Can Yongle’s reactions to natural calamities be interpreted as repentance for not living up to his potential or for not fulfilling his rightful obligations?
Or were these reactions spiritual mechanisms that allowed him to look inward and confront his weaknesses and vulnerability? His own writings suggest that after he took the helm in 1402, there was a maturation of Yongle’s personality.
He became more thoughtful and introspective. Sensing that he was both divine and secular, he now believed that timely repentance and even occasional mortification were necessary for turning away from transgression and toward renewal.21 By the Ming period, the cult of ancestor worship and Confucianism had already interacted and intermingled with both religious Daoism and Buddhism. It is safe to say that Yongle’s religion, like that of the vast majority of the Chinese, was ecumenical, acknowledging the necessity of various teachings to suit various needs. He therefore also patronized Buddhism, sponsoring, for example, the publication of several Buddhist texts.
83
the years of reconstruction
Only a few months after ascending the throne, Yongle learned that a certain Tibetan lama possessed profound knowledge and a plentitude of wisdom and was eager to meet him. In the spring of 1403 Yongle appointed the court eunuch Hou Xian (fl. 1403–27) and the prominent Buddhist monk Zhi Guang (d. 1435) to journey to Tibet. After traveling tens of thousands of li and searching out abbots in various monasteries, Hou Xian’s mission was finally able to bring a Tibetan high lama, Halima, to Nanjing. Yongle was obviously pleased with Halima’s holiness and erudition, as he received the high monk at Respect Heaven Hall, then gave a state banquet in his honor at Flower-Covered Hall.
On April 10, 1407, the twenty-three-year-old Halima presided at religious services, held in Nanjing’s biggest monastery, Soul Valley Monastery (Linggusi), for the benefit of Yongle’s deceased parents. Several members of the imperial family, including Empress Xu, received blessings and spiritual guidance from Halima, who spent almost a year in Nanjing. Halima taught Yongle’s family and courtiers prayers to enhance optimistic moods and chants asking for blessings from the Buddha. It was reported that Halima dissuaded Yongle from sending troops to occupy Tibet. The Tibetan lama also provided Yongle with a full set of portents and omens indicating that the heavens had destined him for the throne, and reassured him that his family’s imperial succession would go on for many generations without interruption.22
Even though Yongle conferred an extremely prestigious title on Halima and showered his Tibetan guest with all kinds of gifts, he never allowed himself to overindulge in lavish Buddhist festivities. Once he even criticized Emperor Wu of the Later Liang dynasty (r. 502–49) and the last Mongol emperor, Toyon Temur, for indulging in excessive Buddhist ceremonies and creating a quag-mire of ethics and laws.23 In early 1403, when over 1,800 young men from Nanjing and Zhejiang shaved their heads and requested to register as monks, Yongle banished them to Liaodong for punishment. He then sternly warned,
“My father decreed that only men above forty would be permitted to register as monks. Those who violate this law do not care about the existence of the imperial court.” Early in the fall of 1407 the magistrate of Jiading, Suzhou, reported that his subprefecture had lost more than half of its original 1,200
monks and requested His Majesty’s permission to register six hundred additional novices to man Jiading’s Buddhist temples. The request was denied.24
Yongle’s policy on religion was inconsistent. While trying to curtail the growing number of Chinese monks, he took measures to convert non-Chinese aboriginals to Buddhism. It seems that he treated religion as a derivative of underlying social and political processes and used Buddhism not only to over-come the backwardness of China’s frontier and border regions but also to tighten 84
the years of reconstruction
his grip on ethnic minorities within China proper. For instance, in 1406, seven years before making Guizhou a full-fledged province, Yongle established a religious o‹ce there called the Buddhist Registry (Senggangsi) to induce the Miao (Hmong) and Buyi peoples to embrace Buddhism. Yongle realized that not only could Buddhism provide spiritual solace, but it could calm restless local warriors and thereby remove the threat that had bedeviled Ming authorities in the remote region. During the era of political reconstruction, Yongle did not overlook the problems and the opportunities of the distant southwest, where an amalgam of non-Han peoples lived.
