The History of China - #232 - Ming 21: Animal House

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

The Zhengde Emperor decides that being the divine sovereign is *boring* and that being a cool war-hero would be way cooler... and... it goes weirdly better than expected. Also, he gives himself a cool nickname, and makes everyone call him that. Time Period Covered: 1510-1518 CE Major Historical Figures: The Zhengde Emperor (Zhu Houzhao) [r. 1505-1521] Jiang Bin Qian Ning Liu Yun, Eunuch Commander General Zhu Shou, Heroic Defender of the Realm [?? -??] Tibet The Prince of Rin-Sprungs [r. 1512-1544] Mongols: Dayan Khan (Batu Möngke) [r. 1479-1517] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic

characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Episode 232, Animal House. What? Over? Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no. It ain't over now, cause when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Who's with me? Let's go. Come on. This could be the greatest night of

our lives, but you're gonna let it be the worst. Oh, I'm afraid to go with you, Bluto. We might get in trouble. Well, just kiss my ass from now on. Not me. I'm not gonna take it. John Bluto Butarski, 1978. Some poser hands me cake at a birthday party. What you want me to do with this? Eat it? Happy birthday to the ground. I threw the rest of the cake too. Welcome to the real world, jackass. So many things to throw on the ground, like this, and that, and that, and even this. I'm an adult. From Threw It On The Ground by The Lonely Island, 2009 Last time, we discussed the first third or so of the Zhengde Emperor's reign, beginning with his accessunken, frivolous, capricious, and irresponsible ruler

who cared little for precedent or norms, and sought little more than the earthly delights, piles and piles and piles of cash could afford him, by any means necessary. Well, if you were thinking of the emperor in the decade to follow, having grown older, would have also grown wiser, you've got another thing coming. The ministers of the imperial court had no doubt assured themselves that with his chief and most trusted eunuch finally out of the picture, Zhengde could at last be brought to

heel and his whimsical desires reigned in. Little did they realize that, in many ways, Liu Jin had been holding back the tempest. And with him gone, the now 17-year-old Zheng De wasn't about to listen to any of their stodgy old ideas of what he should do, or how he should do it. Just because Liu Jin was dead, that certainly didn't mean that Zheng De was about to stop listening to his other close eunuchs, much to the chagrin of his ministers. Not that they should have been surprised. After all, what the emperor desired more than anything was an unceasing stream of income for his personal piggy bank, and via methods that the normal arms of the imperial government could not and would not

approve of. Well, then, he'd just have to find someone as financially creative as old Liu, now wouldn't he? The Emperor would appoint another of the so-called Eight Tigers to attempt to fill Liu's shoes, a fellow castrati named Wei Bin, who, like Liu, had served the Emperor since his time as Crown Prince and was intrinsically trusted. He was now appointed as the Director of the Ceremonial. Others were put in charge of the surveillance and intelligence agencies and the capital garrisons. Empire-wide, the unit corps was empowered yet again with the authority to seize by requisition whatever supplies and labor they might need to siphon off to the emperor's personal accounts

and to enact brutal punishments upon any civil ministry who might get in their way. As mentioned last episode, one of the major groups that were pressed for these higher rates of taxation were, curiously enough, the conscripted troops of the imperial armies themselves. Virtually needless to say, that did not exactly endear the emperor, much less his eunuch agents actually in the field overseeing such wealth extractions, to those already heavily put upon troops. I'm not sure I'll ever truly understand the repeated thought that a monarch should go out of his way to irk and belittle his own armed forces, because guess what happened? If you said, sounds like another rebellion is going to break out, then you get a gold star.

A large number of disaffected and angry troops began defecting as of 1509 and 1510, and congregating in the city of Wen'an, about 80 miles south of the capital. Inevitably, they rallied around a leader, who then proceeded to get himself captured by late 1510, though it sounds like pretty much everyone else managed to get away, regroup, and then mount a full-on revolt. By early 1511, they were a force of several thousand cavalry who were attacking and raiding administrative cities throughout the region. An imperial commander was appointed the following month to root out and capture these bandits, but his efforts and those of his soldiers proved to be of little use. Quote,

