Perpetual Happiness Read online

  contents

  Illustrations follow page 80

  List of Maps ix

  Acknowledgments xi

  Preface xiii

  1 / A Day in the Life of Yongle’s Court: February 23, 1423 3

  2 / The Formative Years, 1360–1382 20

  3 / The Years of Waiting, 1382–1398 37

  4 / The Years of Successional Struggle, 1398–1402 57

  5 / The Years of Reconstruction: Government

  and Politics, 1402–1420 77

  6 / The Years of Rehabilitation: Society

  and Economy, 1402–1421 104

  7 / The Emperor of Culture 129

  8 / Yongle and the Mongols 148

  9 / The Price of Glory 178

  vii

  contents

  10 / Epilogue 209

  Appendix: The Children of Emperor Hongwu 215

  Notes 217

  Glossary of Chinese Characters 237

  Bibliography 245

  Index 257

  viii

  maps

  1. Yongle’s Empire, 1403–1424

  18

  2. Beijing and Its Vicinity during Yongle’s Reign

  34

  3. Ending the Civil War, 1402

  68

  4. Yongle’s First Personal Campaign, 1410

  168

  5. Yongle’s Fourth Personal Campaign, 1423

  175

  ix

  acknowledgments

  For their help in gathering the source materials for this book, I am indebted to Hoyt Purvis, my student Takashi Yasuda, and my brother Wen-ching. I also had the advantage of relying upon the works of fellow Ming scholars who have done detailed research in various aspects of history. In particular, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Edward L. Dreyer and Chu Hung for information on early Ming politics, Edward L. Farmer on early Ming legislation, Shang Chuan on anecdotes about Yongle’s childhood, and Terada Takanobu on Yongle’s campaign maps. As usual, my son Rocky was my first editor and critic and has modified my prose, clarified my thought, and given me his unstinting support. I am grateful to Beverly Butcher, who spent five hot summer weeks reading the entire manuscript and gave me some invaluable suggestions. I also wish to thank University of Washington Press acquir-ing editors Michael Duckworth, who found two very able and thoughtful readers to help me improve my manuscript, and Lorri Hagman, who painstakingly copyedited it.

  Throughout the project’s duration, colleagues and friends in Asia, America, and Europe have provided inspiration, encouragement, and assistance. They include Chang Tsun-wu, Chen San-jing, Ena Chao, Hsiung Ping-chen (all at Academia Sinica in Taiwan), Tom C. Kennedy, Bill F. Tucker, Cheng Yung-chang, Tan Tianxing, Paul Holbo, Dan Ferritor, Carl Jacobson, Robert G.

  Finlay, Doug Merwin, Shaun Tougher, and Harry Lamley. I owe much to Ingchang Jong for teaching me how to use Chinese software, Jenny Xu for proof-reading pinyin transliteration, and Kimberly M. Chenault for printing several di¤erent drafts of the manuscript. I also wish to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to several dozens of my students who signed up for summer tours with me to study the Yangzi River (1986), the Silk Road (1988), Mongolia and Manchuria (1995), and Tibet and Nepal (1999). Last but not least, I want to xi

  acknowledgments

  thank my physician daughter Shirley Tsai for regularly monitoring my health during the course of my writing this book.

  I am also grateful to the National Palace Museum of Taiwan for permission to use photographs of several items from its Ming collection. Research was conducted with the aid of a Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Special Research Assignment from the University of Arkansas, and a grant from the Walton Family Charitable Foundation.

  xii

  preface

  The indomitable Yongle has been lionized as the best ofimperial China because he was a tireless and restless monarch who laid the agenda not only for fifteenth-century China but for most of Asia during the early modern era. At the same time, he has been criticized as the worst of imperial China because he committed an act of lèse-majesté by savaging his nephew, the incumbent emperor, and because, by keeping a large part of the population under severe strain for more than twenty years, he personified imperial tyranny. It could well be that he was by nature a fractious man who could readily discard sentimentality and loyalty in favor of ruthlessness and brutality. Or, perhaps because he was not the first son born to his parents—Yongle was the fourth of the dynastic founder’s twenty-six sons—he may have been predes-tined by fate and nurtured by circumstances to challenge authority and the establishment. Although he was not the favorite child, he proved himself to be strong, intelligent, and the most capable. He had a deep self-knowledge and a highly sensitive disposition; the slightest a¤ront would cause intense feelings of rejection and anger. After the death of his redoubtable father, it was Yongle who energetically took command of his brothers and nephews and emerged as astute and masterful. By the end of his reign in 1424, he was not just the son of the dynastic founder but the father of a nation that had developed the basic characteristics of what was to become modern China.

