Perpetual Happiness
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The style and substance of the empress’s booklet was nothing new, but she seemed to want to use the newly captured bully pulpit to energize the women of China. She saw that the way to energize women was by tapping into their latent feminine pride and sense of virtue. In spite of the fact that the empress generally did not interfere in governmental a¤airs, she time and again asked 137
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Yongle to award clothing and money to the wives of the six ministers and the Hanlin scholars. She was convinced that the best means to soften the steely men and to bring about harmonious families and an orderly society was through petticoat influence. In the first lunar month of 1405, she wrote a twenty-chapter treatise, Household Instructions (Neixun), and a month later, she completed her twenty-chapter Exhortations (Quanshan shu).23 In the preface to Household Instructions, Empress Xu wrote,
When I was a child, I learned from my parents and also studied poetry, classics, and home economics. After being married into the royal family, I served the late Empress Ma day and night. Empress Ma taught her sons and daughters-in-law according to prescribed rituals and strict codes, and I respectfully learned from her examples and obeyed her instructions. I’ve also served His Majesty Yongle for thirty years and have always tried to apply what I learned from Empress Ma to help the emperor manage the royal family.
The instructions of Empress Ma are so inspiring and so enduring that I still can hear them and remember them word by word in my heart. Since the winter of 1404, I have expanded the instructions of Empress Ma into twenty chapters and used them to teach palace ladies. So long as readers can follow the general meanings of her instructions, they need not interpret every word literally. It is hoped that this pamphlet will benefit those who wish to put their households in order.24
By this time, the vocabulary of politics in the Yongle court was increasingly about nurturing and caring. The royal family also harped on the dictum that the three ancient teachings—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—o¤ered moral lessons and spiritual guidance and that they should be revived and vigorously promoted. In 1407, two years after Exhortations was written, its manuscript was engraved for printing, and the empress once again wrote a preface to underscore her beliefs:
My late father joined Emperor Hongwu and helped him end the chaos, but as an army commander, my father never killed innocent people. Emperor Hongwu saw me when I was still in knee pants and said to my father, “Because you never killed a person without a good cause, your daughters will be blessed.” Emperor Hongwu then instructed my father to take good care of me because the emperor had already chosen me to be his daughter-in-law.
I am not a smart person, but I have taken to heart what I have learned from my father, teachers, and the ancient classics. . . . With prudence and trepi-138
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dation, I have now served His Majesty Yongle for thirty-three years. From the day he assumed the throne, His Majesty has been working diligently day and night, constantly worrying whether any one of his subjects has not yet found the right place and whether anything in the world has not yet benefited from his rule. He often returned home from court meetings with an empty stomach, but when I o¤ered to wait on him, he always insisted that I take a rest. His Majesty has also resolved to help the people live longer, happier, richer, kinder, and gentler lives. He often says that when the emperor works harder, the whole world will enjoy more leisure. I usually have bowed and echoed his belief that diligence is the foundation of politics and humanism is the source of bliss. . . . But humanism is born out of kindness, while kindness is the bedrock of bliss. Therefore, if one is seeking bliss and good fortune, one ought to first practice kindness and charity. In practicing self-discipline, there is nothing more important than avoiding fault-finding, envy, hatred, killing, and stealing. . . . I hereby select notable didactic examples of both good and evil from the three teachings and edit them into this volume with the hope that it will be easy to read and also useful in prevent-ing evil thoughts. . . . Kindness always brings about bliss, but evil always results in disaster; that is the law of retribution.25
As with the empress’s sutra on the great virtues, all of her three sons were invited to write commentaries and postscripts for Exhortations, but, ironically, none of her daughters was ever involved in the production of these books. Her eldest daughter, Princess Yongan, was married to Yuan Rong, who distinguished himself during the civil war. Her second daughter, Princess Yongping, was married to General Li Rang. And her two youngest daughters, Princesses Ancheng and Xianning, were betrothed to Generals Song Hu and Song Ying, two brothers who achieved military distinction in fighting the Mongols in the 1440s.
Undoubtedly, the empress paid very close attention to the upbringing of her own daughters. Along the line of women’s ethical education (one might even say indoctrination), she directed the compilation of yet another morally didactic book, Biographical Sketches of Women of Chastity from Ancient Times to the Present.