military discipline and security relax. The imperial troops preferred to avoid combat, and the civil official in charge of the campaign wanted to negotiate a surrender, end quote. The rebels solidly held the upper hand, as evidenced by their laying siege directly to that August. At that point, additional imperial garrisons were called in from other regions, at last forcing the bandit armies to surrender, only to apparently almost immediately break back into revolt that October. By this point, the emperor himself had become aware of and interested in the struggling anti-rebel campaign, and demanded that his soldiers fight, darn it. Unsurprisingly, such exhortations did little to bolster the morale of the Ming troops, and no victories were forthcoming. In October 1511, bandit armies burned over a thousand imperial grain barges in transit to Beijing. The situation was very serious. The rebels continued to grow

ever more emboldened. In January of 1512, ahead of the Lunar New Year, they struck again, this time attacking Bajou, just 60 miles south of the capital. This was especially worrying, as the New Year celebration positively required that the emperor make sacrifices to heaven and worrying, as the New Year celebration positively required that the emperor make sacrifices to heaven and earth, and the altar to heaven was located outside the city walls of Beijing. As such, the sovereign could potentially be at risk of attack during this ritual. Security was beefed up around the capital, though it turned out to all be pretty much for not. There's no indication that the rebels ever considered at all, much less seriously planned, to accost the emperor during the New Year ceremony. In any event, by the summer of 1512, they'd split into multiple fragmentary units, some moving south across the Yangtze River

into the Jiangxi Riverlands, while others moved east into the Shandong Peninsula, while the largest contingent moved against the city of Wutong on the banks of the Yangtze itself. Now, when I say largest contingent, you might be wondering exactly what I mean. And it's a reasonable question. 50,000 men? 100,000? 500,000? All might be reasonable guesses for a significant Chinese rebel force in certain times and places. But no. In this case, we're talking about 800 guys. Such was the size of the movement that was setting the Ming government's teeth on edge in 1512.

Go figure. This force, such as it was, requisitioned ships to sail east down the Yangtze toward Dongzhou, a large administrative city near the river's mouth. Yet when they tried to anchor, local defense forces kept them from coming ashore. Confined to their ships, they were unlucky enough to have arrived just in time for a seasonal typhoon to strike, sinking most of their ships, supplies, and treasure in the middle of the night. The survivors retreated southeast to Longshan, a commanding height from which they hoped to mount an effective defense. On September 7th, Imperial armies surrounded the position, drove them up to the top of the, well, let's call it what it was, hill,

and then slaughtered them to a man. Thus ended the rebel campaign. Victory was declared and reported to Beijing, and the armies were recalled to the capital. So, mission accomplished, right? Not so fast. Because remember that I'd said that the rebel force had fragmented before this? As such, this only comprised the single largest faction, rather than the totality of the movement.

The rebels in Jiangxi would prove problematic for the decade to come, and further banditry would continue to spread as far south and west as Sichuan, though at a reduced scale. What can affirmatively be said, at least, is that the threat to the capital itself had been ended. So far, this episode is pretty boilerplate. Emperors, ministers, eunuchs, armies, and rebels. Well, here's the part where things start to get pretty weird. Because upon the return of the Ming army to Beijing, a cavalry officer named Jiang Bin from Xuanfu Garrison somehow finagled his way into getting an audience with the emperor himself. This was done through, what else, bribery. In this case, a nice lining of the pockets of the

emperor's current BFF, the commander of the imperial bodyguard, Qian Ning. How had Qian Ning become the emperor's favorite? Well, I'm glad you asked. He was, like, really good at shooting arrows, and was ambidextrous, which was super cool. Yes, let us now take a moment to remember that the Zhengde emperor is, as of 1512, about 20 years old, and has never really mentally had to grow much past 13 to 15. One of the perks of being the emperor's BFF was that you apparently got to live with him. Just right there, in his quarters, getting wasted with him on the regular, chasing tail, and all around just being a real dude bro. From Geis, quote,

