THREE Mingju
The rebels were pacified and the emperor glorified, the four directions at peace and the court in order, the ruler enlightened, the official worthy, the people at rest and the times prosperous.
VERSES INSCRIBED ON MINGJU’S TOMBSTONE
Favorites rose in China, as elsewhere, from a combination of ancestry, political advocacy, and service to the monarch.1 From the seventeenth-century point of view, Mingju had it all: a high position in the Manchu order, crucial posts in the state bureaucracy, association with the major initiatives of the early Kangxi reign, a close relationship with the emperor, and an entrepreneurial bent of mind that led his biographer in Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period to call him “a skillful business executive.”2 How had Mingju come to have it all? How did he secure the opportunity for corruption that, according to Guo Xiu, he so assiduously exploited? What combination of entitlement, accomplishment, or luck placed him so favorably in the last quarter of the seventeenth century?3 Inheritance certainly played a part, as it located him in the Plain Yellow Banner, the dominant banner in the early Kangxi court. However, the circumstances of Mingju’s family’s enrollment in the Plain Yellow Banner meant that he would not be its most favored member. Much of Mingju’s position rested on his accomplishments as Manchu minister and grand secretary; his work in these capacities placed him at the cutting edge of many of the reforms the young Kangxi emperor set out to achieve in the first decades of his reign.
Yehenala Bodyguard
Mingju’s position at the imperial court was rooted in clan and kinship relations established before the conquest. Nurhaci (1559–1626), founder of the Manchu order, spent much of his political career bringing together the Jurchen tribes who inhabited the northeast corner of their eponymous Manchuria. The last to be incorporated in Nurhaci’s system was a group that lived along the Yehe River, the Yehenala.4 They resisted Nurhaci for many years, meanwhile trying to secure peace by sending the daughter of their chief to be Nurhaci’s wife.5 They may have received some support from the Ming Dynasty in return for their resistance, support that was one of the Seven Grievances that Nurhaci proclaimed as he went to war against the Ming.6 Mingju’s grandfather, Gintaisi (d. 1619), the last leader of the Yehenala, died either by execution at Nurhaci’s hand or by suicide.7 Mingju’s father, Niyaha (d. 1647), was the first Yehenala to willingly serve the Qing. He was accorded membership in the Plain Yellow Banner, controlled directly by the emperor, and appointed to high office both to recognize his valor in the Qing army and because the Yehenala woman sent to Nurhaci in an effort to secure peace became the mother of Nurhaci’s successor.8
Mingju was born in 1635, a distant cousin of emperor he would serve. Mingju’s mother died when he was six sui, and his father barely survived the conquest, dying when Mingju was 12 sui. As a member of one of the upper three banners, he was entitled to begin his service as an imperial bodyguard, and when at age seventeen the Shunzhi emperor remarked on his talent, he was appointed. At an earlier point in Manchu history, the notion of a Yehenala bodyguard for the Qing emperor would have been almost an oxymoron, but conquest and the founding of a new order made such an appointment possible in the 1650s.
In the post-conquest years, Mingju advanced steadily. He served first in the division of the imperial bodyguard responsible for imperial carriages, and then was promoted to department director in the imperial household.9 In 1663 he was promoted again to commandant of the bodyguard at the Southern Park (neiwufu zongguan), the first ranked position he held.10
From his post as commandant of the bodyguard, Mingju moved into posts in civil administration. In 1665, he was appointed a sub-chancellor of the grand secretariat (rank 2b), a post that was primarily concerned with managing the secretariat archives.11 The same year he was appointed assistant editor of the formal record of edicts issued by the Kangxi emperor’s father.12 In 1667, he was designated to accompany the Manchu minister of works, Marsai (d. 1733), to Jiangnan to inspect the Huai and lower Yellow river works. This was a temporary commission that bore no specific rank, but travel on an imperial commission with expenses paid, often generously, by the officials whose jurisdictions were passed was a perk at the court.13
Mingju’s career demonstrated one of the ways the regime was incorporating Manchus into the Qing civilian order. He began service at rank 4A, midway along the nine-rank system used to classify officials.14 By comparison, a Chinese who passed the examinations and was appointed to start his career as a district magistrate held rank 7a and might pass a whole career ascending to the fourth rank. Like their Chinese counterparts, Manchus in the Qing climbed a bureaucratic ladder of rank and prestige, but they didn’t start at the bottom. Posts around the emperor to which Manchus were likely to be appointed were assigned relatively high rank, and by this means the Qing reconciled their native order with the famously meritocratic order of the Chinese.