The book is a collection of profiles of women noted for their accomplishments, humility, devotion, and chastity and was edited and polished by Grand Secretary Xie Jin. And since the emperor and the empress converged on the view of ethical education, Yongle agreed to write the following preface for his wife’s book: I have learned that to maintain the principle of great sincerity, the first thing to do is to manage the great classics of the world, to lay great foundations, 139
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and to educate humankind. By the great classics I mean the five human relations. They include the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, ruler and minister, older brother and younger brother, and friend and friend. . . . During my childhood, I saw my father striving to cultivate his personality and harmonize his family, and my mother assisting him with the same e¤orts and virtues. . . . In employing the past for the service of the present, my mother came across several stories of chaste women and suggested to my father that these stories be openly discussed and written into books for posterity. She begged my father to appoint eminent scholars to collect materials and authenticate stories. Unfortunately, my father was so preoccupied with state business that he could not honor my mother’s request. As a result, such a book was never written, and that often caused my mother to sigh and feel sad. During the sixth lunar month of 1403, as I was going through the canonization processes of my father and mother and was reviewing my father’s Veritable Record, my wife mentioned my mother’s desire and requested that I belatedly honor her wish. Hence, I ordered scholars and o‹cials to identify outstanding wives of the past emperors, ministers, and common people and describe their deeds in a book. This completed volume comprises three chapters and is now distributed to the six ministries and also made known to the world. It is hoped that we can all learn something constructive and good from their examples and use such examples to teach young girls before their betrothal.26
In this preface, Yongle inadvertently reveals that he was concerned that the content of his father’s Veritable Record might gratify his enemies and confound Yongle and his friends. The fact that he took time out from his extremely busy schedule to review the entire record of his father’s reign supports a long-held suspicion that Yongle and his “hired guns” might have doctored The Hongwu Veritable Record. Indeed, soon after Yongle had consolidated his power, he commissioned his chief “spin doctor,” the venerable Dao Yan, to revise his father’s entire Veritable Record three times—a task that was not completed until 1418.
Certainly, Yongle’s apologists were anxious to burnish the image of the reigning monarch, and Jianwen’s detractors were eager to demean the deposed emperor. Although The Hongwu Veritable Record cannot be dismissed as invalid or irrelevant, we must keep in mind that the Ming Veritable Records, like all historical documents, are fallible as evidence, frequently misleading, and—worst, from the standpoint of scholarly perception—only a view through the keyhole into China’s imperial annals. Thus, our challenge is to understand that what a Ming liter
ati-o‹cial often saw was theater, not history.
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If we keep this skepticism in mind when examining Yongle’s blizzard of publications, a clearly detectable and repeated underlying theme is evident—that Yongle was the real and worthy son of Emperor Hongwu and Empress Ma, and that his wife, Empress Xu, was the real and favorite daughter-in-law of his parents. Certainly, Biographical Sketches of Women of Chastity, the biography of Empress Ma (engraved in 1406), and Imperial Genealogy (Tianhuang yudie) were all intended to glorify Empress Ma and to confirm the strong and intimate relationship between her and Yongle’s wife. These books served not only to authenticate Yongle’s pedigree but also to legitimize his power. Xie Jin, who authored Imperial Genealogy, confirmed that the first five of Emperor Hongwu’s twenty-four sons, including Yongle (the fourth), were borne by Empress Ma.27
The authorship of Empress Ma’s biography is anonymous, but because its style and content are very similar to those of Biographical Sketches of Women of Chastity, most Ming scholars suspect that it was also written by Xie Jin. These books, together with another anonymous book on Yongle’s coup against Jianwen, Records of Obeying Heaven to Suppress Trouble, are part early-Ming chronicle, part the voice of the time, part cultural revival, and part political propaganda. Unfortunately, Xie Jin, the principal author of these books, was cruelly used and ended up humiliated, bruised, and discarded. Perhaps, after completing these works, he already sensed, in his heart, the imminence of his fall, for he knew more than he was supposed to know about Yongle’s secrets and ulterior motives.