He was invited to live with the emperor and often got drunk with him. Eventually, he was put in charge of all imperial inquisitions and became a very powerful person. He retained favor by pandering to the emperor. He procured his favorite musicians, Muslim women for his harem, and Tibetan monks skilled in the esoteric magic of Tantric Buddhism. Always looking for new entertainments, he agreed to introduce Jiang Bin

because he knew that the emperor wanted to meet him. End quote. Little did he know just what he was allowing into his comfortable little world of dude-browness. Zhengde had first heard of Jiangbin the year before, in 1511, when he had been told about the cavalryman's feats in battle against the brigands in the Huai River Valley. In the course of the fighting, he'd taken no fewer than three arrows, one of which hit him in the face and had exited through his ear. And what had Jiang done? Well, he just pulled that puppy right out and kept on

fighting. Dude. Bro. Zhengde was, like, totally impressed by these epic stories of legendary epicness, and totally wanted to meet the guy and check out his sweet scars. And upon meeting him, and seeing the sick scars, he knew that the stories were true. Quote, Jiang was a strong, imposing soldier, skilled in martial arts and fond of recounting battle tales. The emperor enjoyed listening to him, and so invited Jiang to live in his private quarters. End quote. At which point, Qian Ning quickly found himself going, Wait, what? What's happening?

Yep, sorry Qian, but you just found your own replacement. Qian tried to slander Jiang, but it was too late. Jiang had already replaced him as the 20-year-old emperor's favorite companion. Now, wishing to secure his lock on such a primo position, Jiang played up his military heroism and the emperor's fascination with such martial exploits. He suggested, therefore, that the troops of the four northern garrisons, the most experienced and battle-hardened in the entire empire, should be rotated with the capital garrisons and then placed under his direct command. His rationale? Quote, the capital garrisons had no combat experience and had already proved useless

against bandits in the metropolitan area. Border troops, hardened by combat and a Spartan life, And big surprise here, The emperor was persuaded, and so it was enacted in December of 1512. Let the order be drafted. And big surprise here, well, okay, not a big surprise at all, but there was some rather substantial pushback on this order from the imperial bureaucracy. Such helpful notes and critiques such as, this is nuts, are you totally insane, and do you have a death wish? For one, sending useless capital troops to the border wasn't going to harden them so much as it was going to allow the Mongols to cut through them like butter. For another, stationing border troops in the capital was going to... Well, I mean, you try ordering around someone who's looked frozen death in the eye a dozen times. These were not city guardsmen, they were killers cut from granite.

It wasn't the same. It didn't matter. The emperor's mind was made up, and when the grand secretary refused to draft the edict, Zhengde simply bypassed him, drafting his own edict and promulgating it. So it was that the last of the grand secretaries who had served Zhengde's father at last resigned his position in protest of this extremely stupid action. The border troops would dutifully arrive at the capital in February 1513, and were then put under the dual command of Jiang Bin and the commander of the Xuanfu garrison, Xu Tai, Zheng's principal ally and advisor, and in fact a sort of gray eminence for many of the schemes purportedly thought up by Jiang Bin in the months and years to follow. The border troops were broken into four units, and large-scale construction and renovation projects taken up to accommodate their numbers and needs along the

western wall of the Forbidden City. As for the Xuanfu garrison troops themselves, that March, a storage area and stables near the Imperial City were taken over and repurposed to house them, and in short order, Zhengde began to regard the garrison troops as his own private army. At this point, in spite of having never led a campaign, participated in a war or battle, or even so much as left the capital for any significant period, Zhengde, quote, now fancied himself a great imperial general, like the second founder of the dynasty, the Yongle Emperor, and he wanted to act out the role, end quote. So, okay. On its face, this seems absurd and incredibly stupid. An abject recipe for disaster. weird thing about the Zhengde Emperor is that it will turn out that in spite of him being a petulant, indolent, childish weirdo in pretty much every other aspect of his short, strange life, he sort

of turns out to be not wrong about this one thing of all of the things. It's not so much that he turns out to be an especially excellent or singular commander in his own right, so much as he has a fundamentally different vision of the Ming military and its place in the world order of the 16th century. Zhengde had grown up in a post-Tumu crisis world, a world in which Great Ming had reached its apogee and was thereafter doomed to sit on permanent defense, forever playing catch-up with those wascoey wabbit Mongols on the far side of the Great Wall. And to that, our young would-be big damn hero Zheng De said, I don't think so. The emperor wanted instead to demonstrate his own military prowess as a warning and a show of

strength. He wanted to let the hordes see that the Ming emperor was as great a war leader as Batu Mongke, who had by this time secured the allegiance of most of the Mongols and had occupied the Ordos. The vast majority of his ministers had fundamentally disagreed with such a vision, certain in their own views that Ming was no longer able to match Mongol cavalry, and that the only practical policy was retreat and isolation. Yet in Jiangbin, Zhengde found his kindred spirit and willing right hand. And, I mean, they were both super into it.

