To what extent did the Ming emperors have complete power? What were some limitations?
According to social structure in Ming China, the emperor was at the very top of society, and he was alone in this position, and hence theoretically power was held by the emperor and the emperor alone. This meant that he did have the power to overrule any decisions made, and could, at least in theory, not be checked by anyone, and did not need to have the support of teh court to make decisions. Additionally, the emperor was seen as a son of heaven and so his position was one that was seen to be accepted by the gods, essentially giving him an almost divine power. Moreover, at the beginning of the dynasty, the Hongwu emperor abolished the role of prime minister, increasing the authority he held. Although Ray Huang has argued that the position created after, the Grand secretariat, was still very powerful because of how close he was to the emperor and his importance in court, most agree that this was a conscious effort to increase the emperor’s power by giving him more control and making the operation of government dependent on himself, as the grand secretariat was at least initially fairly informal and consisted of 6 grand secretaries so no one individual was anywhere close to the emperor in the level of control and so there was no one dominant figure, though it should be noted that the power of the grand secretariat did increase over time so the level of power an emperor had likely would have decreased simultaneously. There are also many examples of emperors simply getting rid of those who they didn’t get on with, suggesting a high level of power, such as Yongle emperor who had Fang Xiaoru executed just because he refused to write an edict, illustrating how emperors could do what they wanted and thus had a lot of power.
wanli couldn’t promote his fav prince
However, whilst the power of the emperor was obviously great, there are examples of when the court opposed his decisions and plans, limiting the extent to which the emperor’s power can be seen as ‘complete’. The Great Rites Controversy is seen by some to show the emperor’s power, to the point that his position was unchallenged and very strong, and whilst this is true, the fact that the dispute over whether the Jianjing emperor should be posthumously adopted by his uncle, the previous emperor, lasted from 1524 to 1527 suggests that the officialdom and members of the imperial court had a significant amount of influence, even when arguing against the emperor, and hence the emperor’s power was not complete or the argument would have been solved much sooner. Similarly, later on, the power of the ministers at court was shown when the Wanli emperor faced a 15 year long dispute with the court since he wanted to promote his favourite prince…. Indeed, even the most powerful of emperors seem to have had some threat as Yongle emperor’s imperial bodyguard, …
Eunuchs
Whilst the imperial office proved at times a hindrance to the emperor’s power, far more limiting were the eunuchs, who at times were more powerful than the emperor and impossible to remove from power. Wei Zhongxian was an example of this and is considered by some to be the most powerful eunuch in all of Chinese history. Wei
Furthermore the Hongwu emperor had a metal tablet inscribed with the words “Eunuchs must have nothing to do with the administration” and the fact he felt he needed to do this suggests that there was in fact a problem, even with an emperor as strong willed as him, of eunuchs taking power and controlling politics more than the emperor, implying that eunuchs were at least alwaysa threat to power, even if they didn’t actually abuse it. However, as Huang points out, the number of eunuchs who were domineering is actually very low, agreed by most to be four, and so these eunuchs should be seen as exceptions with most eunuchs not becoming that involved, and they were not a normal limit to power, though of course they do illustrate that not all Ming emperors had complete power.
Women
Huang notes that because of the topography of the court, affairs of the palace became involved with politics, and so inevitably the women who lived in the harem had knowledge of what was going on, and thus one can assume that the girls did have at least some form of informal power, gained purely by their conversations with the emperor, especially considering that the emperor had a few women who were reserved solely for him, and so these women had the opportunity to become close to him and influence his decisions. The empress Zhou clearly had persuasive powers over her husband, demonstrated by her convincing him to end the exile of the consort Tian. Hongzhi, who is generally considered to be one of the strongest Ming emperors, shown by the fact that ‘Hongzhi’ actually translates as ‘great government’, because he was personally involved in all state affairs and XXX interestingly only had one empress rather than many concubines, and although it cannot be said for certain that the two points are linked, it isn’t unlikely that the lack of informal influence from consorts meant Hongzhi emperor was more powerful, which was reflected in his government. Not only was there influence and informal power from the wives and concubines of the emperor, but the empress dowager had more of a formal role and recognised influence, such as the Empress
Provinces
The idea of power not only refers to decision making within the imperial court, but the emperor’s ability to enforce his will on the whole of Ming China, and this is another limitation
Depended on the emperor – child emperors
The extent to which the emperor had complete power evidently varied, depending on eunuchs, and the role of other members of the court, but it also depended on the emperor himself. The eunuchs were clearly at times very dominant at court, but a strong emperor, such as the aforementioned Hongzhi emperor, was able to lessen this, and so Hongzhi’s level of power was substantially greater than others such as Wanli emperor. The Wanli emperor’s power was also substantially less than many other Ming emperors because he was only ten years old when he ascended the throne, and so not only was he, as discussed, vulnerable to influence from eunuchs, but also he was aided for the first ten years of his reign
A number of emperors, particualrly those who had very powerful eunuchs, were simply disinterested in politics