Perpetual Happiness

by Shih-shan Henry Tsai

  They projected a Ming court riven by infighting as soon as the emperor was 54

  the years of waiting

  dead, after which these talented men would rally around the Prince of Yan to bid for the crown.

  These learned opportunists, including another divination expert named Jin Zhong (1353–1415), believed that, based on a twenty-year accretion of evidence running back to his youth, the Prince of Yan had exceptional characteristics and great advantages over any rival. The competent and energetic prince had proven to be fairly magnanimous, frugal in his private life, usually a¤ectionate with his family, and capable of winning the support of the masses. Once he started thinking that people really wanted him to be emperor, his ego was greatly enhanced, and as he continued to enjoy success, it became di‹cult to turn that ego o¤. The location of his princedom in Beiping put him naturally in the center of the northern defense, which extended more than six thousand li (three thousand kilometers), from Liaodong in the northeast to Gansu in the northwest. Such a favorable location had indeed provided him the best opportunity to augment his military power. In his broad geographic/military security system, Emperor Hongwu had placed six of his sons to defend the northern border. They were, listed by seniority, the Prince of Jin in Taiyuan, the Prince of Yan in Beiping, the Prince of Dai (Zhu Gui, 1374–1446) in Datong, the Prince of Liao (Zhu Zhi, 1377–1424) in Guangning, the Prince of Ning (Zhu Quan, 1378–1448) in Daning, and the Prince of Gu (Zhu Hui, 1379–1417) in Xuanfu.

  The two most senior princes were given more leeway in commanding various regional troops, but because the Prince of Jin was a weaker vessel in both intelligence and ability than the Prince of Yan, the latter ultimately played a much more important role in northern defense than any of the other princes.

  For example, in early 1395, the Prince of Yan commanded seven thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantrymen from the Liaodong region whose mission was to capture “wild men.” One year later he led troops into southern Jehol to help the Prince of Ning suppress frontier raiders. And in the early spring of 1396, as commanding o‹cer, the Prince of Yan defeated the Mongols east of the bend of the Yellow River, pursuing them to the territory known as Wuliangha, or Uriyangqad, and capturing several dozen Mongol commanders, including General Polin Temur.39 During the summer of 1396, following their routine patrol of the border, he and the Prince of Jin traveled several hundred li north of Kaiping (present-day Duolun). As soon as the emperor learned about this, he sent a messenger to stop them, scathingly warning his sons that if they penetrated too deeply into the north, they would invite disaster.40 The emperor realized that these two men, next to his heir apparent, 55

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  were the most important players in the Ming realm and that he could not a¤ord to lose them. Besides, they seemed to get along well enough and in fact provided balance, as one complemented the other. Unfortunately, the Prince of Jin died in April 1398, making the Prince of Yan not only the eldest living Ming prince but also the undisputed supreme commander of the northern army.41

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  4 / The Years of Successional Struggle, 1398–1402

  When the Prince ofJin died, Emperor Hongwu was already seventy and was at war not only with the enemies beyond the Great Wall but also with his own mortality. Within only a month, he fell ill.

  A few weeks later, on June 24, 1398, the Ming patriarch followed his third son to the grave. Six days later, after Hongwu was properly buried at Filial Piety Tomb next to Empress Ma, Zhu Yunwen, who was barely twenty-one and still not quite a mature adult, assumed the throne as Emperor Jianwen.1 Unfortunately, his court was, for the most part, dominated by scholarly advisors who did not always exert wise judgment. The new emperor relied heavily upon the advice of Qi Tai (d. 1402), the minister of war and a doctoral degree holder of 1385, and Huang Zicheng (1352–1402), the chancellor of the Hanlin Academy.

  Greatly concerned about a possible show of force or even an insurrection against him, the young Emperor Jianwen immediately announced the provisions of the will of his deceased grandfather and ordered his twenty-one surviving uncles not to attend the funeral service of Emperor Hongwu in Nanjing. According to Hongwu’s will, which was believed to have been drafted by Qi Tai, all of the o‹cials and civilians within the princedoms would henceforth be under the direct administration of the court. The signal was abundantly clear that the semiautonomous princes represented potential threats to the throne unless they could be brought under control.

