Perpetual Happiness

by Shih-shan Henry Tsai

  Among them were Minister of Revenue Xia Yuanji, Minister of Punishment Wu Zhong, and Minister of War Fang Bin. Both Xia and Wu were then imprisoned, and Fang Bin, after learning from a eunuch that Yongle was mad at him, took his own life.71

  It must have been frustrating for these well-intentioned and ambivalent ministers to second-guess the emperor’s decision and to constantly remind him of his own containment strategy—that is, strong defense instead of initiating o¤ense. But so far as Yongle was concerned, war was not an end in itself but merely a means to keep his faith intact. He was not just a passionate and audacious soul—he was a warrior. He wanted to bring back his lost faith by force and felt an agonizing need for it.72 Soon after silencing his dissident ministers, Yongle proceeded with mobilization and readiness plans, and by March of 1422 he had assembled a grand army of several hundred thousand troops and had gathered 370,000 piculs of grain. To transport his foodstu¤s and provisions, the emperor had to secure more than 340,000 donkeys, 117,000 carts, and 235,000 corvée laborers .73 The grand army left Beijing on April 17, but amid the spectacle of brilliant colors and gru¤ noise lurked trepidation. First of all, three days earlier Aruytai had attacked Xinghe and killed the Ming regional military commissioner, Wang Huan. Second, the army was too big and the supply train too long and cumbersome to deal with the nimble enemy.

  Finally, the Uriyangqad failed to stand up to Aruytai’s provocations and were in fact colluding with the Tartars. Four days into the expedition, Ming scouts learned of Aruytai’s whereabouts. Yongle’s generals, such as Marquis Zheng Heng (who had accompanied the emperor on every one of his campaigns) suggested that it was time to pursue the enemy, but the emperor refused to do so, stating that he wanted to wait until the bulk of the grain had been well stored at Kaiping and the forward troops had reached Yingchang. But the pace of the journey was so slow that by the time they arrived at Yingchang it was 172

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  mid-June and Aruytai was nowhere to be found. Yongle nonetheless continued to move toward Dalai Nor, fruitlessly searching for the Tartars. In early July his detachment of twenty thousand troops defeated and captured some Uriyangqad Mongols. After learning that Aruytai had escaped into Outer Mongolia, Yongle, who had by that time lost a forward chief commissioner and a vanguard commander and had used up nearly all of his provisions, decided to return home.74

  Yongle arrived in Beijing early in the morning on September 23 and, although the campaign had not produced any favorable military results, once again declared victory. At the celebration banquet, he graded the performances of his o‹cers with his usual incentive-and-punishment ploys. O‹cers who had earned merits and made no mistakes were seated in the front row and served the best food and drink. Those who had earned merits but also committed mistakes, and had managed the timely return of their troops south of Juyong Pass, were seated at the center and served less palatable dishes. Those who had neither merits nor demerits were seated at the rear and served mediocre food.

  Finally, those who had not earned any merits but had committed serious mistakes were required to stand and were denied food. Yongle’s two grand secretaries, Yang Rong and Jin Youzi, who apparently had done their parts well in the campaign, sat close to the emperor at the banquet.75

  Eight or nine months had elapsed since the victory celebration, and it was early in the summer of 1423 when Yongle received a report that Aruytai was making a draconian sweep along the Ming border. The emperor, who abounded in aggressiveness himself, once again felt provoked and announced yet another personal campaign into the northern desert. He summoned his nobles and commanders and said to them,

  Aruytai must have thought that I had already accomplished my goals and would not fight him any longer. I should lead my soldiers and deploy them at our fortresses beyond the Great Wall. We will succeed if we wait until the enemies make their first move, then strike them when they become exhausted.”76

  The emperor then assembled a grand army of three hundred thousand and, by August 29, was on his way to find his elusive enemies. Yongle seems by this time to have taken the war against Aruytai personally. Behind his colossal ego loomed something chaotic. Yongle was growing old and also becoming unstable, and perhaps used the virility of war to gird against madness and loss of faith in himself.