Minister of War
The Kangxi emperor’s purge of his regents in 1669 was a turning point of the reign. Born after the conquest and educated by tutors in Chinese language and Chinese attitudes toward government and morality, the emperor set out after the purge to restore Chinese institutions that the regents had deemphasized. This second beginning of the Kangxi reign proved to be a favorable time for men who could operate in both the Manchu and Chinese cultural worlds. Mingju’s biographies provide no evidence of his schooling. Throughout his life, however, he was reputed to be both bilingual and bicultural; he interacted with Chinese scholars on nearly equal terms and proved to be master of both Chinese and Manchu documents.15 In one of the emperor’s early appointments after taking personal control, Mingju was made Manchu president of the Censorate.
During the regency, the Censorate had lost influence, but it was one of the first institutions to which the emperor appointed his own men.16 In the spring of 1670 Mingju was selected as a Classics Mat lecturer (jingyan jiang guan) for the emperor.17 The Classics Mat lectures were occasions on which officials offered an explication of a classical text for the emperor’s benefit. The title referred to the idea that emperor and scholar would sit on mats facing each other like the rulers and advisers of classical antiquity. The lecturers were normally Chinese officials of fairly high rank or demonstrated scholarly achievement. Mingju was among twelve individuals designated in the first month of 1670 to be lecturers, one of two Manchus in the group. On October 2, 1673, Mingju and Wang Xi (1628–1703) jointly delivered their lecture on a line from the Book of Documents: “Let not the emperor set to the rulers of States an example of indolence or dissoluteness. Let him be wary and fearful, remembering that in one or two days, there may occur ten thousand springs of things.”18
Mingju may have attracted the emperor’s attention with his exposition of the Chinese classics, but the need that he was called upon to fill was military. Unfortunately, the opening to Chinese civil discourse precipitated by the Kangxi emperor’s personal assumption of power in 1670 did not last long. This was the case in part because the initial Qing conquest had been incomplete. In 1644–45, Manchu armies only conquered lands north of the Yangzi, leaving the conquest and government of the south to three Chinese warlords, Wu Sangui (1612–1678), Shang Kexi (d. 1676), and Geng Jingzhong (d. 1682). The arrangement was stable for the lives of the three warlords, but as they grew older, the question emerged of how the south was to be permanently governed. Just as the crisis in the south was unfolding, Mingju was appointed Manchu minister of war.
A story inserted into Mingju’s official biography provides context for this appointment, but the anecdote requires a bit of unpacking. According to Qingshi, the emperor had occasion to observe Mingju drilling troops from the Liangying Tai. Pleased with what he saw, the monarch ordered that Mingju’s procedures be made law.19 No such endorsement appeared in the diaries or the Veritable Records. The Liangying Tai was a pavilion overlooking a military parade ground located in the Imperial Southern Hunting Park; events there were formal affairs of state attended by the imperial family and the court. Kangxi’s pleased observation of troops drilled by Mingju was not a random event but likely occurred at an official imperial review. In the official biography, this event was identified as occurring one month after Mingju’s appointment as minister of war. Given the number of significant events Mingju confronted almost immediately after his appointment, it seems unlikely that he would have had the time to spend perfecting troop drills and performing them as minister of war. If, however, the episode occurred earlier, when Mingju was commandant of the imperial bodyguard at the Southern Park, it might suggest why the young emperor turned to Mingju when he needed someone for military affairs in troubled times. Mingju was the first minister of war personally appointed by the young emperor and soon began to receive marks of imperial favor. In 1671, he was among a small group of princes and senior officials who were allowed to accompany the emperor as he plowed the ritual furrow at the Altar of Heaven on the first day of spring.20 He was also given a hereditary captaincy in the banner armies, which he was able to pass on to his son, Singde (1655–1685).
Mingju’s appointment as minister of war put him at the cutting edge of imperial concerns. Just five days before his appointment, Shang Kexi, the feudatory prince who held Qing territory in Guangdong, petitioned the court to allow his son to exercise his powers during his illness, in one of the first indications that the princes might attempt to pass on their status to their sons. The Ministry of War was involved in any actions affecting the feudatories, as they constituted the dynasty’s defenses along its sea and southern frontiers. A young, personally chosen minister could be expected to play a central part in these decisions. Shang Kexi was permitted to transfer his powers temporarily. Some months later, Wu Sangui requested permission to withdraw his troops from the southwest and retire to Manchuria. While Shang Kexi’s request was prompted by ill health, Wu Sangui’s was meant as a test for the new monarch. Acceptance of the request would be tantamount to dismissal for Wu, who had no intention of voluntarily abandoning his position.