  While thirty-eight of Hongwu’s forty concubines gave up their lives in accord with Mongol immolation customs and codes of honor instituted in the Yuan dynasty, and while courtiers of all ranks mourned the death of the dynasty’s founder for three days in Nanjing, the Prince of Yan defied the “spurious will”

  and led his princely guard units southward, intending to bid farewell to his father at the funeral service.2 The prince’s move was read in Nanjing as an unnerving display of his growing arrogance, and Emperor Jianwen immediately deployed a huge army north of the Yangzi River. The prince went only 57

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  as far as the canal port of Huaian before being forced to return home in humiliation and anger. He did, however, manage to send his three sons—Zhu Gaozhi, Zhu Gaoxu, and Zhu Gaosui (d. 1431)—to attend the funeral service on his behalf, without fearing that they might become Emperor Jianwen’s hostages.

  During the following winter, the indignant Prince of Yan attempted to visit his father’s Filial Piety Tomb in the southern foothills of Mount Zhong, but his request was once again denied.3 In his later writings there are moments when he appears to resent his father, when love and hate run close in his angered mind. The bitter memories that chained him were a powerful motivation for a man who seemed able to tap all his princely resources to turn adversity into good fortune. From then on, everything the Prince of Yan did was to prove that his father had made the wrong choice and that he was the only heir who could preserve his father’s empire. The Prince of Yan wadded the pain and anger into a tight ball and stu¤ed it into his soul. But he was the kind of man who would not be pushed around for too long.

  A new political spectrum had suddenly emerged. Clearly, the new emperor and his close advisors were taking steps to reduce the princedoms and to remove any threats, real or perceived, that might jeopardize the new regime. Because of his seniority within the imperial family and his proven ability as a commander in the north, the Prince of Yan had become the biggest threat to the new court. All of a sudden, Nanjing launched an o¤ensive on the prince’s sense of personal identity by unleashing a torrent of speculations about his birth mother. For many years, the maternity of the Prince of Yan had been the fodder of gossip, but it now became a serious political issue. If indeed his mother was not Empress Ma but instead a lesser consort, then, according to the dynasty’s established rule (which was patrilineal in its succession but also limited to sons of the empress), his accession to the throne would have constituted usurpation. Moreover, since the prince had so many half-brothers, had he not been born of Empress Ma, he would not have been able to claim seniority among his clan and to possess superior authority to manage intra-clan royal a¤airs.4 Indeed, the identity-politics continued even after the prince became emperor, as his loyal historiographers made sure that passages in the Ming Veritable Records (Ming Shilu) showed not only that his mother was the empress but that his father had placed a special trust in him. Such passages go on to say that a few days before his death, Emperor Hongwu said to the Prince of Yan, “You are the most talented of all my sons and the most capable of bearing responsibility. . . . Both Qin and Jin have died, and you are now senior. To fight abroad and keep peace at home—who is there but you?”5

  During the years of successional struggle, the Prince of Yan would let the 58

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  whole world know that he was indeed the most senior of all the imperial princes who had survived the dynastic founder and tha
t Jianwen was actually the second son of Zhu Biao, borne by a concubine with the surname Lü. Who then should have been the first in line to succeed Emperor Hongwu? The prince’s mouthpieces, the likes of the monk Dao Yan, further pilloried Jianwen as inde-cisive, weak, and persnickety—qualities that had caused the aging Hongwu to doubt his grandson’s toughness. According to the tropes recorded in o‹cial Ming history, such doubts had resurfaced when the fourteen-year-old Jianwen was mourning over the death of his father. Jianwen became so distraught that his health was almost ruined. Such self-styled mortification ultimately alarmed his grandfather, who said to the young heir apparent, “Your filial piety is genuine and sincere, but do you not also care about me?”6 Nevertheless, after designating Jianwen heir apparent on September 28, 1392, Hongwu had carefully nurtured his grandson and meticulously prepared him for the emperorship.

  Naturally, the Prince of Yan resented Jianwen’s ascension, but he was convinced that the regime under his nephew would amount to nothing but a watery Caesarism. Biding his time, he diligently grew his whiskers.

