Jiajing Emperor

Zhu Houcong (朱厚熜), who reigned as the Jiajing Emperor, was the eleventh ruler of the Ming Dynasty. He came to the throne in 1521 as the cousin of the childless Zhengde Emperor, and his era name, Jiajing (嘉靖), ran from 1522 to 1566. His temple name is Shizong.

His reign of forty-five years was the second longest of the dynasty, after that of his grandson Wanli. He was intelligent and kept a firm grip on the bureaucracy, yet for most of his reign he refused to hold court and devoted himself to Daoist ritual and the search for longevity. He is also the only Ming emperor whom his own palace women tried to murder.

Early Life

Zhu Houcong was born in 1507, the son of Zhu Youyuan, Prince of Xing, a younger half-brother of the Hongzhi Emperor. He grew up at his father's princely estate at Anlu in Huguang, in modern Hubei, far from the intrigues of the capital, and received a sound classical education.

An Unexpected Succession

His father died in 1519, and the boy became heir to the princely title. Two years later, in 1521, the Zhengde Emperor died without a son. The senior grand secretary, Yang Tinghe, and the Empress Dowager Zhang chose Zhu Houcong as the nearest male relative, and he was brought to Beijing and enthroned at the age of thirteen.

The Great Rites Controversy

Because the new emperor was not a son of his predecessor, Yang Tinghe and most of the court held that he should be adopted, posthumously, as the son of the Hongzhi Emperor, so that the direct line of succession would be preserved. He would then honour Hongzhi as his father and his own father only as an uncle.

The young emperor refused. He insisted on honouring his natural father as his father and eventually had him elevated posthumously to the rank of emperor. The dispute, known as the Great Rites Controversy, dominated the first years of the reign.

It ended in 1524, when more than two hundred officials knelt in protest at one of the palace gates. The emperor had them arrested, and many were flogged at court; more than a dozen died of their injuries. Others were dismissed or banished, among them the poet Yang Shen, Yang Tinghe's son, who was exiled to Yunnan. Officials who had supported the emperor, such as Zhang Cong, rose to high office.

The Reign of the Jiajing Emperor

Jiajing was capable and hard-working in his early years, and even when he withdrew from court he continued to read memorials and to decide matters through his grand secretaries. He was also suspicious, vindictive and quick to punish, and officials who displeased him were often beaten, imprisoned or executed.

From about 1539 he stopped holding regular court audiences, and after 1542 he lived mostly in the West Park, the palace gardens beside the Forbidden City, surrounded by Daoist priests and a small circle of favoured officials and eunuchs.

Yan Song

The chief beneficiary was the grand secretary Yan Song, who dominated the government for some twenty years from the 1540s, together with his son Yan Shifan. Their rule became a byword for corruption. The official Yang Jisheng, who denounced Yan Song in 1553, was imprisoned and later executed. Yan Song finally fell from favour in 1562, and Yan Shifan was executed in 1565.

In 1566 the official Hai Rui submitted a famous memorial criticising the emperor himself for neglecting government in favour of Daoist pursuits. He was thrown into prison, but was released after Jiajing's death and became a celebrated model of the upright official.

Mongols and Pirates

The northern frontier was under constant pressure from the Mongol leader Altan Khan, who demanded the right to trade. In 1550 his horsemen reached the outskirts of Beijing and plundered the surrounding countryside. A horse market was opened briefly in 1551, but a lasting settlement was reached only in 1571, under Jiajing's son.

At the same time the south-east coast suffered raids by the wokou, pirates who were Japanese in name but largely Chinese in fact, closely tied to the smuggling trade that the Ming ban on private overseas commerce encouraged. The raids were at their worst in the 1550s and were brought under control by commanders such as Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou.

In 1553 an outer wall was built to enclose the southern suburbs of Beijing. In 1556 Shaanxi was struck by the deadliest earthquake in recorded history, in which several hundred thousand people died.

The Palace Women's Plot of 1542

In 1542, the renyin year in the Chinese calendar, a group of palace women tried to kill the emperor as he slept. Led by a woman named Yang Jinying, they held him down and tried to strangle him with a cord, but the knot was tied wrongly and would not tighten.

One of the conspirators lost her nerve and ran to Empress Fang, who came with guards and saved the emperor. Their motive is usually traced to the harsh treatment of palace women, and later accounts claim that they were made to supply ingredients for the emperor's elixirs.

While the emperor was still unconscious from the attack, the empress ordered the execution of all the women involved by slow slicing. Two imperial consorts, Consort Duan and Consort Wang, were executed with them, and many of their relatives were also put to death. Consort Duan, one of the emperor's favourites, was widely believed to have been innocent.