History and Memory in the Mid and Late Ming Dynasty

T’OUNG PAO T’oung Pao 93 (2007) 110-158 www.brill.nl/tp

Venerating the Martyrs of the 1402 Usurpation: History and Memory in the Mid and Late Ming Dynasty

Peter Ditmanson* Colby College

Keywords Ming Dynasty, Jianwen, Yongle, Fang Xiaoru, historiography

e usurpation of 1402 was a dramatic event that significantly redefined the political landscape of the early Ming dynasty (1368- ւ֮—the Jianwen ৬֮ emperorڹ e youthful Zhu Yunwen .(1644 (r. 1399-1402) and grandson of the dynastic founder—died at the ཀྵ, who ascended the throne as theڹ hands of his uncle, Zhu Di ᑗ emperor (r. 1403-24). e civil war leading up to theة Yongle usurpation left the empire in ruins and the palace and capital at Nanjing in ashes. Moreover, many in the top echelons of the scholarly and political elite lost their lives. e dead included such prominent -figures as Fang Xiaoru ֱݕ᚞ (1357-1402), overseer of the metro politan civil service examinations in Nanjing in 1393 and 1396; Lian Zining ᒭ՗ኑ (d. 1402), secundus in the palace examinations of 1385; Huang Zicheng ႓՗ᑢ (d. 1402), tertius in the same examinations; Huang Guan ႓ᨠ (1364-1402), primus in the 1391 examinations; .and Wang Gen ׆ۤ (d. 1402), secundus in the 1400 exams

*) I am grateful to the Center for Chinese Studies in Taipei and the Colby College Social Science Division for grants to support this research project. I have also beneﬁted from comments on this essay by my colleagues in the Colby History department, Christiane Guillois, Kim Besio, Ankeney Weitz, Sarah Schneewind, Katie Ryor, Katherine Carlitz, Wing-kai To, Romeyn Taylor, Hsu Pi-ching, Chu Ping-tzu, Peter Bol, and the anonymous reviewer for T’oung Pao.

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In the years after the usurpation, these events were broached in public discourse only in such terse euphemistic terms as “Quelling Disturbances” (jingnan 壃ᣄ) or “e Extirpation” (gechu ଀ೈ). e Jianwen reign was immediately obliterated from historical records and the Hongwu reign ੋࣳ (1368-1398) was revised to incorporate the Jianwen years, which became Hongwu 32 through 35. At Yongle’s behest, an official account of the usurpation, the Record of Quelling (Disturbances in Obedience to Heaven (Fengtian jingnan ji ࡚֚壃ᣄಖ was compiled sometime between 1404 and 1418; it vindicated the new emperor and castigated the Jianwen court as having been dominated ڑ by licentious imperial behavior and “treacherous and evil” (jian’e ༞) ministers.1 e writings of the more famous among the latter were banned and their families lost their property and were sent into exile. Discussions of these figures became taboo. is essay examines mid and late Ming efforts to recover the history of the martyred loyalists of the Jianwen reign and commemorate them as local worthies. is was a long and complex process, and it offers a useful window on Ming social, political and cultural change over the course of the dynasty.2 e window is useful because it indicates the evolving boundaries of acceptable political discourse, as discussions of the usurpation implicitly indicted the Zhu ruling house descended from the usurper Yongle. Mid and late Ming explorations of the history of the Jianwen reign were never far removed from the social and political issues of the day. Interpretations of the usurpation thus reflected the shifting dynamics between different factions in Ming politics and thought and the fluctuating links between local and imperial concerns.

Wang Chongwu ׆ശࣳ, Fengtian jingnan jizhu ࡚֚壃ᣄಖု (Shanghai: Commercial (1 Press, 1948), pp. 1-3. 2) Previous studies of late Ming perspectives on the Jianwen reign include Niu Jianqiang խ৵ཚ৬֮ཛז৬ൎ, “Mingdai zhonghouqi Jianwen chao shiji zhuanxiu kaoshu” ࣔׄ ૪, Shixueshi yanjiu, 1996 (2):41-7; Benjamin Elman, “Where is Kingە׾ᤄᤊଥ Ch’eng?”, T’oung Pao, vol. 79 (1993):23-68; and Hok-lam Chan, “Legitimating Usurpation: Historical Revisions under the Ming Yongle Emperor (r. 1402-1424),” forthcoming in Leung Yuen-sang, ed., e Legitimation of New Orders: Case Studies in World History (Hong Kong: e Chinese University Press, 2006).

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