Cue training montage. The Emperor and Jiang had created twinsies sets of matching armor for campaigning together, and they rode together, and they were virtually indistinguishable from each other on the battlefield. Isn't that adorable? Now, one doesn't just go from zero to fighting the Mongol Khan all in one leap. You've got to ramp up to that. They started with mock hunts and staged battles within the Imperial City itself. Yet even this ended in near tragedy, when in the course of one of these hunts in September 1514, Zhengde was attacked by a tiger, a flippin' tiger, and badly mauled, to the point that it took him more than a month to recuperate.

But get this, during his rehabilitation, one of his officials, clearly out of sincere concern for his majesty's well-being, suggested that he should take better care of himself. For this, the official was immediately demoted and exiled from the capital to the ass-end of nowhere. That'll teach you to be concerned with my well-being. As Geist puts it, quote, The emperor clearly intended to continue hunting, danger notwithstanding, end quote. Did you really think that being mauled by a tiger would be the worst of Jungda's little military training montage?

You silly billy. Of course not. Hey, remember how much Jungda liked the pretty, pretty lanterns ever since he was a little kid? To the point that he spent the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in one year alone just to buy those pretty, beautiful lanterns? Of course you do. So that childhood love had never really gone away, and had actually expanded iteratively upon itself year after year, as hobbies tend to do. Well, as the new year of 1514 approached, the Prince of Ning, named Zhu Chenhao, suggested to the Emperor a new and even more fancy type of lantern. Now, these were not your grandfather's

lanterns that just hang down from a line all lame and droopy. No. These ultra-cool, ultra-modern, cutting-edge lanterns were affixed directly to the columns of the buildings and verandas, which was a totally new, totally cool effect. It's described that, quote, the effect was spectacular. The courtyard before the main residential palace was as bright as day, end quote. In the lead up to this big day, the area around the main palace had been stocked with all sorts of holiday celebration goodies, in addition to the kinds of gunpowders and explosives that were regularly used in his mock battles. These were all stored

in step-style felt-gir tents for added realism. And, um, how to put this, there was a slight mishap. Namely, on the evening of February 10th, at least one of those fancy new stick-on lanterns appeared to have unstuck itself, dropped down rather inconveniently into one of those fancy new stick-on lanterns appeared to have unstuck itself, dropped down rather inconveniently into one of those munition tents below, and... Yeah. Quote, The gunpowder exploded and set all the palaces and audience halls in the residential compound on fire. The conflagration lasted through the night, and the residential palaces were completely destroyed.

End quote. Well now, that's one way to really put a damper on the party. The emperor quickly withdrew back to his own personal residence, the Baofeng, or Leopard's Chamber, just outside the Forbidden City's western gates. While en route, he's written in the Book of Ming to have turned back and gazed at the sky aglow with the flames of the Imperial Palace, only to remark, wow, that sure is one big damn fire. Cut to eight months later, and Zhengde has finally gotten around to ordering a great cleanup of the charred remnants of the Imperial Palace. No, not by rebuilding it, not yet anyway, but instead by sweeping out the ashes and then ordering from Shanxi 162 specially constructed gurs,

because he was all about that campaign life on the steppes that he'd, you know, never actually done. Yes, Zhengde is totally the kind of guy who orders a $10,000 custom hunting rifle and buys $5,000 worth of tactical gear for his first ever hunting trip. Quote, The Urts, which formed a palace compound complete with gates, residential quarters, courtyards, kitchens, stables, and lavatories, were set up first in the Forbidden City. End quote. But they would accompany him wherever he traveled thereafter.

Even so, it was impressed upon Zhengde, no doubt, to his annoyance, that whether or not His Majesty wished to live in his little tent city, the actual real residential palace compound would still need to be rebuilt for realsies. It was the sheer image thing, if nothing else. No self-respecting emperor just let his imperial capital sit as a heap of ashes. No, not even if he'd never been terribly partial to it. It just wasn't done. Apatras' descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms, or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.

