EMPRESS SUN OF MING
After recently concluding the 2019 Historical Chinese Period Drama MING DYNASTY, I found myself at a standstill and appreciating the work of Zhang Ting making it yet so far my favourite Cdrama of the year that I have watched so far and more so the wonderful acting portrayed by actors Tang Wei as Empress Sun, Zhu Yawen as Emperor Xuande, Lay Zhang as Emperor Yingzong and Su Ke as Yu Qian only seemed to win over my heart the most.
MING DYNASTY as a period drama is unique having a female lead firstly that doesn't come quite often in Cdramas and moreso one that I have grown to personally appreciate.
Watching the series I found the first episodes slightly boring but halfway it felt that the show reached it's climax and I couldn't get myself to stop watching it that even at the end I couldn't help it but sob fiercely.
While most palace Cdramas focus on mainly the life within the harem as it is with old time favourites EMPRESSES IN THE PALACE, RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE and THE STORY OF YANXI PALACE. MING DYNASTY tells the life of one of China's most influential Empresses Sun Ruowei and her rise to power and how she saved the Ming Dynasty numerous times in crises proving herself yet to be an able administrator.
Ming Dynasty narrates a rather complicated chemistry between wife and husband and mother and son and one of the worst times and yet at the same time the greatest eras of the Ming Dynasty that even moving away from the fashion where women area mainly jealous housewives within the Palace, it helps me understand what life was back then. Historically the existence of very strong female politicians moreso Empresses had to be attributed to them having married a very weak monarch or gaining power in the infancy of a reigning Emperor, Ming Dynasty remains unique one way or another because the Empress Sun is seen as an influential figure even with her son's maturity she remains the aide and arbitrator of political institutions.
SUN (MING DYNASTY)EMPRESS
Empress dowager of the Ming dynasty
Tenure : 7 February 1435 – 4 September 1462
Predecessor : Empress Dowager Zhang
: Empress Dowager Xiaoyi
Successor : Empress Dowager Xiaoyi
: Empress Dowager Ciyi
: Empress Dowager Zhou
Empress consort of the Ming dynasty
Tenure : 1428–1435
Predecessor : Empress Gongrangzhang
Successor : Empress Xiaozhuangrui
Born : 1399, Zouping County, Shandong
Died : September 1462 (aged 62–63)
Burial : November 1462, Jingling Mausoleum
Spouse : Xuande Emperor (m. 1417; died 1435)
Issue : Emperor Yingzong
: Princess Changde
Posthumous name : Empress Xiaogong Yixian Ciren Zhuanglie Qitian Peisheng Zhang
(孝恭懿憲慈仁莊烈齊天配聖章皇后)
Also : Empress Xiaogongzhang 孝恭章皇后
Clan : Sun (孫)
Father : Sun Zhong (孫忠)
Mother : Dong Yuanzhen (董元貞)
AN IRON EMPRESS
Portrayed by Tang Wei I was pleased and drawn to appreciate her prowess that in the end I could agree that she was the best choice for the role she would really deserve a Grammys.
As the story unfolds all we can understand is Empress Sun trying so hard to build a very good mother and child relationship which weathers all storms yet shockingly enough she is at more than one point forced to a dead end and somehow she succeeds more than once still conquering her darkest fears and prevailing over heartaches.
She helps us understand what life as a woman and let alone a monarch in the Ming Dynasty was and thanks to the show it could have widened my perspective of what female leadership seemed like in ancient China where women were greatly discouraged from participating in politics and confined to only family matters most of which still required the absolute judgement of Men.
To put it briefly, the Confucian societies to which China belonged and at the time she virtually headed, the natural belief dictated by God was that in all things a woman had to play second fiddle to her husband and she was ranked below a man under normal circumstances it became the only way to ensure social stability and furthermore it was carved in the minds of many that women participation in politics was the root of all public disorder despite the fact that more than once it was proven to be wrong but the mere fact that even amongst the greatest of female heroes there were some incompetent female rulers that were discredited, a woman was still accorded the usual submissive character which to attempt to do away with meant that as a woman one violated her natural morals and principles.
With all such conservative and antagonistic forces it became very hard for women to yet gain an active political role but still as it is that some were ambitious China in the end had to bend to approximately fifty female rulers through its rich history which makes their argument on women participation in politics largely undermined and not withstanding over and over again these became indirect justifications for women to intervene in the governance of states.
THE MING DYNASTY
Founded by the Hongwu Emperor who once was a monk and less than a century after the establishment of the Mongol Yuan dynasty of China (1279-1368), the Ming Dynasty was the last legitimate Imperial Han Chinese Dynasty to effectively rule over what is present day South East China and some parts of Tibet. The Hongwu Emperor claimed restoration from the foreign Yuan people and descendants of Genghis Khan and Khublai Khan which had garnered him a lot of support from his native followers and soon enough a rebellion that swept across what was the Southern part of the Yuan dynasty pushed Toghon Temur's successor Ayushiridara to what is present day Mongolia ensued and the Han were liberated from their tyrants, Toghon Temur was recognized as Emperor Shun and last legitimate Emperor of China from the Yuan while the new Ming Dynasty stepped onto the Chinese Stage.
Hongwu Emperor being the founder of the Dynasty had to do much more to settle on his newly acquired throne and the mandate of Heaven in his hands he initially still had to minimize resistance to his reign so firstly he promoted his allies into prominent government positions but most effectively for him was the passive influence of his wife the Empress Ma.
