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In 1404, for instance, he accredited 473 civil service doctors ( jinshi), twenty-eight of whom he selected a year later to do research at the Hanlin Academy, a practice that henceforth became institutionalized. During the twenty-two years of his reign, Yongle conducted eight doctoral examinations, as against only six in the thirty-one years of his father’s reign.7 Moreover, Yongle enrolled many others in the National University with government stipends and promoted education at every level, from county to subprefecture to prefecture. Yongle used local schools to prepare promising scholars for his o‹cialdom, as the prescribed curricula emphasized the Confucian classics, Ming laws, and imperial commandments on crimes and punishments. He also subsidized private academies and recruited learned and virtuous men from such academies for government appointments.8 During his reign there were thirty-four private academies, nine of which—two in Jiangxi, one in Huguang, four in Guangdong, and two in Guangxi—were founded after he took over the helm of the empire.9 Direct recruitment of personnel through local schools and recommendations from various academies provided Yongle with fresh and diverse talents, some of whom rose to prominent positions in his court.
In order to show his awe and respect for Chinese tradition, Yongle decided to revive the veneration of Confucius as a means of promoting Confucian ideology. On the first day of the third lunar month in 1403, Yongle put on his dragon robe and performed a ceremony at the Temple of Confucius in Nanjing. Facing a portrait of Confucius, the emperor bowed four times to the sage while the court musicians played many pieces of ritual music. According to the description in The Illustrated Book of Ritual Utensils and Instruments Used in Confucian Temples (Yili yueqikao he Kongmiao yueqi), the musical instruments used at the Confucian sacrificial ceremony included the hand drum, lizard-skin drum, pillar drum, small drum, flute carved with dragon and phoenix heads, and a host of other ancient instruments. During the ceremony, altar boys who held pheasant-tail feathers sang and danced to the music.10 Following this act, Yongle and his entourage traveled westward in chariots to the nearby National University, where he gave copies of the Five Classics— The Book of History 131
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(Shujing), The Book of Odes (Shijing), Book of Changes, The Book of Rites (Liji), and The Spring and Autumn Annals—to Hu Yan, then president of the National University. To discuss some knotty issues concerning China’s key repositories of ethical wisdom, a seminar on the Five Classics was arranged. During the session, all of Yongle’s o‹cials above rank 3b were seated to listen to Hu Yan and prominent classical scholars (usually, Ming o‹cials were not permitted to sit in the presence of the emperor). While the whole Hanlin gallery watched with a muted exuberance, Yongle repeatedly raised questions about topics such as the moral responsibilities of the ruler and the way in which the ruler should discharge those responsibilities. The emperor also encouraged his literatio‹cials to o¤er their ideas on and interpretation of the ancient concepts and terms in the Five Classics.11
Yongle’s visit to the Temple of Confucius, symbolic as it was, and the way he displayed his knowledge and understanding of this body of ancient literature excited a great number of literati-bureaucrats. But his performances at the Temple of Confucius and the National University also demonstrated his keen political acumen. In his mind, art and literature were useful for serving a ruler’s political aims. It was therefore quite shrewd that he sought such means to present a less harsh image of himself as a person and to revise public opinion about him as a ruler. Yongle once said, “When traveling long distances, one needs a good steed; when reaping a good harvest, one brings in industri-ous farmers; and when ruling an orderly world, one relies upon Confucian scholars.”12 In China’s imperial bureaucracy, Confucian scholars functioned like the rivets in a ship, and Yongle, the new but astute helmsman, wanted to make sure that nothing would loosen the rivets in his fragile ship of state.
