Jiajing Emperor
Ming · 12th ruler
嘉靖帝 Jiājìng Dì朱厚熜 Zhū Hòucōng
Wade–Giles: Chia-ching Emperor · Chu Hou-ts'ung
Reigned 1521–1567 (45 years)
Reigned 45 years (1521–1567). Died at 60 (East Asian reckoning) of natural causes. 12th ruler of Ming.
Facts
- Reign
- 27 May 1521 – 23 January 1567 (12th ruler of Ming)
- Length of reign
- 45 years
- Born
- 1507
- Died
- 23 January 1567
- Age at accession
- 15
- Age at death
- 60
- Cause of death
- Natural causesNatural death or illness (including old age)
- Path to the throne
- Installed by othersSucceeded the previous ruler of the same regime, but the choice was made by officials, the army, eunuchs, consort kin, an empress dowager or the imperial clan
- Predecessor
- Zhengde Emperor
- Successor
- Longqing Emperor
- Era names
- 嘉靖 Jiājìng (proclaimed 1521)
Ages are given in East Asian reckoning (sui): a person is one year old at birth and gains a year at each New Year, so the figure is one or two years higher than the Western age.
Life
In brief
He succeeded the Zhengde Emperor, who died without an heir, from a collateral branch, and he is known for the Great Rites Controversy, in which he fought his officials over whether to honor his own father as an emperor. The assessment in the History of Ming says that at first he swept away bad government, but that the Great Rites Controversy led to mass punishments, and that he revered Daoism and built one structure after another until the treasury was drained.
Road to the throne
He was a grandson of the Chenghua Emperor, and his father was Prince Xingxian, enfeoffed at Anlu. When the Zhengde Emperor died without a son in 1521, Empress Dowager Cishou and the grand secretary Yang Tinghe settled the plan, and under the testamentary edict he was brought in from the household of Prince Xingxian. When the ritual officials asked him to take the throne with the rites for a crown prince, he refused, saying the edict had made him heir to the imperial throne and not an imperial son, and he took the throne by accepting petitions urging him to do so.
Reign and death
In the year of his accession the jinshi Zhang Cong memorialized that he should honor his own father, and the objections of Yang Tinghe and others were not heeded. In 1524 court officials knelt at the palace gate in protest; 134 were imprisoned, and 16 died from beatings at court. In the same year he designated the Hongzhi Emperor as his imperial uncle and his own father as his imperial father, and in 1538 he gave his father the temple name Ruizong and placed his tablet in the Imperial Ancestral Temple above that of the Zhengde Emperor. He treated fangshi lavishly and made Tao Zhongwen an earl, and Yang Zui, Chief Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud, who remonstrated against the elixirs, was beaten to death. For 1542 the annals record only that palace women plotted rebellion and were executed, and that Consort Duan of the Cao clan and Concubine Ning of the Wang clan were executed in the marketplace. According to the biographies of consorts, the palace maid Yang Jinying and others tried to strangle the sleeping Jiajing Emperor with a cord, but the knot jammed and he did not die, and Empress Fang rushed in and untied it. The same biographies write that Consort Duan, executed with them, in fact knew nothing of the plot, and that the Jiajing Emperor later learned she had been wrongly condemned; the biographies of technicians place the incident in 1541. At the very end of his life he fell ill, and he died on the day he returned from the Western Park to the Qianqing Palace. The annals do not give his cause of death. The biographies of sycophants say that the elixir of metals and minerals presented by the fangshi Wang Jin and others made the emperor's body feverish, and that the testamentary edict laid the blame on Wang Jin and his associates, and the Mingshi Jishi Benmo writes that the fever did not break. The judicial offices rejected the death penalty for Wang Jin on the ground that the charge of recklessly giving the emperor drugs had no basis in fact, so whether the elixirs are linked to his death is a point on which the History of Ming itself is divided.