Many argued that Wu was indispensable in the south: “Yunnan has hereditary local officials of the Miao and Man, and it would be unwise to loosen control over them in the slightest. If the prince [Wu Sangui] were allowed to withdraw, it would be necessary to send Manchu troops to control [the province]. The arrival of Manchu troops, and the departure of [Wang’s] troops would surely create local disturbances.”21 These counselors saw little reason to reject the compromises made at the time of the Qing conquest, and fear of the unknown Miao and Man tribes was a useful idiom to express their opposition.
The new emperor chose to move in a different direction. Rejecting his counselors’ advice, the emperor ordered that Wu Sangui’s petition be accepted and his troops be allowed to withdraw from the southwest. Although no account of this decision has been preserved, two sources claim that Mingju argued for accepting the feudatory prince’s resignation. One of these is a funerary biography for Mingju composed by Wang Hongxu (1645–1723), who was a Hanlin academician during the debate.22 Noting that many said the feudatory princes could not be removed, Wang claimed that Mingju “argued forcefully” (kang yan) that Shang Kexi’s resignation should be accepted.23 It was noteworthy that Wang praised Mingju for supporting the decision to accept Shang Kexi’s resignation rather than Wu Sangui’s, which was the more politically important decision. Associating Mingju with the Wu Sangui decision might have been problematic since accepting Wu’s resignation led to war, and during the ensuing conflict conservatives proposed that those who had supported the war be executed for wasting Manchu men and treasure. In saying that Mingju supported the earlier request, Wang may have been asserting that Mingju was involved in wartime decision-making without acknowledging the subsequent call for his execution.
The degree and nature of the young Kangxi emperor’s agency in the decision and, implicitly, the significance of Mingju’s advice to accept the resignations, have been variously assessed. The emperor’s most prominent English-language biographer, Jonathan Spence, attributes the decision primarily to the emperor.24 H. Lyman Miller, who studies factionalism during the early Qing, acknowledges Mingju’s influence, but also asserts that the emperor’s grandmother must have played a role in the decision, as does Silas Wu in Passage to Power.25 The emperor visited the grand empress dowager almost daily, including the days before and the day after he made the fateful decision to accept Wu Sangui’s offer to withdraw from the southwest.26 Liu Fengyun, the most important recent historian of the Rebellion in China, offers a third suggestion. Noting that just a few days after Wu Sangui’s resignation was accepted, the emperor sent a mission to Wu to make arrangements for his troops’ withdrawal, she suggests that the court might not have been aware that Wu would rebel.27
At the end of the war, a second source indicating that Mingju played a significant role in the decision to accept Wu Sangui’s resignation appeared. In December 1680, as word arrived from the south that Qing armies had retaken Yunnanfu, Wu Sangui’s capital, a group of imperial princes and senior counselors proposed that the Kangxi emperor take on an honorary title as the victor in the war. Responding to their request, the emperor took an opportunity to reflect on the decision to accept Wu Sangui’s resignation:
I discussed the matter with the court. Tuhai [d. 1681] strongly opposed allowing Shang to withdraw. Considering that the feudatories’ control of military power could only lead to troubles that could not be anticipated, I decided to order the withdrawal, not thinking that Wu Sangui would turn his back on the grace [he had received] and rebel, bringing tumult to all under heaven, which was only pacified by the grace of heaven and the benevolent influence of Our Ancestors. I recall that at that time, Moro [n.d.], Misgan [1633–1676], Mingju, Subai [n.d.], and Sekde [n.d.] all supported withdrawal. But no one said that in withdrawal Wu Sangui would certainly rebel. Many people still discuss this issue today and ask whether there was anyone who predicted that Wu Sangui would revolt.28
In this account, Mingju was not the only official who supported the withdrawal but one of five. These were men of a younger generation who supported the equally young emperor.29 Moreover, Mingju could only be credited with supporting the idea of accepting Wu’s resignation, not the notion of war, which, according to the emperor, nobody expected. The emperor’s remark here reinforces Liu Fengyun’s observation that the court might not have expected war in 1673.