  These outstanding traits and his bifurcated historical personality make Yongle one of the most inviting Chinese monarchs ever to sit for a biography.

  The important biographical questions involve both the cunning of the man and the cunning of history. Was Yongle truly prepared for something so politically and emotionally fraught as “rebellion” and “usurpation,” which challenged him at the age of thirty-nine? Was he a cynical manipulator, or did he achieve greatness by being forced to deal with crises of enormous scale?

  Without crises, would he have remained in the league of those who risked lit-xiii

  preface

  tle and achieved nothing notable? How did he reconcile his brand of absolutism with the political philosophy of traditional China? More importantly, did Yongle succeed in transforming the lives and dreams of millions of his subjects and, ultimately, the character of the Ming state and of society?

  The e¤ort of will, as with many domineering rulers, had its price on his mental health. Yongle was no misanthrope, but rather a tormented man, a victim of severe, recurring depression. He frequently complained about acute headaches and insomnia, and his stomach registered with pains that were symp-toms of deeply repressed anxiety. But the steepest price he had to pay was his inability to avoid being recorded in history as an alleged murderer and usurper, for the ghost of his nephew Jianwen (1377–1402) continued to haunt him, not-withstanding the raft of his lifetime achievements. It is certain, however, that after winning the bloody and devastating civil war of 1399–1402, he drove himself even harder. His active and risk-taking leadership leavened a successful, complacent nation with a ferment for change from the top and created a glittering era of unblemished prosperity, military expansion, and brilliant diplomacy. During his reign of twenty-three years (1402–24), China became outward-looking and enjoyed stratospheric prestige throughout the entire Asian world.

  Peace reigned at home and the economy hummed as Yongle did everything possible to bridge political chasms in his war-torn country as well as to hone a “sage-king” image for posterity. The many policies he adopted and the several o‹ces he either inherited from his father or established on his own encompassed a significant and formative period in which the newly reconstituted imperial China was consolidated. Consequently, one of the factors contributing to China’s political absolutism lay in the institutional growth engendered during Yongle’s father’s reign and his own. His father was the embryo, but Yongle was the birth of Ming absolutism.

  A powerfully built man with a strong personality, Yongle was a brilliant, hardworking autocrat and a demanding emperor who personified the ide
a of active government. He had an enormous penchant for controlling events, and through the display of his burning energy, we learn of his political animal instincts. He also had a knack for calming the fears of others with his own fearlessness. For Yongle, life meant risk and battle, often against staggering odds.

  From him we learn the secrets of a master manipulator of power, intrigue, mal-ice, and roguery. This book, then, is about the passions, prejudices, depression, and vision of an early modern Chinese autocrat. It is about the stories of struggle and redemption of a great and potent prince, and it is an attempt to understand the role of birth, education, and tradition in molding the personality, values, and moral sense of one of the greatest figures in Chinese history.

  xiv

  preface

  It is also concerned with one man’s relentless pursuit of expansion into Mongolia, Manchuria, and Vietnam, as well as his constant quest for prestige in Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and elsewhere in the Asian world. Pursuit was Yongle’s ideology, and with it he pioneered a new imperial politics.