Begrudgingly, Zhang De assented, and in January of 1515, the Ministry of Works reported that it would take more than one million ounces of silver to cover the costs of reconstruction, which, going by my earlier silly comparison, would be about $25 million, or about three times his annual lantern budget. Now, this could be done by massively hiking taxes to 20% over the course of the next five years, or, or, your majesty could consider kicking in for about half of it out of your massive personal treasury as a loan that we will pay back to help offset the cost and, you know, not drive the peasantry into a desperation and starvation-induced murderous frenzy? It was a no for the imperial personal loan, and so the massive, humongous tax

hike it would be. That summer, and oh, what a time to start a building project, some 30,000 troops of the capital garrisons and the imperial bodyguard were reassigned to work on the reconstruction project. It would finally be completed in 1521, more than seven years after the fire. By this point, the Zhengde emperor had come to the conclusion that, basically, courtly protocols were wholly optional for him, if even that. He was the emperor, after all, what did he care about the way things ought to be done? What he wanted, he got. End of story. In January of 1515, for instance, a court secretary complained that the New Year's sacrifice had been held up at the emperor's behest until late afternoon, when it should

have begun exactly at dawn. As a result, the ceremony hadn't finished until well after dark. So what? Why did Zheng Da care? He did what he wanted. The following month, the Grand Secretary moaned that Zhengda only rarely bothered to even hold audiences with his court anymore, and once again that even when he deigned to show up, it was always in a late afternoon and not in the morning when they were supposed to be held. In fact, the entire court would be left waiting in their places from dawn until whenever Jungdae decided to show up, and with no explanation. So what? I'm not a morning person. What are you going to do about it? It wasn't just inconvenience or impropriety, though. There was actual physical, even mortal, dangers to these proceedings falling out of whack. Audiences in the late afternoon

meant that they would conclude after dark. Hundreds or even thousands of ministers in their attendance, then all trying to leave the palace grounds in the black of night all at once to get home, meant that accidents were bound to happen. Chaos ensued. People were literally trampled to death, including one high-ranking general. For his own part, the emperor seemed to care little, and mostly just wanted to have as little to do with his endlessly whining, endlessly griping, endlessly dissatisfied ministers as he possibly could. It was all just so boring. Quote, Complaints about his behavior fell on deaf ears. Almost all imperial business was now entrusted to eunuchs. Whatever their shortcomings, One such case was Zhengde's fascination with the Buddhist lamas of the Tibetan schools.

He'd been introduced to the concept of these magician monks through Qianning prior to his being set aside, and in 1515 ordered that one of these living Buddhas that he'd heard so much of these lamas speak about be brought to him in Beijing. One especially bold censor criticized Zhengde for consorting with these ochre-robed ones with bronze rings in their ears, and recommended that their

best use would be to send them to the extreme western frontiers to scare gremlins away. But Zhengde was not amused, and the lamas stayed at his side. The so-called living Buddha in question was, in fact, the leader of the Karmapos sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the Prince of Rinsprungs, who had been in de facto control of Lhasa since 1498 and long proclaimed as a miracle worker. I want to meet this guy, Zhengde said. It won't be possible, Your Majesty, came his minister's reply. Rinsprungs is in the middle of defending his turf from his rivals, and he definitely won't make the trip. Eh, I think you're wrong about that, said Zhengda. Make it happen. It cannot be done, said the ministers. Okay then, said Zhengda. I'll

get a second opinion. And so it was that over the vehement protests of his ministers, Zhengda appointed the eunuch lord Liu Yun in charge of the mission to, you know, mosey on over to Tibet and acquire this living Buddha for the Emperor. The Grand Secretary protested especially hard, saying that Liu was probably going to go and do something really stupid, especially since he'd been given the authority to requisition whatever the heck he wanted, and he'd be passing through Sichuan, which had only recently been pacified of its bandit activity, and huge, unreasonable imperial requisition orders would probably throw the whole area back into chaos. The Grand Secretary therefore refused to draft

