How Zhang Juzheng Dominated China, 1572‒82

Ideas, Determination, Power: How Zhang Juzheng Dominated China, 1572–82 Handwritten pencil manuscript on scrap paper, left unfinished by John W. Dardess. Transcribed by Bruce M. Tindall Edited (lightly) by Sarah Schneewind and Bruce M. Tindall © The Estate of John W. Dardess, 2021 The ms. and notes have been deposited with the library of the University of Kansas. The ms. contains many long paraphrases and quotations, the two not always clearly distinguished. Generally, unless we are sure that the passage is a direct quotation, we have marked it as “in paraphrase.” Researchers wishing to quote should consult the original passages. Numbers in curly brackets { } show where a new page of the handwritten ms. begins, but many complications (backs of pages, interpolated additions, etc.) are not noted. We have reorganized silently where needed, and added section headings. We have silently corrected where it leaves the sense unchanged; other additions, as well as question marks showing that we cannot quite read a word, are in square brackets [ ]. Square brackets also mark words we could not read at all. In the notes, we silently filled in information where certain of the reference. Abstract: Zhang Juzheng (1525-1582) was psychologically the most complex of Ming China’s chief grand secretaries. His rise owed something to an appealing combination of brilliance with diffidence and humility. He was learned, and mastered the literary arts of memorization, comprehension, and interpretation, and the articulation of these things in a clear and creative way in writing. But learning, for Zhang, was never enough. One’s learning, if thoroughly and conscientiously come by, must somehow find its appropriate impact and end in the rectified governance of a realm that after functioning in a faltering way for two centuries had developed some very serious problems. Anything less was just vapid talk. To prepare himself, Zhang joined learning with psychological self-strengthening to meet the political resistance that could be expected in the future. Zhang was not outgoing, but did share feats and frustrations with friendly colleagues in the field. Was Zhang Juzheng corrupt? Martyr complex. 1 Chapter 1: The rise of a child prodigy: from cradle to a metropolitan degree, 1525–47 {1} Zhang Juzheng was a child prodigy. It was said of him, as it was said of many a child prodigy, that his birth (on May 24, 1525) was accompanied by his family’s uncanny visions and dreams. His mother became pregnant with him upon seeing the night sky light up and a young boy in dark clothes descend from Heaven and circle her bed. The fetal Zhang Juzheng was twelve months in the womb. On the night he was born, his great-grandfather dreamed of a flood coming up to the doorsill, of the moon dropping into a jug, and of the moonlight on the water morphing into a white tortoise. That seemed to portend something grand about the baby’s future. It was said that Zhang could talk at the age of one (two sui). Not long after, he learned his first Chinese characters while sitting on his uncle’s knee reading Mencius. He could read fairly well at age four, and by the time he was nine he could write, and also understand the gist of the Confucian classics.1 It’s a bit difficult to describe accurately the family into which Zhang Juzheng was born. Zhang always emphasized his origins as humble, unprivileged, and poor. However, they weren’t wretchedly poor. The family had servants and wetnurses at its beck and call. They lived in the prefectural and county town of Jingzhou (Jiangling) in present-day Hubei Province, on the north bank of the Yangzi River, some 700 miles upstream from where the great river empties into the sea. What the sources of their income were, we aren’t told. They were a military family. That meant they were obligated to ensure that at least one able-bodied male was available for service as an officer at all times. That was a duty cast upon the progeny of anyone who’d been a soldier during the time of the Ming 1 Editor: On his handwritten notes on Zhang Jingxiu’s account (see below), Dardess has written: 白圭 [baigui]: ZJZ’s original name. 2 founding. The original Zhang ancestor had been such a soldier. The first of the Zhang to settle in Jiangling was his fourth-generation descendant. In Jiangling, the Zhang were registered under the auspices of the Ming princedom of Liao, descendants of the Ming founder Taizu’s fifteenth son, whose headquarters and mansion came to be located in Jiangling. The sixth-generation inheritor of the princedom, Zhu Xianjie, would be impeached and removed, and the princedom abolished in 1568, in circumstances that later became disastrous for Zhang Juzheng’s family. However, the Zhang scion on military duty, first as Jingzhou Right Guard Assistant Commander, was Zhang Juzheng’s younger brother, Zhang Zhuyi. That hereditary military posting could have been one source of