  Through this study I hope to illustrate the intertwining of early Ming personalities and events and to delineate the patterns of China’s imperial authority and the evolving nature of Ming absolutism.

  xv

  Perpetual Happiness

  1 / A Day in the Life of Yongle’s Court

  February 23, 1423

  One night, while the Roman emperor Titus (39–81 c.e.) was dining with several of his intimates, he realized that he had done nothing of merit for anyone that entire day. It was then that he uttered his immortal phrase, “Amici, diem perdidi”: “Friends, I’ve lost a day.” Emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty died on August 12, 1424, having been on the throne since July 17, 1402—a reign of approximately 8,062 days—and all of the evidence indicates that he never lost a day. Human beings have always based their lives on the day: Neanderthal or Peking Man would not have comprehended months or years, but he or she undoubtedly would have realized the immense significance of the day. He or she would have known that in that brief, critical period of time one must struggle to live out one’s life. Indeed, the day is a micro-cosm of life itself, and the daily sojourn through time is but a reflection of a larger journey. “Each day is a miniature life,” said Schopenhauer. In order to glimpse, at least in miniature, the form and content of Yongle’s daily life, let us accompany the emperor through a day in the life of his court. The day is the 13th of the first lunar month, the day of yiwei, or February 23 in the Gregorian calendar, in 1423. A boisterous, confident China is just about to roar into the Lantern Festival holidays with few worries, and the economy at full throttle.

  On the eve of this cold winter day in 1423, a team of five eunuchs from the Night Drum Room (Genggufang) take turns climbing up Xuanwu Gate (Xuanwumen) in Beijing, an extremely important location separating the imperial chambers from Coal Hill at the northern end of the Forbidden City, where they beat the night drums. (Ming Chinese divided each night into five geng, and each geng into several dian, or points. The first geng ushered in the fall of night, the third indicated midnight, and the fifth signaled the break of dawn.) In the meantime, more than ten eunuchs work in a water-clock room behind the Literary Flower Hall (Wenhuadian), and as water flows through a small orifice into a container, hours are measured according to the level of a float 3

  a day in the life of yongle’s court

  on the water (eight levels make an hour). At the end of every hour, eunuchs from the Directorate of Palace Custodians (Zhidianjian) bring the “hour tablet”

  to Heavenly Purity Palace (Qianqinggong), where Emperor Yongle spends the night, and exchange it for a new one.1 The “hour tablet” is about thirty centimeters long, painted green with golden inscriptions. Anyone who sees it has to move to the side, and those who are seated must stand up and show their respect for the tablet courier. On this particular day, the sixty-three-year-old Yongle wakes up when he hears the sound of the fourth geng drum.

  Lamps and lanterns are quickly lit all over Heavenly Purity Palace as Yongle begins his morning rising ceremony. The eunuch attendants have already brought in utensils for collecting the emperor’s urine and mucus. They have on hand the thin, soft toilet paper manufactured by the Directorate of Palace Servants (Neiguanjian) and have made available several pails of water fetched from the nearby palace wells. They have carefully checked the bathtub and all of the cleansing solutions, towels, and other bath equipment provided by the Department of the Bathhouse (Huntangsi). After a warm and soothing bath, Yongle puts on a pair of white and purple sandals and sits on a cushioned chair as one eunuch attendant dries and combs his hair while another manicures his handsome mustache and long beard. For a few moments, the emperor meditates and ponders what he is going to accomplish on this day. It is a typical wintry morning in Beijing—freezing, windy, and damp—but his chamber is well heated by the fuel, charcoal, and firewood provided by the Department of Fire and Water (Xixinsi). Yongle is reminded that tomorrow—the fourteenth day of the month—the eunuchs from that department will come to haul away the garbage, trash, and night soil, and also to clean up the carts, charcoal piles, and waste dumps everywhere in the Forbidden City. The emperor then drinks some tea and eats a vegetarian breakfast prepared by the cooks supervised by the managing director of the Directorate of Ceremonial (Silijian). The emperor has avoided eating meat and drinking liquor during the past three days because on this day he will be required to report to heaven the state of his empire. Also, because this day is one of the thirteen most important Ming state sacrifices, Yongle is not allowed to visit sick persons, attend funerals, indulge in entertainment, or pass judgment on criminals. And during his three-day fast, he has been advised to abstain from visiting any of his concubines.2

