The Prince and the Sage: Concerning Wang Yangming's Effortless Suppression of the Ning Princely...

68 Larry Israel

68

Late Imperial China Vol. 29, No. 2 (December 2008): 68–128 © by the Society for Qing Studies and The Johns Hopkins University Press

The Prince and The Sage: concerning Wang Yangming’S “efforTleSS”

SuPPreSSion of The ning PrincelY eSTabliShmenT rebellion

larry israel

In 1519 Wang Yangming (1472–1529) was residing in southern Jiangxi after having just led campaigns to suppress rampant banditry throughout the region. Although he wished at the time to leave his post of Grand Coordinator of Southern Gan and Superintendent of Military Affairs and return home to visit his aging father and recuperate from chronic illness, he was prevented from doing so by the development of a rather different kind of threat to the security of the country. This threat was the rebellion of the Prince of Ning Zhu Chenhao (1478–1521), the great-great-grandson of Ming Taizu’s sixteenth son, the Prince of Ningxian.1

The prince initiated his rebellion on 1519/6/142, but was defeated by Wang Yangming within approximately 42 days in what must have been a rather dishearteningly ignominious conclusion to years of grandiose expectations and preparation. But the challenges for the grand coordinator did not end with the capture of Zhu Chenhao. At the very moment he was submitting victory memorials, favorites of the Zhengde emperor, (Zhu Houzhao; Ming Wuzong; r. 1506–21), had convinced their ruler to lead a force of his own to the region. These favorites in turn attempted to force Wang Yangming to hand the prince over to their custody so they could release him on Lake Poyang and create an opportunity for the emperor to lead a campaign of his own. Because Wang Yangming refused, his life was at stake for months. In the end, however, after

1 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi (Ming history), 117:3593. 2 For convenience, and because of the level of detail regarding dates, I have adopted the somewhat unusual method of using the western calendar for regnal years but the Chinese calendar for months and days. But regardless, save for a few events leading up to the rebellion and campaign, all events transpired during the the fourteenth year of the reign of the Zhengde emperor (1519), and I will specify the year only when a different year is involved.

69The Prince and the Sage

having resided for a period of time in Nanjing, the emperor chose to return to Beijing, and Wang Yangming survived the challenge.

The story of Wang Yangming’s campaign and his success in navigating the harrowing aftermath have received a degree of attention in scholarship on his philosophy and intellectual development because it was just after the campaign that he began speaking extensively about what is usually considered to be his final teaching: “the extension of the innate knowledge of the good (zhi liangzhi).”3 Because the primary focus of virtually all scholarship on Wang Yangming has been his philosophy, his conduct throughout this time is typically narrated in brief and somewhat hagiographical fashion as testimony to the significance of his teaching, or at least as background context for and commentary upon his intellectual development and spiritual journey. Julia Ching, for instance, states that these trials and tribulations “proved to him the reliability of his own ‘way,’ the way to sagehood which follows the prompt-ings of the human heart and its desire for good.”4 These promptings were the innate knowledge of the good (liangzhi) which for Wang Yangming became an “an absolute norm, an authority for itself.”5

Similarly, although Xu Fuguan is one among a very small number of Wang Yangming scholars who attempt to give serious consideration to his “meritori-ous achievements” in light of his philosophy, and who therefore pays attention to his large number of official communications, his conclusions are similar to those of Julia Ching. He points out that those who hold Wang Yangming’s achievements in high esteem typically point to his rapid suppression of the Prince of Ning’s rebellion. With this he is largely in agreement. According to his assessment:

The rapidity with which he assembled troops, the resourcefulness and decisiveness with which he deployed the military, and [the fact] that within less than two months and seven days he pacified the rebellion,6 naturally are very striking achievements. Yet this is something a skilled general could have achieved. But amidst danger-ous suspicion and shocking [circumstances], the clarity with which he saw principle, the decisiveness with which he judged matters and, after his success, [his ability] to evade suspicion and distance

3 Examples abound, but to cite just one, see Qian Ming, Yangming xue de xingcheng yu fazhan (Forma-tion and development of Wang learning), 76ff.4 Ching, To Acquire Wisdom, 21. 5 Ching, To Acquire Wisdom, 173.6 Xu Fuguan’s timeframe is incorrect. The rebellion began approximately 6/14 and the prince was captured the following month on 7/26. Feng Menglong’s total of 42 days is more accurate.

70 Larry Israel

danger, to remain unfettered by concern over safety and danger, and to look indifferently upon worldly honor and official rank—this is not something a skilled general could have done.7

Xu Fuguan believes that what is most impressive about this campaign was Wang Yangming’s ability to navigate harrowing challenges and yet remain largely unmoved.

Xu Fuguan proposes to further our understanding of Wang Yangming’s life, and this campaign in particular, by drawing a firm distinction between the pragmatic or realist politician and the principled or idealist politician. Whereas the former is largely motivated by the desire for power and recogni-tion and views politics as an arena of competing interests, the latter takes cues from the principles laid down by the Confucian sages and worthies, and is concerned solely with “what must be the case for the mind-heart of humanity and rightness.”8 Here we have what is in effect a piece of Socratic wisdom: a man worth anything at all does not concern himself with whether his course of action endangers his life, and rather considers only whether what he does is just. According to Xu Fuguan, Wang Yangming’s greatness lies in the fact that he acted strictly on the basis of transcendent principles irreducible to narrow personal interest: “Wang Yangming’s political actions and meritorious achievement all derived from his self-cultivated humanity, which is also to say from his giving scope to the innate knowledge of the good.”9

According to Wang’s doctrine, to say that his actions were in accord with innate knowledge of the good is to say that he had unified knowledge and action.10 For him, as for his followers, extension of innate knowledge of the good was in essence enactment of the Mencian moral mind, from whence springs naturally knowledge-cum-sentiment of right and wrong, or what Philip Ivanhoe refers to as “innate” or “nascent moral sense.”11 For Mengzi, to

7 Xu Fuguan, “Wang Yangming sixiang bu lun” (Supplementary comments on Wang Yangming’s thought), 506–7.8 Xu Fuguan, “Wang Yangming sixiang bu lun,” 496.9 Xu Fuguan, “Wang Yangming sixiang bu lun,” 497.10 Cf. Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 229. For a discussion, see Chen Lai, You wu zhi jing (The realm of being and nonbeing), 110–112.11 Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition, 19. For a discussion of the relation between Mengzi’s “four beginnings” and Wang’s thought see Chen Lai, You wu zhi jing, 166. For liangzhi, see also A.S. Cua, “Between Commitment and Realization.” I do however retain Wing-tsit Chan’s translation of liangzhi as “innate knowledge of the good.” In his Inquiry on the Great Learning, perhaps the most definitive statement of his teachings, Wang states that innate knowledge of the good is the sense of right and wrong which—following Mengzi—“requires no deliberation to know, nor does it depend on learning to function” (Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 278). Ivanhoe’s translation of liangzhi as “pure knowing” seems to leave out both the element of inherentness/innateness (although pure does imply this


know this mind is to know nature and therefore to know Heaven.12 Therefore, to actualize such knowledge in one’s political conduct is to actualize a tran-scendent moral force, to bring the political order in line with a natural order of right.13 According to Julia Ching, one who is able to achieve this has in essence become a paradigmatic human being, one who mediates between the human and natural or cosmic orders.14 As Lu Miaofen has pointed out, Wang Yangming’s military victories had a profound influence on the establishment of his schools of thought because they both spread his fame throughout the country and resulted in his becoming recognizable as one who “conspicuously manifested the exemplary Confucian political ideal of sageliness within and kingliness without.”15

To be sure, there is no lack of evidence within Wang Yangming’s works for the assertion that it was as a result of his experiences during this time that he came to what may have been his final teaching. In a letter to his student Zou Shouyi, for example, Wang Yangming explained, “in prior years I had not fully exhausted my doubts, but now ever since being occupied with so many affairs I have come to realize that liangzhi is completely sufficient.”16 He here compared the guidance of innate knowledge of the good to having the rudder of a boat in one’s hand: amidst waves and rapids all goes smoothly as one should wish.

Now what I would like to propose is—given the semantic weight that has grown around this campaign—it is surprising it has not received more extensive treatment. Such lack of attention to the historical context of Neo-Confucian learning has, however, according to Yu Yingshi, been characteristic of much scholarship in the field, scholarship, he believes, that emphasizes the dimen-sion of “inner sageliness” (enlightenment) to the neglect of “outer kingliness” (reconstruction of the social order).17 For my purposes here, because the

indirectly) and, most importantly, the moral import of such knowing. Also, Chan’s translation is not meant to imply a body of knowledge; as A.S. Cua points out, liangzhi is not a “repository of universal principles or rules to guide the perplexed agent” (632). For him, it is better understood as, variously and properly interpreted, “moral sense,” “moral discrimination,” and “moral consciousness.” I would also agree with Cua that liangzhi, as the locus where tianli (Heavenly reason) naturally and clearly reveals itself in con-sciousness, has an “implicit volitional character” and therefore “the will to its actualization” (631). This is where such innate moral knowing links with action. But in any case, a full discussion of the meaning of liangzhi is beyond the scope of this paper, the goal of which is a preliminary historical inquiry into the world of meanings giving sense to this “moral sense” or “innate moral knowing.”12 Mengzi yi zhu 7.1; ed. Jin Liangnian, 271.13 By natural order of right, I simply mean what for Wang Yangming was the normative ideal for social and political order, or in other words an order in accord with human nature (xing).14 Ching, Mysticism and Kingship in China, 106.15 Lu Miaofen, Yangming xue shiren shequn, 46.16 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji (Complete works), 34:1278.17 Yu Yingshi, Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua (Song-Ming learning of principle and its relation to political culture), 27, 348ff.

72 Larry Israel

philosophical meaning of liangzhi has received much attention, I believe it a useful exercise to undertake an historical inquiry into its normative import, for it is this that makes it a Confucian teaching on the nature of enlighten-ment. For Wang Yangming, the innate knowledge of the good was “what is referred to as the ‘great foundation of all under Heaven,’ and to act in accord with this was “what is referred to as ‘all under Heaven attaining the Way.’”18 In other words, the ideal normative social and political order is fully in accord with human nature, and therefore with innate knowledge of the good. To fol-low such knowledge is to return the world to the Way, and this is what Wang Yangming appears to have believed he was doing throughout the campaign. As he told his follower Chen Jiuchuan when residing, just after the campaign, in Ganzhou in 1520:

Your innate knowledge of the good is your own standard. When you direct your thought your innate knowledge knows that it is right if it is right and wrong if it is wrong. You cannot keep anything from it. Just do not try to deceive it but sincerely and truly follow it in whatever you do. What security and joy there is in this! This is the true secret of the investigation of things and the real effort of the extension of knowledge. If you do not rely on this true secret, how can you proceed to investigate things? I have only in recent years realized this through personal experience and become so clear about it.19

Because Wang Yangming’s philosophy was therefore always one of action tied to a vision of socio-political order and the kind of knowledge guaranteeing its very possibility, rather than focusing on the philosophical context of his philosophy of self-cultivation (inner sageliness)—for example, his ongoing conversations with Zhu Xi, Buddhism, and Daoism—I here propose to focus on how he sought to return the world to the Way (outer kingliness), in particular through a very limited focus on his campaign to defeat the Prince of Ning.

While such a limited focus does leave aside for the moment the problem of formally interpreting the rich meanings of liangzhi, it does offer one means of filling out in a concrete and historical way what liangzhi meant in practice for Wang Yangming at this time. In Wang’s Inquiry on the Great Learning—which Wing-tsit Chan calls his “most important writing”20—he states that innate knowledge of the good is “the sense of right and wrong common to all men.”21

18 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 8:279.19 Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 193.20 Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 271.21 Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 278.


One who is not in a state of self-deception or insincere becomes aware of this sense, and is therefore able to will the good through his actions. Those for whom such knowledge is obscured, and who are therefore willing both good and evil, might become resolved to clarify such knowledge for themselves and thereby redirect their misguided willing in the direction of the good. It is perhaps for this reason, among others, that A.S. Cua defines liangzhi variously as “moral sense,” “moral consciousness,” and “moral discrimination,” with an “implicit volitional character.”22

But just what exactly was it for Wang Yangming that counted as good and evil, and what exactly is this “common sense”? In answering this question, I have taken cues from Charles Taylor’s notion of the social imaginary, some-thing that for him has both descriptive and normative implications. For Taylor, the social imaginary is not just intellectual schemes but rather “the way people imagine their social existence, how they fit together, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.”23 By construct-ing a dense description of Wang’s political actions at this particular phase of his life, I hope to make a preliminary stab at his social imaginary, something I believe to be close in definition to what Wang means by “common sense.” If for no other reason, such an inquiry reveals the extent to which the meaning of Wang Yangming’s key philosophical notion was very much tied to its time, and hardly comprehensible apart from it. Further, I believe it would not be misguided to suggest that the very way in which Wang Yangming imagined and defined the setting he confronted, actively produced as it was by his philo-sophical outlook and background normative assumptions, served to confirm the very claims for a “kingliness without” that was supposedly nothing but a natural response to an objectively existing state of affairs brought about by acting upon a potentially infallible innate knowledge of goodness.

The rise of the Prince of ningWhen reconstructing the broader political circumstances in which Wang

Yangming found himself just prior to raising forces and decisively defeating the rebellion of the Prince of Ning, the historian is confronted with the conundrum that all accounts—mostly official and unofficial histories—have come down to the present from the hands of scholar-officials. Thus, these histories are written from the perspective of the moral universe of Confucian political elites, with the result that recorded events signify judgments, embedded as they are in a discourse always seeking to recover certain normative ideals towards or away

22 Cua, “Between Commitment and Realization,” 631.23 Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 23.

74 Larry Israel

from which history is in the final analysis assumed to be moving. As such, the cast of social characters involved in the rebellion—those who (except for the “coerced”) chose to follow the prince—are roundly condemned and attain their identity within these accounts only by virtue of judgments about the character of those who would dare to engage in treasonous behavior, by far the most heinous of crimes in a context where hierarchy was the norm.

The issue at stake here derives from the concerns of both critical discourse analysis and cultural history: from a presentist critical position, aside from an occasional anecdote, missing from the sources are any clues as to the inter-subjective world of those who participated in the rebellion. If we were to bear in mind the characteristic underlying ethical concerns of virtually all critical discourse analysis we should perhaps hope to recover something like the “voice” of these criminals and rebel-bandits—their self-representations—in such a way that we could critically appraise judgments that in retrospect appear pre-judicial and subject to the strictures imposed by over-arching discursively constructed pre-understandings as to who was acting upon reason and who was not, who was good and who was bad—to wit, the representations deriv-ing from the Confucian social imaginary of the elite ruling class.24 This issue is not merely parochial: the numbers of people involved were large, perhaps somewhere between sixty thousand and one hundred thousand.25 To recover the voice of these others is simply to recover the possibility that the actions of those marginalized in official discourse are accessible to understanding, were guided by some force of reason. Perhaps their actions, no matter how seem-ingly disruptive of the normative, nevertheless had some kind of meaning, and perhaps even demonstrated a willingness to extend moral consideration to others, no matter how limited the group may have been.