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  On September 9, twelve days into the fourth campaign, Yongle arrived at Xuanfu and rested for a few days. A month later he was encamped at Shacheng Fort when a special envoy from Korea came to brief him on a Manchurian border dispute between the Jurchen and the Korean nationals. But when asked if the Koreans happened to have captured Aruytai, the Korean envoy was ba›ed and could only reply that the Tartars must be hiding deep in the mountains.77

  After a two-month-long wild-goose chase, a eunuch by the name of Mu Jing repeatedly suggested to the emperor that they abandon the futile pursuit and return home. Yongle disagreed and in a fractious mood called Mu a “rebellious barbarian.” Mu looked at His Majesty and replied, “I am not certain who is the real barbarian!” This sharp exchange so o¤ended Yongle’s hubris that he ordered Mu’s decapitation. Throughout the ti¤, Mu remained calm and collected and was ready to die, whereupon Yongle was reported to have slowly murmured, “Of all the people brought up by my family, how many are worth more than this slave?” Mu Jing was immediately set free, but the emperor still could not find the Tartars, whose severed heads he wished to display.78

  While Yongle was pondering how to put the best face on another fruitless campaign, good tidings finally arrived. Aruytai had been defeated by the Oirat in October, and his right-hand man, Esentu Qan (d. 1431), due to di¤erences in style and collisions of ego, had split with him. Esentu Qan brought his family and troops with him and surrendered to Yongle’s forward commander Marquis Chen Mao. Yongle personally received Esentu Qan, gave him the Chinese name Jin Zhong, and invested him as Prince Zhongyong (Loyalty and Valor). To Yongle’s credit, this particular Tartar defector did live up to expectations, as he served the Ming court with integrity and dexterity until the day he died.79 The emperor now had the results needed to justify his fourth campaign, and, indeed, when he returned to Juyong Pass in December, he put on his glittering dragon robe, rode his legendary “jade-dragon-flowery” steed, and received a rousing welcome from his troops, who lined up for several kilometers under the cold wintry sun. The awestruck Esentu Qan thought he was escorting the emperor in the heavens. But exactly two months after Yongle returned to Beijing, on the seventh day of the first lunar month, when he was still celebrating the 1424 lunar New Year, the resilient Aruytai again unleashed his cavalrymen and invaded Datong and Kaiping. Once again, anger and vindictiveness smoldered in the Ming court and Yongle’s marshal instincts would not allow him to stay confined in his comfortable new palace. Even though, at sixty-five, he felt aged and fatigued, he had by February 9 decided to go after Aruytai one more time.80

  On April 1, 1424, Yongle reviewed his troops and told them, “I don’t neces-174

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  map 5. Yongle’s Fourth Personal Campaign, 1423

  sarily love travail and the neglect of the easy life. But since my goal is to protect my people, I really have little choice.”81 He left Beijing on May 2, and spent his sixty-fifth birthday on the road without much fanfare. By the time he arrived at Kaiping, he felt tired. The paucity of victories—along with prolonged heavy rains—cast the emperor’s camp into a deep gloom. The superb emotional and physical strength that Yongle had displayed in the first three campaigns had all 175

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  but disappeared. At Yingchang his eunuchs donned their wigs, make-up, and costumes on stage and did everything imaginable, including singing a song composed by Yongle’s father, to entertain the dispirited emperor. By this time, he had raised Esentu Qan to high command, but for two months even the former Tartar chieftain could not learn the whereabouts of Aruytai. In the meantime his troops were feeling the strain of the weather and the ever-dwindling provisions. At a moment of despair, Yongle told Grand Secretary Yong Rong, who dutifully kept a campaign diary, that the desert was like an ocean, and since there were not many Tartars left, it would be fruitless to pursue them.

  On July 17, at Fort Green Cloud, the imperial army split into two columns on the return march, with Yongle commanding the eastern column and Marquis Zheng Heng the western column—agreeing to join forces again before returning to Beijing.

  Years of bloodshed and travail had taken their toll on the man on the dragon throne. Even though he still had plans to expand his empire, fate was closing in on him. On August 8 Yongle fell sick, raising the specter that he might die.

  He asked eunuch Hai Shou when they would reach Beijing, to which Hai Shou replied, “Sometime in mid-September.” Afterward the emperor talked very little, except to ask Yang Rong if the heir apparent was experienced enough to take over the a¤airs of the empire.82 Four days later, on August 12, Yongle summoned Zhang Fu (1375–1449), the Duke of Ying, to his camp to draft a brief will. A portion of it said, “Pass the throne to the crown prince. Follow the etiquette of the dynastic founder for all funeral dress, ceremonies, and services.”