That Yongle’s performances at the Temple of Confucius and the National University should not be taken as feats of legerdemain is evident in his commissioning, four months later, of his grand secretary Xie Jin to compile and edit a tome that would include every subject and every esoteric monograph in the Chinese empire and that would preserve rare and fragile books that were at the risk of disappearing. At the time Yongle conceived the bold idea of commissioning this large literary project, he said,
The world’s a¤airs and things of both the past and present are recorded separately in various books, but they are so many and so scattered all over the country that it is di‹cult to locate and read them at one’s fingertips. I want to gather all of the books together, copy them and categorize them according to both topical and phonetic order, and make research and study as easy as picking up things from a purse. . . . You Hanlin scholars will put 132
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my idea to work and begin gathering classics, histories, philosophical studies, and miscellaneous literary works [the so-called Four Treasuries], and all other books written by the masters. As to the books on astronomy, geography, yin-yang theory, medicine, divination, religion, technology, and art, you should not be deterred by their vast number or the tedium of the task but should also classify them and edit them accordingly.13
Immediately after receiving this commission, Xie Jin recruited 147 scholars to help him with the massive compilation job, which took them sixteen months to complete. Yongle gave a celebratory banquet at the Ministry of Rites for this work, The Great Collection of Literary and Historical Works, upon its publication in late 1404. But only two months later, Yongle declared the compilation insu‹cient and ordered a revision. This time he asked his long-time advisor the monk Dao Yan and Liu Jichi (1363–1423), deputy minister of punishment, to join Xie Jin as codirectors of the project. The venerable Dao Yan, then seventy years old, still worked a schedule that would tire people half his age. When he said something, he said it with weight and authority. He was considered something of a dour man and was chosen to complement the more mercurial Liu Jichi, who had a reputation for being easygoing and was popular among his peers. In addition, Yongle appointed Hanlin scholars Wang Jing and Wang Da, National University president Hu Yan, and the scholar Chen Ji (1364–1424) as the editors-in-chief. Chen Ji had never held any government position before but was well known for his erudition and was the de facto editor. The real editing and copying work took place at Literary Erudition Pavilion, where 2,180 scholars from all backgrounds, students from the National University, and scribes from various government agencies took part in the huge enterprise.14 By early 1408, after three years’ travail, the work was completed in 22,877 long chapters ( juan), which filled 11,095 manuscript volumes. Yongle was so pleased with the great achievement of this compilation that he granted it the name of his own reign, giving it the title The Grand Encyclopedia of Yongle.15
To confirm that he was the driving force behind this historical enterprise, Yongle wrote a lengthy preface for the collection:
To govern the world, ancient sages developed a materialistic environment; recruited talented people; established ritual, music, and moral education; and promoted principles and humanities. Fu Xi created the eight diagrams so that humans could communicate with spirits and gods and understand the feelings of the myriad sentient beings, whereas the invention of writing led to civilized rule. Shen Nong developed agricultural tools to teach the 133
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world. The Yellow Emperor and other sage rulers understood the changing nature of space and time, and manufactured su‹cient clothing to civilize humankind. . . . Confucius, born near the end of the Zhou dynasty, held no position but possessed virtue. He interpreted The Book of Changes, wrote The Spring and Autumn Annals, transmitted ancient culture and institutions, and molded the Chinese mind and character with words and ideas. . . . But after the Qin emperor burned the books that were critical of his regime, the Dao [Way] taught by the sages was extinguished. Since the rise of the Han dynasty, the teaching of the six arts has been graduall
y revived, and since the Tang and Song, more books have become available. . . . At the time my father received the mandate of heaven, the world was in obfuscation, so he followed the tradition of the sage-kings, learning the importance of publications and of reestablishing the ritual and musical systems. Ever since I succeeded to my father’s throne, I have thought about writing and publication as a means of unifying confusing systems and standardizing government regulations and social customs. But it is indeed very di‹cult to write introductions to the biographies of hundreds of rulers, to summarize classics from every dynasty, to record continuing events of so many centuries, and to sim-plify and edit so many complex topics. . . . Undertaking such a task is like sifting gold from sand or searching for pearls from the sea. Nevertheless, I ordered my literati-o‹cials