Unfortunately, by virtue of the fact that the voices of the “rebel-bandits” involved in this rebellion are largely absent from sources, accounts do not always permit a search for contradictions. What remains are simply the rep-resentations we have received, representations which so powerfully construct the social order as well as provide the logic for social action. Nevertheless, since the voice of the marginalized other cannot be recovered to any mean-ingful extent, any attempt to “unmask” the discursive representation of the Ning rebellion penned by those holding the power to do so would also be in danger of projecting an unnecessary amount of skepticism, as well as care-lessly calling into question the forms of authority occasioned by the notions

24 According to Ruth Wodak, “a critical analysis should not remain descriptive and neutral: the interests guiding such an analysis are aimed at uncovering injustice, inequality, taking sides with the powerless and suppressed.” See Wodak, introduction to Language, Power, and Ideology, xiv-xv. 25 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.


of moral order and theory of justice upon which Ming scholar-officials acted. For this reason, while Wang Yangming’s representations of those involved in the rebellion provide a good occasion for examination of his ethics and understanding of justice, this has to be articulated under these two conditions: our inability to uncover to any meaningful extent the self-representations of those criminalized, but also the dangers of projecting excessive skepticism upon the apparently ideological-discursive in the search for a broader justice. As such, perhaps the ideal will be both to remain open to understanding Wang Yangming’s reasoning regarding the evolution of the conflict and the motiva-tions of those involved and at the same time to enjoy the privilege, granted by distance in time, of our insight into the shadows cast by virtue. In pursuit of this ideal, I shall first reconstruct the broader political environment that set the stage for disorder within the imperial family.

Troubles at the centerTo be sure, Wang Yangming was hardly lacking for a critical apparatus for

appraising the systemic origins of the rebellion and determining ideal outcomes. For him, the blame for the prince’s rebellion ultimately fell upon the shoulders of the emperor, something he made evident in two memorials he sent during the course of suppressing it. In very concise fashion, a statement from one of these indicated just how this prince, over a period of several years, was able to amass political and economic power in the local and national arenas, as well as a potent military force. Wang believed that, more than anything else, the key problem was obstruction of the proper routines of government caused by imperial favorites acting beyond the bounds of their authority and misleading the emperor into engaging in certain improprieties, improprieties in turn causing a dereliction of duty. In this regard, his criticism falls roundly within the parameters of what Zhang Fentian believes to be central to politi-cal culture in general and the consciousness of political elites in particular during the entire imperial period: the individual emperor both in theory and practice might be praised and blamed, revered and excoriated, but the need for an emperor was almost never doubted.26 What is perhaps more specific to Wuzong’s reign was the degree to which the emperor’s actions were construed as a parody of the ideal and how, therefore, some officials, including Wang Yangming, responded by following the dictum that the Way transcends the ruler, the minister is responsible for the Way, and he should therefore take things into his own hands, modeling in his conduct the perennial ideal of sageliness within and kingliness without. This is what Wang Yangming did:

26 Zhang Fentian, Zhongguo di wang guannian (China’s autocratic mentality), 1, 552.

76 Larry Israel

he used the authority given him to the fullest possible extent in order to take control of the situation, even when this meant using powers granted him to disobey direct orders from the emperor.

Wang Yangming composed the following indictment just days after the prince first raised his rebellion, and after having received falsified documents from the prince’s establishment denouncing the emperor and declaring a new reign. He forwarded these to his ruler, and added:

Your servant has heard that trials and tribulations regenerate a dynasty and serious hardship awakens a sage. Your majesty has held the throne for fourteen years, repeatedly passing through catastrophes and uprisings, and the minds and hearts of the people are in turmoil. And yet [your majesty] still goes on imperial tours without cease, leading some in the imperial family to plot to take up arms, with the hope of usurping the great treasure [i.e., the throne]. Furthermore, as for unwarranted aspirations, are these harbored only by the Prince of Ning? And as for the treacherous pretenders under Heaven, is it to be believed that these are only to be found in the imperial family? When my words and thoughts come to this, I become terrified and alarmed. . . . I hold out the hope that your majesty should deeply reproach himself, and change and adjust his ways; cashier the treacherous and fawning, in order to win the hearts and minds of all the heroic under Heaven; and, in order to put an end to the aspirations of the treacherous pretenders, cease touring, definitively establish the foundations of the state, and exert yourself to govern the country well. Then the great peace might yet be realized, and all officials be unimaginably blessed.27

In 1519, it would have been evident to every scholar-official throughout the empire just who “the treacherous and fawning” were, just as it would have been to the “treacherous and fawning” themselves when at least some read this memorial. The Zhengde emperor had throughout his reign made a complete farce of the Neo-Confucian sage-king ideal by surrounding himself with indi-viduals—mostly eunuchs and military officials—who certainly had no interest in governance, and whose appeal to the emperor was their conveniently shared enthusiasm for the martial arts, warfare, entertainment, and travel.28 He owned

27 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:396.28 For an account of the Zhengde emperor’s reign, see Geiss, “The Leopard Quarter During the Cheng-te Reign.” According to him, the Zhengde emperor was attempting to revive an essentially martial vision of emperorship, while his officials insisted that he adhere to their understanding of a civil vision, whereby the emperor essentially remains as a passive symbolic figure confined to the inner quarters of the imperial palace following the advice of his advisors.


such a long history of allowing the reins of power to come under the control of eunuchs or other favorites that Wang Yangming’s call for change counted as no more than a small episode in a sea of both remonstrance and bloody sacrifice on the altars of an ultimately tragic hope that the emperor should “awaken” to his central role in the “ontically” secured order of things.

Undoubtedly the emperor’s egregious behavior had spawned widespread disillusionment and apathy among officialdom, which is precisely what Wang Yangming was signaling when he called for him to win back the support of the heroic. What is perhaps most astonishing about the Zhengde emperor’s reign as a whole, though, is the fact that in spite of both his deliberate efforts to frustrate officials and frequent brutal treatment of the same—treatment typically ending with imprisonment, torture, and death—many nonetheless continued to do everything they could to alter his conduct. One episode amongst his many charades captures well Ming officials’ predicament at the very time they were confronting this prince’s increasingly obvious intention to usurp the throne.

During the spring of 1519, a few months prior to the rebellion, the emperor again did something that he surely knew would thoroughly incense officialdom. At this time, Wuzong returned from yet another tour of the northern garrisons that had taken him nearly four hundred miles from the capital, only to announce to court officials his wish that they should prepare for a tour of inspection in the south. This caused an immediate outcry among ministry officials, some of whom had been or would become students of Wang Yangming. Because they remonstrated, on 3/20 Minister of War Huang Gong, Ministry of War Vice Director Lu Zhen, Ministry of Personnel Vice Director Xia Liangsheng, Ministry of Rites Secretary Wan Chao, and Erudite for the Court of Imperial Sacrifices Chen Jiuchuan were all imprisoned in the Embroidered Uniform Guard Prison. Huang Gong and Lu Zhen had submitted a memorial entitled “Six Matters Concerning Effective Rule,” in which they reiterated the very issues about which officials had been voicing their concerns to the emperor for several years. First, because the emperor completely ignored his duties and ceremonial protocol, they called for him to “revere the learning of the sages.” Second, because he paid no attention to official advice and allowed the traffic of official communications to be handled by his inner court eunuchs and impe-rial favorites, they called for him to “open up avenues for criticism.” Third, because he was going by the title “Awesome and Martial General-in-Chief, the Duke of Zhenguo,” they demanded that he “rectify names.” Fourth, because he was continuing to pass his days on imperial pleasure tours, they called for him to cease these. Fifth, because he was making his decisions solely on the basis of advice proffered by imperial favorites, they called for their removal.

78 Larry Israel

Finally, because the emperor had as of that time failed to appoint an heir to the throne, they pushed for him to do so.29

All of these recommendations were aimed in part at putting an end to the Prince of Ning’s suspicious behavior, because it was these derelictions that had, they believed, allowed him to accumulate power and pose a threat to the security of the region and potentially the country. The memorial composed by Hanlin Compilers Shu Fen and Cui Dong clarified this connection:

Because of recent events, we shed bitter tears of blood, having that which we must speak of before the emperor. There is a rebellion on the horizon at the Princely Establishment in Jiangxi. High officials harbor the heart of a Feng Dao,30 taking rank and emolument for granted, the court and offices as a market, the emperor as a chess piece, and a change of reign as a matter of routine.31

In a similar vein, Xia Liangsheng, Wan Chao, and Chen Jiuchuan warned the emperor of the dangers of imperial tours, failure to select an heir, and assum-ing improper aliases: they “fear[ed] that these would give rise to unwarranted aspirations.”32

For giving their honest opinions on these matters most of these officials were beaten and imprisoned, but this only set off yet another round of remonstration involving over one hundred ministry officials. In response, an edict was issued accusing them of exceeding their status, speaking lies, and levying malicious accusations. But in spite of the fact that these officials were forced to kneel from dawn to dusk at a gate to the imperial palace for five days straight, the clash continued unabated for several days as more capital officials memori-alized calling for lenient treatment and cancellation of the tour. These were also arrested, interrogated, and forced to wear the cangue. In the end, all of these officials were beaten, several were relegated to minor posts outside the capital, others had their salaries withheld for months, some were demoted to commoner status, and a few even died.33

Although in the end the emperor would against personal precedent abandon his plans, the impact of these events was telling. Luo Hongxian appraised the outcome as follows:

29 Tan Qian, Guo Que (Deliberations on the reigning dynasty), 51:3170.30 Feng Dao (882–954) lived during the Five Dynasties period and served four different courts without ever remonstrating. For this reason, the implication is that officials were loyal only to their self-preservation. See Zhongguo lidai renming da cidian, vol. 1, 465.31 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3170.32 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3170.33 The above account is drawn from Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3170–3173.


In the court of Emperor Wuzong the eunuchs Liu Jin and Jiang Bin successively controlled the reins of power. Officials who remon-strated would always as a result meet their deaths. Critics believed this was of no benefit to the situation, only making obvious to all the faults of the ruler, something not appropriate for an official to do. As for their meeting a pointless death, these commentators also believed it was the outcome of acting precipitously on the passion of the moment, of agitating and as a result meeting their doom. Truly, though, they could not help themselves. Therefore, officials maintained a circumspect silence in order to avoid such deadly clashes, and no one would criticize them. Alas! At the time Jiang Bin was encouraging the emperor to undertake a southern tour . . . which would have devastated the central territories. And yet the rebellious Zhu Chenhao was plotting to have his eldest son usurp the throne, relying on Jiang Bin as his collaborator. The edict announcing the tour was issued . . . and everyone just looked at each other, not daring to call this into question. But because these gentlemen remonstrated with their lives, the plans for a southern tour were surprisingly dropped. Alas! Having resulted in this, were their actions truly without any benefit?34

Such then was the broader political environment Wang Yangming was con-fronting when the uprising began: although the emperor’s ongoing egregious conduct might have inspired some heroic resistance, many were adopting a posture of indifference.

With regard to the prince’s conduct, the result was largely apathy. As Zuo Dongling has pointed out, the lesson of the fates of Fang Xiaoru, Huang Zicheng, Lian Zining, and Yu Qian was likely on their minds: those who would dare to get involved in imperial clan affairs would do so at their own risk.35 This is likely what Luo Hongxian meant when he claimed officials were harboring the heart of Feng Dao: they would serve whoever happened to be in power, while remaining loyal only to their self-preservation. In his historical notes, Zheng Xiao provides a telling anecdote about just this state of mind:

At the time the Prince of Ning rebelled, I was twenty-one years old and on my way to take the provincial examination in Hangzhou. I saw many military communications along the way, and none dared directly to state it was Chenhao that had rebelled. Some merely

34 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3172.35 All of these scholar-officials were executed for their involvement in imperial clan politics.

80 Larry Israel

stated there was an unexpected turn of events in the provincial capital of Jiangxi, some that there was an extremely urgent situa-tion in Jiangxi’s provincial capital, some that a serious situation had arisen from the murder of the Grand Coordinator, and some that soldiers, horses, and troops had suddenly amassed in Nanchang, that word was that there was a rebellion.36

Only one person, he explained, had the courage to report things as they really were: “only Yangming submitted a report, clearly stating that the Prince of Ning in Jiangxi was plotting rebellion.”37

But prior to looking at the grand coordinator’s resolute response, what re-mains to be explained is the exact connection between the emperor’s behavior, the havoc wrought by imperial favorites, and the rise of the Prince of Ning. It is to this that we now turn.

The origins of the rebellionThe course of events leading up to the rebellion can be pieced together

from various records, especially the deposition prepared during the succeed-ing reign by the ministries of justice during interrogation of various menials in the service of the prince. These largely confirm what Wang Yangming observed concerning the course of events leading up to the rebellion in one of his victory memorials:

The Prince of Ning is utterly dissolute, treacherous, and cruel. His rank smell permeates everywhere. He maims and kills good people, exploits and harms commoners—calculating his crimes, never before has there been something of this magnitude. He has been plotting treachery now for over twelve years, and the area over which he dominates through his mounting power extends every-where. The gentry, although over a thousand miles away, all cover their eyes and wave their hands, none daring to reveal his crimes. The people, even should they reside in the remote countryside, keep their mouths shut and swallow their fury, and dare not plead their grievances. Furthermore, he summons fugitives, and lures in powerful bandit leaders such as Wu Shisan and Ling Shiyi, drawing in a mob of several thousand. He enlists brave and fearless men accomplished in the martial arts from all directions, and those who

36 Zheng Xiao, Jin yan (Words for our time), 4:175.37 Zheng Xiao, Jin yan, 4:175.


are able to uproot trees and knock down gates also number over ten thousand. Furthermore, he has men in his gang such as Wang Chun deliver gold and silver amounting to over ten thousand taels [for bribes and rewards]. . . . On the day he incited the revolt, he had his escort guard and other close imperial relatives follow him, linked up together his gang and personal clique, and drove about and co-erced merchants, soldiers, and civilians. He sent out officials under his control and confidantes, having them conscript mercenaries to follow along, the largest [group] numbering in the thousands, the smallest in the hundreds. Sails covered the river, numbering some eighteen thousand. Those following who headed east downriver in fact numbered no less than eighty to ninety thousand. What’s more, he falsified confidential decrees to intimidate those near and far, and promulgated fake proclamations to confuse the people. Therefore, not much more than one month after [the prince] had raised an army and initiated an uprising, [people] everywhere were overawed and recoiling in fear, all saying this great affair had al-ready been decided, and no one dared to come out and resist, to pit their strength against him. Those who valued their integrity only fortified city walls and defended themselves, while those infuriated by their strong feeling of loyalty only assembled soldiers to await the opportune moment. It was not the case that there was a lack of men capable in strategy or having the virtues of righteousness and loyalty, but that his [the prince’s] sheer bluster and power to domineer caused this to be the case.38

In this summary assessment, Wang Yangming points to those elements involved in allowing the Prince of Ning’s “rotting stench and pollution” to spread. It is worthwhile elaborating upon some of these in order better to understand how the prince became such a threat. In particular, I here look at how the prince influenced those close to the emperor and the tactics he used to silence officials.

In order to gain the upper hand in the local arena of Jiangxi as well as to amass the kinds of resources he would need to stage a rebellion, the Prince of Ning had first to win some kind of influence over those imperial favorites surrounding the emperor and handling the majority of administrative routines, so that he could both prevent indictments of his conduct from coming to the attention of the emperor and also obtain edicts granting his wishes. And the way he achieved this was fairly straightforward: bribery.

38 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:404.