Translated from the Japanese text of this site, which is written from the official histories. Years are given in the Western calendar; months are omitted because the histories use the Chinese lunar calendar.
During the reign
Number of times each event is recorded in the official histories. How each item is counted
- Era name changes
- 1
- General amnesties
- 9
- Empresses installed
- 3
- Crown princes deposed
- 0
- Personal campaigns
- 0
- Rebellions suppressed
- 16
- Rebellions faced
- 19
- Capital relocations
- 0
Emperors of Ming
- 1stHongwu Emperor洪武帝 Hóngwǔ Dì朱元璋 Zhū Yuánzhāng1368–1398 · 30 years · Natural causes, age 711368–139830 yearsNatural causes, age 71
- 2ndJianwen Emperor建文帝 Jiànwén Dì朱允炆 Zhū Yǔnwén1398–1402 · 4 years · Disputed1398–14024 yearsDisputed
- 3rdYongle Emperor永樂帝 Yǒnglè Dì朱棣 Zhū Dì1402–1424 · 22 years · Natural causes, age 651402–142422 yearsNatural causes, age 65
- 4thHongxi Emperor洪熙帝 Hóngxī Dì朱高熾 Zhū Gāochì1424–1425 · 264 days · Natural causes, age 481424–1425264 daysNatural causes, age 48
- 5thXuande Emperor宣德帝 Xuāndé Dì朱瞻基 Zhū Zhānjī1425–1435 · 9 years · Natural causes, age 381425–14359 yearsNatural causes, age 38
- 6th, 8thEmperor Yingzong of Ming正統帝 Zhèngtǒng Dì朱祁鎮 Zhū Qízhèn1435–1449; restored 1457–1464 · 21 years · Natural causes, age 381435–1449; restored 1457–146421 yearsNatural causes, age 38
- 7thJingtai Emperor景泰帝 Jǐngtài Dì朱祁鈺 Zhū Qíyù1449–1457 · 7 years · Disputed, age 301449–14577 yearsDisputed, age 30
- 9thChenghua Emperor成化帝 Chénghuà Dì朱見深 Zhū Jiànshēn1464–1487 · 23 years · Natural causes, age 411464–148723 yearsNatural causes, age 41
- 10thHongzhi Emperor弘治帝 Hóngzhì Dì朱祐樘 Zhū Yòutáng1487–1505 · 17 years · Natural causes, age 361487–150517 yearsNatural causes, age 36
- 11thZhengde Emperor正德帝 Zhèngdé Dì朱厚照 Zhū Hòuzhào1505–1521 · 15 years · Natural causes, age 311505–152115 yearsNatural causes, age 31
- 12thJiajing Emperor嘉靖帝 Jiājìng Dì朱厚熜 Zhū Hòucōng1521–1567 · 45 years · Natural causes, age 601521–156745 yearsNatural causes, age 60
- 13thLongqing Emperor隆慶帝 Lóngqìng Dì朱載坖 Zhū Zàijì1567–1572 · 5 years · Natural causes, age 361567–15725 yearsNatural causes, age 36
- 14thWanli Emperor萬曆帝 Wànlì Dì朱翊鈞 Zhū Yìjūn1572–1620 · 48 years · Natural causes, age 581572–162048 yearsNatural causes, age 58
- 15thTaichang Emperor泰昌帝 Tàichāng Dì朱常洛 Zhū Chángluò1620 · 29 days · Disputed, age 39162029 daysDisputed, age 39
- 16thTianqi Emperor天啓帝 Tiānqǐ Dì朱由校 Zhū Yóujiào1620–1627 · 7 years · Natural causes, age 231620–16277 yearsNatural causes, age 23
- 17thChongzhen Emperor崇禎帝 Chóngzhēn Dì朱由檢 Zhū Yóujiǎn1627–1644 · 16 years · Suicide (incl. forced), age 351627–164416 yearsSuicide (incl. forced), age 35