The land of southwest China was—and still is—majestic, featuring forests, lakes, and shallow streams curled up against the edge of karst hills. It also held wealth: silver, timber, and plants for producing oil, especially valuable tung oil, which was used for making soap, linoleum, paints, and varnishes. The most numerous of the region’s minorities were the Zhuang people, who had had a close a‹liation with the Han for centuries. They shared with the Dai (ethnic kin to the people of Thailand) common linguistic roots and a love of festive singing and dancing. Then there were the Bai, who were rice farmers and the original inhabitants of the Yunnan plains. Scattered in small stockaded villages in rugged mountains were the Yao, who raised rice, corn, and vegetables by slash-and-burn farming. The Yi people, on the other hand, were fierce warriors who practiced slavery (even their slaves owned slaves) and embraced a religion based on sacred scriptures. Finally, there were the Miao and Buyi peoples, who were scattered around the enchanting karst hills, streams, and greenery of the Guizhou plateau. During the Ming period, these aboriginal groups had not been assimilated into Han Chinese society and were thus considered “barbarians.” They were generally suspicious of the Han and were often hostile to the Ming regime.
The Ming used force, appeasement, and guile in dealing with these groups.
Emperors invested aboriginal titles ( tuguan) on the local chiefs with nominal military or civil ranks and granted them “self-governments,” much as
“autonomous status” is given to ethnic minorities in China today. In practice, Chinese “advisors” were also appointed to assist these ethnic groups in both civil and military a¤airs. The highest aboriginal titles were soothing minister ( xuanweishi, rank 3b) and pacification minister ( xuanfushi, 4b), and the lesser titles included conciliation minister ( anfushi, 5b), punitive minister ( zhaotaoshi, 5b), and elder o‹cial ( zhangguan, 6a). In 1375 Emperor Hongwu had cobbled together a plan to shore up his administrative apparatus in the region. He invested eleven soothing ministers, ten pacification ministers, nineteen conciliation ministers, one punitive minister, and 173 elder o‹cials in the south-85
the years of reconstruction
west region. Though the local chiefs performed their administrative tasks as Ming functionaries, they did not receive government stipends. In this sense, they had not really joined Ming o‹cialdom—they “had not yet entered the current” ( weiruliu).25
In order to bring stability to the region, Emperor Hongwu installed in Yunnan a provincial administration o‹ce and a regional military commission in 1382, and a provincial surveillance o‹ce in 1397, thus completing the triad of autonomous agencies of a provincial government. Under this structure, the three o‹ces ( sansi) shared administrative powers, and no one man had the authority of a typical provincial governor. But as time went on, the Ming government gradually replaced the aboriginal chiefs with bona fide Chinese executive o‹cials who “had already entered the current.”26 Chinese writers often have reported the lives of aboriginals as idyllic and rarely have mentioned the ethnic and economic divisions that the political system fomented in border regions. The relationship between the ruling Han Chinese and ruled natives was actually fraught with conflict, and there were abuses and oppression on the part of Chinese o‹cials. When mismanagement became flagrant and social conditions unbearable, minority groups often staged anti-Chinese revolts, to which the Ming authorities generally reacted by launching punitive campaigns.
However, in hilly and rocky Guizhou—adjacent to Yunnan and Huguang and between Sichuan and Guangxi—the situati
on was more di‹cult. The area was populated largely by the Miao and Buyi peoples, who planted wheat, rice, tea, and tung trees in terraced fields that extended to the hilltops.
Decades before the founding of the Ming, the Guizhou area was wracked by a cycle of petty interethnic wars. After the ascendancy of the Ming, Emperor Hongwu used the Wu River as a demarcation and designated the Song people to manage the a¤airs of indigenous peoples east of the river, and the An people to administer the territory west of the river. In 1382 Madame Liu Shuzhen succeeded her husband as the head of the Song people and accompanied her son to Nanjing to pay homage to Emperor Hongwu. Wearing several wraparound aprons of various colors and patterns, and donning a cap over her elaborate hairdo, Madame Liu was also received by Yongle’s mother, Empress Ma. Soon after Liu’s visit to Nanjing, the Ming government established for the first time a regional military commission in Guiyang, with Ma Ye as its commissioner.