82 Larry Israel

The story as to just how the prince was able to recover his escort guard—a key part of his forces—is exemplary of how he achieved a number of ends officials repeatedly opposed. These escort guards were assigned to princely establishments for the purpose of their protection, but were on occasion re-moved as a form of punishment to princes, especially if their loyalty was in question.39 This was the case for this establishment, although the guard was actually removed during the Tianshun reign (second reign of Zhu Qizhen, 1457–64), at which time the prince’s grandfather Zhu Dianpei was implicated in a case of treason.40 When Wang Yangming stated that the prince had been plotting treachery for over twelve years he may perhaps have been aware that Zhu Chenhao had first petitioned to recover the guard in 1507, and although the Ministry of War conferred on the matter and recommended denying the request, it was granted anyway, and this because the powerful eunuch director Liu Jin “accepted a hefty bribe and secretly controlled events.”41 When Liu Jin was executed this ministry immediately memorialized calling for the guard to be placed directly under Jiangxi provincial officials’ control as the Nanchang Left Guard, which is indeed what happened.42

This change of status was not, however, to last very long. In the meantime the emperor had gathered around him a new group of favorites who were equally disposed to accept money from the prince. The key figure here was Qian Ning, whose stellar career as a fawning favorite began with the lowly position of servant in a eunuch director’s household. After coming to the emperor’s attention via Liu Jin and winning his friendship in part through a shared interest in the military arts, he was eventually appointed to the powerful position of Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.43 By bringing ac-tors and monks to entertain the emperor, playing a key role in the construction of the Leopard Quarters, and encouraging the emperor to travel incognito, the commander was able to gain his confidence as well as control over much of the internal political machinery.44

When in 1514 the prince again decided to use every means at his disposal to recover his escort guard, he relied on two channels. The first channel was Zang Xian—a favorite musician of the emperor’s who came to his attention via Qian Ning.45 Prior to this time the prince had cultivated relations with this

39 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:423.40 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi (Ming history) 117:3593.41 Gu Yingtai, Ming shi ji shi ben mo (Narrative of events in the “Ming History” from beginning to end), 46:479.42 Gu Yingtai, Ming shi ji shi ben mo, 46:479.43 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi, 307:7891. 44 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming” (Record of the great Ming Confucian Wang Yangming’s pacification of rebellions), 119–20.45 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 120.


actor largely through a relative of Zang’s punished with service in the Nan-chang Left Guard.46 In the first month of 1514 the prince ordered several of his establishment staff to depart for the capital with cart loads of silver, gold, and other valuable goods. According to the confession of an establishment eunuch, they first proceeded to Zang Xian’s home and gave him five thousand taels. He in turn was to send ten thousand taels to Qian Ning, and Qian Ning would in turn send three thousand to the powerful Director of Ceremonials Zhang Xiong and one thousand to the Director of the Eastern Depot Zhang Rui.47 This amounted to making substantial gifts to the majority of the imperial favorites who at the time were serving in the Leopard Quarters and “controlling the reins of power.”48 Also, and most importantly, this amounted to influencing and gaining the favor of the two most powerful eunuchs serving the emperor. Because Zhang Rui was in charge of the Eastern Depot (1512–21) and Qian Ning the commander, they were in effect in control of the emperor’s personal, much feared security and intelligence-gathering apparatus.49 Likewise, Zhang Xiong’s position as director of ceremonials meant that he would play the role of surrogate of an inattentive emperor, controlling the flow of state documents within the inner court, authorized as he would have been to convey imperial sanctions by “giving the red ink.”50 Thereafter, this would be a channel regu-larly utilized by the Prince of Ning. Putting it more simply, the Ming History biography for Qian Ning states, “all of those in the service of Chenhao who came to present bribes at the capital would stay at the actor Zang Xian’s home and, via [Qian] Ning, reach those close to the emperor.”51

The prince’s second channel was an official by the name of Lu Wan, whom he befriended when Lu was serving as a surveillance commissioner in Jiangxi.52 When Lu Wan became minister of war in 1513 the prince saw this as the perfect opportunity to recover his escort guard, and made overtures to him in the form of gifts and fond recollections of their days of friendship when Lu was serving in Jiangxi. At the very moment he was bribing imperial favorites he dispatched a petition to the Ministry requesting that his guard be returned, and Lu appended an endorsement which in turn was forwarded to the Grand Secretariat. With the cooperation of Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe, a draft was prepared by the chancellery and sent to Zhang Xiong for approval. A decree was drafted by eunuchs in the palace secretariat and during the third month of

46 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen (Record of things heard concerning succession to the throne), 5:102.47 Ning fu zhao you (Deposition of the Ning Princely Establishment), 108:2206.48 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi, 304:7795.49 Tsai, The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, 104.50 Tsai, The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, 227.51 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi, 307:7891–2.52 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen, 5:102.

84 Larry Israel

1514 both the escort guard and military farming colonies were placed under his control, effectively taking them out of the hands of provincial commission officials.53

This same process would be repeated on several other occasions when the prince needed something to happen in the capital, including having his eldest son brought there, in the hopes that he would come to the attention of the emperor. During most of his reign the Zhengde emperor had been receiving vociferous memorials pleading for him to select an heir, and primarily to put an end to the “aspirations of treacherous pretenders.” The prince was very likely biding time because he somehow believed his son would be adopted by the emperor as his heir. After receiving sufficient bribes, Qian Ning indeed arranged for his eldest son to conduct ritual offerings of incense at the Grand Temple, effectively placing him in the role of heir apparent. At the time, Qian Ning even sent the prince’s agents back with gifts, deceptively claiming they were bestowed on the prince by the emperor. The prince was to await further orders, orders that were not to come until the spring of 1519.54 At that time Qian Ning managed to have the emperor approve the prince’s petition, having the order written on “colored dragon paper” normally reserved for communi-cations from the Protector of the State. This meant the prince would wrongly come to believe he was to be charged with the duty of acting in the emperor’s stead were there to be no heir apparent upon the emperor’s death.55 According to most sources, this all took place behind the emperor’s back.

The actions of Qian Ning and those assisting him in the inner court would seem to support what the Ming History suggests concerning his motive: for years his wealth and status were at a peak, but seeing that the emperor had no son, he decided to hook up with a strong prince to secure his future, and for this reason had been assisting the Prince of Ning for years.56 Likewise, according to Feng Menglong’s literary account:

Emperor Wuzong was without a son, and Chenhao schemed to have his own son designated heir apparent. Zhu [Qian] Ning and Zang Xian along with many powerful eunuchs did much to help him realize this design, but there were also many officials among the Six Ministries, Nine Ministers, supervising secretaries, and censors who assisted. Because the matter was so serious, they dared not speak.57

53 Gu Yingtai, Ming shi ji shi ben mo, 46:480.54 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2208.55 Geiss, “The Cheng-te Reign,” 426.56 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi, 307:7891.57 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 121.


Given Luo Hongxian’s belief that officials were looking upon the possibility of another Jianwen usurpation with a studied indifference, Feng Menglong’s account seems highly probable, though the extent of both active participation and passive permission is a subject worthy of further inquiry because it brings to the fore the larger issue of just how Ming elites were coping with Ming despotism. Furthermore, we now have some idea as to just why the prince’s outrageous criminal behavior failed to alarm the emperor. As Wang Yangming stated, none would dare to reveal his crimes, probably because of both the extent of the conspiracy and the alienation caused by the emperor’s equally egregious conduct.

The prince’s connections at the highest levels were thus particularly impor-tant for keeping officials silent both at the local and national levels. Throughout the Zhengde emperor’s reign, but especially since 1514, local officials and the censors in Nanjing were regularly memorializing concerning not only the prince’s treacherous aspirations, but also his illegal seizures of land, taxation and extortion of wealthy households, efforts to cow local authorities,58 and usurpation of the prerogatives of the emperor—for example, by calling his establishment an imperial palace, referring to himself as ruler, and issuing edicts.59 With regard to cowing local authorities, perhaps most significant was the prince’s success in silencing Assistant Surveillance Commissioner Hu Shining. In a memorial dispatched to the Ministry of War, the commissioner described how the prince had, ever since regaining his escort guard, harassed the people and managed to gain the upper hand over officials and clerks in such a way that “rites and music and imperial commands” were no longer emanating from the court. He made it clear that the dangers in Jiangxi did not end with bandits, who were in any case plundering throughout the region at his behest. The Ministry responded by ordering the prince to rectify his conduct and control his subordinates. But although the prince was at first alarmed, he made good use of his connections, dispatching a memorial claiming Hu Shin-ing, by levying such malicious accusations, was attempting to sow discord in the imperial family. Naturally, this memorial was accompanied with substantial bribes for Qian Ning, Zang Xian, Zhang Xiong, and others.60 As a result, Hu Shining was imprisoned, interrogated, beaten, and finally exiled to a border garrison. “Thereafter,” a confession of one of the prince’s staff reads, “Hao became ever more brazen in his conduct, trumping up charges against grand coordinators, regional inspectors, and officials from the three provincial ad-ministration commissions; through accusing them of misconduct he controlled them, forcing them to swallow the humiliation and quietly bear this.”61

58 Geiss, “The Cheng-te Reign,” 424.59 Gu Yingtai, Ming shi ji shi ben mo, 46:480–1.60 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2207.61 Ning fu zhao you , 108:2207.

86 Larry Israel

Along with these networks for exerting influence and gathering intelligence both at the national and local levels, another key element of the prince’s power was manpower and financial resources. While sources repeatedly mention characters from marginal social groups somehow connected with the Prince of Ning—a clerk, a diviner, a geomancer, a provincial graduate, a soldier, some distant descendants of the imperial family—by far his greatest sources of strength are routinely said to be bandits and his escort and other regional guards. In order to foster close ties with bandits, the prince would rely heavily on his establishment staff—as he did with all his plans—to make connections and bring them to his palace. As early as 1514, the prince secretly ordered [eunuch attendant Liu] Ji and others to draw in powerful bandits experienced in the military arts. Yang Qing, Li Fu, Wang Ru and others totaling over a hundred men entered the establishment, referring to themselves as practitioners of the martial arts. They then invited the bandit leader Yang Ziqiao and others who had for long plundered around Lake Boyang, and ordered them . . . regularly to go out and plunder, return to the establishment, and divide up the booty.62

At the same time, apparently concerned that he lacked the requisite mili-tary skills as well as commanders, the prince invited to his establishment a provincial examination graduate known both for his literary accomplishments and knowledge of the military arts. This scholar would become one of his key advisors, along with a retired censor-in-chief by the name of Li Shishi. Aside from the prince’s gifts of silver, the motivation behind these two men’s support of the prince remains obscure. According to Feng Menglong:

After failing the metropolitan exam, Liu Yangzheng donned the clothing of a recluse and, because of his achievements in writing poetry and prose, acted arrogantly. Provincial officials acted beneath their dignity by calling on him, and took gaining audience with him as a great fortune.63

The prince gained his friendship though a constant stream of gifts and inquiries, and when Liu entered the establishment in 1515, he praised the prince as having “the ability to bring order out of chaos.”64 As for Li Shishi, in addition to styl-ing himself as a great military strategist, he was also related to Zhu Chenhao through the marriage of their children.65 Early on during the Zhengde reign Chenhao befriended this Nanchang official and was involved in his promotion

62 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2207.63 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 120.64 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2207.65 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 120.


to the rank of Censor-in-Chief. After he retired, they continued to maintain ties, and Li would play a key role in advising him during the rebellion.66

In 1517, the prince’s ongoing attempts to build ties with criminal elements continued apace. While planning for ruling “all under Heaven,” the prince and these two principal advisors realized they needed more bandits experienced at warfare, so Chenhao invited what amounted to being a long list of bandit leaders and their followers to the establishment, some three to five hundred. Furthermore, he had his staff summon and gather together from every direc-tion fugitives, robbers and thieves, hangers-on, as well as those who had had their death sentence remitted to penal servitude or exile.67 This motley crew was concealed in nearby mountains, but also given free rein to plunder civil-ian property, granaries, treasuries, merchant vessels, and wealthy households. Such was at least one source of the income he needed to maintain his bribery networks. But in addition, for years the prince had already been ordering his staff and supporters to use any and all means possible to swell his coffers by, for example, forcibly seizing property, selling government grain at extortionate prices, and occupying publicly-owned lakes (guanhu).68

Given the extent of the prince’s criminal activities over the preceding ten years, it is still surprising he was never stopped. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be able to put a stop to the ongoing coverup by imperial favorites was factional competition between them. Sources make available a fairly complex political dynamic, the end result of which was the emperor finally coming to the realization that an inquiry needed to be undertaken. According to Chen Hongmo (1474–1555), a certain guard in the Eastern Depot and a censor from Nanchang hated the prince for various reasons. Thus, when the prince had local students and a censor memorialize praising his filial conduct, they jumped on this as an opportunity to question his motives. Apparently, they proceeded to convince Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe and eunuch Director Zhang Rui that their previous connections with the prince could end up being a grave liability. So Zhang Rui linked up with Jiang Bin and eunuch Director Zhang Zhong, both of whom in any case desired to alienate the emperor from Qian Ning and Zang Xian, and convinced them to speak with him before the emperor of the prince’s egregious conduct. About the same time, Grand Secretary Yang had the guard and censor convey Zhang Rui’s intention to a certain censor by the name of Xiao Huai so that he would submit a memorial indicting the prince’s conduct on a wide variety of counts.69 When the emperor showed the memo-

66 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen, 5:101.67 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2208.68 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2208.69 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen, 5:103.

88 Larry Israel

rial to his grand secretaries, Yang Tinghe’s recommendation was that the court should, in accordance with a precedent set during the Xuande emperor’s reign (Zhu Zhanji, r. 1426–36), commission a high dignitary and high official to take a letter to the prince proclaiming the emperor’s sincere intent to preserve the imperial clan, and ordering him to reform his errant ways and turn over a new leaf. In this way, the love of the emperor for his family would be demonstrated, and the prince would have the opportunity to prevent a major confrontation. Therefore, at this time Eunuch Director Lai Yi, Censor-in-Chief Yan Yishou, and Commandant-Escort Cui Yuan were ordered to travel to the establishment and instruct and admonish the prince.70

The Prince rebelsUnfortunately for the prince, however, his channels for receiving informa-

tion from the capital failed to function as intended. After the court had made its decision, one of the prince’s agents residing in the capital—Lin Hua—incorrectly ascertained the intent of this action, probably through contacts with Qian Ning. Under the impression that the purpose of this visit was to arrest the prince, he hurried back to the establishment with the urgent report. Based on his familiarity with dynastic law, whereby whenever a prince was to be arrested and his property confiscated a commandant-escort and high of-ficial were to be dispatched, the prince did indeed fully expect that the intent of these two was to arrest him.71 This was in any case what happened when a eunuch director, commandant-escort, and censor-in-chief were sent to arrest the Prince of Jing, and the events during the reign of the Xuande emperor ap-parently did not occur to him.72

The day Lin Hua arrived at the establishment just happened to be the prince’s birthday, and as befitted such an occasion, officials from all over the province had come to offer their congratulations and join his banquet. Upon hearing of the impending visit of a high dignitary and high official the prince assumed the worst—that his plans for rebellion had been divulged. He therefore brought the banquet to a close and summoned to his side his loyal retinue, amongst which were a number of staff from his establishment, two provincial graduates, regional military commissioners, commandants, bandit leaders, and commanders. He informed them of the dire situation: “As of now officials are being sent to investigate the affairs of my establishment and to remove the escort guard, and if we do not act, the result will not be good.”73 The two key

70 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3175.71 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen, 5:104; Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 34:1260.72 Chen Hongmo, Ji shi ji wen, 5:104.73 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2211.


figures with whom he consulted closely throughout this night were the now manifestly traitorous Li Shishi and Liu Ji, the former advising him he should begin immediate preparations for launching a rebellion. The plan was, after officials had arrived in the morning to take leave, to confront them with his grand designs and arrest anyone refusing to give their allegiance. Thereafter, the prince stepped up the pace at which, during the last several years, he had been attempting to reproduce an imperial court around what he believed himself destined to become: the emperor. He therefore immediately began making his key appointments: Liu Ji, for example, was to become his Eunuch Director, Li Shishi the Preceptor of State. From this time on, the prince would continue making such appointments, as well as promising high rank and emoluments for those supporting his ascent to the throne.74

Just what all these illegally appointed high-ranking officials and dignitaries must have been thinking after having just risen to star status is of course some-thing lost in the sources. Their actions appear similar in some ways to dimen-sions of ritualized social violence in early modern Europe, one characteristic of which is the ritualized overturning of authority by those marginalized in a social system defined by a fairly rigid rule- and role-bound status hierarchy, typically for the purpose of obtaining some kind of status or recognition or justice believed to be legitimately due according to the terms set by the very evaluative framework established by the same.75 Throughout China’s history, of course, rebellions often followed a theatrical course with fairly similar plot lines, the most important of which were denunciation of those in power and the mimetic implementation of the same bureaucratic hierarchy of ranks and offices. The difference of course was that one was going to be real, and one a façade; one legitimate, the other denounced; one a manifestation of Heavenly Principle and therefore a cause for righteous support, the other a manifestation of misguided and ultimately evil desire and therefore a cause for righteous extermination.