the order. Well, okay then, said Zhengde, your objection has been noted. And then, he drafted the order himself. And you're not going to believe this. Okay, you're totally going to believe this. But it turns out that the Grand Secretary actually knew what he was talking about, and events played out pretty much exactly as he warned. From Geis, quote, The eunuch requisitioned hundreds of ships all along the Yangtze River and conscripted thousands of people to pull his fleets through the rapids of the upper gorges. By the time he reached Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, his entourage required 100 don of rice and 100 ounces of silver per day just for food. He remained in Sichuan for

a year while he procured gifts for the mission and finally left with an escort of a thousand cavalry, end quote. And it continued to get worse from there. After finally arriving outside Lhasa, Liu Yun asked the living Buddha to come with him, to which the prince of Rinsprung said, kinda busy here, no thanks. This prompted the Ming eunuch to try to coerce the Tibetan prince, which prompted the prince to respond by ambushing the Ming camp, seizing all of its gifts and other valuables, and killing more than half of the mission in the process. Liu Yun managed to flee for his life, but took several years to even get back to Chengdu, only to find that the emperor he'd been dispatched by had died in the

interim. Whoops. Meanwhile, back in Beijing, the Zhengde emperor, now in his mid-twenties, was just as listless and indolent as ever, and decided that he was, like, totally bored of this whole scene, you know? It was just full of whiny ministers who just moaned and complained all day long, and he was just so over it. You know what the new hotness is? Well, I heard it was all going on up in Xuanfu, just 90 miles northwest. Who had suggested such a change of venue to Zhengde? Who else but Jiang Bin, of course, who sought to get the emperor out of the capital and therefore away from his chief rival for imperial affections and the person of the ever-present, ever-smoldering Qianning.

Xuanfu is way cooler than lame old Beijing, Jiang Bin told Zhengde. Bro, trust me, it's got way better tunes and tons more hotties who are way hotter than these boring capital chicks. And I know what you're probably thinking. You think I'm exaggerating all this for comedic effect. But no, this is pretty much exactly the tenor of his argument. Plus, he went on, It's right up close to the border so you can see some real skirmishes,

which are way cooler than these pretend battles in Beijing. Zhengde was head over heels, and less than a year later, and with almost no warning to his court, he made his first trip to the border city. It started with a series of brief excursions, beginning in January of 1517, with the emperor informing his court that, after the New Year's sacrifice, he was going to go on a hunt in the Nan Nanhaiza Imperial Park, just south of the capital. At this suggestion, his ministers balked. Such a thing had never been done before.

Why, what if something should happen while you were away? They could countenance no such thing. To this, the emperor just kind of casually ignored them and kept right on emperoring. On the day of the imperial sacrifice, with the mourning ritual concluded, the emperor simply told his assembled ministers that he was, you know, going hunting. And they could come with, or not. But he was going. What else could they do? They followed, and were, quote, kept waiting until late in the afternoon. They were then dismissed and told to await the imperial entourage at the gates of Beijing.

They again waited and waited and waited until the emperor's litter showed up about midnight, and he held another audience. Several days later, he announced a second hunting trip. This time, no objections were raised, and no one wanted to go with him. Everything was proceeding exactly as he had foreseen. He began to plan longer and farther expeditions. That summer, Zhengde made his first attempt at getting himself to glorious storied Xuanfu. On August 17th, 1517, he departed Beijing, wrapped in one of the disguises that he was infamous for donning when it suited him, and made for Changping, about 20 miles north of the capital. But it turned out

that his disguise wasn't nearly as convincing as he'd hoped, as by the next day his grand secretaries had been made aware of the emperor's escape and destination and were hot on his heels to reel him back in. They caught up with his entourage and commenced with begging him to return home, please? To which the emperor responded, no, I don't feel like it, and continued on. Five days later, he reached Zhuyong Pass, some 30 miles northwest of Beijing. However, work of his imperial escapade had arrived ahead of him, and the censor in charge of the pass's gate ordered it locked and took the lock's key onto his person. When the emperor arrived and knock-knock-knocked, asking to be let through, he was informed that the way was shut. Rather annoyed, Zhengde demanded that the eunuch in charge of the gate open it for him at once, to which the censor