At this juncture another aboriginal woman, Madame She Xiang, succeeded her deceased husband as the head of the An people and was allowed to oversee all of the interethnic a¤airs in western Guizhou. Unfortunately, Commissioner Ma Ye, who saw the world through a prism of race and gender, demonstrated 86
the years of reconstruction
his prejudice by unleashing a torrent of abuse on the Miao people and provoked She Xiang to a bruising battle.
Ma Ye probably thought no woman could ever equal a male in such a situation, but She Xiang fought him to a stando¤. The usually politically sensitive Hongwu then summoned She Xiang for an interview in 1385. Dressed in a long, dark gown and a pointed hat, She Xiang pleaded her case to His Majesty, who was impressed by her eloquence and resolve, and later gave her silk fabrics, jade and gold jewelry, and clothing. Emperor Hongwu also worked out an agreement to recall and punish Commissioner Ma Ye in exchange for She Xiang’s promise to annually remit eighty thousand piculs of grain and a substantial number of tribute horses to the Ming court. She Xiang, o‹cially a Ming soothing minister, would visit Nanjing again in 1388 and, until her death in 1397, contributed to the development of western Guizhou. Among the nine agricultural stations she developed was the Longchang Station, where the prominent Ming philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1528) later lived as an exile.27
The first time Yongle paid close attention to Guizhou was during the summer of 1406, when the Song people east of the Wu River refused to remit tribute grain to the Ming authorities. Yongle dispatched troops to pacify the disgruntled Song but still could not find the best means by which to mend relations. In 1410 two Song chieftains, Tian Chen and Tian Zongding, began to fight over the ownership of a mine. When Yongle learned that the two mortal enemies had escalated their battle without regard for what it was doing to their people, he was determined to get a firm grip on the political and military fronts in this underutilized region. He ordered Marquis Gu Cheng to lead a punitive army of fifty thousand to quell the disturbance in Guizhou.
A native of Xiangtan (in what is now Hunan), Gu Cheng had been a brawny boatman when he first joined Hongwu’s rebellion against the Mongols. In his early career, he worked as a groom, carrying raincoats and umbrellas for Hongwu’s outings. He later served under Emperor Jianwen, but at the battle of Zhending during the civil war, Gu was captured by the Prince of Yan. After his surrender, Gu performed numerous good deeds and earned the title of marquis. At the time he was ordered to go to Guizhou, he was already seventy-two years old.
Marquis Gu had no di‹culty apprehending Tian Chen, who was then chained and delivered to Yongle for punishment. Yongle also stripped Tian Zongding of his Song title and then decided to abandon all aboriginal chiefs and replace them with Ming o‹cials.28 To make Guizhou a full-fledged province, Yongle installed a provincial administration o‹ce in Guiyang in 1413, 87
the years of reconstruction
with Jiang Tingzan as its senior administrator and Meng Ji its junior administrator. This newest province was further subdivided into ten prefectures ( fu), nine subprefectures ( zhou), and smaller areas administered by seventy-six elder o‹cials. He assigned one pacification minister, then deployed eighteen guard units to bolster his Guizhou regional military commission. Even though he would continue to allow the aboriginals to serve as o‹ce lictors, runners, bear-ers, and flunkies, from then on only those who “had entered the current” would be eligible for provincial posts above the prefectural level. The total population of the new province was estimated at around only 230,000, which was infinitesimal in a nation of nearly sixty-five million. But by incorporating Guizhou into the Ming hierarchy, Yongle not only brought the entire southwestern region under the control of the central government, but also ended the region’s ambient local anarchy.29
Since centralism, hierarchy, and leadership were integral to Yongle’s thinking, he needed e¤ective means to help him run the empire. These included the moral (especially Confucian) teachings of the Chinese past as well as the terror and violence bequeathed by his father. Therefore, he constantly and earnestly looked for men of high caliber and trustworthy disposition so that he could change the political dynamic and run the di‹cult imperial system more smoothly than had his deposed nephew. But because most of his confidants were military people from the north and because so many bureaucrats had lost their lives due to the carnage of the civil war and its ensuing purge, Yongle was in desperate need of filling his court with new talent. In grappling with this problem, he asked Minister of Rites Li Zhigang to prepare examinations for new recruits. Li reported that during Hongwu’s reign, the number of new recruits had varied from ministry to ministry, with some taking in only thirty but others hiring as many as 470. Yongle then told Li to find him as many talented men possessing broad views, common sense, and honesty as he could; he should reject supercilious men and those who wrote in a conceited style.30
By early in the spring of 1404, the minister of rites had managed to recruit 473 new examination graduates. Among them, the top twenty-eight were given the title of “Hanlin bachelor” ( shujishi). They were to stay at the Hanlin Academy, continuing their scholarly pursuits while providing literary services to the throne, including editing the Veritable Records of the previous emperors. It is to be noted that as soon as Yongle gained control of the imperial household, he ordered the revision of his father’s own Veritable Record and extended Hongwu’s reign through 1402, thus changing the fifth year of the Jianwen reign to the thirty-fifth year of Hongwu and making Jianwen an illegitimate usurper.