If we assume that beneath ritualized social violence could be found such scripts as well as normative moral expectations among disempowered social groups supplying the rationale for a radical appropriation of the practices of legitimate and just governance, then it seems conceivable that a large number of those involved in the rebellion may really have believed themselves to be participating in something righteous, no matter how egregious, opportunistic, and megalomaniacal the key leaders are made to appear in sources. As for the prince, several sources recount the efforts he made to win over public opinion and recognition from the court through displays of filial piety—for example,

74 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2211–2212.75 See, for example, Wrightson, English Society, 1580–1680, 63, 174.

90 Larry Israel

through carrying mourning to extremes, and dilettantish literary pursuits.76 Of course, for those who submitted memorials indicting his conduct this all counted as nothing more than pomposity and therefore further evidence of just how wicked this prince could be.

Nevertheless, it would not be difficult to imagine a situation whereby we have a very marginal, distant prince who indeed does have inordinate and most likely delusional fantasies as to his destiny, and that these were fanned by sycophants, the conduct of a farcical emperor, and a telling precedent in the Jianwen usurpation. Gu Yanwu’s (1613–1682) summary judgment of something like the Confucian profile of Ming princes in general captures perfectly the disparity between their apparent status and the reality of their marginal existence:

On the whole, the imperial princes all lusted after wealth and honor, felt unduly self-important, and knew nothing of ritual etiquette and righteousness. . . .There were no limits to what they were willing to do. In name called the branches of Heaven, in reality [they were] nothing but discarded items.77

Biographical accounts all repeat anecdotes giving the impression the prince was desperate for any signs of a glorious future. Thus, for example, Daoist technicians are supposed to have read his destiny from his physiognomy: they were pleased to inform him he had the appearance of an emperor.78 Further-more, Zhu Chenhao would spy on the court, and when he heard slander about the emperor he would be pleased, but when he heard praise he would become angry.79 He at times appears very much like that kind of defensive young man deluded as to the reality of his potential, and who therefore persecutes those who would call into question his self-perceptions, while at the same time do-ing all the more to prove that he really is destined to become that which he secretly believes himself to be. From Wang Yangming’s perspective, this of course all counted as no more than wickedness. But as to those immediately surrounding the prince, he very likely cultivated relations with them in such a way that they may have believed they were participating together in something like a righteous cause. That is, they were simply enacting in whatever way they could the imperial political ideal, and it would not be hard to imagine

76 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3174.77 Gu Yanwu, “Ri zhi lu,” juan 9, “Zongshi”, quoted in Wang Chunyu, “ ‘Qi wu’ lun” (Concerning “dis-carded things”), 1. 78 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2205.79 Jiao Hong, Guo chao xian zheng lu (Record of the worthies of the reigning dynasty), 47.


that their utterances amongst each other were at times scripted according to a language of honor and loyalty common to “the Way of the Ruler (jundao).” Should this be the case, then their mimetically reproduced imperial microcosm was destined to be crushed by the “real” one.

When provincial officials returned the morning of 6/14 to pay their respects and take leave, they found themselves surrounded by armed supporters of the prince. Although accounts differ in small details, what followed was a confrontation with Zhu Chenhao that became the occasion—according to the histories—of both stunning heroism and shameful cowardice. When the prince notified these officials he had received a secret edict from the Empress Dowager ordering him to raise a rebellion and that he was now calling for their support for his great righteous cause (da yi), two of them—Grand Coordinator Sun Sui and Surveillance Commissioner Xu Da—displayed their “staunch loyalty” by engaging in a shouting match, excoriating the impostor, and having their heads removed.80 These were subsequently hung above the city walls, as a lesson to the crowd. But the remaining officials, “fearing for their lives, and failing to be courageous enough to hold to the righteous and resist,” submitted to the prince.81 After this, the prince’s key supporters assembled over a hundred men—mostly other distant imperial family clan members and establishment staff - and brought them before the prince so they could shout “wan sui.”82

During the next few days, the prince’s preparations proceeded apace. He had already ordered his eunuch attendant Xu Qin and other establishment personnel to fan out among nearby yamens, collect official seals, and raid the treasuries, including those in the provincial administrative and surveillance commissions, Nanchang prefecture, Nanchang county, and Xinjian county.83 Others were preparing “imperial” vessels and commandeering official and civilian boats. All were ordered to prepare to depart for Nanjing on 6/17. According to the eunuch Liu Ji, on the evening of the fourteenth the bandit leaders Ling Shiyi, Min Niansi, Wu Shisan, and Yang Qing were at the prince’s side assuring him “the emperor (wan sui) should relax, for even with only us four, you can be guaranteed that the city of Nanjing will be defeated.”84 The prince then appointed as commanders these and several other bandit leaders, regional military commissioners, and commanders, ordering them to lead four contingents numbering some two thousand soldiers each. These newly appointed officers were then ordered, along with key eunuch attendants, to

80 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2212.81 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2212.82 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2212.83 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2212.84 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2214.

92 Larry Israel

board over two hundred commandeered boats and head downriver to attack Juijiang and Nankang.85 According to Wang Yangming’s summary of the reports he had received, on the evening of the sixteenth, some one thousand stolen vessels filled with rebel bandits charged into Nankang prefecture. Since the city walls and moats were still under construction, and the local militia small, most officials fled to Mount Lu, but later joined other officials sent by Wang Yangming in what would become a successful attempt to recover the city about one month later.86

On the morning of the eighteenth, Xu Qin’s forces arrived in two hun-dred vessels at the gates of Jiujiang and, using a combination of incendiary warfare, cannon, and scaling ladders, were able to penetrate a weak defense, enter, and take control of the city. Civil and military officials fled. In all cases, occupation of these areas was followed by widespread looting and burning. Similar attacks on the county seats in the prefectures of these two towns and elsewhere throughout northern Jiangxi took place during this same period, with varying levels of defense by local civil and military officials and sup-portive civilians.87

The prince then ordered his eunuch Liu Ji to verify numbers of soldiers in his ceremonial guard and the Front and Left Guards in Nanchang, in prepara-tion for departure. These eight thousand soldiers, along with some twenty-five thousand bandits and civilians residing respectively in Western Mountain and the provincial capital, were all to be provisioned with armor, incendiary weapons, and equipment from the Guards and civilian manufactories.88 In ad-dition to preparing his forces for the march to Nanjing, the prince also worked closely with his literati advisors for the purpose of sending out proclamations denouncing the emperor and guaranteeing relief from taxes and labor service. At the same time, using provincial administration commission seals, they sent out communications to offices throughout the empire, calling for them to surrender allegiance and join his cause. Through various forms of coercion, the prince managed to have some imprisoned officials carry these falsified documents throughout Jiangxi and Guangdong. This included Ji’an prefecture, where Wang Yangming was then stationed.89 The official ordered to bring the document to him was an administrative vice commissioner of Guangxi by the name of Ji Xue, who had formerly served under Wang Yangming during his campaigns in the southern Gan region. He and the establishment guards

85 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2214.86 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:423.87 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:421–422.88 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 108:2215.89 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:395.


escorting him were captured by Wang’s soldiers while en route, and when they were brought before the grand coordinator, he promptly had them imprisoned.90 Several days later, he would dispatch the memorial cited above, in which he called for the emperor to cashier the treacherous and fawning in order to win back support from the righteous, enclosing these falsified documents.

If, as the confession of the prince’s key eunuch Liu Ji makes clear, the prince had indeed intended to march to Nanjing on 6/17, he most certainly did not do so. The above preparations and planning took place between the first day of the uprising on 6/14 and 7/1, at which time he would finally lead forces towards Nanjing. The reason for this delay was that Zhu Chenhao was succumbing to Wang Yangming’s psychological warfare and stratagem; that is, he was hesitant to depart because he was receiving intelligence that led him to believe doing so would be precipitous and strategically dangerous. But in order to understand why this was so, we now turn to Wang Yangming’s response to reports of the rebellion and the impending march to Nanjing.

a righteous causeIn the aftermath of his successful campaign to defeat the prince’s rebellion,

Wang Yangming made it clear that the credit for his success must first and fore-most go to the advance preparations made by high court officials. In particular, he was referring to Minister of War Wang Qiong (1459–1532), who had shown great foresight when he took advantage of a minor uprising in a guard unit located in Fujian to confer broad discretionary powers on Wang for handling any kind of disorder.91 In fact, as he observed to a secretary in the Ministry, the disturbance in Fujian was hardly significant enough to justify disturbing the censor-in-chief and grand coordinator of the southern Gan region; rather, his intentions were otherwise. When he received a memorial reporting the rebel-lion, he called for high officials to meet at the Zuo Shun Gate of the imperial palace. In a clear sign of the state of mind of other high officials, everyone was said to act indifferently, not daring to denounce the prince. Only Wang Qiong was outspoken, excoriating the prince for his reprehensible conduct. But he informed the other officials they need not feel cause for alarm: “When I appointed Boan [Wang Yangming] to Ganzhou, it was specifically for this moment: the bandits, within a mere day and night, will be captured.”92

Wang Yangming departed Ganzhou on 6/9, and when he arrived in Fengcheng on 6/15 he was greeted by the local magistrate Gu Bi, who im-

90 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:395; Ning fu zhao you, 12:2216.91 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 34:1262.92 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 34:1261.

94 Larry Israel

mediately notified him of the rebellion, as well as reports that the prince had dispatched over a thousand soldiers to pursue the censor-in-chief.93 Since virtually all provincial and high court officials in the region were dead or imprisoned when he received the dire news, he would in effect be the only remaining high official in Jiangxi. At the urging of local officials and elites who knew that, given his recent campaigns in southern Jiangxi, he would have the wherewithal to muster and lead forces, Wang Yangming changed course and decided to head straight back to the prefectural seat in Ji’an.

Wang’s response appears to have been quite impassioned. When he decided to turn back, he took an oath together with three aides: they vowed to serve with their lives, launch forces, and lead a punitive campaign against the prince.94 Something of the moral force behind this act can be gleaned from an official communication sent to the Supreme Commander of Guangxi and Guangdong, as well as his first urgent report to the court concerning the matter, both writ-ten upon arriving in Ji’an on 6/18. In these, he stated both the reasons for his actions and initial estimations concerning the strategic balance of power:

Of all the affairs under Heaven, none is more urgent than a ruler or father’s dire predicament. Should the prince head downstream with the current, and the southern capital fail in its defensive preparations and suffer an attack by the prince, he could then ride on his victory and drive north, shaking the capital environs. That being the case, calculations of victory or defeat were yet unclear as to the direc-tion they would take, and this was therefore the critical moment deciding the security or endangerment of all under Heaven. When my fears and concerns reached this point, my heart was pained and bones chilled, and in all righteousness I could not bear to leave this behind and depart [from Fengcheng for Fujian].95

If we did not have other sources available to us confirming the sincerity of his expressed intentions in these official communications we might be led to question the extent to which he was merely writing according to normative conventions for rhetorical purposes. But similar sentiments were expressed in a letter to his ailing father written a few days later. In this he expressed his deep regret at having to forgo the opportunity to visit him on the way to Fujian, but explained that “when what is right for an official comes to this, how could one then seek an easy way out or avoid involvement?”96 93 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:571.94 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:146895 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:572.96 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 26:985.


After taking an oath with his aides, Wang Yangming wished to return im-mediately to Ji’an, a location he felt ideal for putting into effect his developing strategy. As he told one of his aides, the superior strategy would be to draw back and send out communications with a call to arms, raise forces, and pun-ish the rebel.97 Wang was, however, facing dire circumstances, for the prince had dispatched soldiers to pursue and intercept him in Fengcheng, and on top of that winds were unfavorable for sailing upriver to Ji’an. According to an account by one of his aides, Vice Magistrate of Jishui Long Guang, which was thereafter recounted in most sources likely because it suggested that Wang Yangming was in some sense in accord with destiny, he ordered his aides Lei Ji and Xiao Yu to bring him incense so that he could burn it on the bow of the boat. Facing north and repeatedly prostrating himself, he wailed and pleaded to Heaven stating:

Should Heaven take pity upon the people, then allow Wang Shouren [Yangming] to come to the aid of the country; I only wish that the wind should change directions. If Heaven should be of a mind to assist the rebel, such that the people meet calamitous suffering, then Shouren is willing first to drown, with no wish to live any longer.98

Some boat hands apparently became excited, indicating the wind had died down, so Lei Ji and Xiao Yu took burning incense to the upper deck to test the wind’s direction. Indeed, it was the case that it was changing directions, and the north wind picked up.99

But in spite of this favorable change, the helmsman apparently expressed reservations about departing so late in the day. The resolute censor-in-chief became so furious that he drew a sword and threatened to execute him. It was only because his assistants kneeled and pleaded lenience that he merely sliced one of his ears. Nevertheless, at the very time the prince’s soldiers were approaching, this boat was too large for a quick escape and return upriver to Ji’an, so Wang changed into commoner clothing and, along with his aides, boarded a small fishing boat, leaving behind Xiao Yu to act as a decoy for the approaching forces.100

97 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 138.98 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1472.99 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1472.100 Qian Dehong, Ping hao ji, 163.

96 Larry Israel

On his way to Ji’an Wang Yangming already knew what he needed to do: since he had no forces ready for an orthodox head-on confrontation with the prince, he had to engage in diversionary tactics. En route to Ji’an, he first stopped over at Linjiang, where he was greeted by prefect Dai Deru, who urged him immediately to take charge of matters in the city and begin preparations for a confrontation with the prince. But Wang believed that since Linjiang was situated dangerously close to the provincial capital and also served as a com-mercial hub located on the Gan River, stationing his forces in the city would leave him open to an attack by the prince against which he could not defend.


His strategy, as he explained it at this time, would be based on his estimation of what the prince might be capable of doing. If Zhu Chenhao were to imple-ment a superior strategy, and take advantage of his momentum by doing the unexpected and marching directly to the capital, then the country would be in serious danger. If he were to pursue a middle strategy and march directly to the southern capital (Nanjing), then the territories north and south of the river would be divided and suffer great harm. But if he were merely to occupy the provincial capital of Jiangxi and remain confined to this region, then forces coming to the aid of the emperor would have time to assemble in all directions: “Like a fish swimming in a cauldron, even if he does not die what could he achieve?”101 In other words, his fate would be sealed.

Upon further inquiry from Prefect Dai, Wang Yangming indicated that he believed the prince, inexperienced in warfare as he was, would most likely shrink back from the battlefront should he become alarmed.102 For this reason, all he needed to do was to compose a bogus Ministry of War communication that would give the impression an attack on Nanchang was imminent, thereby causing the prince to remain and defend it. Since he had no forces with which to confront the prince directly, Wang believed his only option was to stall the prince’s departure. This would give the two capitals not only time to make defensive preparations, but also time for imperial troops and regional forces—including his own—to assemble and launch an assault. Thus, at this point, he believed his role would be to engage in diversionary tactics, thereafter becom-ing part of a larger concerted campaign.