to compile The Four Treasuries, to purchase lost books from the four corners of the country, to search and to collect whatever [works] they could find, to assemble and classify them according to both topical and phonetic order, and to make them into enduring classics. The fruit of their labor is this encyclopedia, which includes the breadth of the universe and all the texts from antiquity to the present time, whether they are big or small, polished or crude. Words written by obscure authors are also attached so as not to exclude any published materials. The reader can now follow the phonetic order to search for words, then follow the words to search for events, and as soon as he opens the volumes, there is nothing that can hide from him. . . . Before there were sages, there was the Dao existing between the heavens and the earth. Before there were the Six Classics, the Dao lived inside the sages; and when the six classics were written, the Dao of the sages became known to the world. Dao exists everywhere in the universe and penetrates from the ancient times to the present. When the Dao is unified, it becomes a principle [ li], but when it is scattered in the myriad a¤airs of the world, it remains chaotic. What we’ve done here is to assemble all of the principles and make them systematic and orderly so that we can see the greatness of the real Dao. I’ve been assiduously studying the Dao 134
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taught by the sages and often discuss its aims with learned people. Though there are a myriad subject matters worthy of our browsing, I can only sketch an outline to preface the encyclopedia. With boundless enthusiasm, I hope it can help slightly to benefit this collection.16
With the completion of the encyclopedia, Yongle had fulfilled his lifelong dream of preserving the greatness of Chinese culture. But instead of immediately sending the entire manuscript to the printing shop, he decided to just have a duplicate copy transcribed. When the duplicate was completed early in the winter of 1409, Yongle—either because he could not scrimp in other areas to pay for printing or because he had second thoughts about the whole endeavor—
had both copies placed in palace storage. In 1421, when he moved his capital to Beijing, both copies of The Grand Encyclopedia of Yongle were transferred to a
“literary pavilion” in the Forbidden City, where they lay idle and literally gathered dust. Of Yongle’s several successors, only Emperor Jiajing (r. 1522–66) evinced any interest in reading this gigantic work. Thanks to Jiajing’s e¤ort, The Grand Encyclopedia of Yongle was rescued from a fire in 1562 that destroyed three palace buildings. Soon after the disaster, Jiajing ordered that two more copies be made. He hired 180 scribes, each of whom was ordered to copy only three pages, on each of which were thirty lines of twenty-eight characters, per day.
The entire copying project took five years to complete. Of the two new copies, one was displayed at Literary Erudition Pavilion and the other in the Imperial Library, where the brushes used by preceding Ming emperors and the Ming Veritable Records were housed. Jiajing returned the original manuscript of The Grand Encyclopedia of Yongle to Nanjing. Unfortunately, this particular copy was burned to ashes when the Ming dynasty collapsed in 1644.17
After the end of the dynasty, scholars began to second-guess Yongle’s motives for compiling the encyclopedia but not publishing it. The Qing scholar Sun Chengze (1593–1675) o¤ered these thoughts: “After the civil war, complaints were everywhere. Emperor Yongle used this literary enterprise to weaken his opposition. That was his real motive.”18 Clearly, Yongle was mindful of the recent bloody purge against Jianwen’s loyalists and wanted to create a literary enterprise so attractive that even the most sullen and resentful literati would gleefully come to his court. He was betting that by o¤ering hard cash and the promise of good company, even the rigidly high-principled Neo-Confucians, including those who had refused to take civil service examinations, would want to take part in the project. Indeed, Yongle was able to lure restless scholars, who either traveled the country in search of material or found a niche worthy of their energies and ambitions. The emperor e¤ectively utilized this enterprise 135
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to elevate himself above the muck of partisan politics and to shore up public confidence in his regime. On the other hand, he had meticulously read through the Five Classics, the Four Books, and various other works and might have had a genuine scholarly interest in sponsoring yet another literary project to add to his fame.
But why didn’t he go ahead and have the entire manuscript printed? Was the cost the real problem, or were there other concerns and hidden reasons?
Instinctively, Yongle was not a profoundly orthodox Confucian. Although he regarded the Confucian classics as a guide to sound governance and strove to live up to Confucian dicta, he disliked and probably distrusted Neo-Confucians, who not only identified their metaphysical speculations with the classics but also insisted that the classics were valid for any place or time and could bear upon both the conduct of life and the solution of contemporary problems.