  After breakfast the eunuch attendants help the emperor put on his apparel, headgear, shawl, dragon robe, and shoes specially tailored and made by the Directorate of Royal Clothing (Shangyijian). By the time he is ready to leave his chief residential palace, the eunuchs in the water-clock room hear the first 4

  a day in the life of yongle’s court

  drop of water at the ninth level and quickly step outside the palace gates to herald the coming of dawn. When they hear the second drop at the ninth level, they immediately report to the emperor’s attendants.3 All of a sudden, the entire Forbidden City is enlivened. The managing director of ceremonial ( sili zhangyin taijian, rank 4a), wearing a crimson gown embroidered with a python and accompanied by his deputy, or bingbi grand eunuch ( sili bingbi taijian, rank 4b), arrives at Heavenly Purity Palace. An ivory tablet, about three centimeters long, is passed on by the bingbi grand eunuch going o¤ duty to the next bingbi. In addition to the emperor’s embroidered-uniform guards, there come the seal o‹cials, who bring with them seals for various functions. Since Yongle is scheduled to sacrifice to heaven today, they bring the most sacred seal, the Treasure of the Emperor’s Respecting Heaven (Huangdi Fengtian Zhi Bao), which the Ming inherited from the Tang and Song dynasties.4

  Only a few minutes before daybreak, the imperial entourage has crossed the “dragon pavement,” an unwritten demarcation separating the business quarters from the living quarters of the Forbidden City. After trudging southward across a large courtyard, Yongle approaches Prudence Hall (Jinshendian), which, along with Flower-Covered Hall (Huagaidian) and Respect Heaven Hall (Fengtiandian), was damaged by a fire during the spring of 1421. Yongle casually glances at several bronze incense burners and puts his hands into one of the two gigantic gilded copper cauldrons to make sure that the water inside the container, used for fighting fires, is not frozen. When he arrives at Flower-Covered Hall, he asks to rest a moment so that he can remove his woolen vest from under his robe. Normally he would conduct his morning audience at Flower-Covered Hall, but because of the forthcoming state sacrifice in the southern suburb, an abbreviated morning audience is to be held at Respect Heaven Gate (Fengtianmen; later renamed Polar Gate). As soon as the emperor has rearranged his garment, a doz
en well-built, husky eunuchs from the Directorate of Entourage Guards (Duzhijian) usher him into a yellow imperial sedan.

  Yongle is then carried straight southward toward Respect Heaven Hall, the tallest palace building, which is elevated on triple stairs. Inside the hall, the one and only imperial throne sits in solemn harmony with a mystic dragon screen.

  It was in this hall that Yongle gave a lunar New Year’s Eve dinner for the princes, dukes, marquises, and earls only two weeks ago. By tradition, the emperor is required to come to Respect Heaven Hall when he leads the nation in celebrating the lunar New Year and the winter solstice. It is also from this hall that he issues decrees, interviews the top doctoral candidates during the national civil service examination, and appoints commanders to lead punitive campaigns.

  However, Yongle is not going to step inside the hall this morning; instead, his 5

  a day in the life of yongle’s court

  sedan goes straight toward the grandiose Respect Heaven Gate, a long building supported by huge red columns and guarded by two ferocious-looking bronze lions. Three flights of stairs lead to three carved marble terraces, on which the emperor sees his civil o‹cials (above rank 4b) standing in a line on the east side of the gate and his top-ranking military o‹cials on the west side.

  In the meantime, the seal o‹cials place the seals on a table and stand motion-less close by. Scarcely has the sound of the fifth geng drum dissipated than a eunuch in an embroidered red robe rings the so-called “attention whip”

  ( mingbian). Around the huge structure, there is absolute silence as Yongle begins the morning audience. The seated emperor, who alone faces south, hears hundreds of voices shouting in unison, “Ten thousand blessings to His Majesty.”

  The acclamation is followed by ritual kowtowing while a band plays a suite of court pieces. Because today is an auspicious day and the day for sacrificing to heaven, a ceremonial o‹cial loudly proclaims an early end to the audience.

  Those who have urgent matters to report are reminded to do so later, at the noon audience. Again the ceremonial eunuch rings the “attention whip” as Yongle stands up and gestures his entourage to continue moving southward.5