Among Chinese, “palace drama” is an all time favorite genre. These stories were happened in ancient Chinese royal palace. No matter the story was based on history or was purely fictional, the powerful emperor was always the center of everyone’s focus. People competed for emperor’s attention. And the emperor was in charge.

It’s not until I read Ray Huang’s “1587, A Year of No Significance” that I learned the emperors might not always be as powerful as I imagined. An emperor may inherit the throne, but his power was given to him by his subordinates, not by nature. Working with people is complicated, and being an emperor doesn’t exclude him from the complex. In some cases, mature government functions like an automated machine, and the emperor’s subordinates may want him to be just a silent and abstract symbol of “God’s will” and not to interfere with actual political affairs. As Ray Huang wrote in the book, Emperor Wanli was just a prisoner in the Forbidden City.

In 1587, it was Ming Dynasty in China under Emperor Wanli’s reign. Since his enthronement at age of 9, he has ruled the country for fifteen years. In his early reign, he answers all sorts of requests and proposals by copying the draft prepared by his teacher Chang Chucheng, the prime minister, and his companion Feng Pao, the eunuch who took care of him. Wanli was brought up by his subordinates, he learned from them what his emperor duties are and what a good emperor should do. Even he is an emperor, he was taught to respect ancestor’s tradition and follow moral teachings of Confucianism.

Wanli acclaimed more power when he grew into his adulthood. He was a diligent emperor. He attended every morning meetings to discuss political affairs with the ministers. He questioned ministers who was absent from the meetings too often. And he studied files from previous reigns.

Morning Meetings (Image: Wikimedia)

His beloved teacher Chang Chucheng died in 1582, Wanli was devastated. He entitled Chang the “Grand Teacher”. Soon after his death, Chang’s political opponents accused him of corruption. Wanli then realized that the teacher he respected has another side he didn’t know. Inspite Chang taught Wanli to be frugal, he himself lived a lavish life and accepted bribery.

Chang was a vivid political reformer, but he also made a lot of opponents. Political attacks between pro-Chang and anti-Chang parties left the Ming government stuck in political turmoil for years. To more of Wanli’s disappointment, he found ministers of either side campaigned for righteous moral principles, but they were really fighting for their own benefits. The chaos struck Wanli’s moral beliefs and political ambitions.

Wanli’s frustration exacerbated with the successor problem. At 1586, his favorite concubine Cheng gave birth to prince Changxun. Wanli wanted to promote Changxun as the crown prince. However, Changxun was his third son, it was against tradition to crown the younger prince instead of the oldest one.

Prince Changxun (Image: lszj)

Wanli’s ministers strongly opposed his wish to crown Changxun, and pressured him to crown Changluo, the first son. Unable to dismiss their demand, Wanli passively protested his ministers by postponing the official crowning with ever changing excuses. Since then, he started to skip the morning meetings with his ministers for the rest thirty years of his reign.

The disparity between the emperor and ministers on the successor issues lasted for fifteen years, until Wanli finally gave in and crowned Changluo.