But the pragmatic and high-minded Yongle wanted also to encompass other forms of knowledge and make use of non-Confucian scholars, such as his trusted advisor Dao Yan, who had, in fact, once written a book, Recording What the Dao Has Left Out (Daoyilu), criticizing such prominent Song Neo-Confucians as Cheng Yi (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi (1130–1200).19 Consequently, Yongle did not wish to be encumbered by sti¤ ideology or religious mantras for solving his myriad problems. This is why he wanted to include in his encyclopedia works on such subjects as astronomy, uno‹cial local history, medicine, divination, Buddhism, Daoism, technology, and travel as well as mysteries, anecdotes, and accounts of miracles, in addition to the Confucian classics. It is no wonder that Neo-Confucians loved to lampoon Yongle, calling his encyclopedia a mixture of wheat and cha¤, with the most severe critics even maintaining that out of the 22,877 juan in The Grand Encyclopedia of Yongle, only 4,946 were real wheat, and the rest nothing but cha¤ and banalities.
It is indeed possible that many of the highly principled Neo-Confucians, including the codirectors Xie Jin and Liu Jichi, became disappointed with the thrust and the content of the project. The fact that Xie Jin was banished in 1407, imprisoned in 1410, and finally murdered by Yongle’s henchman Ji Gang, that Liu Jichi was also jailed in 1410 before he was banished, and that several other editors were incarcerated suggests that among members of the editorial board there was serious dissension regarding the scope and nature of the encyclopedia.20 We may speculate that this dissension became so vocal and so powerful that Yongle was forced to delay the printing of the manuscript. Finally, perhaps by the time the project was completed, Yongle felt that his own ends had been adequately served and that the literati as a class had been e¤ectively silenced. There would have been no need to print the 11,095–volume collec-136
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tion, the production cost of which would have added yet another onerous burden to his treasury.
While Yongle was busy with his literary enterprises, his wife, Empress Xu, who was well-read in traditional Chinese literature, pursued her own literary activities and, to a certain extent, helped her husband broaden his propaganda campaign. In 1403 she published a sutra on the Buddhist great virtues ( dagongde), in which she described her spiritual co
mmunication with the bodhisattva Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. A symbol of fertility and compassion, Guanyin was for centuries the most popular Buddhist deity among Chinese women, who prayed to her for salvation. In her booklet, the empress claimed that on the lunar New Year’s Day of 1398 when she was praying in her chamber, Guanyin appeared before her and revealed that it was her husband’s karma to become the next emperor and hers to be empress. The goddess also charged both of them to provide needed salvation, material as well as spiritual, for humankind. Consequently, Guanyin taught the empress how to recite a sutra on the great virtues, including how to be kind to all living things and to cultivate purity of heart, truthfulness, loyalty, filial piety, and so on. Empress Xu unabashedly subscribed to the belief that the sutra, of its nature, was holy, and she claimed that it was by reciting this sutra that she had managed to pull through the darkest days of the civil war. Finally, in a providential note, she confirmed that Guanyin promised to meet her again in ten years.
Empress Xu’s booklet was probably designed to build an image of herself as comparable to traditional Chinese paragons of kindness, piety, and charity. Despite its apocryphal rhetoric, this line of propaganda worked extremely well in a society in which gods and goddesses were considered real. The whole country, particularly the peasantry, seemed to want to accept Empress Xu’s words because they came directly from their savior Guanyin. After the death of the empress in August of 1407, all three of her sons—the heir apparent, the Prince of Han, and the Prince of Zhao—wrote postscripts to the booklet, prais-ing their mother’s humanity, wisdom, and simplicity.21 And in 1413, in observing traditional filial piety, the three sons constructed a scintillating nine-story porcelain pagoda at the Monastery of Gratitude (Baoen Si), outside Jubao Gate in Nanjing, to honor their mother. The pagoda survived until 1854, when the Taiping rebels demolished the whole structure.22