Hongzhi, the ‘Great Ruler’ of the Ming Dynasty and the Only Monogamous Emperor in Chinese History

He lived at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, becoming one of the most unusual emperors in Chinese history—not only as the first to renounce any military glory but also the only one to have a single wife, in contrast to the usual collection of consorts and concubines. A devout follower of Confucius, he applied this doctrine in governance, which brought about political stability, allowing economic prosperity and leaving a favorable memory among his subjects, who gave him the posthumous name Emperor Jing, meaning Respectful Emperor or Great Ruler. His real name was Zhu Youcheng, though he is remembered as Emperor Hongzhi.

He was born in 1470, the third son of Emperor Chenghua, the eighth of the Ming Dynasty, and his mother, surnamed Ji (known as Lady Ji), who was held in the palace as a prisoner from the Guangxi province rebellion and from whom the boy inherited his southern appearance: short stature and dark complexion. Hongzhi was weak, but he survived other older siblings. His survival was not easy, as Wan Zhen’er (better known as Lady Wan), his father’s favorite consort, was ruthless and eliminated anyone who threatened her position with the emperor.

Perhaps this was because she felt at a disadvantage due to her modest background—she was the daughter of an official and had entered the court as a servant. It’s also possible that the other consorts defamed her as she became a favorite and rose socially at an astonishing rate, especially since she gave birth to the emperor’s child in 1466. However, the child died ten months later, and ever since, it was rumored that Lady Wan paid palace eunuchs to keep her informed about the harem to know when another concubine became pregnant so that she could allegedly cause miscarriages or have the newborn killed.

This is why Chenghua lamented not having male descendants at thirty-one, and why he wasn’t even informed of Hongzhi’s birth until he was five years old. Hongzhi’s birth was a threat to the baby and his mother because of Lady Wan’s influence, so Lady Ji lived discreetly in quarters formerly occupied by Empress Wu in the gardens of the Forbidden City. Wu had been the emperor’s first wife but was dismissed only a month after marriage when he sided with his lover in a dispute between the two women.

However, shortly after the boy was introduced to his father and officially recognized, Lady Ji died under suspicious circumstances, and he was left under the care of his paternal grandmother, Empress Dowager Xiaosu, who gave him the name Zhu from her clan. Despite his young age, Zhu Youcheng always remembered his mother and never forgot her throughout his life, which would not be like that of others because that same year, 1475, he was named crown prince and entrusted to the eunuch Tan Ji to receive an education befitting his lineage.

Tan Ji taught him to read, using the most important Confucian work, The Four Books and Five Classics (written before 300 BCE, though it’s uncertain whether by Confucius himself or his disciples). Since the Western Han Dynasty, this had been used as the official state ideology and as the examination curriculum for public officials. Zhu Youcheng proved to be a diligent student, as he deeply absorbed Confucian philosophy and would later apply it in his policies.

Xiaochengjing, wife of Hongzhi. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

For now, he had the additional task of surviving, as the crafty Lady Wan had the eunuch Liang Fang, who served her, try to dissuade the emperor from naming him heir, claiming Zhu Youcheng was weak and unintelligent. However, as was often the case, the palace was a battlefield among eunuchs vying for power, and another eunuch, Huai, managed to counteract her plan by emphasizing succession rights and political stability.

Nonetheless, the prince was sent to Fengyang, a city in what is now Anhui province, then considered the capital of the central region. He arrived at an opportune time, coinciding with an earthquake, which, as customary, was interpreted as divine discontent with his distance from the throne. Zhu Youcheng thus secured his succession, as his father did not want to antagonize the heavens; he was again seen as destined for the throne.

In February 1487, he married Xiaochengjing, a woman a year older than him, from Xingji (now Qinhuangdao in Hebei province), who historical sources describe as foolish and demanding, frivolously fond of spending on costly whims, and quite gullible to the superstitions of some Buddhist and Taoist monks. She also promoted her brothers, Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling, to high-ranking state positions and granted her father a noble title.

Zhu Houzhao, the son and successor of Hongzhi, who would reign under the name of Emperor Zhengde. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Despite this, Zhu Youcheng loved her so deeply that he broke with Chinese tradition and became the first and only monogamous emperor, leading to comparisons with a hermit at times. As a result, he had a larger family than his father: they had two sons—though the second died young—and three daughters. His firstborn, Zhu Houzhao (the future Emperor Zhengde), was especially beloved by his father, who wanted to give him the paternal affection he himself had not received from Chenghua. Chenghua became seriously ill in September, seven months after the wedding, entrusting his successor with governance with the help of several secretaries.