But how could he hold off the prince, who was making rapid preparations to launch an attack on Nanjing during Wang’s journey to Ji’an from 6/15 to 6/18? The Censor’s only choice was to employ stratagem and engage in psy-chological warfare, primarily for the purpose of sowing discord within the prince’s ranks but also to cause enough suspicion to delay his enemy’s plans. Soon after leaving Fengcheng, Wang Yangming conceived a scheme to have a falsified urgent communication from the supreme commander of Guangxi and Guangdong taken into Nanchang and intercepted by the prince’s agents. This “confidential” communication would have given the prince the clear impres-sion that the court had already by early May been making preparations for a possible uprising, and for this reason had ordered Supreme Commander Yang Dan secretly to assemble a massive force in the region, something that he had already begun to do. In fact, the communication stated that he had already de-parted from Guangzhou prefecture and was advancing towards Nanchang.103

101 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 141.102 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 141.103 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1468–9.

98 Larry Israel

According to Long Guang, who was accompanying Wang Yangming at this time, when Wang was composing and preparing to send out Yang Dan’s orders, Lei Ji voiced his concern that, “when the Prince of Ning sees this I fear he may not believe it.” To this the master strategist raised another possibility: “he may not believe it, but might he not become suspicious?” Lei Ji confirmed that suspicion would be inevitable, so Wang only smiled and stated, “should he become suspicious for only a moment, then his cause will be over.”104 Thus, the grand coordinator appears to have believed this was all there would be to achieving his strategic objective: sow just one moment of doubt. He had only to manipulate appearances and the prince would be defeated. Certainly for later admirers it was his ability so deftly to handle the given strategic configu-ration of power through such subtle manipulations that made for his military greatness. But why was Wang Yangming sure that just a little clever stratagem should have such profound effects on the outcome? At the conclusion of this conversation with Lei Ji, he added:

Chenhao has for a long time been depraved in his conduct, cruelly harming the people, and today even though for the moment those who follow him in his rebellion are many, it is surely not their true intention (bi fei ben xin), but rather only a matter of being coerced or enticed by profit—a temporary coming together of interests. Even if he sends out a motivated force, I will with a righteous army call the prince to account for his crimes and pursue him slowly from behind; the strategic power deriving from allegiance and rebellion will be separated, and victory and defeat can be known in advance. However, if the rebel-bandit troops early on pass over the area, they will devastate the lives of the people. If the tiger or rhino gets out of the cage, then it will be difficult to trap and put back. As for the strategy for now, for every day that we delay Chenhao, all under Heaven will truly receive the good blessings of another day.105

That being the case, he needed time only to separate out the righteous from the unrighteous among the prince’s followers, through psychological warfare and by wearing down their spirit. At the same time, he needed to raise forces whose strategic power would in part derive from their natural response to the cause. That is, all he had to do was to buy enough time to speak to people’s original minds and persuade them to do the good, something the prince was unable to do because he had lost the confidence of the people. Manipulations

104 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1471.105 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1471.


could be effective in their subtlety only in so far as they accorded with deeper naturally correcting tendencies discernable within unfolding circumstances.

When Wang Yangming arrived in Ji’an he was met both by crowds and by Prefect Wu Wending.106 The prefect had previously served under Wang Yangming during his campaigns against bandits in the southern Gan region, but even prior to this had earned a reputation both for his martial prowess and for being upright to the point of intolerance.107 When Prefect Wu greeted the censor-in-chief, he immediately called for him to take over mobilization of forces, expressing complete confidence in their cause:

This rebel-bandit is violent, cruel, and immoral, and has already long lost the trust of the people. You, sir, have always been of noble character and been held in high esteem. Furthermore, you have control of the armed forces, so as for the matter of bringing forces to rescue the emperor, this can now be achieved.108

Of course, Wang Yangming did consent to the prefect’s wishes, for as he would soon inform the court in an urgent memorial reporting the rebellion, “victory or defeat cannot be predicted, so this is truly the critical moment deciding the security and danger to all under Heaven.”109 Thus, as he wrote to the emperor, he could not in all righteousness turn away from something the likely consequences of which were utterly chilling for him to imagine, so he “entered the city and comforted the soldiers and civilians and oversaw with Prefect Wu Wending the mustering of soldiers and provisions, summoning the righteous and courageous.”110

Wang Yangming also explained to the court that the strategic balance of power was indeed overwhelmingly in favor of the prince, for he had planned for this moment for over ten years, cultivated some twenty thousand “dare-to-die” soldiers, lured in over ten thousand bandits, and gained control over his escort and other regional guards.111 This effectively gave him a force numbering over sixty to seventy thousand soldiers. Such was their power that on the day of his arrival he was receiving urgent reports from officials in Linjiang, Xin’gan, Fengcheng, and Fengxin concerning looting and plundering by rebels from the establishment swarming all over these areas.112 In contrast, at a time when, as

106 Xia Xie, Wen bai dui zhao quan yi Ming tong jian (Comprehensive mirror of the Ming), 48:1485.107 Zhang Tingyu, ed., Ming shi, 200:5281.108 Xia Xie, Wen bai dui zhao quan yi Ming tong jian, 48:1485.109 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:392.110 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:392.111 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.112 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:572.

100 Larry Israel

he informed the court, “soldiers and civilians have fallen under the coercive influence of the Prince of Ning’s expanding power, and thus were everywhere serving as his eyes and ears while not daring to speak out,” all he had was “a few hundred weak and fatigued soldiers.”113 Given this unfavorable strategic balance of power, he had no choice but to withdraw into a defensive posture and engage in diversionary tactics.

Realizing holding tactics could be effective only for so long in delaying the prince, Wang proceeded to implement a two-pronged approach for defeating him. On the one hand, with the aim of causing the prince to “miss the opportune moment” and his supporters to “lose their fighting spirit,” he would continue deploying stratagem and psychological warfare; on the other, he would raise forces for an orthodox confrontation. In other words, his principal concern here was not only to give capital officials time to make preparations, but also simply to deflate what he saw as a very fragile “high” among followers of the prince, whose support was ultimately hollow because lacking in righteous or noble motivating factors. According to Long Guang, because the prince kept postponing his campaign, those rebel-bandits awaiting orders while stationed on vessels all over the lakes and rivers became increasingly doubtful, as well as dispirited and unmotivated; as a result, over several days their strategic power disintegrated and some began to scatter.114 As should have ideally been the case for the military strategist, the enemy was simply being defeated in advance.

Another ruse Wang Yangming deployed to bring about this result was to have a counterfeit communication dispatched to the court intercepted by the prince’s agents. In this he pretended he was responding to orders from the Ministry of War. According to these supposed orders, forces were being mobilized and would soon arrive in the region to strike Nanchang.115 Wang Yangming confirmed that he had taken due note of the Ministry’s detailed plan for implementing a strategy for “attacking where the enemy is unprepared,” but nevertheless wanted to inform them of some important considerations that might call for a change in plans. These plans for a march were made prior to the prince’s sending large forces downstream. In light of these new conditions on the ground, Wang advised the court that those hundreds of thousands of government troops launching from all directions and preparing to attack (and he offered much detail here) had better advance slowly and await the prince’s rebel force’s departure from Jiangxi, in the hopes of drawing them out and cutting them off. What he most feared, Wang stated in no uncertain terms, was a decision on the part of the prince to remain in Nanchang and stage a defense,

113 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.114 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1470.115 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1469.


something that would wear down troops not used to local conditions. Wang also added that the prince’s chief strategists Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng had sent confidential letters conveying their intention to requite the court with meritorious service.

In conclusion, Wang confidently explained that “should Chenhao depart precipitously from Jiangxi, and should we jump on this opportune moment and attack from all sides, given inevitable mutinies within his ranks, then win-ning will be easy.116 Wang then ordered Lei Ji to select a runner in his service to deliver this memorial to the court. This runner, however, was to have no inkling that the document was just a complete ruse. Lei Ji was to pretend the memorial was for real, to explain things to him as if they were completely confidential, and most importantly to tell him to proceed under cover and conceal his tracks while en route to Nanjing.117

To insure that this runner would be intercepted, Lei Ji visited someone who had been in communication with the prince for a long time, and somehow man-aged to have him secretly proceed to the establishment and inform the prince of the memorial. When the prince heard of this, he immediately dispatched agents to find and capture the messenger. Apparently, after finding him, he was so alarmed by the bogus communication that he beat the runner during an interrogation, hoping he would reveal the nature of the deception. But all this was of course to no avail, and the runner died.118

If all of this seemed unbelievable and far-fetched, perhaps the reason Wang Yangming succeeded in sowing “just one doubt” was that he also at the same paid a large number of actors to dress up as soldiers and lie in ambush in areas where the prince might have expected, from the intercepted documents, to find troops. But in addition, with the help of Long Guang, he composed counterfeit letters feigning replies to letters supposedly received from Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng, the prince’s principal military advisors. In these cleverly worded documents, he made it clear to them that he understood why they were at first forced to follow the prince, but also that their present willingness to divulge the prince’s plot and serve as infiltrators plainly demonstrated their “original mind of boundless loyalty and desire to requite the court.”119 Should the prince have intercepted the letters, he would have been led to believe these two were indeed colluding with Wang Yangming, but that he had told them to await further instructions before taking action, because military forces were still gathering and the opportune moment had not yet arrived. This moment

116 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1469.117 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1469.118 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1469.119 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1470.

102 Larry Israel

would be the point at which the prince would depart for Nanjing, something in which they were to play a key role.

Lei Ji and Long Guang found a means to have the letter for Li Shishi de-livered to Liu Yangzheng and vice versa, as well as to have them intercepted by the prince. Once again, the runners captured by the prince were slain, but the letters did have the intended effect of inciting suspicion among the three of them. As Long Guang would later state, “as a result superiors and inferiors became suspicious and fearful, such that the strategic power of the military daily declined.”120 According to one anecdote, when the two strategists did in fact advise the prince that he should depart as quickly as possible and march to Nanjing, this seemed to him to tally with what these letters from Wang Yangming would have called for them to advise him to do: to depart would be to fall right into a trap.

Of course there was no such trap, and the last thing Wang wanted was for the prince to depart for Nanjing, which is precisely why his stratagem aimed at convincing him to do so. The censor-in-chief had instead managed to buy himself time to mobilize forces, plan provisions, disperse grain and rewards, manufacture weapons, and gather boats. But perhaps just as importantly, he had also bought himself time to engage in psychological warfare and mobilize popular support for his cause as well as to pry people away from the temptation of getting caught up in the uprising. In particular, he and his aides composed and pasted up over a thousand proclamations, placards, and banners instruct-ing the populace in the felicities and calamities that would result from either maintaining their allegiance or joining in the rebellion. According to Long Guang, “when [we] pasted up proclamations and hung banners and wooden placards, it was during the middle of the night when it was dark, and we braved the wind and rain, traveled over places difficult of access, going in and out of bandit fortresses, managing to survive ten thousand deaths.”121

One of the proclamations his aides may have been pasting up is still extant. Wang Yangming’s “Proclamation to Comfort and Settle the People” captures his efforts to maintain calm and stir up popular support for his cause:

Proclamation to instruct soldiers and civilians in towns and vil-lages near and far: recently evildoers calling for rebellion have on high violated the way of Heaven, and below lost the support of the people. This official has stationed himself here and has a defini-tive plan. Troops coming to save the emperor are assembling in all directions. I expect each of you to live in peace and pursue your



livelihoods. Do not become alarmed and suspicious, and dare on your own authority to move. If as a result of doing so you incite and cause turmoil, local hundreds captains and tithing heads shall bind you and send you to the military headquarters, and you shall be punished according to military law. If amongst you there are loyal and righteous heroes able to contribute plans and render service, and willing to join the righteous armies and attack the traitors, you should come to the military headquarters.122

Although we have no direct evidence as to the effect of these proclamations, it is nevertheless reasonable to conjecture that the prince’s domineering behav-ior throughout the province had earned him enough popular enmity for such proclamations to achieve their intended purpose of preventing civilians from supporting him and of recruiting soldiers for the campaign. As we shall see, local officials from surrounding prefectures would soon arrive with thousands of recruits both from regional military units and the civilian population.

rallying TroopsWhile the facts concerning Wang Yangming’s stratagem come primarily

from a later account composed by his close disciple and biographer Qian Dehong (1497–1574), information concerning the other prong to his strat-egy—assembling forces for a campaign—can be gleaned from his official communications. Since he knew the prince would eventually depart, he had to raise a force to confront him, at first by occupying his “lair”—Nanchang—and thereafter going out to battle him at such time as he should return to recover his base.123 This is what he was doing from the day he arrived in Ji’an until he met with other Jiangxi local officials and their forces in Linjiang on 7/15, at which time the prince was tied up, while on his way to Nanjing, with a siege in Anqing. And for Wang Yangming, the best way to raise a force with any hope of defeating the traitor would be to appeal to officials’, soldiers’, and civilians’ sense that they would be contributing to a great life-or-death cause. Whatever else may have been at stake for or motivated those who decided to support the campaign is completely lost behind this veil, including any hint that such political discourse was no more than a routine rhetorical device serving to conceal a multiplicity of interests.

According to his urgent report to the court, after joining officials in Ji’an on 6/18, they “worked up each other’s sentiments of loyalty and righteousness, and I instructed them in looming calamities and felicities.”124 As a result, “they

122 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 32:1127.123 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:398.124 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.

104 Larry Israel

were roused with enthusiasm, thinking only of rendering service by punishing the criminals, in order to requite [the blessings] of the court”; they became “united around their common cause.”125 These officials then proceeded “to dispatch calls to arms near and far, proclaiming the deep humanity of the court and unveiling the crimes of the Prince of Ning,” such that “the heroic responded to the call, people became inspired and worked up, and within a few days of planning soldiers gradually gathered from all directions.”126 For Wang Yangming this was a fitting response for the conscientious official: when “the greatest hardship confronts one’s father or ruler, this is the time a minister or son becomes enraged.”127

Psychologically, this required overcoming demoralization and arousing both a fighting spirit and spirit of unity. As he explained to both the court and the supreme commander of Guangdong, “after entering the city [Ji’an], I offered consolation to the soldiers and civilians and, along with Prefect Wu Wending, supervised the mobilization of soldiers and the implementation of a strategy, reining in people’s feelings of demoralization, and inspiring in them a spirit of righteousness and loyalty.”128

On many other occasions Wang Yangming explained to officials that what was most needed was to inspire people to take action, encouraging them “out of righteousness to capture the cruelly violent and apply the straight to the crooked.”129 In an official communication sent to Yongxin county, he praised those “capable and dauntless” who could be relied upon at such times as these because “when they see what is right they become courageous.”130 And on 6/27, in an official communication praising the prefect of Ruizhou and his soldiers for their actions in capturing rebels, Wang legitimated the virtuous-ness of their conduct by affirming what was in essence for him true of all of the above sentiments and actions—that they were in accordance with Heaven and the will of the people:

Whereas the traitor bandits are calling for an uprising, Heaven is angered and the people aggrieved, and execution and destruction will not be long in coming; but today the blaze [of the prince’s] strategic power is spreading, and this official alone has been able to arouse loyalty and courage, first setting back the vanguard. Those

125 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.126 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:397.127 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:396.128 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:572.129 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 31:1127.130 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 31:1127.


near and far have heard of this, their righteous qi is naturally in-creasing. [You should] therefore be rewarded, in order further to encourage people’s good intentions.131

But perhaps Wang Yangming’s most important and forceful call for mobiliza-tion can be found in the orders he sent to prefectures throughout Jiangxi. In these, we find both concrete instructions as well as the way in which he framed the nature of the conflict confronting those he believed should be thoroughly alarmed by the rebellion. Since it was in fact from these prefectures that Wang Yangming would assemble the majority of his forces for an assault on Nanchang, this document merits quoting at length:

The greatest evil under Heaven is rebellion, and the greatest righ-teousness punishing traitors. The highest rite is the conferring of a princely establishment, for the favor (en de) is solemn and profound; and yet the prince dares just in this way to harbor treacherous inten-tions . . . above violating the Way of Heaven, and below treading upon the anger of the masses. The moment of his destruction can be expected within days. As for this official, although not specifi-cally appointed [for this], how could I sit on the side and watch when there is this dangerous threat? Relying on the allegiant to punish the rebel, rousing and leading the loyal and righteous, heroes arise in all directions, together implementing a plan and combin-ing strength. Aside from ordering Ji’an and other prefectures and counties to mobilize local militia (bingkuai) and guard their areas, and ordering Guangdong, Fujian, Huguang, and others to muster forces and plan for taking coordinated action . . . each prefecture shall have those counties, guards, and battalions under their jurisdic-tion mobilize government troops and militia to protect and guard the cities and moats, in order to maintain security in the area. Each shall respectively mobilize local militia and allocate them among the passes, in order to intercept [anyone who might try to pass]. Each shall select and enlist the fearless and brave crack troops, approximately four to five thousand in large counties and two to three thousand in small counties, each coming fitted with sharp weapons and provisions, and choose and commission a competent, brave, and strong official to lead and train and drill. . . . Those near the river banks shall each prepare vessels and await this official to dispatch an official holding the warrant banners and warrant cards

131 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:575.