brandished his sword and vowed to behead the eunuch on the spot if he even so much as attempted it. Realizing that he'd crossed something of a line in threatening to murder one of the emperor's personal servants, the censor quickly decided to submit a report to the capital that, um, well, someone was claiming to be the emperor and demanding to be let through the Juyeong Gate, but he couldn't be sure that it was the emperor and he'd only agree to open the gate if an order bearing the Imperial Seal as well as the counter-seals of both the Empress and the Empress Dowager was presented to him, and then he'd totally follow the order. That's right, even the Emperor still needed his mommy to sign his permission slip to let him go on the field trip. Ultimately, the impasse resolved itself when Zhengde apparently

got... bored, and just decided to turn around and go home. Oh well. Maybe next time. Next time came almost exactly two weeks later, when, on September 8th, he once again spirited himself out of Beijing, again dressed as a commoner, and rushed for the northward pass. This time, he was successful in beating out the lockdown. Quote, he arrived in four days, spent the night at a farmer's house, and hurried through on 13 September while the censor in charge was absent. End quote. Not only that, but he learned a trick or two from his first unsuccessful attempt. This time, he left behind one of his own favored eunuchs, Gu Dayong, in charge of the gate, with explicit orders not to allow any court officials through.

Oh yes, he did. On September 16th, he arrived at last at glorious Xuanfu, and officially took up residence at his new party pad. And yeah, things went full-on frat house pretty much right off the bat. From Geis, quote, He even gave himself a frat bro nickname and insisted that everyone call him that and only that. His awesome party bro nickname was General Zhu Shou, heroic defender of the realm,

and the Xuanfu Palace was actually his army command HQ. And he was, like, super committed to the bit. His orders and requisitions from there on out would carry military styles and seals, and he flatly refused to use his imperial seals or titles anymore. This persisted even as his grand secretaries and ministers down in Beijing tore their hair out over the ludicrousness of it all. How in the world, they protested, clearly at their wits' end, were they supposed to know what an actual imperial-level order was versus a phony order from any random schmuck pretending to be this fictitious Zhu Shou. Please, Your Majesty, please, we are begging you, just use the Imperial Seal. Zhengde, um, I mean General Zhu Shou, heroic defender of the realm, happily ignored all

these wails of protest and went right on kicking ass, chewing bubblegum, and requisitioning hot babes from their homes. He issued a requisition order to the Ministry of Revenue that General Zhu Shou, heroic defender of the realm, required a transfer of one million ounces of silver to his party palace, military headquarters at Xuanfu, on the double. Jaws dropped. Eyes welled with tears of sheer frustration. A million ounces of silver? No one just had that much around. The Ministry of Revenue itself only had 200,000 ounces, while the Imperial Treasury at Taichung held a measly 150,000 more.

After strenuous protests and explanation about the utter ridiculous impossibility of the general's request, Grand Secretary Liang Chu finally agreed to send half of the demanded amount to the Xuanfu Party Pad HQ. For his part, the emperor-slash-general was not amused. Quote, The emperor found this behavior on the part of his officials intolerable. Who were they to question his orders? In January 1518, he virtually imprisoned the court in Beijing. The officers in charge of the gates were told that the court officials could not leave the city. End quote. In the meantime, though, it was time for Zhengde, I mean, General Zhu Shou, heroic defender of the realm, to put a pause on requisitioning party queens for his kickin' pad and finally get around

to doing what he'd actually come here to do, earn him some military glory the old-fashioned Yongle way, by cracking Mongol skulls. In mid-October, while on a patrol about 40 miles southwest of Shunfu, word reached the general-slash-emperor that a large raiding party under the personal command of Batu Monka, aka Dayan Khan, to the tune of perhaps as many as 70,000 step-riders, had crossed the frontier and entered Chinese territory. At this, Zhengde leapt into action. This was his big chance.

Troop strength was beefed up at every garrison, commanders appointed, and a major campaign set in motion. The Mongol raid in force commenced on October 16th with several small, inconclusive skirmishes, leading to little more than the Mongols testing the Ming defensive zones of control and then pulling back without fully committing. Two days later would be the first major engagement near the garrison city of Yingzhou, about 40 miles south of the border fort at Dadong. On the 19th, Zhengde himself arrived at the battlefield to personally direct combat operations, which spanned across the entire day. As dusk fell, as was typical of their strategies, the Mongols withdrew into the twilight.