Five days later, he passed away, and Zhu Youcheng was proclaimed emperor, adopting Hongzhi as his nianhao or era name (the term chosen to designate the reign period of each ruler), which means “Great Ruler,” while his wife became Empress Zhang. Lady Wan had died eight months earlier, but the new ruler did not want to strip her of her title of Gongsu Duanshun Rongjing (“Noble Imperial Consort”) out of respect for his father’s memory.

What he did do was send emissaries to Guangxi to build a temple in honor of his mother’s family (he also ordered another one built in the Forbidden City) and to search for her living relatives. They found only two cousins, who were honored with appointments as officials of the Imperial Guard; after a dispute with a third, it was discovered that all three were mere swindlers, whose end was likely rather unfortunate.

While Zhang introduced a lifestyle of luxury and pleasure at court, the year 1491 arrived, in which the firstborn son, Zhu Houzhao, was born, whom he named crown prince the following year. This further solidified the emperor on his throne to the same extent that his wife’s family rose in the aristocracy; his father-in-law even requested a higher title, which had to be granted posthumously as he died in 1492, leaving Zhang’s three brothers with blue blood, lands, and trade licenses… an open door to corruption.

This sparked discontent in the administration, and accusations of embezzlement and appropriation of others’ lands arose against them, though they never gained traction as they had eunuchs and officials in their service to counter these claims, not to mention the emperor himself protected them so as not to sadden his beloved wife. However, he did not punish the accusers either, as Confucian ethics held that reasonable criticism was always legitimate and improved the administration of the bureaucracy.

The problem was that Hongzhi and his wife were Taoists, a fact that separated them from the prevailing Confucianism among officials, who did not look favorably on frequent appointments of monks of that faith to high positions. For this reason, the emperor undertook a profound administrative reform to eliminate superfluous expenses and remove all bureaucrats considered corrupt or who had not obtained their position on merit. Among those who had to go, by the way, were a thousand Buddhist and Taoist lamas, along with relatives of Lady Wan, including two disreputable secretaries.

To accomplish this, he restructured the executive power, dismissing Wan Ra, who was the Grand Chief Secretary, and splitting that position into two: the eunuch Huai En and the official Wang Shu. They appointed their ministers from among the most honorable, which, along with Hongzhi’s full embrace of Confucianism and the predominance of officials over eunuchs, led to greater peace and improved efficiency. Unlike his father, the emperor held regular meetings with his government and rarely made unilateral decisions, though over time, influenced by his wife, he tended to do so.

Ciudad prohibida China — A general view of the Forbidden City area. Credit: Pixelflake / Wikimedia Commons

One of the most interesting initiatives was the state’s resumption of minting coins in 1503, as this had increasingly fallen into private hands, resulting in insufficient and confusing issues, with a proliferation of different models coexisting with payments in kind (rice, cereals, cloth, pelts, shells…) in less developed areas. Moreover, taxes were lowered so that people would not lack resources to face some natural disasters that occurred in a short period, including a persistent drought, the Yellow River overflowing, and the breaking of the Shandong dam, necessitating a redirection plan that took two years to complete, despite involving 120,000 workers.

Agriculture also improved, and trade was revived, especially with northern regions, to buy horses in large quantities in exchange for tea, also curbing the illegal sale of tea by some individuals to Tibetans and Mongols. Tea was also used to pay for shipments of rice sent to regions suffering from famine due to some of the aforementioned disasters, though the main goal was mounts, necessary for the army because, despite Hongzhi’s preference for external peace, some conflicts arose, both external and internal.

Among the former was the conflict with the Sultan of Turfan (an autonomous region once known as Gushi, located on the northern frontier along the Silk Road), who had seized the Chinese city of Hami, important to the aforementioned route. With diplomacy failing, the emperor mobilized his troops and reconquered the city in 1495, placing a Uighur prince on the throne. The enemy briefly recaptured it until China halted silk trade, forcing them to accept the return of the prince, establishing a tense statu quo.

But within China itself, there was unrest. Specifically, in the southwestern region on the border between Guizhou and Yunnan, where a woman of the Lo-lo tribe named Mi-lu led an insurrection between 1499 and 1502, which forced a large-scale military intervention. Between 1500 and 1503, Hainan, the southernmost province, was also shaken by a rebellion led by the Li ethnic group, which, discontented with abuses by some government officials, attacked Chinese residents. Order was restored only by sending soldiers at the cost of numerous casualties, but the situation was finally brought under control by leaving local administration in the hands of the Li tribal chiefs.