  In anointing his grandson to take over the helm, Emperor Hongwu selected the most trustworthy tutors to teach him literature, leadership arts, and Confucian morals. They took turns lecturing him on political and military institutions as well as on legal, economic, and social systems. From time to time Emperor Hongwu asked the crown prince to make decisions on his behalf, such as judgments on criminal cases. In almost every such case, the punishment pronounced by the young prince was lighter than that required by law. Whether the emperor appreciated his grandson’s lenient yardstick on criminal punishment or was worried that he might be too soft and easygoing, no one could tell. But one thing was certain: the balance between center and periphery was soon to be tipped.7

  One of the luminary Confucian scholars who exerted an enormous influence on the young Emperor Jianwen was Fang Xiaoru (1357–1402), a native of Ninghai, Zhejiang, and a disciple of the eminent scholar Song Lian. Known for his literary talents and ethical awareness, Fang, then forty-one, quickly became Jianwen’s mentor and urged him to establish a model Confucian state.

  Fang harbored profound respect for antiquity and quickly introduced the young ruler to the political wisdom of The Rites of the Zhou (Zhouli), also known as The O‹cials of the Zhou (Zhouguan). This work, which has long been regarded by many scholars as suspect and of late composition, provides a detailed, systematic blueprint of Zhou dynasty (1122–256 b.c.e.) administration and divides all the o‹cial posts among o‹cials of heaven, earth, and the four seasons.

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  Jianwen, apparently persuaded by its cosmogonic theories and its notion of the sage-king, reinstituted archaic place names and o‹cial titles and turned back the clock on the legal code. But as the young emperor was preoccupied with titillating details of ancient rituals and institutions, his hasty reforms turned out to be both confusing and ine¤ective.8 Consequently, they alarmed many magnates who still bore the resentment of not having been allowed to attend Hongwu’s funeral and who viewed these changes as seriously undermining the foundations of the Ming empire. They quickly found a loophole in “The Ancestor’s Instructions” that gave them both the right and the responsibility to intervene with force in the a¤airs of the court in the event that an imma-ture or disabled emperor was under the evil spell of treacherous advisors.9

  Worse still, Jianwen took advice from Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, both of whom were given powers to formulate political and military policies. Qi was reported to be able to declaim from Confucian classics from memory. Once, in front of Emperor Hongwu, he gave the correct names of each commander of the frontier defense and showed detailed knowledge of military stratagems, maps, charts, and routes. While Qi was considered knowledgeable about some defense issues, he had no experience with management—a crucial skill in a bureaucracy the size of the Ministry of War. Huang Zicheng, on the other hand, had never been one to shrink from a decision. He was ambitious, he monopolized conversations, he was often arrogant, and he bellowed. However, this egotist was also naive. He was so preoccupied with the ancient history of the rebellion of the seven princes against Han emperor Jingdi (r. 157–141 b.c.e.) that time and again he urged the young Jianwen to act before it was too late. Of the seven Han princes, the Prince of Wu, whose fief lay in what is now Jiangsu, was the strongest. But instead of striking directly against the Prince of Wu and removing him with one blow, the Han emperor decided to move against lesser princedoms, such as Chu and Zhao, finally provoking the Prince of Wu into rebellion.

  By 154 b.c.e. the Han Emperor had defeated all seven princes, once again asserting the authority of central power over the periphery.10

  Such history lessons sounded ideal, but the eccentric Huang Zicheng had not digested them well enough, for when he advised his young master to copy the Han strategy, he neglected the fact that the time, the persons involved, and the circumstances were entirely di¤erent. Besides, the court had only speculation and conjecture to go on, no hard evidence of the Prince of Yan’s treasonous intentions. Other ministers had expressed di¤erent opinions and o¤ered all kinds of solutions to the emperor’s problem, such as reassigning the prince to Nanchang, Jiangxi, a strategically less important area in the south.11

  Nonetheless, Emperor Jianwen agreed to follow Huang’s formula and send a 60

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  pointed message to all of his uncles—that is, instead of directly confronting the powerful Prince of Yan, who had thus far committed no o¤ense, he decided to first abolish such lesser princedoms as Zhou, Xiang, Qi, and Dai, hoping to substantially reduce the prince’s support and provoke him into rebellion. By late in the summer of 1398, the young monarch had begun the process of “reducing the feudatories” ( xiaofan). The first target was the Prince of Zhou (Zhu Su), since he and the Prince of Yan had been brought up together intimately and since the princedom of Zhou at Kaifeng functioned as a bu¤er zone between Nanjing and Beijing. Early in the autumn of 1398, Emperor Jianwen dispatched General Li Jinglong to take over Kaifeng and convicted the Prince of Zhou on trumped-up charges. He then stripped the prince of his title and sent him into exile in Yunnan.12

