lian 24
the formative years
(1310–81), a Zhejiang native and erudite Confucian scholar. While Zhu Yuanzhang was still engaged in a life-and-death struggle against his enemies in 1362, Song Lian was already giving lectures to the future emperor and his sta¤ on the government stewardship. Among other topics, Song particularly liked to discuss the lessons from Confucius’s Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu). When Zhu Di’s eldest brother, Zhu Biao, was about twelve, this small, plump, pleasant man came to the inner court to teach the crown prince classics, literature, and history.9 Zhu Di was then only seven or eight years old and had probably just mastered the thousand basic Chinese characters and memorized a few passages from The Classic of Filial Piety. However, it was cus-tomary that on his father’s birthday—October 21—he and his siblings recite in front of the emperor congratulatory poems that they had written.
Later, when Zhu Di was a companion-reader of his older brothers, he had the opportunity to listen to Song Lian’s lectures on the Four Books. He was often asked to write comments on The Great Learning, the classic that was considered the quintessential distillation of governmental wisdom. In addition to Song Lian, a native of Jurong County, Jiangsu, by the name of Kong Keren was also an important teacher of Zhu Di during his formative years. Kong was a well-rounded literatus and a trusted member of Zhu Yuanzhang’s brain trust.
He regarded the classics as books of augury, in which rulers should read cause-e¤ect relations into sequences of political and natural phenomena. Kong’s favorite subject was Han dynasty (206 b.c.e.-220 c.e.)history, and he often appraised the merits and demerits of the dynasty’s two greatest emperors, namely, its founder Han Gaozi (Liu Bang, r. 206–195 b.c.e.) and Han Wudi (r. 141–87 b.c.e.).10 Years later, when Zhu Di himself became the emperor, he often cited as didactic examples the lives of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shihuang (r. 221–210 b.c.e.) and Han Wudi. Luckily, Zhu Di was able to avoid these two emperors’ evil practices of engaging in witchcraft and taking elixirs.11 These great historical figures taught him how to challenge himself, to use the levers of political power, and, above all, to harness the strength of his will. All of these curricula also ensured that Zhu Di had a first-class political education.
Kong also taught the subjects of philosophy and ethics, for Zhu Yuanzhang, who was something of a martinet, believed that the development of character should have high salience in education. However, what should be included in character education was thought of di¤erently by the emperor and empress.
It is said that once when the princes’ tutor Li Xiyan struck one of them over the head for inattention, the emperor pondered retaliation against the tutor.
Empress Ma, who generally practiced political purdah, was able to prevent him 25
the formative years
from interfering. She said, “As brocade, in the process of weaving, needs shear-ing, so do children, undergoing instruction, require punishment. Indulging children does no good.”12 Even so, the pugnacious and crafty Zhu Di was occa-sionally emboldened to act recklessly and in a manner that his father believed was not morally exemplary. When that happened, he was always punished according to the degree of o¤ense. Once, his father ordered him confined to a remote country cottage, without any food. During this predicament Empress Ma secretly sent her servants with food and drink to save Zhu Di’s life.13
Interestingly, later in his life Zhu Di always attributed his “sound” upbringing to the character education by both his father and his mother. There is no record to indicate whether he kept the hemp sandals and the travel bag they gave him at his name-giving ceremony, but it is clear that Zhu Di’s character education taught him to be self-disciplined and to endure hardship.
Even before Zhu Di reached the age of ten, Emperor Hongwu was planning how to secure and perpetuate his empire. Thus, on April 22, 1370, ten days before Zhu Di’s tenth birthday, the emperor created eight princedoms for eight of his sons (Hongwu’s second to tenth sons, except the ninth, who had died in infancy). On the day of the installment ceremony, Zhu Di, together with the other designated princes, arrived at Respect Heaven Hall at dawn and received from Senior Chancellor Li Shanchang (1314–90) a gold book and a gold seal, on which the inscription “Treasure of the Prince of Yan” was chiseled in large characters. The two-page book contained a seminal statement on the nature of his princedom:
Since ancient times, the masters wh
o won the world have always built strong support on the peripheries. . . . I hereby name my fourth son Zhu Di to be Prince of Yan, permanently enfeo¤ed in Beiping. But is it an easy task?
I came from the peasantry, battled with so many warlords, and endured all kinds of hardships. My goals have been to serve both the heavens and the earth, and to be worthy of their blessings. . . . You now have the possession of a princedom and must respectfully fulfill your duties and follow decorum. You must periodically sacrifice to your ancestors and pay tribute to sacred mountains and rivers. You should also diligently drill your troops and defend your domain, and have sympathy for your subjects. . . . Be sure to carry out my instructions and conduct yourself with prudence.14
Emperor Hongwu then appointed Song Lian as senior tutor in the crown prince’s newly established household and announced that Zhu Di, now the Prince of Yan, would also study with his own tutors. Zhu Di was expected to 26
the formative years
have a palace, a court of civil and military o‹cials, and also personal troops when and if he went to Beiping. Until that time, however, his first senior counselor, Hua Yunlong (rank 2a), and his first senior tutor, Gao Xian (rank 2b), became his earliest mentors in Nanjing. Gao Xian tutored the young prince for four to five years, lecturing on topics such as irrigation, farming, and Confucian classics as well as interpreting the dynastic histories. Gao helped polish the young prince’s writings in both prose and poetry and was required to discuss periodically a little pamphlet compiled by eminent Hanlin scholars and prefaced by Song Lian. Entitled Record of Outstanding Examples (Zhaojianlu), the booklet set a moral tone by listing numerous notable feudal lords and princes of previous dynasties, both good and bad. It warned the Ming princes to for-swear their “habitual extravagance” and taught them to be moral exemplars, so that the country would not be scandalized by their exploits.15 Historical examples taught Zhu Di how to distinguish loyal persons from treacherous ones and how to reward and punish his subordinates. As a consequence, from an early age he put a premium on loyalty.
Perpetual Happiness Page 4