Escuela Wu — A work of the Wu School, by Shen Zhou. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

There wasn’t much more conflict, as Hongzhi, as mentioned, sought a peaceful mandate in line with the Confucian principle of achieving superiority through virtue, even abandoning his initial idea of expanding northern borders. However, the military was also subject to reforms. The traditional Weisuo recruitment system was complemented in 1494 by the hiring of tubing or “local soldiers” for border areas and minzhuang, “people’s loyalists,” for the interior. These were essentially mercenaries, who until then had only been informally incorporated.

Another measure he introduced was instituting examinations to select officers. In reality, this had started decades earlier but on a limited and unsatisfactory basis; Hongzhi decreed that it be generalized and assigned the task to officials in each region, though the results were far from ideal. On the other hand, the emperor handed control of the Beijing garrison over to civilian officials (one of them, highly experienced in commanding troops, would serve as the general-in-chief), contrasting with his father’s custom of assigning such control to eunuchs.

As we can see, Hongzhi sought to curb the significant power enjoyed by the eunuchs at court. The first to fall was Liang Fang, who worked for Lady Wan, replacing him with the prestigious Huai En, whom he brought out of retirement (relying on veterans was one of the emperor’s wise decisions). Then came others who monopolized various administrations, which earned the gratitude of the rest of the civil service. During the reign, there were only two cases of blatant corruption by eunuchs, both of which were swiftly addressed.

The first took place in 1489, when the authorities in Nianjing were embroiled in mutual accusations; some accused Governor Jiang Cong of diverting local funds to cover the emperor’s expenses, while he criticized their inability to detect other, more serious illegalities. Hongzhi ruled in favor of Jiang Cong, but the criticisms persisted and even expanded to include real estate irregularities, to the point that he eventually had to reverse his decision and remove him four years later.

The second case was in 1498, involving Li Guang, who was in charge of collecting taxes by selling salt licenses and administrative promotions. He faced criticism for repeated mistakes, though it was an unusual error that led to his downfall: he built a pavilion in the imperial gardens but chose an inappropriate location according to feng shui principles (a Taoist principle based on harmonizing space to positively influence its inhabitants), which was considered the cause of a series of misfortunes (a fire in the Forbidden City, the death of the emperor’s eldest daughter). He ultimately took his own life.

Regarding culture, Hongzhi’s reign is considered a Silver Age. After eleven years of work, the Ming Code was expanded in 1509 by Grand Secretary Li Dongyang and official Shen Shixing, who added two works: Da-Ming Huidian (“Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty”) and Wenxing Tiaoli (“Precedent Clauses and Rules for Judicial Interrogation”), adding nearly three hundred more articles to the legislation, though they proved insufficient as they did not specify the role of eunuchs.

Moreover, the wealth generated by the well-managed policy spurred population growth (a 1504 census recorded 10,588,935 households and 60,105,835 inhabitants) and enabled several wealthy families to rival nobles in patronage. Thus, in Suzhou, the Wu School emerged—a group of painters who, though they did not constitute a formal institution, belonged to the so-called Southern School and shared the same aesthetic concept: personalizing works, incorporating descriptive texts into drawings (date, signature, theme, subject, etc.).

In a way, the Wu School opposed another movement known as the Zhe School, which also belonged to the Southern School but was more conservative and academic in style. In any case, both are testimony to the flourishing of art during the reign. Li Dongyang, a historian and poet as well as a politician, personally attended to matters of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, while the emperor himself was a patron of Shen Du and other court painters, such as Lü Ji, who was highly regarded for his bird and flower paintings.

As mentioned earlier, Hongzhi was in delicate health, and on June 1, 1505, he fell seriously ill, passing away a week later. For his loyalty to Confucian virtues, he was granted the temple name Xiaozong, meaning “Filial Ancestor,” and the posthumous title of Emperor Jing, meaning “Respectful Emperor.” He was buried in the Tai Mausoleum, in the so-called Ming Tombs, a 40-square-kilometer necropolis located about fifty kilometers from Beijing and declared a World Heritage Site, where the mortal remains of thirteen emperors of that dynasty rest, along with twenty-three of their wives and concubines.

In his final moments, he confirmed the succession of his son, Zhu Houzhao, entrusting him to his most loyal officials, as he was only thirteen and too inclined to pleasure and leisure. Indeed, although the new emperor went down in history with the name Zhengde (“Upright Virtue”) and had studied Confucianism thoroughly, he did not share his late father’s admiration for the philosophy. Not only did he leave the government in the hands of the eunuch Liu Jin (who would eventually be executed for conspiracy), but he also frequently behaved irresponsibly, being injured by a tiger during a hunt, collecting concubines, and eventually dying of pneumonia after falling drunkenly into the Yellow River.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on November 23, 2024: Hongzhi, el ‘Gran Gobernante’ de la dinastía Ming que fue el único emperador monógamo de la historia de China