Regardless of the nature of Mingju’s contribution at the beginning of the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, he played a major role in the prosecution of the war, at least for its first four years. In Qing practice, decisions about strategy and tactics in war were made by the emperor and conveyed directly to the general in the field. The Ministry of War dealt with issues of logistics, organization of armies, and wartime information. Thus, in the first month of the rebellion, the Ministry of War was ordered to prepare materials reassuring those in the south that the Qing did not intend to hurt them; to calm people in Beijing who had fled to the Western Hills at the first sign of war; to arrange a detachment of troops at Yunyang, a strategic pass between Hubei and Sichuan that could be threatened by Wu Sangui’s armies; and to arrange for provisions for provincial governors’ brigades, who were mustered to serve the dynasty.30 In addition, it would appear, Mingju advised the young monarch on larger decisions as well. Wang Hongxu wrote that during the war, the emperor “had to decide many matters by himself and valued those who advised him, of whom [Mingju] was one of only three or four.”31 The administrative load Mingju carried in these years must have been substantial, and for at least one colleague, a similar load proved overwhelming. Mingju’s colleague Misgan, who was Manchu minister of finance and likely another of the inner circle, also supported going to war. Specifically pledging that the treasury could support the war, he then reportedly drove himself to death through overwork trying to fund the Kangxi military.32
After four years as minister of war, Mingju was appointed Manchu minister of personnel in 1675. The war was still going on, but Mingju’s departure from the Ministry of War was not necessarily a demotion; more likely it represented a promotion. Although they were formally of equal status, there was a hierarchy among the six ministries that constituted the Qing central administration, reflected in the order in which they were traditionally listed: Personnel, Finance, Ritual, Punishments, War, and Works. The Ministry of Personnel stood at the top of the hierarchy because its responsibility lay in distributing talent: keeping the records of service, accomplishment, and discipline that guided the court in making appointments, as well as carrying out the routine procedures of declaring positions vacant and recommending that they be filled. Mingju’s service at the Ministry of Personnel was relatively short, time enough for him to become familiar with the routine processes of appointment, transfer, and dismissal, and the universe of officials who could be appointed, which prepared him well for the role he was to play in his next appointment. In addition to being promoted to Personnel, Mingju was made grand preceptor of the heir apparent—a title of honor bestowed only by the monarch—when the Veritable Records of the Shunzhi emperor were completed.33
Despite the mechanism for awarding Manchus civilian ranks, those Manchus who reached the highest ranks in early Qing often had some connection with the military. Mingju had not served in the field, but he had commanded the imperial bodyguard. He had played some role in the decision to go to war against Wu Sangui, though the precise role is difficult to pin down. His most useful service to the monarch was likely his role as an administrator managing the logistics and deployment of the armies, and it was as a manager and administrator that the emperor would use him after the war.
Grand Secretary
In the late summer of 1677, Mingju was appointed grand secretary of the Wu Ying Throne Hall. He held this post—the high point of his career—for eleven years, during which he had daily contact with the emperor. The grand secretariat was a highly placed advisory and secretarial agency at the Chinese court. After the first Ming emperor abolished the post of prime minister, his successors began employing a loosely organized group of secretaries to manage paperwork and oversee the education of the heir apparent. The Qing initially abolished this institution but reconstituted it in the early Kangxi reign, when it served to “handle the emperor’s paperwork, recommend decisions in response to memorials received from the officialdom, and draft and issue imperial pronouncements.”34 There were from two to eight grand secretaries at any given moment, and they were identified according to the imperial throne hall where they theoretically served. The most important duty of grand secretaries was meeting daily with the emperor to record his orders, but the secretaries also offered advice to the monarch when he requested it on matters of law or precedent. Since dialogue with grand secretaries on civilian matters was recorded in the Diary of Action and Repose after 1679, it is possible to trace secretaries’ contribution to imperial decision-making. Initially, much of Mingju’s advice concerned military matters. He advised the emperor on routine matters of military administration, such as rewards and punishments for soldiers who had fought for and against the Qing in the Rebellion.35 Mingju was credited with saving the lives of a group of scholars, including Chen Menglei (b. 1651), who had gotten caught on the feudatories’ side of the war.36 He also played a role in planning for the conquest of Taiwan in 1683, making a trip to Fujian in the summer of 1680, and thereafter offered advice on command structure for the Taiwan campaign.37