income for the family. * * * Not all, but some members of the Zhang family aspired to official status and a higher social level. Zhang Juzheng’s father Zhang Cheng (1505‒77), seems to have been the first to make a sustained try at climbing that ladder. Seven times he was a candidate for the provincial juren degree, and each time he failed. That’s twenty or more years of futility. How did such experiences affect him? {2} Zhang Juzheng himself wrote a short [outline] “account of conduct” (xinglüe) for his luckless father, with whom he was never particularly close. According to his son, Zhang Cheng was not at all embittered. His failures were due to his unwillingness to bend to the established formats for writing exams. He was by nature open and carefree, a bon vivant, good at raillery, a devoted drinker and partygoer whom everyone welcomed. Thriftily he would put away the clothing and dishware his son gave him, never sharing it with his other sons, or letting the maids and concubines have any of the silk. “You’re old,” said Zhang Juzheng. “Why are you so tightfisted? You’re just saving it up for posterity. But if you don’t dare use it, what enjoyment will your progeny ever get from it?” “My nature is thus,” replied Zhang’s father. “I’m not thinking of posterity. 3 My gift to posterity is that they should inherit my frugality.”2 If Zhang Juzheng shared any of his father’s traits, it was an uneasiness with, even aversion to, the possession and flaunting of luxuries. * * * Many Ming officials posted to the provinces were regularly on the lookout for young talent. That was how teacher-disciple bonds were forged—emotional ties of patronage and obligation that infused the stern chilliness of the rule-bound bureaucratic hierarchy with the powerful yeast of sociability, and also secured for the Ming state the services of the most promising youth of the realm. And so the young prodigy Zhang Juzheng came to official notice very early in his life. The year 1536 found Zhang’s name at the very top of a list of boys scheduled to meet with the Jingzhou Prefect, Li Shi’ao 李士翺. Li had dreamt of such an eleven-year-old, and there he was! Li predicted he would one day rise so high as to be a tutor to the emperor. Li told the Education Intendant Tian Xu 田頊 about him when he came to Jingzhou on an inspection tour. Tian gave Zhang a theme (“an amazing boy”) and had him write a prose-poem (fu) on it. With alacrity, Zhang did so. Young as he was, Li and Tian both agreed that he should be enrolled at once in the prefectural school at a very high rank.3 What, exactly, was it about Zhang Juzheng that won him such rich acclaim? Why were all the authorities so drawn to him? Did he exude charm? Or was it just his outstanding precocity? Unfortunately, we have no clear picture of the boy. In 1537, at the age of twelve, Zhang went off to the city of Wuchang to take the Huguang provincial exams. There he attracted the notice of the provincial Grand Coordinator Gu Lin. Gu Lin 顧璘 (1476–1545), a vigorous administrator, partygoer, and 2 Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng ji 張居正集, edited by Zhang Shunhui 張舜徽 et al. (Wuhan: Jing Chu shu she, 1987) 3.629‒33. 3 Editor: I think this is based on Zhang Jingxiu’s account. See below. 4 litterateur well known in his day, was an avid pursuer of young talent.4 But Gu decided Zhang was much too young to be a provincial degree holder, and for that reason, failed him. Gu reportedly said: “Young Zhang has been endowed by Heaven, and he could go right to court, but I think we’d best let his talent mature first, then he’ll be outstanding.”5 He also said: “This boy is destined for a national role.” He gave him money for school expenses. Indeed, three years later, in 1540, Zhang won the provincial degree. After this success, Gu gave him his own belt made of rhino horn, until some day when he would surely rise high enough to deserve a jade belt. And Gu laid an obligation on Zhang. He introduced him to his slow-witted son Gu Jun one day at dinner, saying, “This is Student Zhang from Jingzhou. One day he’ll be a high official. You can visit him, as he’ll surely remember you’re the sone of an acquaintance of his.” “And I didn’t dare forget,” said Zhang years later in a letter to his own son.6 And years later, in a letter of 1574 to a friend, Zhang described how he was doing everything he could to untangle difficulties and see to it that the hapless Gu Jun received the yin (“shadow”) privilege, a portal into bureaucracy for the sons of high-ranking officials.7 Zhang took his ethical obligations inherent in patron-protégé relations extremely seriously.8 4 Zhang Tingyu et al., editors, Mingshi 明史 [Official history of the Ming dynasty] (1739) j.286; Jiao Hong 焦竑, Guochao xianzheng lu 國朝獻徵錄 [Records of the testimonies about the worthies of the reigning (Ming) dynasty] (1594; reprint Taibei: Ming wen shu ju, 1991) 3.2038–40.

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