106 Larry Israel

(ling qi ling pai),132 and then immediately in accordance with the set time launch your forces and attack. . . . The day has come for the minister and son to exert their filiality to the utmost with their lives, and for each it is fitting to arouse your sense of righteousness, to motivate the soldiers and people, in order together to achieve the glorious merit of destroying the traitors, as well as to give through your one thought of requiting your country.133

This official communication did in fact circulate throughout prefectures in Jiangxi, and within a few days, as explained below, Wang Yangming would meet up with a number of prefects and magistrates and the forces they had, as ordered, assembled.

Undoubtedly, the reason Wang Yangming felt confident he would succeed was in part the fact that he believed his actions to be just—that is, they were in accord with Heaven and the will of the people. By the very nature of things such a heinous affront to moral order—to Heavenly reason—as this rebellion would simply be incapable of overwhelming a power whose strategic purchase was secured in its efficacy through grounding in a transcendent will. Here, Charles Taylor’s observations concerning the meaning of retribution in Pla-tonic-Aristotelian conceptions of an ontologically-secured hierarchical moral order apply equally to what Wang Yangming saw occurring around him:

We have an order that tends to impose itself by the course of things; violations are met with a backlash that transcends the merely hu-man realm. This seems to be a very common feature in premodern ideas of moral order. . . . Anaximander likens any deviation from the course of nature to injustice, and says that whatever resists the course of nature must eventually “pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice according to the assessment of time.” . . . In these cases, it is very clear that a moral order is more than just a set of norms; it also contains what we might call an “ontic” component, identifying features of the world that make the norms realizable.134

For Wang Yangming, the “ontic” component was the heavenly endowed na-ture (xing), the source of the sprouts or beginnings of human beings’ sense of justice. To the extent that people’s minds are unobscured or unbeclouded—

132 The cards and banners were imperial warrants signifying and authorizing imperial orders. 133 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:573–4.134 Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 10.


open to the promptings of Heavenly reason—they will naturally be moved to action by their direct apprehension of sentiments according with the principle of loyalty; their minds will manifest that reason for acting in accordance with the requirement of loyalty:

When the mind is free from the obscuration caused by selfish de-sires, it embodies Heavenly principle (tianli), which requires not an iota added from the outside. When this mind is pure in Heavenly principle and manifests itself in serving parents, there is filial piety. When it manifests itself in serving the ruler, there is loyalty. And when it manifests itself in dealing with friends or in governing the people, there are faithfulness and humanity.135

Thus, Wang’s personal pained response to the crisis was completely in keep-ing with what an intelligent, clear mind should know to be right, and it did not matter one iota that the ruler himself was a complete farce, for “in serving one’s ruler, one cannot seek for the principle of loyalty in the ruler.”136 Reason itself takes its bearings from the unifying principles—all told, the Way—of a long tradition handed down by sages, and therefore stands above and beyond any temporary appearance, while yet providing the impetus to action in all particular circumstances. Because Wang had enough confidence in the power of the Way of Heaven and the clarity and intelligence of people’s minds, he could reasonably expect that with enough exhortation the “heroic” would re-spond to the call. He had only to cast out to people the correct interpretation of the meaning of events unfolding before them in order for them to recognize themselves within the same. Such genuine knowledge would surely lead to action.

But while Wang Yangming was assembling forces in Ji’an and other prefects and magistrates throughout Jiangxi were doing the same in their respective locales, Prince Zhu Chenhao had in the meantime, based on intelligence, come to the realization that he had indeed fallen for the censor-in-chief’s stratagem. Therefore, he immediately prepared to depart with his forces for the southern capital. Wang Yangming had, therefore, to initiate his plans for recovering Nanchang and confronting the prince in battle.

“applying the Straight to the crooked”During the days between his “commanders’” successful occupation of

Jiujiang on 6/18 and his final departure for Nanjing on 7/2, the prince had

135 Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 7.136 Wing-tsit Chan, trans., Instructions for Practical Living, 7.

108 Larry Israel

continued to amass and organize a considerable force. Establishment person-nel and cooperative officials trained and reviewed troops assembled from bandits, town ruffians, guards, and “coerced” civilians. This motley army was in turn organized into 140 columns that would fall into five contingents. These contingents were to be led by a number of mostly minor cooperating military officials drawn from the guards and establishment personnel. At the same time, concerned as he was with the security of Nanchang, the prince left behind some loyal establishment personnel, officers, and closely related imperial nobility. These leaders were supplied with some ten thousand troops, and all were provided with varying rewards. On 7/2, the prince and his com-manders finished preparations for departure and the now massive force of over sixty or seventy thousand troops began to head down the Yangzi River in the direction of the southern capital.137

While accounts of the rebellion and its suppression attribute most of the credit to Wang Yangming and his key commander Wu Wending, several do however mention the key role of the heroic defense staged by officials at Anq-ing in giving Wang Yangming a crucial window of opportunity for occupying Nanchang before the prince’s forces could reach the southern capital.138 After the eunuch Xu Qin’s forces occupied Jiujiang on 6/18 they proceeded down river to Anqing and laid siege to this city, where they would remain held up until the prince arrived on 7/9.139 Just why the prince would insist, when Prefect Zhang Wenjin and Regional Military Commissioner Cui Wen were staging what would later become a much celebrated defense, on first defeating Anqing is somewhat unclear. Against the advice of his literati strategists, who believed he should drive straight to Nanjing without delay, Zhu Chenhao apparently was either taunted into continuing the siege by large numbers of civilians and officers cursing him from atop the city’s walls, or because he simply felt that if they could not succeed here then they had no chance of overall success.140 And because they were so successful in repelling Chenhao’s siege warfare—a result, according to Feng Menglong, of their wondrous resourcefulness (sui ji ying bian)—the prince was held up until 7/15, at which time he received word of the impending attack on Nanchang by Wang Yangming’s forces.141 Once again, against his strategists’ advice, the prince insisted on turning back.

While the prince was thus tied up in Anqing, Wang Yangming was prepar-ing to depart for a garrison post north of Linjiang on the Gan river, where

137 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2219.138 Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3183.139 Ning fu zhao you, 108:2219.140 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 154–5; Tan Qian, Guo Que, 51:3183.141 Feng Menglong, “Huang ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 162.


he would meet up with all those civil officials-turned-commanders and their contingents on 7/15.142 According to his victory memorial, some fourteen pre-fectural and county officials arrived with nearly thirty-five thousand troops.143 From Linjiang, Wang Yangming’s now fully assembled army moved upriver to Fengcheng, where they would make final preparations for the assault on Nanchang.

Although the censor-in-chief’s strategy had long been set, one official ex-pressed his reservations regarding what he believed to be the impregnability of Nanchang. He further insisted that, because the prince’s soldiers were likely tired and dispirited from a long and failed siege at Anqing, it would be better to press straight there and defeat him head on. After that, Nanchang would easily follow. However, Wang Yangming completely disagreed and, as recounted in his victory memorial, explained his reasoning as follows:

If our troops were to reach Anqing, the rebel-bandits would turn and fight to the death. The forces in Anqing are able only to fend for themselves, and would not be able to supply reinforcements for us while we are on the river. Further, the troops in Nanchang would cut off our supply lines, and the rebels in Jiujiang and Nan-kang would combine their strategic power, cut us off, and follow from behind. With no hope for reinforcements from any direction, we would become hard-pressed. But today these contingents have assembled rapidly, making their first show of awesome strength, such that those within the provincial capital will surely be terror-stricken. Under these conditions, to unite our forces and rapidly attack—with such strategic power—their defense will surely fail. The consequence of occupying Nanchang will be the destruction of the rebels’ courage and deflation of their will to fight, for this is their base. By the very nature of this strategic state of affairs, they will surely return. In this way the Anqing encirclement cannot but be withdrawn, and the Prince of Ning’s capture is inevitable.144

The strategy was thus determined and by 6/19 all the commanders and their forces had advanced to Shicha145 and were now poised to attack and recover the prefectural capital.146 Early the next day, each contingent was to proceed

142 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.143 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:579–580.144 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.145 Shicha was located halfway between Fengcheng and Nanchang on the Gan River.146 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.

110 Larry Israel

to a predetermined city gate, penetrate the defense, and enter and occupy key strategic locations, including official yamens, military compounds, and the princely establishment itself.147

Just prior to the assault, to ensure that soldiers and civilians within the city would neither flee nor be lured into joining the resistance expected from the prince’s forces, Wang Yangming also had agents infiltrate the city and spread proclamations to the people. In these he made it clear he was soon to arrive with a massive force, and that anyone contributing to the “treachery” through their “evildoing” would be killed without mercy. But by the same token, he expressed deep sympathy for the plight of those whose lives had been thrown into turmoil as a result of the prince’s actions. He assured them he was con-fident that even if they had cooperated with the prince or maintained silence this could not have been “their true intention,” and having thus understood the nature of the wrong done to them, he was coming with over two hundred thousand soldiers, “for no other reason than to redress the injustice done to the people, to call to account for their crimes the principal evildoers.”148 To prepare for his arrival, imperial nobility were to hole up in their residences, merchants to continue their business as before, and soldiers and civilians to lay down their armor and weapons and return to their livelihoods:

This prefecture’s eunuch officials, guards, and security personnel should open the gates and stick out their heads, turn around the soldiers to assist the allegiant, capture and kill principals—for this they will be amply rewarded and promoted. As for those good soldiers and civilians who choose decisively to expel evil and turn toward the good, your lineages will not suffer destruction.149

Having thus attempted to secure the cooperation of the local population, Wang was now prepared to have his troops advance and occupy the city.

On 7/19 the twelve contingents departed Shicha, arriving at their designated locations at dawn the next day. Wang Yangming reported to the emperor that just prior to departure,

I took a solemn oath with all the soldiers, proclaiming the awe-someness of the court, and again unveiling the crimes of the Prince of Ning. [I instructed them that] each general was, upon the first drumbeat, to draw close to the city and with two to ascend. If after

147 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:579–580.148 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:581.149 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 17:581.


the third drumbeat they were not yet defeated then some within the ranks were to be executed, and if upon the fourth they were not yet defeated then commanders were to be executed. After swear-ing the oath, there were none who were not grinding their teeth and deeply pained in their hearts, jumping about with enthusiasm and rage.150

But his efforts to work up his soldiers’ courage did not stop there. Wang then gave orders for the execution of several soldiers accused of failing to follow his commands, presumably as a lesson for those soldiers not yet focused on the task at hand. If they were not being moved to act by their sense of righ-teousness, they might at least be moved to do so by their fear of death. This whole act was however somewhat of a ruse, for these soldiers were in fact those formerly dispatched by the prince to escort captured officials ordered to carry false proclamations throughout the province. It would appear that Wang Yangming had long before decided to have them brought along for some such purpose.151

According to the victory memorial, when the various contingents reached the city gates they confronted little resistance. Alarmed as the prince’s sup-porters already were—“their fighting spirit snatched away (duo qi)”—when confronted with thousands of soldiers crying out and charging they are said to have dropped their weapons and fled. Some city gates were already open, while others were either hacked down or opened up from within by soldiers who had penetrated with scaling ladders and ropes.152 This lack of resistance suggests that Wang Yangming’s estimate that the prince had at this point little support within the city was indeed accurate.

Wang Yangming’s principal concerns upon entering the prefectural capital were both to restore order and strategize for defeating the prince’s imminent return. On 7/22 he received reports that the prince had five days earlier with-drawn the failed siege at Anqing and moved his forces, berthing at Yuanzi Jiang.153 Zhu Chenhao’s plan for recovering his home base was first to send a force of twenty thousand selected from among his best troops. They were to pass over Lake Boyang and enter Nanchang, after which time he himself would return. In spite of the fact that many over the last month had fled both because of the delays caused by Wang Yangming’s ruses and because of the

150 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:398.151 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 34:1266; Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yang-ming,” 162.152 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.153 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401. I have been unable to locate this river.

112 Larry Israel

failure of the siege at Anqing, the prince’s forces remained potent enough to give cause for concern for Wang’s officers. According to his report to the court, they contended that they must withdraw into a defensive posture because, “drawing energy from their anger and fury, should they [the prince’s forces] unite their strength and quickly strike, we will be at a strategic disadvantage and unable to match them.”154 The censor-in-chief, however, contended that the enemy’s forces, far from being substantial, were in reality vacuous:

Although the strength of his military is indeed formidable, and his vanguard possesses a strong fighting spirit, nevertheless wherever they go they rely only on [intimidation], overawing those near and far, through inflicting suffering by burning, plundering, slaughter-ing, and killing. But they have not yet confronted a formidable enemy, who will deploy the orthodox and unorthodox when fight-ing. Furthermore, the means by which he motivates and incites his subordinates are promises of titles and rank. Add to that the fact that within a month they have already been forced to return, the officers’ state of mind must be dispirited, so if we first send out crack troops, and take advantage of their slow return, meeting them with a surprise attack, in order to deal a blow to their vanguard, the many generals will be routed prior to even having fought.155

Just as he had been claiming all along, the reasons the prince would ultimately fail were both his incompetence and the fact that his supporters were in his estimate largely motivated by utilitarian considerations of profit (gongli zhi xin) as opposed to righteous principle (yi li zhi xin). Therefore, Wang Yangming commanded his officers to divide up into several contingents and prepare for departure.

On 7/23 the censor-in-chief received reports that the first wave of the prince’s forces, led by his loyal rebel-bandit supporters Ling Shiyi and Min Niansi, had reached Qiaoshe.156 Innumerable sails were said to be covering the river for dozens of li. That evening Wang’s forces—basically those same officers and soldiers who had retaken Nanchang—were ordered to advance north in preparation for a direct attack the next day. At dawn, Wu Wending formed an “orthodox” front formation, with support from behind by Regional Military Commissioner Yu En’s forces. Prefect Xing Xun was to circle around and drive forward from behind the enemy’s forces, and Prefects Xu Lian and Dai

154 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.155 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:401.156 Qiaoshe was a town located, during the Ming, in Xinjian County.


