This is a book I wanted to read mainly for its title. The idea of the book is that Huang will explore a single year that is not known for being particularly impactful, but actually illustrates and reveals much about the end of the Ming Dynasty, which fell by 1644. Knowing so little about China and the Ming Dynasty, I mainly just learned the wavetops of how the top of the government worked in that period. The big "events" of the year 1587 (the year of the Pig) include the emperor's withdrawal from public ceremonies, the deaths of some major officials and thinkers, and ...
One thing I learned from this was how weak the role of the emperor could be and how it could differ significantly under different rulers. The Wanli emperor was nine years old when he came to the throne, and as a result was controlled by his advisors as a child, a role he never broke out of. So while other emperors went out hunting and led armies, the Wanli emperor almost never left the Forbidden City. He took like four visits outside the city into Beijing and nearby tombs of ancestors in his entire life. Otherwise, he was surrounded by women and eunuchs mostly in the Forbidden City. Moreover, he was expected to refrain from influencing policy very much at all. His main role was ceremonial and neutral. As a child, he wasn't allowed to develop any talents--despite being a talented young calligrapher, calligraphy was eliminated from Wanli's curriculum once it was determined that he was enjoying it too much, since "harmless hobbies could develop into undesirable distractions that sent rulers to their ruin." The Ming Dynasty differed from other Chinese Dynasties because it required the ruler to rule without a regent, so there was no official person other than the young emperor controlling the state in his childhood. This gave his tutor, Chang Chu-Cheng, a lot of influence. Chang amassed a huge amount of power, but when he died, other bureaucrats turned against his legacy. This led to Wanli going on strike against his ceremonial duties, also vengeful against the courtiers who tried to get him to name his first son heir instead of the third son, whose mother he was in love with. This had practical effects, since his sons would not be educated properly without being named heirs. Without a formal way to resolve the conflict, it simmered for years and years. The Wanli emperor became very cynical about his role as emperor, which kept him as prisoner with the ability to remove or punish bureaucrats, but no ability to affirmatively push policy.
Huang was interesting in distinguishing Wanli from the Cheng-te emperor, who was far more independent several decades earlier. He had no family ties and didn't care for any of the palace ladies. He was able to basically rule like I would have thought emperors could rule, doing whatever they wanted. He died childless, and his brother, Wanli's grandfather inherited the throne. This was the situation that bureaucrats wanted to avoid.
Also interesting in 1587 is that a northeastern governor noticed that a tribal leader was building strength and eliminating rivals on the northern frontier. He sent forces out against him, but was defeated. It became a controversy whether or not to eliminate the officials who failed to defeat the tribesmen, and the bureaucrats eventually decided to retain them. This rewarding of failure was surely to the benefit of the Jurchen leader Nurhaci, who would eventually topple the Ming and found the Qing Dynasty. While 1587 was still a long way from the end of Ming, from that point on, Nurhaci had full reign.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- "Geomancy" was a kind of divination that figured out where to build state structures in a quasi-religious way.
- Almost all military officers in the Ming Dynasty inherited their positions from their fathers, with junior officers inheriting ranks exactly as they were, and generals' sons getting ranks only slightly lower.
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