As warfare in the south wound down, Mingju came to specialize in advising the emperor on personnel decisions. Typical of such interactions was a decision made in early June 1680 regarding the lieutenant governorship of Jiangxi. The process began with a memorial from the Ministry of Personnel declaring that the post was vacant and nominating Wang Rizao (1623–1700) as the first candidate, and Ma Siliang (n.d.) as the second candidate. The emperor asked the assembled secretaries, “Where is Wang Rizao from and what sort of person is he?” Wang’s native place was important because of the rule of avoidance, which prevented officials from serving near their places of origin. Mingju responded, “I have heard that Wang Rizao is a person worthy of appointment.” Another secretary spoke up: “Wang Rizao is from Jiangnan, and he has a good reputation.” The emperor thereupon appointed Wang as lieutenant governor.38
In this instance, Mingju was one of two secretaries who spoke up, but the longer he spent as grand secretary, the more likely he was to speak on the secretaries’ behalf on personnel matters. In February 1681, an extraordinary series of appointments occurred in which Mingju moved beyond routine endorsements to place officials of his own choice in office. At this point there were three vacancies in senior posts in the territorial service: the governors-general of Guangdong and Liangjiang had died, and the governor of Jiangsu had been accused of corruption and cashiered from office.39 As was required in the case of governor-general appointments, the Ministry of Personnel memorialized first asking whether the emperor wanted it to recommend Han, Manchu, and Hanjun candidates. The emperor turned to his secretaries and asked, “What is your recommendation?” (Er deng suo yi ruo he?). Mingju, responding on behalf of all his fellow secretaries, said, “The Chinese and Manchu secretaries have deliberated. Guangdong is an important post, and there may still be soldiers from the army of Shang Zhixin.”40 Shang Zhixin was the oldest son of the feudatory Shang Kexi. Apprehension about the presence of soldiers in the south loyal to the feudatory princes continued for some years after the defeat of the rebellion. “If the appointee does not have experience and talent, he should not be appointed. The Fujian governor Wu Xingzuo [1632–1698] was active in the reconquest of Fujian and is moreover experienced in [governing] the seacoast. He ought to be appointed as governor-general of Liangguang.” The emperor then asked, “What has Wu Xingzuo’s conduct in office been like?” Mingju answered, “Although I cannot say that I have heard he is as honest as Yu Qingtian, I also have not heard of greed or corruption.”41 The emperor was then said to hesitate for a long time. The diarist does not, probably cannot, tell whether the emperor hesitated over the idea of appointing Wu or regarding concerns about how the name had arisen, how a secretary had interfered in his decision-making. Finally, the emperor decided to appoint Wu.
If the emperor hesitated about following Mingju’s advice on the appointment of Wu Xingzuo, he virtually invited Mingju’s intervention in the Jiangnan appointments. “What are your views?” asked the emperor. Once again, Mingju answered on behalf of the assembled secretaries: “The Jiangning governor’s affairs are numerous and tedious, and there is an additional person sent to the Suzhou area to oversee the Imperial Manufactories. The demands on this person are many. We propose that as Yu Qingtian is honest and responsive to all the demands made upon him, appointing him as Liangjiang governor-general would be appropriate.”42 This suggestion pleased the emperor, who had praised Yu several days earlier. He responded, “It is my intent to appoint Yu Qingtian as Liangjiang governor-general.” He continued, “The governor-general is the senior official. If he is upright, who would dare to act dishonestly? Who can be appointed [as governor]?” Mingju responded, “Yu Guozhu [n.d., jinshi 1652] is a man of great talent.”43 The emperor concluded, “Let Yu Qingtian be appointed as Liangjiang governor-general, and let Yu Guozhu be appointed as Jiangsu governor.”