Deru were to form flanks. With approximately five hundred crack troops each, these contingents were put in a formation that aimed to disperse the enemy’s strategic power. Unfortunately, accounts of the ensuing series of three battles, which took place on and around the environs of Lake Poyang and ended on 7/26 with the capture of the prince, offer only a skeleton outline of the loca-tions of the conflict and the strategies pursued. Because a full account of these mostly amphibious battles in which, according to Wang Yangming, thousands were killed or captured and countless more drowned,157 is beyond the scope of this paper, I here turn to the final one.

After the conclusion to the second battle, the prince’s forces were forced to draw back to Qiaoshe, where they linked their vessels up into a square array. Aware that the prince had now withdrawn into a vulnerable formation, dur-ing that evening Wang Yangming oversaw Wu Wending and other officials’ preparation of incendiary weapons. His plan was to charge forward and set the enemy’s fleet on fire while simultaneously sending signals for forces lying in ambush to attack from several directions. On 7/26, Wang’s forces rapidly approached and attacked the unprepared prince, setting afire his fleet. Zhu Chenhao was forced to flee his boat, leaving behind his wife and concubines, who subsequently committed suicide by drowning. He was, however, along with many of his principal leaders, subsequently captured, and his remaining forces were mostly devastated. Wang estimated that three thousand more were killed and captured, while over thirty thousand drowned. As he described the scene, “the discarded armor, weaponry, property, and floating corpses covered the river like a sandbar.”158 All that remained to be done was to pursue rebels who had taken flight.

According to Long Guang’s account, whatever other factors had contrib-uted to the success of the censor-in-chief’s tactics, a key one throughout these three days was his continuing ability to deploy psychological warfare for the purpose of simply getting rebel-bandit forces to jump ship but also to reduce their fighting spirit (qi). Perhaps this was because, if the numbers presented in reports are at all accurate, Wang Yangming at best had a few thousand soldiers who were in turn confronting over twenty thousand on the enemy side. For this reason, on the day of the first battle, prior to intercepting the rebels on Lake Poyang, Wang arranged to have a hundred thousand wooden placards, upon which were engraved a brief proclamation pardoning from execution all who would surrender, floated downriver. Since the enemy troops, seeing the way the wind was blowing after the provincial capital fell, were in any case likely


114 Larry Israel

feeling compelled to take flight, when they saw these they are said to have fought to get their hands on one in order to float their way to safety159

According to another anecdote, during the battle the next day, when Wu Wending’s forces were fighting to the death after receiving orders for the execu-tion of anyone pondering a retreat from the front lines, Wang Yangming also arranged to have large placards raised up high for all to see. They stated, “The Prince of Ning has been captured, our troops shall not wantonly kill.”160 Much of the rebel force was thrown into a state of alarm and confusion, and was for that reason quickly routed. Whatever else the effect all this and other deception may have had on the outcome of these battles, Long Guang claimed that such brilliant foresight was clear evidence of Wang Yangming’s “wondrous resource-fulness” (ying bian zhi shen), and his divine good fortune (shen yun).161

interpreting VictoryOf the various accounts of Wang Yangming’s campaign, only Feng Men-

glong’s literary account states that just after his victory on the twenty-sixth, Wang Yangming first proceeded to Hukou, where he was greeted by the local magistrate Zhang Xuanmei, and escorted to the Censorate. The prince had attempted to flee the fighting but was captured and taken prisoner by one of Wang Yangming’s commanders, the magistrate Wang Mian, who thereafter brought him before the triumphant censor-in-chief.162

It was also in Hukou that he would praise his key military leaders for pull-ing off this successful campaign. When he greeted Prefect Wu Wending in Hukou, Wang is said to have told him that he deserved the most recognition for this meritorious achievement, and the highest promotion, for his role was greater.163 As would be expected, in his victory memorials he mentioned all of his loyal supporters by name and requested that they receive due recognition and rewards for their meritorious achievement. In addition, he also mentioned the role of Minister of War Wang Qiong, the emperor, and higher cosmic forces. Such rhetoric is fairly standard among memorials of this type, but wording here is of interest because Wang really gave only lip service to the role of the emperor, and made clear where credit should go:

When this rebellion began, with a frail constitution ridden by multiple diseases, less than mediocre ability, and knowledge that

159 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1472.160 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1472.161 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1472.162 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 176.163 Feng Menglong, “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming,” 176.


is always impractical, your servitor immediately risked failure in undertaking his appointed duties, and while away traveling, with only a few hundred soldiers, advocated raising an army amidst great hardship, danger, and suspicion. Within a month, [we] were able to recover fortified cities and take prisoner the principal evil-doers. To defeat, with just over ten thousand soldiers, a mass of a hundred thousand powerful bandits—this it is true is the hidden virtue of Heaven, the silent blessing of the ancestors and gods of grain and earth (zongshe), and the divine martiality of the emperor. But also those court officials involved in planning and delibera-tions dispersed the calamity before it sprouted and made advance preparations; [they] discerned the signs before any movement and covertly put in place controls. They changed my commission to Superintendent of Military Affairs, allowing me to gain control from the upper reaches and possess the power to strike fear, like lions and leopards up in the mountains. The law was proclaimed. [All told, this] led men on their own initiative to battle, and in a united way what appeared was completely harmonized action [lit.: the mutual causation of arm and finger]. Your servant was ordered to come in time with reinforcements, without limits on location, and therefore covertly held the strategic power of the head and tail of the snake of Chang Mountain.164 Thus, I was able, without await-ing the promulgation of an edict, to assemble forces from several prefectures. And people from several prefectures, also prior to being supervised according to the orders of an edict, of their own accord came to the rescue of the endangered country, driving long distances and crossing territories, directly striking and exhaustively pursuing, and not concerning themselves with dereliction of ap-pointed duties.165

Here Wang mentions very briefly such intangible forces as the emperor, an-cestors, and Heaven while clearly emphasizing what were for him two of the three key factors determining the outcome: the foresight of high officials who empowered him with the autonomy he needed to take action as he saw fit and the seemingly natural rising to the occasion of so many officials, soldiers,

164 Wang Yangming is here alluding to the legendary snake of Changshan, whose head and tail could come to the rescue of each other. Thus, the idea is that if the head of a battle formation were to come under duress, the tail would immediately be there to provide reinforcements, and vice versa. See Hanyu da cidian, vol. 3, 734. 165 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 12:404–5.

116 Larry Israel

and civilians in the region. In fact, a veil of naturalness pervades much of his representation of the actions and motives of the victors.

The third factor—one discussed only with close friends—was his ability to remain “unmoved” throughout the conflict, such that his judgment was unim-peded and he could respond efficaciously to the changing course of events. This is precisely what Long Guang referred to as his “wondrous resourcefulness,” but the implication here was that it could not be conceptualized apart from his inner attainments, his virtue. These factors require further elaboration in order better to understand how, in causal terms, the victory was interpreted by Wang Yangming.

As explained earlier, because many officials both in and outside the court were basically silenced by a prince who had powerful connections, little could be done to stop his depredations in the local arena. Yet, some officials in crucial positions of power were quietly implementing measures in preparation for what they saw as the inevitable. The individual to whom Wang Yangming gave so much credit for his foresight was Minister of War Wang Qiong. In his victory memorials, in accordance with set standards, Wang Yangming routinely cited directly those broad discretionary powers granted him as grand coordinator and superintendent of military affairs in the region which permitted him to take the actions he did. And these orders in turn were sent to him as a result of the recommendations of the minister of war.

The significance of having such discretionary power was that Wang Yang-ming was basically left completely free to act as he saw fit, without having to worry about interference from higher-ups. With regard to conducting warfare, such empowerment was particularly important. Long before, in his Commen-tary on the Seven Military Classics, Wang had already blended generalship with the Confucian ideal of sagehood by commenting on how the ideal general should embody a combination of virtue and efficacy. Though he would later renounce his pursuits during this early period of his life as frivolity, here as elsewhere the impact of his military studies would remain potent. And one key theme that emerges in his annotations is the pivotal role of the general given complete latitude to act as he sees fit. He, for example, highlighted the state-ment in the Art of War that “one whose general is capable and not interfered with by the ruler will be victorious.”166

What is perhaps clearest from Wang Yangming’s involvement in this con-flict was that he believed anything could be accomplished should virtuous and capable officials be given the proper autonomy and non-interference, and

166 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu (Wang Yangming’s commentary on the “Seven Military Classics”), 11. This translation of the Sunzi is taken from Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer and Mei-Chun Sawyer, 161.


not only in the case of a military crisis. Yu Yingshi has noted that an impor-tant trend in Ming political culture was increasing attention to the exercise of authority in local affairs as control at the national level was increasingly lost to and endangered by incompetent emperors and their surrogates.167 Cer-tainly, Wang’s interpretation of the reason for victory here would fall in line with the general trend of his thinking and actions as a whole: a temporary de-emphasis on the role of the sage-king and elevation of the role of virtu-ous individuals—individuals exemplifying the ideal of sageliness within and kingliness without—in restoring the ideal.

The second key factor determining the outcome of the conflict simply goes to the matter of the minds and hearts of all those involved, or basically the psychology of warfare. Ralph Sawyer explains that the military classics stress the importance of developing a disciplined, spirited, and strongly motivated force, as well as the crucial role of vital energy (qi) in attaining this goal.168 Wang Yangming’s communications are shot through with precisely these concerns, and directly or indirectly imply that he believed his forces’ spirited response to a dispirited enemy made for rapid success. He wrote the following commentary to Chapter Eleven of the Art of War:

One who excels at deploying the soldiers of the three armies “leads them by the hand as if they were only one man,” and further as if they are of one mind, causing them all to have the heart “to be cast into positions from which there is nowhere to go,” and thus during combat there are none who won’t fight to the death, such that before even engaging in battle, victory is already achieved.169

But how is the general to achieve such an aim? For Wang, if the cause were both righteous and a matter of life and death for the emperor and the country, then individuals should rise to the occasion uncoerced, or at least with minimal coercion. This was simply the natural response of people’s mind of right and wrong (shi fei zhi xin) rising in communal solidarity in the face of an immi-nent threat to the whole, not in the modern sense of the nation, but rather in the very Confucian sense of that fabric of personally meaningful social order most exemplified through devotion to one’s ruler. On the other hand, should the enemy’s cause be wrong or bad, and driven by materialistic or selfish interests (gongli zhi xin), then it would be easy to snatch away their fighting spirit. His annotations to the Art of War reverberate throughout his strategy

167 Yu Yingshi, Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua, 275.168 Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 155.169 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 32:1186.

118 Larry Israel

during this campaign: “the qi of the three armies can be snatched away,”170 “the commanding general’s mind can be seized.”171

For Wang Yangming the mind of right and wrong, or the moral mind (yi li zhi xin), is the innate knowledge of the good, and it is to this that Wang Yang-ming believed himself to be appealing from the beginning. In this regard, his student Wang Longxi recorded a fascinating statement from his teacher a few months after the conclusion to the conflict:

Chenhao’s traitorous plot had already been developing for a long time, and officials within and without [the court] were cooperating and assisting him. . . . [Therefore,] people were saying that this great affair was already a fait accompli and no one again dared to oppose the spearhead of his attack. As for our teacher returning to Ji’an by boat, advocating the righteous and raising forces, all believed he was either foolish or bluffing. At the time Zou Qianzhi was present at his military headquarters, and seeing that people all around were in a state of turmoil, he entered and spoke with our teacher. Our teacher, with stern expression, replied: “There is no place amidst Heaven and Earth to which one could flee in order to escape this righteous cause. Even should all under Heaven choose to follow the Prince of Ning, I would still, though all alone, act precisely in this way. All people have this innate knowledge of the good (liangzhi), so how could it be that there will be no others who will respond to the call and come? As for consideration of the end result, or in other words victory and defeat, this is not something for which I plan.”172

Thus, with a just cause on his side, he was able to guide circumstances to their natural conclusion.

Aside from discretionary power and a just cause, the one thing that remained for the campaign to succeed was the leadership of a skilled general. Now while in his communications Wang Yangming made every effort to attribute this meritorious achievement to others, some brief enigmatic statements made to his students suggest that in fact he believed it was his ability effortlessly to master an unfolding situation that brought about the result it did. Likewise,

170 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu, 31. This translation of the Sunzi is taken from Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 170.171 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu, 31. This translation of the Sunzi is taken from Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 170.172 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 41:1599.


because the skill and ease with which he so rapidly subjugated the prince seemed to his followers to exemplify a key attribute of sagehood—“effortless action”—much of the record left by them amounts to anecdotes illustrative of this ideal.

In his account of Wang Yangming’s stratagem, Qian Dehong noted that during the eight years he followed his teacher, every time those around him questioned him about his military campaigns he would become silent. This same silence had already been maintained in his memorials: as Long Guang explained to Qian, “when our master composed his victory memorial he wor-ried it would be needlessly longwinded, and he therefore left out everything pertaining to the strategy of sowing discord and distrust; but also because stratagem and deception are not affairs the virtuous man engages in by choice, he wished not to explain this clearly to others.”173 Nevertheless, even after his master passed away, Qian continued to make inquiries because, although he was able from his official communications to outline the course of events, “as for this matter of employing spies (yong jian), I only once heard the gist of it, but the official documents did not mention this.”174 In 1535, six years after Wang Yangming’s death, Qian paid a visit to the individual who played such a key role in assisting Wang Yangming during the initial phases of his strategic maneuvering: Long Guang. Fortunately for him, Long Guang had retained copies or drafts of the many covert and counterfeit communications Wang had used during the campaign. Combining information from these and recollections from others involved, he was able to compose a detailed account of both his stratagem and some of Wang’s remarks regarding his experiences throughout the campaign.175 It is the latter that are so important for understand-ing why Wang Yangming believed he was able to be victorious.

To clarify this, Wang Yangming’s strategy should be placed first within the context of his learning in the military arts, and second within the broader framework of his discourse on mind. Although he makes no direct allusions to his commentary on the military classics in his memorials, I believe his commentary on the first chapter of the Art of War not only pulls together his thinking on strategy, but also delineates the conceptual horizon within which his plans for managing the prince’s rebellion were formed, plans conceived before he had even returned to Ji’an:

In speaking of warfare, [Sunzi] always states, “warfare is the way of deception, always achieving victory through hidden plans.” . . .

173 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1471. 174 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1474.175 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1474.

