Xiaozong

Emperor of China (r. 1488-1505)

• Born: July 30, 1470
• Birthplace: Beijing, China
• Died: June 8, 1505
• Place of death: Beijing, China

The ninth emperor of China during the Ming Dynasty, Xiaozong ruled China for seventeen years. He is considered the most benevolent of the Ming emperors and was admired for his honesty, virtue, and frugality, as well as for the reforms he instituted to correct the excesses of the prior emperor.

Early Life

Xiaozong (sheeaw-tsung) was born Zhu Youtang in the northern city of Beijing, the capital of China. He was the eldest of three sons of the Emperor Zhu Jianshen (r. 1465-1487 as Xianzong). There is little information about his mother, including her family name. This gap would later indirectly lead to one of the few scandals associated with him. What is known is that she belonged to a minority group (possibly the aboriginal Yao) in Guanxi and that when she was a child, she was captured during a local uprising and brought to Beijing by a court eunuch. She then became a maid in the Forbidden City in charge of a storeroom. Her relationship with Zhu Jianshen was kept secret.

When she became pregnant in 1469, she was swiftly hidden because Empress Guifei, Zhu Jianshen’s second wife, was a very jealous and vindictive woman, who, it was widely believed, had been involved in the death of a son whom the emperor had had with another consort. Xiaozong’s existence was not acknowledged until June, 1475, when a eunuch finally informed a surprised but pleased Zhu Jianshen, who had been grieving because he did not have an heir, that he in fact had a son. One month after this recognition, Xiaozong’s mother died under suspicious circumstances. Months later, on December 5, 1475, Xiaozong was declared heir apparent.

He received a traditional Chinese education, studying the famous Confucian Four Books: Confucius’s Lunyu (late sixth-early fifth centuries b.c.e.; The Analects, 1861), Mencius’s Mengzi (first transcribed in the early third century b.c.e.; English translation in The Confucian Classics, 1861; commonly known as Mencius), the Da Xue (fifth-first century b.c.e.; The Great Learning, 1861), and the Zhong yong (written c. 500 b.c.e.; The Doctrine of the Mean, 1861), as well as a special work that was compiled for him in 1482 on admirable heirs in Chinese history. These books and the teachings of his first teacher, the scholarly eunuch Tan Ji (T’an Chi), had a major influence on him. Xiaozong especially took seriously the Confucian idea that a ruler must lead by virtue and not by force, for only if one governs by being a proper moral exemplum will the people follow and emulate.

In February of 1487, Zhu Youtang married Zhang Luan (known as Lady Zhang), the daughter of Zhang Luan (Chang Luan), a minor government official. Their relationship was very close, so much so that Zhu was the only monogamous emperor in Chinese history. Zhang Luan bore him three daughters and two sons. On September 17, 1487, at the age of seventeen, on the death of his father, Zhu Youtang became Xiaozong, the ninth Ming emperor.

Life’s Work

The seventeen years of Xiaozong’s reign were relatively tranquil, politically stable, and prosperous. Only three significant events disturbed the period. In 1494, China’s second biggest river, the Yellow River, changed its direction, breaking dikes and preventing the movement of grain to Beijing. This potential disaster was effectively handled by the famous statesman Liu Daxia, who built a new channel, repaired the dikes, and directed the river into its southern course. Several small-scale rebellions also sporadically occurred throughout his reign in some parts of the country, including one on Heinan island, but these uprisings were all quickly put down. In 1495, the army retook the northeast-central Asian city of Hamil from the Turfan khanate Ahmed, who had captured it from the Chinese in 1488.

Unlike other Ming rulers, Xiaozong displayed little interest in military matters. Ming military power had begun a slow decline since 1449, when Emperor Zhu Qizhen (1427-1464) was captured by Esen, a Mongolian chieftain. By the time of Xiaozong’s rule, Chinese military policy was defensive in nature, no attempts were made to gain new territory, and the army was used only to quash rebellions or to protect the country if it was invaded. In the area of foreign relations, Xiaozong continued the Ming policy of xenophobic isolationism, based on the traditional idea that China was the Middle Kingdom of the world, the only real center of world civilization, and all other nations were accordingly inferior.