  With that, Yongle quietly passed away at Yumuchuan (in what later became Chahar), in the remote desert. Concerns about the security of both Beijing and Nanjing immediately were raised, and a grand eunuch by the name of Ma Yun suggested that the bad news be kept from the public until Yongle’s commanders could move the troops safely from Mongolia to China proper. They secretly had a tin co‹n made to slow the decomposition of Yongle’s body and to contain its odor, while continuing to pitch a tent for the commander-in-chief and bring meals every day as if he were still alive. In the meantime Yang Rong and Hai Shou hurried back to Beijing to inform the heir apparent of the emperor’s death. Eleven days later, on August 23, the eastern column rejoined Marquis Zheng Heng’s western column at Wupingzhen. Yongle’s corpse hung between heaven and earth until it reached the capital in September, where the tin co‹n was replaced by a permanent hardwood co‹n for a formal state funeral. In the midst of grief and memorial services, more than thirty palace women, including sixteen of Yongle’s concubines, followed the emperor in death by 176

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  hanging themselves.83 The Ming state then orchestrated the sort of deification that was deemed most fitting for such an extraordinary man.

  With the passing of this feared and powerful ruler, Ming China had lost someone who could command the respect of both its friends and its foes, one who had time and again demonstrated great resolve when there was clear and present danger. But Yongle’s achievements were evanescent and costly. Amid calls for retrenchment, his ambitious reach to encompass territory far into the Taklamakan deserts, Mongolia, and Manchuria caused such advice to be ignored. After his death, the rough-hewn nomads had no fears of the Ming leadership. Aruytai and his Tartars remained haughty and menacing, periodically hurling derision at Yongle’s successors. During Yongle’s reign, Ming China largely deterred and contained the Oirat, who were potentially more dangerous to the Ming than were the Tartars. Two decades after the death of Yongle, Esen, the Oirat leader and Mahmud’s grandson, seized the region of the Uriyangqad and, in 1449, imprisoned Emperor Zhengtong (r. 1436–49)—

  Yongle’s great-grandson—at Tumu Fort in northwestern Hebei. Even though the dynasty would endure for nearly two more centuries, Ming China had lost its expansionist drive. Yongle’s legacy was only remembered but never followed through.

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  9 / The Price of Glory

  While Yongle was expanding his influence beyond his northern borders and waging war against the Mongols, he was also very much occupied with the problems in Annam, the northern part of what is now Vietnam. Of all the Ming’s neighboring states, Annam was, next to Korea, the most sinicized bu¤er. For nearly a thousand years, China had had an imperialistic relationship with Annam. After the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907, Annam broke away and since then had managed to maintain political independence despite repeated attempts at reconquest by the Chinese. The Annamese successfully repulsed three Mongol invasions in 1257, 1285, and 1287.

  However, they welcomed the ascendancy of the Ming dynasty, and their Tran rulers (1225–1400) quickly entered the Ming court as loyal vassals.1 During the next century the Annamese struggled to expand southward so that the people of the more crowded Red River delta, which they called Tongking, could move down the coastline in search of land for rice paddies. This southern expansion resulted in a series of bloody wars, beginning in 1312, against Annam’s seafar-ing southern neighbor, Champa. The Cham were akin to the Malay people and spoke a version of the Malay tongue; and, with the Cambodian influence in the south, they had become heavily Indianized.

  During its acrimonious wars against the Annamese, Champa sought protection from Ming China and sent more tribute missions than any other vassal state in Southeast Asia to the Ming court, sometimes two a year. For example, in 1369 the king of Champa presented elephants and tigers to Emperor Hongwu, who in turn rewarded the Cham with three thousand copies of the Chinese calendar. And in 1371 an envoy from Champa brought with him a thirty-by-thirteen-centimeter sheet of gold leaf inscribed with his king’s acknowledgment of Ming overlordship. In 1386 the heir apparent of Champa came to Nanjing and personally presented fifty-four elephants to the Ming emperor.2

  After years of bluster and belligerence, the Cham finally invaded their north-178

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  ern neighbors in 1371. This was followed by three more invasions in 1377, 1378, and 1383. These incursions not only ravaged the countryside of Annam but also laid waste to the Annamese capital, Thang-long (Hanoi), or Ascending Dragon.