On the other hand, Yongle should be credited for his even-handed treatment of the three ancient teachings, namely Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. While continuing to show his respect for Confucian ideology, he simultaneously publicized the deeds of the immortals and prominent Daoist priests, as well as promoting the miracles of the bodhisattvas. As a result, Yongle sometimes appeared heretical and even blasphemous, at least in the eyes of the orthodox Confucians. Nevertheless, by following this path, he may have unconsciously helped to deepen the syncretic tradition of China, harmonizing various ideas and mixing one hundred schools of thought into one immense cultural pot. He sponsored the compilation of two major works on Confucianism: Encyclopedia of the Five Classics and the Four Books (Wujing sishu daquan; 159
juan), which made available the entire Confucian canon, and Encyclopedia of Works on Nature and Principle (Xingli daquan; 70 juan), which contains the commentaries on the canon by 120 philosophers from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. These two huge compilation projects began in the winter of 1414, when Yongle asked his grand secretaries Hu Guang, Yang Rong, and Jin Youzi to assemble all of the writings—original as well as common—of various scholars, pres-141
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ent them in digestible form, and incorporate their theses into the texts in the form of footnotes. Yongle named Hu Guang editor-in-chief, and the commission immediately began their work in a palace building just outside the East Flower Gate (Donghuamen). Both works were completed by the autumn of 1415, and once again Yongle wrote a lengthy preface to o¤er his thoughts.28
Yongle expected Encyclopedia of the Five Classics and Four Books to be a basic and enduring ideological guide for the Ming government. He also had high hopes that by following these dictums, his successors would not deviate from ethical rule; his country would not be influenced by foreign customs, and his society would return to the golden era of the sage-kings. However, because these two works were compiled in less than a year, the normally meticulous editors were hurried to a fault. Of the Five Classics, only The Book of Rites was in good form, while the others were left incomplete. As for the Four Books, the editors did include the unexpurgated 1411 edition of The Book of Mencius, but because they freely exercised their editorial prerogative, they left out several texts and commentaries that they believed to be unfit for serious study.29
The publication of these two works not only enhanced the dominance of Confucianism but also contributed to the stagnation of Chinese scholarship for the next few centuries. From then on, candidates for the civil service examinations were required only to memorize texts and commentaries from these encyclopedias and so paid little attention to other subjects.30 In order to pass the very competitive examinations and to earn their doctoral degrees, China’s aspiring scholars henceforth confined themselves to the writing of “eight-legged” ( bagu) essays and the mastering of the myriad words and mechanical syntax of the classical language. As a consequence, the best minds of China restricted their learning, suppressed their intellectual freedom, and stifled their creativity. In this respect, Yongle was undoubtedly responsible for the ever-su¤ocating pedantry of Ming scholarship.31 In fact, one may even be tempted to suggest that such a stultifying mindset and ideology were exactly the under-pinnings that Yongle used to support his brand of absolutism.
In addition to these enterprises, Yongle also commissioned his grand secretary Yang Shiqi to collect and edit the most notable memorials submitted by famous ministers throughout China’s dynasties. Yang, who once said, “The mind of Yongle is the same as the mind of Confucius,” utilized His Majesty’s resources to compile and, in 1416, present to Yongle the 350- juan Memorials Submitted by Famous Ministers throughout China’s Dynasties (Lidai mingchen zouyi). Filled with political savvy and wisdom, the work functioned as a reference guide for future policy decision-making.32 On his own, Yongle authored a number of books, including basic moral and political guides for posterity 142
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and directives that he had issued during the civil war. Learning from the Sages and the Method of the Mind (1409) and Instructions on the Basics (Wuben zhixun; 1410) belong to the former category, while Decrees and Orders from the Prince of Yan (Yanwang lingzhi) belongs to the latter. But Yongle, who did not have all the answers to the hard questions of life and death, also sought refuge in Daoism. In 1419 he published Biographies of the Immortals (Liexian zhuan), in which he recounted the fantastic stories of Daoist adepts and related their exploits to everyday life. Drawing most of its examples from a dubious Daoist canon called Storehouse of the Way (Dao zang), Yongle’s book also furnished commentaries on a host of Daoist rituals such as self-cultivation, alchemy, breath-yoga, occult techniques, and incantations.33
It is di‹cult to ascertain if Yongle was really a spiritual man. He may have used religion merely to keep power and may have o¤ered it, in a Marxian sense, as an opiate of the people, or he may have earnestly sought a moral anchor for his people. It is, however, quite obvious that, in Yongle’s mind, religion was conceived of in a framework more ethical than theocentric, and more practical than theoretical. Because religion in China, unlike Christianity in the West, was di¤used, rather than centralized, Yongle did not have to deal with a powerful, centralized religious institution or with such an entity’s ecclesiastical leader, as European leaders had to deal with the Catholic Church and the Pope.