  Before the Prince of Zhou could settle at Monghua, Yunnan, Huang Zicheng designed another clever scheme to divide Jianwen’s uncles. The Prince of Zhou was brought back to Nanjing to testify against his brothers—in particular, the Princes of Dai (Zhu Gui), Xiang (Zhu Bo, 1371–99), and Min (Zhu Bian, 1379–1450), who had allegedly committed various forms of malfeasance. The Prince of Zhou’s coerced testimony amplified the charges of the princely conspiracy and resulted in the house arrest of the Prince of Dai in Datong in February 1399. It also caused the Prince of Xiang to set fire to his own palace in Jingzhou, Huguang Province, burning himself and his family to death on June 1, 1399. During the next two months, the court also abrogated the titles of the Princes of Qi (Zhu Fu) and Min, who were no more secure than the Prince of Zhou after running afoul of imperial power.13 By this time, Nanjing was a place where falsehood was often more believable than truth, and a pall hung over the gateway of every princedom, five of the senior and more strategically located of which had been brought under imperial control. In the wake of these bold measures, the court in Nanjing simultaneously took cautious steps to deal with the Prince of Yan, Jianwen’s most feared uncle. It first named Zhang Bing governor of Beiping and appointed Xie Gui and Zhang Xin the military commissioners of the region. In April 1399 it sent the censor Bao Zhao to Beiping to begin gathering evidence against the Prince of Yan.14

  It is to be noted that at this point the Prince of Yan remained unscathed, since the court had not yet o‹cially accused him of any illegal or seditious acts. In fact, the channels of communication between Emperor Jianwen and the Prince of Yan remained open as the prince petitioned the emperor to pardon the Prince of Zhou and begged him to repair their tattered relations.

  Jianwen, who preferred a more sober approach to
reducing the power of his uncles, is said to have been moved by the visceral petition. But while Minister 61

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  of War Qi Tai appreciated the emperor’s feelings and strong sense of familial piety, Huang Zicheng insisted that familial relations had gone past the point of no return and that the fray had to continue until the Princedom of Yan was eliminated. The inept Jianwen clearly vacillated between confronting the strong-willed Prince of Yan and soft-pedaling to resolve disputes with his most senior uncle. Over the course of the next four arduous months, he ordered Commissioner-in-Chief Song Zhong to take over the command of the three escort guard units (about fifteen thousand men) of the Yan princedom and moved Yan’s troops to the Kaiping agro-military station. Military personnel on the sta¤ of the Prince of Yan, including Guan Dong, an escort-guard-unit commander of the Yuan army, were recalled. The Left Guard and Right Guard at Yongqing, both of which had close ties to the Prince of Yan, were redeployed far away from the Yan influence, at Zhangde and Xunde respectively. Further-more, the loyalist general Xu Kai was assigned to guard the canal port of Linqing, and another trusted commander, Geng Huan, was stationed at the important Great Wall pass of Shanhai. By mid-summer of 1399 the princedom of Yan was totally surrounded by loyalist forces and, according to a widely publicized report, the Prince of Yan had gone mad.15 But the Nanjing authority was still uneasy because the shadow of the prince—although seemingly waning—continued to hang over the empire.

  There is no question that this was a gut-wrenching ordeal for the Prince of Yan at this sad, low point in his life. When he stared into the mirror he watched his face grow fainter and fainter as if the glass were consuming it. His madness, however, was feigned, and his publicized acts of dissipation were staged; he was actually buying time (and waiting for his whiskers to touch his navel) before he made his move. While trying to toughen his resolve, he remembered that his mother had taught him to not act hastily, and resisted knee-jerk reactions to the court’s provocations. In the meantime, he petitioned the court to send his three sons home from Nanjing, where they had represented him in the traditional mourning ceremony for the dynasty’s founder. There was a heated debate between Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng about the release of the prince’s sons. Qi, who had previously visited Beiping and knew that the Prince of Yan was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, advised Jianwen to keep the prince’s three sons as hostages. Unexpectedly, it was the eccentric Huang Zicheng who advised Jianwen to release them so as to allay the prince’s suspicions. After consulting with Xu Zengshou, General Xu Da’s younger son and the uncle of the three Yan princes, the emperor decided to abide by “The Ancestor’s Instructions”—