CONFLICT WITH SONGGOTU
The longer Mingju served on the grand secretariat, the broader his political portfolio became. There seemed to be few issues he did not address, but the highest prize in the bureaucratic order, a perch as principal adviser to the young emperor, remained closed to him as it was occupied by another highborn Manchu, Songgotu (d. 1703). The competition between these two figures was intense, although in many respects they were similar. Both were members of the Plain Yellow Banner, and both rose through the imperial bodyguard to positions at court. Both had Manchu and Chinese followers, although Mingju’s group was more self-consciously multiethnic and seemed to involve different sorts of Chinese than Songgotu’s. Both had power bases in the grand secretariat, which provided them daily access to the emperor. H. Lyman Miller has argued that Songgotu created the role of Manchu executive that both Mingju and Songgotu occupied. Songgotu was instrumental in the overthrow of Oboi and may have been responsible for the restoration of the grand secretariat.44
As striking were their differences. Members of the same banner, they came from very different families. Mingju’s Yehenala were resisters or very late-comers to Nurhaci’s enterprise; Songgotu’s family had a much longer history of service. Songgotu’s grandfather, who knew Mongol and Chinese as well as Manchu, served as a literary adviser to Nurhaci. Songgotu was the third son of the regent Soni (d. 1667), who assisted the Shunzhi emperor in purging the faction of Dorgon after the latter’s death. Songgotu opposed the war against the three feudatories; Mingju supported it. In an assessment of Mingju, the historian and archivist Yan Chongnian notes that Songgotu, after assisting with the overthrow of Oboi, played a conservative role at the Kangxi court, embodying and defending traditional Manchu ways. On the other hand, Mingju came to be associated with many of the new policies of the young Kangxi emperor.45
In addition to differences in family of origin, status, and political concerns, there was also a personality difference, with Songgotu aristocratic and arrogant, and Mingju suave and outgoing. The editors of Qingshi crafted a memorable contrast between the two figures: “Songgotu was born of high nobility. His nature was haughty and arrogant. If someone disagreed with him, Songgotu publicly criticized him.… Mingju strove to get along with everyone. Although he was widely respected, this respect could never be enough. He would summon newly created jinshi. If someone disagreed with him, Mingju plotted secretly to remove him.”46 Both were fearsome figures, the passage implied, but in different ways. If one opposed Songgotu, one could find oneself publicly castigated; if one opposed Mingju, one could find oneself suddenly dismissed.
A remarkable series of events in the autumn of 1679 resolved the ongoing tensions between Mingju and Songgotu. On September 2, a powerful earthquake shook Beijing, and the emperor summoned those at court to advise him on how the dynasty had gotten so apparently out of harmony with the forces of nature. One account said that Wei Xiangshu (1617–1687), a Chinese censor on whom the emperor frequently relied, complained to the emperor that the continuing and bitter factional competition between Mingju and Songgotu had brought disharmony to the sociopolitical order.47 The next day, the emperor summoned Manchu and Chinese senior officials, and according to Wei Xiangshu’s Nianpu, read an edict that Mingju and Wei had composed.48 The edict took a remarkable but understandable form. It mentioned no names, as the public condemnation of a long-serving imperial adviser might imply criticism of the advice he gave, the policy that resulted, or even the ruler who implemented it. Instead, the edict expressed imperial dissatisfaction with those who carried out policies. The edict was recognized as directed at Songgotu. Shortly after this edict was issued, both Songgotu and Mingju disappeared from the diary’s record of imperial discussions. Mingju returned after about one month; Songgotu remained a grand secretary for a year, then resigned because of health.49 This event marked the decline of Songgotu’s influence in civil affairs but not the end of his role in Qing government. As the uncle of the Kangxi emperor’s consort and great uncle of the heir apparent, Songgotu continued to have a voice in the inner councils of Manchu affairs.50
RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINESE INTELLECTUALS
In any political order, but especially one in which the ruler was envisioned as a sage responsible for setting the intellectual temper of the age, deciding which intellectuals the monarch met was a very important function. This was particularly true for the seventeenth-century Qing Dynasty. The Manchus who participated in the conquest had made little effort to appeal to Chinese intellectuals. The Kangxi reign was the first time during the Qing period when the court actively cultivated the southeast and proclaimed its fealty to Chinese principles.51 Mingju’s service to the emperor included recruiting and guiding Chinese scholars into the imperial presence.52
Mingju’s association with Chinese intellectuals predated his appointment to the grand secretariat. His oldest son, Singde, earned the jinshi degree in 1673 and provided Mingju an entrée into the world of Chinese scholars. It was through his son that Mingju developed a celebrated relationship with Xu Qianxue (1631–1694), one of three very talented brothers from Jiangsu who passed their jinshi examinations in the early Kangxi period.53 Qianxue passed his jinshi in 1670 and came to know Mingju’s family when he was juren examiner for the capital district in 1672 and passed Singde. According to Chinese practice, Singde became Xu’s “student” when he passed the examination, and a lifelong bond was formed, facilitated by the fact that both lived in Beijing. Xu’s steady rise during the 1680s through the grand secretariat, the Ministry of Rites, and the Hanlin Academy paralleled Mingju’s rise through the political hierarchy, and they were involved in preparation of the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Qing (Da Qing yitong zhi) and the History of the Ming (Ming shi). When Singde died at age thirty in 1685, Mingju selected Xu to write an epitaph. Xu wrote the epitaph and also oversaw the printing of Singde’s collected works, titled Tongzhitang ji.54 Mingju’s younger son, Kuixu (1674–1717), born twenty years later than his older brother, did not earn degrees but nonetheless served as chancellor of the Hanlin Academy for fourteen years, from 1703 to 1717. Both brothers had reputations as sinophone poets.
