Xuande Emperor

宣德

Reign facts and reign mark

Reigned: 1425–1435 (10 years)
Lived: 1399–1435
Personal name: Zhu Zhanji 朱瞻基
Temple name: Xuanzong 宣宗
Era name: Xuande 宣德 1426–1435

德年製大明宣

Reign markMade in the Xuande reign of the Great Ming. How to read reign marks

Ming Dynasty Emperors

Zhu Zhanji (1399–1435) was the fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty. He came to the throne in 1425 and ruled under the era name Xuande, usually translated as "proclamation of virtue", from 1426 until his death in 1435. His temple name is Xuanzong.

His short reign is remembered as a time of stable, capable government, without the costly wars and building projects of his grandfather, the Yongle Emperor. For collectors it has a particular importance: Xuande blue and white is widely regarded as the finest of the Ming, and his reign is the first in which imperial porcelain was regularly marked.

Accession

Zhu Zhanji was the eldest son of Zhu Gaochi, Yongle's heir. He was a favourite of his grandfather, who took him on campaign against the Mongols and saw to his education. When Yongle died in 1424 and Zhu Gaochi became the Hongxi Emperor, Zhu Zhanji was named crown prince.

Hongxi reversed several of his father's harshest policies and released officials Yongle had imprisoned, but he reigned for less than a year. He died in May 1425, while Zhu Zhanji was in Nanjing. The crown prince hurried north to Beijing and was enthroned the following month.

The Rebellion of the Prince of Han

The new emperor's most dangerous rival was his uncle Zhu Gaoxu, Prince of Han. Gaoxu had fought beside Yongle in the civil war that brought him to the throne, and had long believed that the succession should have been his. In 1417 Yongle had sent him to a fief at Le'an in Shandong after repeated misconduct.

The situation recalled the one that had destroyed the Jianwen Emperor a generation earlier: a young emperor facing an uncle with military experience and ambitions of his own. This time the outcome was different.

Victory over Zhu Gaoxu

In 1426 Zhu Gaoxu rebelled. Rather than trust the campaign to a general, as Jianwen had done, the emperor took command himself and marched on Le'an. The city was surrounded, and messages urging surrender were sent in to its defenders. Gaoxu gave up without a serious fight.

He was stripped of his title, reduced to commoner status and imprisoned in Beijing. Many of his followers were executed, and he was later put to death along with his sons. The swift end of the rebellion secured Xuande's position, and the remaining imperial princes gave the throne no further trouble during his reign.

Government

Xuande inherited an experienced group of senior officials from his father's reign, above all the grand secretaries Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong and Yang Pu, known together as the Three Yangs. He kept them in office and relied on their advice, and the Grand Secretariat grew in authority during his reign.

He took an interest in the condition of the empire's farmers and ordered tax reductions, including a reduction in the heavy rates charged on state-owned land in 1430. He had many criminal cases reviewed, leading to the release of large numbers of prisoners. He also made regular use of grand coordinators, senior officials sent to supervise provincial administration, a practice that became a standard part of Ming government.

Chinese historians have generally judged his reign, together with his father's, as one of the best-governed periods of the Ming.

The Emperor as Artist

Xuande was an accomplished painter, especially of animals and flowers, and several paintings attributed to him survive in museum collections. He was also famously fond of cricket fighting, and cricket jars made for the court were found during excavations at the imperial kiln site in Jingdezhen.

Foreign Affairs

Xuande inherited a failing war in Vietnam, where the Ming had ruled since Yongle's conquest of 1407. Some of his advisers opposed withdrawal, and in 1427 a relief army was sent under Liu Sheng. It was ambushed and destroyed, and Liu Sheng was killed. The emperor then accepted the inevitable: the last Ming forces withdrew in 1427–1428, and the court came to terms with Le Loi, founder of the Le dynasty, in return for tribute.

On the northern frontier, he led a force in person against Mongol raiders in 1428 while inspecting the border defences. The Ming kept up relations with the Eastern Mongol leader Arughtai, who supplied horses, until Arughtai was defeated by the Oirats and was killed in 1434 by the Oirat leader Toghon.

Relations with Japan, broken off during Yongle's reign, were restored in the early 1430s. Relations with Korea remained close, although Koreans resented the court's demands, which included young women sent for the imperial palace.

In 1430 the emperor ordered one last great voyage by Zheng He. The fleet sailed in 1431 and returned in 1433, reaching the Persian Gulf and East Africa. No further voyages of this kind were made.

Officials and Eunuchs

In 1428 the corrupt censor-in-chief Liu Guan was removed and replaced by Gu Zuo, who dismissed more than forty officials of the censorates in Beijing and Nanjing for incompetence. Some were imprisoned, demoted or banished, but none was executed. The emperor also revised the rules on military conscription and the treatment of deserters, although the hereditary military system continued to decline.

Xuande allowed eunuchs to be formally educated within the palace, and trusted them with important tasks. The growth of eunuch influence that followed became one of the serious problems of later Ming government.

Death of the Xuande Emperor

Xuande fell ill and died early in 1435, aged thirty-five. His son Zhu Qizhen, who reigned as the Zhengtong Emperor and is better known as Emperor Yingzong, was still a small child, and government passed for some years to his grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Zhang, and the Three Yangs.

Xuande Porcelain for Collectors

The imperial kilns at Jingdezhen reached a peak under Xuande. Blue and white of the reign is painted in imported cobalt that fires to a strong, deep blue with dark, almost black spots where the pigment concentrated, a characteristic later potters tried hard to imitate. The glaze often has a slightly undulating surface, sometimes likened to orange peel. The kilns also produced fine copper-red monochromes and underglaze red, and pieces combining underglaze blue with overglaze enamels.

Xuande mark and period blue and white bowl painted with pine, bamboo and flowering plum, the Three Friends of Winter, in strong blue with darker spotting, above a band of waves on the foot. — Museum exampleA blue and white bowl painted with pine, bamboo and plum, the Three Friends of Winter, with the Xuande mark and dated to the reign (1426–35).Cleveland Museum of Art, 1953.631. Public domain (CC0).

Xuande is the first reign in which imperial porcelain was marked regularly. The standard mark is six characters, Da Ming Xuande nian zhi (大明宣德年製, "made in the Xuande reign of the Great Ming"), written in regular script. It is found not only on the base but also along the rim, inside the mouth or elsewhere on the body.

No Ming reign mark was copied more often. Xuande marks were added to porcelain throughout the later Ming and Qing, sometimes as homage and sometimes to deceive, so a mark must always be judged together with the body, glaze and painting. In our collection we have a blue and white bowl with a Xuande mark.