Under the circumstances, Yongle had a virtually free hand to manipulate religion to advance his political goals, and in fact he frequently used it to strengthen his absolutist grip on his empire. The National Central Library of China records at least three titles on Buddhism for which Yongle was given authorial credit.
The first, Famous Sutras by the Buddha and Various Arhats, Bodhisattvas, and Holy Monks (Zhufo shizun rulai pusa shenseng mingjing), was engraved in nine juan in the palace during the first lunar month of 1417. Containing the essential Buddhist scriptures that had been translated from Pali or Sanskrit originals since the arrival of Buddhism in China at the end of the first century, it was a huge and complex canon that was also used in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Two years later Yongle had the imperial printing shop engrave a sixteen- juan compilation of Buddhist songs called Songs of Compassion (Ganying gequ) that could be taught to the ignorant masses, thereby making the Buddhist scriptures comprehensible to them.34
In his e¤ort to p
ropagate Buddhism, Yongle initiated, in 1420, an even more ambitious project by sponsoring the collection and compilation of the so-called northern edition of the Three Baskets, or Three Treasures (Sanskrit: Tripitaka; Chinese: San zang). Containing 6,771 chapters, this hallmark of scholarship on Chinese Buddhism was not completed until 1440, sixteen years after Yongle’s 143
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death. The first “basket” contains sutras, the Buddha’s scriptures or words on dharma (true teaching). The second “basket” contains vinaya, prescriptions for the conduct of members of the sangha, or Buddhist brotherhood. And the third
“basket” contains abhidharma, or treatises called sastra s, written by learned Buddhist monks to explain the subtlety of the dharma of sentient beings.35 But only a small percent of the Chinese population who were monks or devoted Buddhist scholars could easily cite the three kinds of dharma (dharma of the sentient beings, Buddha-dharma, and mind-dharma) or understand the relationship between the dharma of sentient beings and the whole range of cause and e¤ect in the mystery of karmic retribution. Therefore, in order to popu-larize the teachings of the Buddha among the peasantry and to spread knowledge of the dharma far and wide throughout Chinese society, Yongle sponsored the publication of various didactic books specifically relating good dharma to good karma, which could be read to the illiterate. In so doing, he played down the foreign elements of Buddhism and made it as Chinese as possible. The abstract concept of nirvana as the goal toward which people should strive—
which was a complete negation of the Confucian worldview, with its emphasis on family and worldliness—was minimized, and instead a concrete place of happiness was given prominence as a goal.
Rather than dwell upon controversies over metaphysical and theological issues—such as the soul, the cosmic cycle, incarnation, and celibacy—Yongle identified Buddhist morality with Confucian teaching and Daoist practice. The common elements in the doctrines of the three Chinese teachings were deliberately stressed over and over again. The best examples of this are his books Do Charities Anonymously (Weishan yinzhi) and True Stories of Filial Piety (Xiaoxun shishi). Do Charities Anonymously contains biographies of 165 ethical and charitable persons whom Yongle learned of through his own readings or through the reports of his o‹cials. The ten- juan work was completed in 1418, and copies were immediately distributed to the princes, high-ranking o‹cials, and the National University. Yongle not only personally approved every biography but also wrote a preface, a postscript, and even reflective poems included in the text. He then ordered the Ministry of Rites to incorporate the book into a manual of criminal cases called Imperial Commandments (Yuzhi dagao; 1385–87), in which the examiners found essay topics, usually about the dread fates that awaited malefactors, for the civil service examinations. This book was essentially a record of important ethical cases with Yongle’s personal commentaries, which vividly pointed out the karmic fates that awaited bene-factors.36 In the preface of Do Charities Anonymously, Yongle wrote, 144