But Zhengde wasn't about to let his quarry off the hook so easily, and ordered his forces forward, into the gloom of the frontier to hunt their step-foes down. The pursuit was only halted when a severe dust storm rolled through, rendering further pursuit impossible. The Mongol army of Batu Monka had made good their retreat back across the wastelands. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that at one critical moment he'd come about this close to getting himself captured, Zhengde was fully willing, ready, and able to call this a total victory. Chalk one up for the good guys. Geist writes, quote, it was in fact the only time during the 16th century that Ming armies turned back a large Mongol raiding party, and the emperor's presence on the field of battle certainly influenced the outcome. End quote.

So, war hero status now firmly achieved, General Zhu Shou, Mongol slayer extraordinaire and heroic defender of the realm, was at last ready to return to his epic party crib in Xuanfu that November. And man, aw, jeez, wouldn't you know it, but aw, it looks like he was just not going to be able to make it back to the capital in time to do that whole sacrifice to heaven at the dawn of the first day of the new year thingy. Gee, what a shame. The Grand Secretaries, upon receiving this message from the eunuch messenger, were positively apoplectic. Such a

thing had never, ever been done before, they wailed. This risks unmooring the very balance of the earth from the heavens, they bemoaned. Your Majesty, you simply cannot not do it. They rode out at once from the capital to take Zhengde firmly by the ear if necessary, and drag him back to Beijing to perform his solemn holy duty. In this, they made it exactly as far as the sealed gates of Zhuyong Pass, where they discovered Zhengde's bestie there, telling them, none shall pass. Dejected and defeated, they turned back. All in all, Zhengde would remain holed up in his border abode for some five months in total,

chilling out, relaxing, and having sweet adventures with his homies, before finally deciding that, he guessed it was time to go back home or whatever. He arrived back at Beijing of his own accord on February 15th, 1518, in spite of all else apparently in time for the new year. Heralds had arrived ahead of him, informing the court of the sovereign's imminent return, and ordering them to array themselves in a grand welcome at the northwestern gate. So it was that at the crack of dawn, they assembled and waited to welcome their majestic

sovereign lord's imminent arrival. And they waited. And then they kept waiting. It was, by the way, a pretty miserable day, and sleep poured down, soaking and chilling them all to the bone. Still, they waited. And waited some more. The dull gray winter sky darkened and turned black. They had waited the entire day. Finally, late in the evening, the Zhengde emperor appeared on horseback, accompanied by his cavalry escort. Riding up to his assembled and no doubt looking like drowned rats with their teeth chattering ministers, it was expected even without command that they perform their obeisances to the emperor, which under the circumstances involved them all kneeling before him in the freezing mud. Zhengde then ordered that his personal tent be erected right then and there,

and retired within, thereafter seeing his chief ministers and grand secretaries. He had fruit and wine served, and made a point of humble bragging to his lords and servants that, you know, I actually killed a Mongol myself. Yeah, that's right. It was all me. In all, it was well after midnight when the soaked, half-frozen, mud-covered, and exhausted court ministers were finally able to file back into Beijing proper and get some sleep. Three days later, he finally conducted the imperial sacrifice and then went for a hunt. The next month, he departed the capital yet again, after less than 20 days back,

for where else, Shunfu? Only to be forced to turn back and return on the 22nd when he learned that his grandmother, Empress Dowager Wang, had died and he intended to see to her funeral arrangements. He left again in May to inspect the family tombs and then proceeded to Miyun, some 40 miles northeast of Beijing, where he held an audience with several Oirat Mongol chieftains, and then returned to the capital for the Empress Dowager's funeral. Her final procession left the capital on July 22nd, and Zhengde followed on horseback,

spending the night before her final burial alone near her tomb site, in his single-occupancy tent, drinking heavily. That is where we're going to leave it off here today. But we're not even done with Zhengde, and I really can't believe I'm saying this because it totally seems like we should be done with him and then some, but no. Next time, the great general Zhu Shou, heroic protector of the realm, slayer of Mongols, and seducer of hot babes, shall ride again. And seriously, we will get to the Europeans, who are still patiently, oh so patiently,

waiting at the mouth of the Pearl River, wondering what exactly is taking us so long to get back to them. Thanks for listening. To be continued... History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore tales of this ancient culture. The History of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt.