Zhengde Emperor - Reign As Emperor

Reign As Emperor

Zhengde ascended the throne and was married to the Empress at the age of 14. Unlike his father, Zhengde was not interested in ruling or his Empress and disregarded all state affairs. His actions have been considered reckless, foolish or pointless. There are many instances where he showed a lack of responsibility.

He took up a luxurious and prodigal lifestyle and indulged himself in women. It was said that he liked to frequent brothels and even created palaces called "Bao Fang" (豹房; literally "The Leopards' Chamber") outside the Forbidden City in Beijing initially to house exotic animals such as tigers and leopards for his amusement and then later used to house beautiful women for his personal enjoyment. On one occasion he was badly mauled while hunting tigers, and could not appear in court audiences for a month. On another occasion he burned down his palace by storing gunpowder in the courtyards during the lantern festival. His harem was so overfilled that many of its women starved to death due to lack of supplies.

For months at a time he would live outside the Forbidden City or travel around the country with heavy expenditures being paid from the empire's coffer. While being urged to return to the palace and attend to governmental matters, Zhengde would refuse to receive all his ministers and ignored all their petitions. Zhengde also sanctioned the rise of eunuchs around him. One particular Liu Jin, leader of the Eight Tigers, was notorious for taking advantage of the young emperor and squandered immense amount of silver and valuables. The diverted funds were about 36 million pounds of gold and silver. There was even rumor of a plot that Liu Jin had intended to murder the emperor and place his own grandnephew on the throne. Liu Jin's plot was ultimately discovered, and he was executed in 1510 however the rise of corrupt enunchs continued throughout Zhengde's reign. There is also uprising led by Prince of Anhua and another uprising led by Prince of Ning. Prince of Anhua was Zhengde's great-granduncle, while Prince of Ning was his granduncle.

In time Zhengde became notorious for his childish behaviour as well as abusing his power as emperor. For instance, he set up a staged commercial district inside his palace and ordered all his ministers, eunuchs, soldiers and servants of the palace to dress up and act as merchants or street vendors while he walked through the scene pretending to be a commoner. Any unwilling participants, especially the ministers (who viewed it as degrading and an insult), would be punished or removed from their post.

Then in 1518 Zhengde declared himself General Zhu (鎮國公朱壽) and personally led an expedition to the north to repeal raiding expeditions several tens of thousands strong led by the Mongol General nicknamed "The Little Prince". He met the enemy outside the city of Yingzhou and defeated them in a major battle by surrounding them. For a long period of time after this battle, the Mongols did not launch a raiding expedition into Ming territory. Then again in 1519, Zhengde led another expedition to Jiangxi province to the south to quell a rebellion by a powerful baron who had bribed many people in Zhengde's cabinet. He arrived only to discover that the revolt had already been put down by Wang Shouren, a local administrative officer. Frustrated at not being able to lead his troops to victory, Zhengde's advisor suggested the release the baron in order to capture him again. In January 1521, Zhengde had the rebel Prince of Ning executed in Tongzhou, an event that was recorded even by the Portuguese embassy to China.