While Xiaozong was not a great innovator or reformer like the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang (r. 1368-1398 as Hongwu), or the third, Zhu Di (r. 1402-1424 as Yonglo), he did received much acclaim during his time for the quick and efficient way in which he dealt with the excesses of his father’s reign. During Zhu Jianshen’s rule, Empress Guifei along with her chief eunuch, Liang Fang, and the infamous Wang Zhi, the eunuch in charge of the powerful Beijing secret service for many years sold high titles, offices, and ranks. This corruption occurred with the tacit approval of Emperor Zhu Jianshen. As a result, many disreputable and incompetent individuals were promoted to high government positions. Soon after Xiaozong assumed office, he corrected this long-standing practice by quickly replacing many of the high officials who had been involved in the matter. He also brought in several honest and highly capable men who had been forced into retirement by his father. Another important change that Xiaozong made was to demote several thousand people who had purchased promotions. These included Tibetan magicians, astrologers, Lama and Daoist priests, and Buddhist monks.

Perhaps the greatest contribution that Xiaozong made was to set an example of governance: Of all the Ming emperors, he is considered to have been the most humane. He was personally honest, very hardworking, and serious about his demanding duties. An example of this dedication occurred in 1498, when he practically begged his senior grand secretary to cancel his daily early-morning audience for one day because the night before a fire in the Forbidden City had kept him awake most of the night.

In addition, Xiaozong was the only Chinese emperor who was monogamous, perhaps in part in reaction to the numerous problems his father had with his wives and concubines. Xiaozong was also a tolerant, even-tempered emperor, widely known for his self-restraint and for his kind treatment of officials, which was rare in a period where many Ming emperors commonly had their officials beaten in the public courtyard when they displeased them and treated their advisers cruelly as a matter of course. He also had a deep interest in the arts, especially calligraphy and painting. Several works survive which are said to have been painted by him.

On the negative side, his reign was slightly tarnished by one scandal, an outgrowth of the early death of his mother and the lack of information about her. Her sudden death when he was five strongly affected him. Tellingly, one of his first acts when he became emperor was to give her the posthumous title of empress-dowager and build a special shrine in honor of her. Xiaozong also put out a search for her family, but nothing was discovered. Because he was the sole survivor of his mother’s side, he became protective of his wife’s family. As a result, he ignored many of the excesses her two brothers committed.

Overall, Xiaozong’s rule was viewed positively by his contemporaries, and several early Chinese historians characterized his early years of reign as a golden period. The famous Ming shi (1739; history of the Ming), written by several renowned Chinese historians and edited by Zhang Tingyu, listed Xiaozong as one of only five Ming emperors who deserved mention.

Xiaozong died in 1505, having not quite reached the age of thirty-five. He was succeeded by his son, Zhu Houzhao (r. 1506-1521 as Zhengde). Portraits of Xiaozong show him to have been worn a beard and display a sensitive and reserved countenance.

Significance

Today, Xiaozong is generally considered to have been a conscientious and capable ruler. Some historians criticize him for his conservative, at times timid and reclusive, nature, which prevented him from properly addressing pressing problems, such as the rising power of the eunuch bureaucracy and the growing economic gap between the classes, which were both slowly weakening the Ming.

Several historians however, including Edward Dreyer, have argued that the greatest contribution of the Ming Dynasty from the period beginning in 1436 was to restore the Confucian state and the social order associated with it, thereby providing the stability that enabled China to withstand the alien rule of the Manchus (Qing) from 1644 to 1911.

The ultimate significance of Xiaozong is that he, more than any other Ming emperor, contributed to this restoration, by best exemplifying the moral qualities that the Chinese philosopher Confucius believed a good ruler needed to possess in order to rule well: personal honesty, self-restraint, a strong sense of propriety, and tolerance.

Bibliography

Dreyer, Edward. Early Ming China, 1355-1435. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982. Although this book is devoted to the early Ming emperors, it provides a good context for understanding Xiaozong’s reign.

Fairbank, John K., and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. An overview by the dean of American scholars of China.

Goodrich, L. Carrington, and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. A good source for information about Xiaozong and the people associated with him.

Mote, Fredrick W. Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. A useful discussion of the Ming period.