Mingju’s introduction of Chinese scholars to the Kangxi emperor derived from his practice, as grand secretary, of recommending individuals for appointment. He recommended Chinese to serve as Classics Mat lecturers and proposed the names of learned men to serve as the emperor’s tutors when he requested them.55 Certainly the emperor himself had agency in the ongoing cultural and intellectual transformation. The monarch had a good Chinese education, was curious and intellectually alert, and from the earliest days of his reign seems to have been committed to establishing Chinese scholars at his court. It was the monarch who requested that Chinese tutors be appointed to serve him. But when he needed to know who among the scholarly elite should serve him in the late 1670s and 1680s, he turned to Mingju.
Many whom Mingju recommended came from the southeast, where the best libraries and scholarly academies were located. Mingju guided the careers of prominent scholar-politicians as they made their way through the court hierarchy.56 Wang Hongxu asserted Mingju’s role in setting the Neo-Confucian tone of the court by observing that it was Mingju who transmitted to the emperor a memorial from the lieutenant governor of Fujian recommending that the seven most famous Neo-Confucian scholars be admitted to the dynastic temple. Presenting memorials to the emperor was the role of grand secretaries; normally this would not have deserved mention in an epitaph. This reference to Mingju conveying the memorial was probably as close as a biographer could come to suggesting that a Manchu minister bore responsibility for the ideological commitments of the court.57
Mingju also served as editor-in-chief of six court publications: Imperial Instructions of the Three Reigns (Sanchao shengxun), An Explanation of Political Institutions (Zhengzhi dianxun), A Campaign History of the Defeat of the Three Rebels (Pingding san ni fanglüe), The Collected Statutes of the Qing (Da Qing huidian), A Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Qing (Da Qing yitong zhi), and The History of the Ming (Ming shi). Collectively, the publications put a Chinese face on the Qing, perhaps for the first time. Although Mingju may not have made specific decisions of substance or wording, as editor of these publications, he oversaw the editing process. Serving as editor, he had one foot in the Manchu world and one foot in the Chinese world, and he was one of the first Manchus to be able to manage such a feat.
MINGJU AS EXECUTIVE
At the height of his power, Mingju was a formidable administrator. Wang Hongxu related that when one paid a call on Mingju to discuss a matter, one didn’t wait for flowery language to be crafted: “The words spat out of his mouth establishing his commitment, which until the end of his life he never forgot. Matters concerning affairs a thousand miles away were handled like matters close at hand.”58 An unofficial history contrasted Mingju’s administrative style with those of his predecessors. Bambursan (d. 1669), grand secretary during the Oboi regency, the account alleged, was an alcoholic, and administration under the regents was slowed by conflicts between the regents and the emperor over personnel. But Mingju “managed affairs like a flowing stream [xuanhe]. Master of both Manchu and Chinese languages and letters, he took control, drawing many matters to himself.” He had his fingers in many different pots, and many came to seek his favor: “At New Year’s, officials from the capital ministries, the Censorate, and their subordinates, and officials from the provinces, governors and governors-general, prefects and local commanders all brought him presents [kui]. For several weeks, [there were so many visitors] they could not be admitted, and they formed lines around the block in order to be admitted in turn, so that they could say their present had been given.” Presentation of Chinese New Year’s gifts was not corruption, though depending on the size of the gift and how it was elicited, they could be but a half step away from it. Nonetheless, the point here was the wide influence that Mingju exercised at the height of his powers over central and territorial administration.59
To modern sensibilities the idea that Mingju could have at once championed the cause of army veterans, territorial administrators, and Chinese Neo-Confucian scholars who received imperial patronage may seem contradictory. Yet in the context of the times such combination was not inconceivable, for the Kangxi court of the 1680s was a place where each of the ethnic elements had a role to play, and the dynasty survived only if all worked together.