Almost every scholar of Ming history believes that the records on Jianwen’s 88
the years of reconstruction
reign are so muddled with falsehoods that it is impossible to reconstruct a true picture of Jianwen’s stewardship. Undoubtedly, the words and deeds of Emperor Jianwen had to be carefully edited by some of the newly accredited Hanlin scholars in Yongle’s service. Traditionally, “Diaries of Activity and Repose” (Qijuzhu)—which record in minute detail all the public doings and sayings of each emperor, together with all business, governmental or otherwise, in which he participated—were primary sources for the Veritable Records.
Such diaries bore the scrawls and aura of the reigning emperor. As soon as the emperor died, his successor would appoint a committee to comb through the diaries and condense them into the Veritable Record. But nearly every word written in the Veritable Record was drafted and redrafted, bucked back and forth, and vetted and polished, so that the final product does not bear the intellectual fingerprints of everyone who touched it. Historians receive only the final document—tidy, spell-checked, evenly margined, sterile, and bearing the unmistakable blandness of a deed done by committee. Unlike modern memoranda, the Veritable Records provide no marginalia that reflect the internal struggle that precedes policy and decision.31 Thus information about the Jianwen reign is meager and unreliable.
Three months after Yongle had recruited his first class of graduates, the Ministry of Rites selected an additional sixty so-called “tribute scholars” from various provinces a
nd enrolled them, by early in the summer of 1404, at the National University for further training. This group of scholars was soon assigned to various departments in the central government and in local o‹ces.
In order to ascertain the e‹ciency and competence of the new recruits, Yongle demanded that their performance be reviewed every six months by both surveillance commissioners and investigating censors.32 In addition to the new recruits, he retained many of Jianwen’s veteran o‹cials, particularly those who had started their careers during the reign of Emperor Hongwu. Yongle declared that because these people were hired by his father, he harbored neither prejudice nor hostility toward them. In order to make good his words, he promoted Tang Zhong (d. 1427) from the position of assistant magistrate of Luzhou Subprefecture, Guangxi, to that of junior minister of the Court of Judicial Review. It was a slick political move because Tang had once impeached Chen Ying—Yongle’s principal hatchet man during the bloody purge—for taking bribes from the then Prince of Yan.33 Soon afterward Yongle made known the criteria by which he selected his ministers:
When the ruler promotes or demotes a person, he must be able to convince the public. If, by promoting one person, the whole world knows that 89
the years of reconstruction
the person has done something good, then every bureaucrat will do good.
And if, by dismissing one person, the whole world knows that the person has done something evil, then no one would dare to do an evil thing. If a person has not done good deeds but receives promotion, that is called favoritism and selfishness. If the person has not committed evil deeds but is dismissed, that is called personal vendetta and revenge. If the ruler makes appointments with selfish principles, how can he persuade the whole world?34
Perpetual Happiness Page 13