120 Larry Israel

People’s eyes are unable to see though my plans. This is because there is a mastery of factors prior to warfare. When Sunzi first opens his mouth he immediately states, “evaluate it comparatively through estimations, and seek out its true nature.”176

A complete mastery of factors prior to a campaign and achieving victory through the implementation of deception: this for him was undoubtedly the key to this victory. As we have seen, Wang Yangming anticipated the prince’s evolving plans every step of the way, and formulated corresponding strategies to defeat them, for the most part by both undermining the prince’s confidence and the support of those following him so that a minimum amount of fighting would be necessary. In this regard, his actions were fully in keeping with what he highlighted in his notes on the Sunzi: “The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy’s plans.”177

But what are the preconditions—the requisite qualifications as it were—for being able to achieve such mastery? Through answering this question we move from the military arts to a Confucian discourse on the cultivation of ef-fortless action, the inner virtue necessary for efficacious military leadership. Qian Dehong recounts the following conversation between Wang and one of his students:

Someone asked, “Is there an art to employment of the military instrument?” Master replied, “Just what art could there be to em-ploying the military instrument? Only if in learning one is pure and serious, and cultivates their mind so that they remain unmoved, that is the art. The wisdom and capacity of average people is not all that far apart, and victory and defeat need not await divination at the battlefront—it only revolves around whether this mind remains moved or unmoved.”178

Wang Yangming illustrated what he meant by recounting the reaction of some of his high officers when forces suffered a setback at the front lines and he was in the midst of ordering them to prepare for incendiary warfare. Apparently they were caught by surprise and repeatedly reported the urgency of the situation to him. Though the account does not explain exactly why, Wang told his students his “ears were as if they had heard nothing.”179 Very likely, these unnamed

176 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 32:1185.177 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu, 9. This translation of the Sunzi is taken from Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 161.178 Wang, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1473.179 Ibid., 39:1473.


officials were calling for a change of plans, or withdrawal. But whatever the case may have been, for Wang the lesson was clear: “these individuals are all very well-known today, and in normal times how could their stratagem (zhi shu) be deficient? But to lose their footing so fast in the face of crisis, how could they possibly implement their stratagem?”180

The “unmoved mind (bu dong xin)” is a Mencian phrase later adopted by Song-Ming Neo-Confucians to designate a phenomenological state realized through various methods of self-cultivation.181 The essence of such a state is that the silence, calm, and quiescence won through quiet-sitting or other forms of meditation becomes available and is carried throughout all activity in such a way that the individual achieves a degree of detachment from personal considerations and is therefore able to act “effortlessly.”182 Perhaps what stood out most for those students present during the campaigns was just this element of detachment throughout this time. According to Zou Shouyi:

Formerly our master, when waging battle with the Prince of Ning, was along with two or three of his friends seated in the military headquarters lecturing. A scout brought him a report stating that the front lines had suffered a setback, and those around him all ap-peared alarmed. But our master merely exited the room to speak with the scout, and returned and again took his seat, the expression on his face unchanged. Later, a scout hurried in with a report that the rebel-bandit soldiers had been totally routed, and those around him all became animated with joy. Our teacher again exited to speak with the scout, returned, and sat down, continuing to lecture as before, his expression unchanged.183

In a conversation he held with his student Chen Jiuchuan regarding how effectively to command forces and confront the enemy, Wang drew out the theoretical implications of what must have been self-evident for Zou Shouyi from this anecdote: “If one truly is willing to apply their innate knowledge of the good, such that they are always clear, wise, and unobscured by desire, then they will be able naturally, when confronting affairs, to remain unmoved—the unmoved true essence is able without a word naturally to respond to change.”184

180 Ibid., 39:1473.181 The phrase bu dong xin can be found in Mencius 2:A:2. For analysis of the relation between this and “effortless action” see Slingerland, Effortless Action. He translates bu dong xin as “the heart/mind that does not stir.”182 For a similar analysis of the relation between contemplation/stillness and action in Zhu Xi’s religious thought, see Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 122. 183 Ibid., 39:1473.184 Ibid., 39:1473.

122 Larry Israel

In this case, the affair was a rebellion and the response its suppression. The military arts were therefore seamlessly drawn into the discourse on sagehood and effortless action.

One important condition, however, would had to have obtained for Wang Yangming’s claims to make any sense in the context of the Neo-Confucian tradition of learning, and for his followers to be able to celebrate this clear manifestation of his learning, this irrefutable demonstration of how his inner sageliness translated into truly virtuous practice: his actions would had to have been just and therefore in accord with principle. In more general terms, Wang had frequently taught his disciples about the connection between the Mencian unmoved mind, principle, and their daily lives:

Self-cultivation and governance have never been two separate Ways. Even when official business is pressing, it is the concrete place for study and inquiry. . . . In the practice of our daily lives there is nothing that is not the ongoing manifestation of Heavenly Principle. Should this mind be preserved and not lost, then moral principles will mature naturally. This is what Mengzi referred to as “neither forgetting nor assisting, inquiring deeply and realizing it for oneself.”185

The mind that is preserved and not lost, neither forgotten nor assisted, is none other than the unmoved mind. Therefore, precisely because, in phenomeno-logical terms, Wang Yangming preserved this mind, he was able not only to see clearly where things ought to go, but also had the wherewithal to marshall the authority necessary to take things in that direction, in concrete terms by achieving a Sunzian mastery of the factors confronting the country, seeking out its true nature, and formulating an effective response.

In his study of “effortless action” as a discourse common to all emerging philosophical traditions in early China, Edward Slingerland explains the normative dimension of the Confucian appropriation of this ideal phenom-enological state:

The culmination of knowledge is understood not in terms of a grasp of abstract principles but rather as an ability to move through the world and human society in a manner that is completely spontane-ous and yet still fully in harmony with the normative order of the natural and human worlds—the Dao or “Way.”186

185 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 4:145. 186 Slingerland, Effortless Action, 4.


Certainly, each of the anecdotes recounted above falls within the parameters of this discourse: Wang Yangming’s actions exemplified a powerful ideal and verified his philosophy of the innate knowledge of the good.

Generally speaking, this link between the natural/spontaneous and the nor-mative also legitimated authority and all that this might imply, including the need to resort to violence. In this regard, I believe we find ourselves somewhat at odds with the past: in just what sense can the reasoning and sentiments expressed throughout this whole campaign be considered natural? But even for Wang Yangming there was certainly much that did not fit very clearly within his claim that this was all a matter of, as he told Wang Longxi, “innate knowledge of the good responding to phenomena (liangzhi ying ji), like clouds in the sky floating past one’s eyes.”187 Thus, his silence about stratagem.188 It is also not surprising to find that he was in fact throughout this time and after deeply troubled by all that was happening, including the need to resort to force. Even in the military classics, the exercise of authority in the form of violence is generally considered a last resort when more ideal, and typically Confucian, means for resolving conflict have failed. Wang once highlighted this in his annotations to The Methods of the Sima: “when uprightness failed to attain the desired objective, [the ancients] resorted to authority (quan).”189 But after suppressing this rebellion, he gave a far clearer statement concerning the logic behind his actions, and just why he believed the use of force sometimes becomes a necessity:

In the past I [Liu Bangcai] once asked: “If a person where to culti-vate his mind until it becomes immoveable, then could they deploy troops with you?” The master stated: “They also must have learned through experience. This is a matter of blades facing off and killing people; how can it [be learned through] imagination? One must have practiced this matter personally, and when lines of command gradually become clear, and wisdom well-rounded, only then can one win trust throughout the land. There is no such thing as one who has not personally experienced this but is nevertheless able to grasp the implicit principles—this is the error of later generations’ theory of the investigation of things. Kongzi himself said that he had not studied the matter of warfare, and this was not just mod-esty. However, only if the sage were to take office and realize his aspirations would he have the Way of dispersing rebellion before

187 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 41:1600.188 For a discussion of this matter see p. 123 above.189 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu, 113.

124 Larry Israel

it takes shape. They therefore did not need to employ [the military instrument]. Later generations speak of governing, but never once discuss the root and origin, always beginning only from the halfway point, and therefore turning things upside down. If one were to dis-cuss seeking the root and origin, then how could there be a rationale whereby one must first slaughter people and only thereafter settle them? Ever since I was dispatched to campaign in Ganzhou, the court has repeatedly caused me to be involved in affairs requiring killing people. How could I bear this piercing [of my heart by a knife]? It is only because things have come to this. [This state of affairs] can be likened to a person who has taken ill—first unhealthy environmental influences must be brought under control, and only then can the original vital energy be recovered.190

No other statement captures more clearly Wang Yangming’s political pre-dicament as he understood it, and I believe we here detect a degree of fatalism in his tone regarding the resort to force as sometimes being a necessary evil. In retrospect, looking back at his campaigns up to this point, his reasoning and sentiments vis-à-vis such a solidly gray political maelstrom, and his belief that a justice relative to the circumstances he was then confronting required forcibly removing unhealthy environmental influences on the periphery that, according to his own analysis, had deeper systemic origins at the center—this all suggests that Xu Fuguan’s claim that Wang Yangming’s actions all derived from his cultivated humanity and extension of the innate knowledge of the good and Julia Ching’s that he was throughout this time following “the promptings of the human heart and its desire for good”191—with all the normative weight this implies—may have to be reassessed for their overall power accurately to represent what transpired.

conclusionThe contemporary historian of Chinese philosophy Chen Lai observes that

the fundamental import of the extension of the innate knowledge of the good (zhi liangzhi) is that one must act according to such knowledge.192 In this regard, Wang Yangming united his earlier theory of the unity of knowledge and action (zhi xing he yi) with zhi liangzhi. Chen further offers a lucid interpretation of just what this meant: “Innate knowledge of the good is intrinsic moral standards.

190 Wang Yangming, Wang Yangming quan ji, 39:1474.191 See Introduction. 192 Chen Lai, You wu zhi jing, 180.


. . . [T]o extend innate knowledge of the good is to prosecute these standards in practice; interpreted along these lines, ‘to extend’ is to act.”193

In the introduction to this paper I attempted to argue that because theory and practice were never divided in Wang Yangming’s thought, and because he repeatedly stated that his philosophy of liangzhi was thoroughly verified as a result of his experiences during his campaign to crush the rebellion by the Ning Princely Establishment, an historical inquiry into Wang Yangming’s conduct throughout this time, as well as the normative import of his teaching, becomes topical. Because sageliness within and kingliness without were al-ways ideally unified in Neo-Confucian thought, I have shifted the focus from largely ahistorical readings of his philosophy of moral self-cultivation to his political practice. By so doing, I believe we not only gain insight into just how Wang Yangming sought to restore “all under Heaven” to the Way—beyond just some schedule of Confucian norms—but also achieve insight into the moral ambiguities he confronted throughout this time, ambiguities lost not only in those received biographical accounts that seek to highlight how his conduct accorded with exemplary paradigms for sagehood, but also in much secondary scholarship, the focus of which has been the philosophical fruits of Wang’s meditations on “inner sageliness.” In short, it seems evident that what was supposed to be knowledge of universal validity was in fact constituted in and by historically specific circumstances replete with contradictions; indeed, it might not be going too far to suggest that the discourse on sagehood (and innate knowledge of the good) itself, to a degree, played a role in constituting the very drama that served to verify its moral power.

193 Chen Lai, You wu zhi jing, 182.

bi fei ben xin 必非本心

bingkuai 兵快

duoqi 奪氣

ende 恩德

gongli zhi xin 功利之心

jundao 君道

liangzhi ying ji 良知應跡

glossaryling qi ling pai 令旗令牌

Linjiang 臨江

Qiaoshe 樵舍

shen yun 神運

shi fei zhi xin 是非之心

Shicha 市汊

sui ji ying bian 隨機應變

126 Larry Israel

tianli 天理

Wang Yangming 王楊明

Wu Wending 伍文定

Xing 性

yi li zhi xin 義理之心

ying bian zhi shen 應變之神

yong jian 用間

zhi liangzhi 致良知

zhi xing he yi 知行合一

Zhu Chenhao 朱宸濠

bibliography

Chan, Wing-tsit, trans. and annot. Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wang Yang-ming. Translated, with notes, by Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.

———, ed. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Chen Hongmo. Ji shi ji wen (Record of things heard concerning succession to the throne). Circa 1522. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997.

Chen Lai. You wu zhi jing: Wang Yangming zhexue de jingshen (The realm of being and nonbeing: the spirit of Wang Yangming’s philosophy). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991.

Ching, Julia. To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming. New York: Colum-bia University Press, 1976.

———. Mysticism and Kingship in China: the Heart of Chinese Wisdom. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

———. The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Cua, A.S. “Between Commitment and Realization: Wang Yang-ming’s Vision of the Universe as a Moral Community,” Philosophy East and West 43, no. 4 (1993): 611–647.

Feng Menglong. “Huang Ming da ru Wang Yangming xiansheng chu shen jing luan lu (Record of the Great Ming Confucian Wang Yangming’s pacification of rebellions).” In Feng Menglong quanji, vol. 30. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993.

Geiss, James. “The Leopard Quarter during the Cheng-te Reign.” Ming Studies 27 (1987): 1–38.


———. “The Cheng-te Reign, 1506–1521.” In The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part One, ed. Frederick Mote and Dennis Twitchett. Cambridge, 1988.

Goodrich, L. Carrington, ed. Dictionary of Ming Biography. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.

Gu Yingtai. Ming shi ji shi ben mo (Narrative of events in the “Ming History” from beginning to end). Taibei: Sanmin shuju, 1963.

Hanyu da cidian. Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian chubanshe, 1989.

Hucker, Charles. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stan-ford University Press, 1985.

Ivanhoe, Philip. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002.

Jiao Hong, ed. Guo chao xian zheng lu (Record of the worthies of the reigning dy-nasty). Mingdai zhuanji congkan edition, vol. 109, ed. Zhou Junfu. Ming wen shuju, 1991.

Lu Miaofen. Yangming xue shi ren shequn: lishi, sixiang, yu shijian (Societies of scholars of Yangming learning: history, thought, and practice). Zhongyang yanyuan lidai shi yanjiusuo, 2003.

Mengzi yi zhu. Trans. Jin Liangnian. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2004.

Ning fu zhao you (Deposition of the Ning Princely Establishment). In Guo chao dian gu, vol. 2, ed. Deng Shilong. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993.

Qian Dehong. Ping hao ji (Record of the pacification of [Prince Zhu Chen] hao). Cong shu ji cheng xin bian edition. Taibei: Xin wen feng chuban gongsi, 1985.

Qian Ming. Yangming xue de xingcheng yu fazhan (The formation and development of Wang learning). Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 2002.

Sawyer, Ralph D. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. Translated by Ralph D. Sawyer and Mei-Chun Sawyer. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1993.

Slingerland, Edward. Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiri-tual Ideal in Early China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Tan Qian. Guo Que (Deliberations on the Reigning Dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua guji chubanshe, 1958.

Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

128 Larry Israel

Tsai, Henry Shi-Shan. The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. New York: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 1996.

Wang Chunyu, “Qi wu’ lun—tan Mingdai zongfan (Concerning “discarded things”—a discussion of the Princely Establishments of the Ming Dynasty).” In Ming Qing shi san lun. Shanghai: Dongfang chuban zhongxin, 1996.

Wang Yangming. Wang Yangming pi wu jing qi shu (Wang Yangming’s commen-tary on the “Seven Military Classics”). Taibei: Laogu wenhua shiye gongsi, 1987.

———. Wang Yangming quan ji (The complete works of Wang Yangming). 2 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992.

Wodak, Ruth. Introduction to Language, Power, and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse, ed. Ruth Wodak. Philadelpha: John Benjamins Publishing Com-pany, 1989.

Wrightson, Keith. English Society, 1580–1680. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press 1982.

Xia Xie. Wen bai dui zhao quan yi Ming tong jian (Comprehensive mirror of the Ming: complete bilingual classical-modern Chinese edition). Edited by Shen Zhihua. Beijing: Gaige chubanshe, 1994

Xu Fuguan. “Wang Yangming sixiang bu lun (Supplementary comments on Wang Yangming’s thought).” In Zhongguo sixiang shi lunji xubian. Taibei: Wen qun yinshua you xian gongsi, 1982.

Yu Yingshi. Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua (Song-Ming learning of principle and its relation to political culture). Taibei: Yun nong wenhua, 2004.

Zhang Fentian. Zhongguo di wang guannian: shehui pubian yishi zhong de ‘zui jun-zun jun’ wenhua fanshi (China’s autocratic mentality: the cultural pattern of ‘praising the ruler-blaming the ruler’ widespread in society’s consciousness). Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2004.

Zhang Tingyu, ed. Ming shi (Ming History). Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1974.

Zheng Xiao. Jin yan (Words for Our Time). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997.

Zhongguo lidai renming da cidian. 2 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999.

The Prince and the Sage: Concerning Wang Yangming's Effortless Suppression of the Ning Princely...

Documents

Transcript of The Prince and the Sage: Concerning Wang Yangming's Effortless Suppression of the Ning Princely...