  Champa’s invasions, coupled with natural disasters and political intrigues, ultimately induced the usurper Le Qui-ly (1335–1407) to topple the Tran regime.

  In 1400 Le established the Ho dynasty (Le’s Chinese name was Ho Nhat-nguyen, or Hu Yiyuan) with a new capital called Tay-do (Chinese: Xidu), or the Western Capital, in Thanh-hoa; hence, the old capital in Hanoi became Dong-do (Chinese: Dongdu), or the Eastern Capital.3

  In spite of the fact that Annamese refugees repeatedly called upon Yongle to use his power of eminent domain to restore the Tran royal house in their country, he gave his blessings to the Le regime and in fact, in the winter of 1403, invested Le Qui-ly’s son as the king of Annam. However, a long-simmering border dispute over the Siming frontier in Guangxi escalated into a tense stando¤ between China and Annam. Sensing that a war between his country and Ming China was probably unavoidable, Le reorganized his army, strengthened his navy, fortified his outposts, and prepared to resist any Ming attacks.

  Intensely self-assured, Le deferred to no one save himself and his family, and pursued a highly noxious foreign policy by harassing China’s southern border. In the spring of 1406 Le’s partisans ambushed Chinese diplomatic envoys in Annamese territory. The news sent Yongle in
to a rage as he angrily remarked,

  “The little clown has committed such a malicious crime that even heaven would not forgive him. . . . I treat him with tolerance and sincerity, but he pays me back with deceit. If we don’t get rid of him, what is the use of military force?”

  By July of 1406 Yongle had appointed Zhu Neng (1370–1406), the Duke of Cheng, as the commander-in-chief and Marquis Zhang Fu and Marquis Mu Sheng (1368–1439) as deputy commanders to lead a punitive army of eight hundred thousand troops into Annam—although this figure was probably hyperbole intended to frighten Le Qui-ly. Zhu Neng and Zhang Fu were to cross the border from Guangxi, and Mu Sheng’s troops were to invade the Red River delta from Yunnan.4

  On the eve of their departure, Yongle gave a send-o¤ banquet at the Longjiang Naval Arsenal on Nanjing’s Qinhuai River and instructed his troops not to “foster disorder, mistreat the rebels, desecrate graves, harm farmers, loot goods or money, take possession of women, or kill prisoners of war.” He made it very clear that all he wanted to do was to capture Le Qui-ly and his sons and their partisans.5 Zhu Neng, who distinguished himself during the civil war, died at Longzhou, Guangxi, at the age of thirty-six, and the command of the Ming troops was immediately passed on to thirty-year-old Zhang Fu, whose younger 179

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  sister had become Yongle’s concubine only a year earlier. In his appointment edict, Yongle cited several courageous deeds of early Ming heroes to inspire Zhang Fu (the young commander-in-chief ) as well as to raise his expectations of Yongle himself.6 In the meantime Yongle charged Chen Qia (1370–1426) to oversee the supply of rations and Huang Fu to handle political and administrative a¤airs. On his way to Annam, Huang Fu kept a diary detailing the route, means of transportation, and lodging facilities by which the Ming personnel traveled between Nanjing and Hanoi. Huang Fu had an audience with Yongle on July 18, 1406, and left Nanjing sixteen days before Yongle gave a pep talk to his expeditionary troops at a banquet at the Longjiang Naval Arsenal. After spending a night at the Longjiang facilities, Huang set sail westward on the Yangzi River. Eight days later he was traversing Poyang Lake, and another week had passed before he reached China’s largest lake, Dongting. He then sailed southward on the Xiang River, passing Xiangtan and Guilin, all the way to Nanning, Guangxi. Three months after leaving Nanjing, Huang Fu joined the main Ming forces at Longzhou, Guangxi, and was ready to cross the Annamese border. His diary recorded that by November 24, 1406, Zhang Fu’s army had taken Can-tram and several other Annamese positions. At Da-bang, Zhang’s soldiers joined Mu Sheng’s army from Yunnan.7 By late January 1407 the Ming troops had fully demonstrated their superior techniques of siege and river warfare as they gained the upper hand all over the Red River delta.8 In order to instigate Annamese defections and to encourage a popular uprising against Le’s usurpation, Zhang Fu posted in every Annamese town he had taken a diatribe that charged Le with twenty crimes of high treason. He even had it engraved on wooden tablets, which he sent afloat down the Red River.