Empress Ma was a very good natured Empress who was frugal and kind in nature but soon enough rather than being a submissive wife she crossed to being the Hongwu Emperor's political advisor and largely still holding some campaigns to consolidate his power at home, he travelled a lot that soon enough when he needed to rely on an able governor at home that his Empress was a choice that proved both sufficient and efficient at most to suit his ambition.
However, about a decade into the Emperor's reign, the Hongwu Emperor grew very uncomfortable with his wife's interference in politics according to some sources and other schools of thought however allege that the issue of conflict arose from some of his concerned officials that the latter decided to withhold some of her Imperial prerogatives.
In fact it was feared largely that if the Dynasty's first mother boasted such a political acumen, the rest of the Empresses in that regime would do much to imitate her and an uneasy fate for the nation would be inevitable.
At one point Empress Ma is quoted to have said, "Your Majesty is the father of the nation and I it's mother, asking me to refrain is giving reason to halt me from being a mother to the nation." The issue seemed to be temporarily suspended until Empress Ma finally passed on roughly fifty years old and the old Emperor grieved dearly as she was entombed but her political achievements remained alive in the hearts of the people.
Soon after her funeral the issue erupted and a point in reference that was strong enough to withhold the influence of Empresses in the Ming Dynasty allegedly came with the issue of the Song Dynasty roughly a hundred years before
THE PREDECESSORS
THE SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)
In the rich History of Imperial China, the Song Dynasty remains yet the most unique in it's way of Chinese civilization and governance when compared to others and in it's 300 year reign, it proved to do much with the liberal rights of women and welcomed their interference into politics quite often.
Out of the twenty three Empresses of the Song Dynasty, nine Empresses emerged either as de facto rulers or Regents five from the Northern Song Dynasty or Bei Song (960-1127) and four from the Southern Song Dynasty or Nan Song (1127-1279).
This is allegedly due to the fact that Empresses in the Song Dynasty were chosen from mainly military families with the assurance of minimising military rivalries and promoting unity while additionally it weakened the influence of Generals in the Song Dynasty army which historians criticize to be the reason why the Song Dynasty though being the golden age of cultural civilization and liberal art developments alongside science and technology it was one of the dynasties which were militarily weak despite their heavy science and technological inventions that were passed on to the later Ming successors.
Such made it natural that eventually the Dynasty would collapse and other schools of thought detest that it was women's intervention in politics that was responsible for the Song Dynasty's eventual collapse being that they greatly opted for diplomacy rather than war, it kept the military dormant that on a series of occasions they had to fall victim to attacks from the Jurchen and Mongol enemies. Nonetheless, two Empresses Liu of the Northern Song and Yang of the Southern Song remain ideally opposed to this allegation having at least scored a number of military successes against the Jurchens and the Liao during their regimes
Upon such a negative background the most efficient female monarch being the emergence of the Tang Dynasty's usurper and China's only Legitimate female Emperor Wu Ze Tian, the Hongwu Emperor was forced to pass laws that forbed women from participating in politics in the Ming Dynasty and because of this, most Chinese Emperors married Empresses from common families without any political ties or where such seemed existent they were very minimal.
It is alarming how women came to be feared and in fact three hundred years after Wu Ze Tian another woman had emerged like her and though never formally declared Emperor, Empress Liu of Northern Song had ruled like one and in the final year of her life had worn the Imperial Dragon robes which were designated for the Emperor alone, a practice that could have momentarily displayed her ambition coupled with rumours that at once she had considered deposing the Renzong Emperor and ruling in his stead as Emperor made her another of those women to be feared at the end of it all the Ming quite wary of their effeminate past through the previous dynasties hoped this would be the best solution to the question of peace.
The practice did seem largely effective even at the passing of the Hongwu Emperor but nonetheless three more women took on the mould of Empress Ma two of which Zhang and Sun were mother and daughter in law while legitimately Empresses and the third being Imperial Noble Consort Wan who is largely depicted as an overbearing jealous concubine and de facto ruler of the Ming Dynasty.
As the method did fulfill the Hongwu Emperor's ambitions and gave him largely powerless daughters in law, the disadvantage that came with it was the fact that the Ming Dynasty became the first in Chinese History to bolster the most elite Eunuchs one of whom even attempted to declare himself an Emperor of his own Dynasty.
Such internal pressures and past norms that had for centuries held a strong grip on the Chinese people in due course suffocated yet another era of influential women who would have perhaps been some of the Ming Dynasty's finest political talents to have ever existed but considering the fact that female rulers managed to exist once again, it must have made a great deal of how really strong such women were.
THE SUCCESSION
When the Hongwu Emperor died, he was succeeded by his grandson the Emperor Jianwen in 1398 and the latter ruling for three years he was overthrown in a coup by his uncle who became the Yongle Emperor (r.1402-1424) in what was known as the campaign of Jingnan. The Yongle Emperor was largely militaristic and following his father's ideas he had his eldest son marry from a lowly family. When he succeeded the throne in 1424 as the Hongzhi Emperor, being sickly he ruled for roughly a year when he died leaving behind his son Zhu Zhanji who succeeded him as the Xuande Emperor in 1425, his wife the Empress Zhang was elevated to the rank of Empress Dowager. The Xuande Emperor became fond of his Secondary wife Noble Consort Sun and right after she'd born him a son, he used it as an excuse to depose his childless Empress Hu and create her Empress in 1428. Empress Sun and her mother in law the Empress Dowager Zhang had a rather good relationship which came to a drastic change right after the death of the Xuande Emperor in 1435 after ten years on his throne.
The Xuande Emperor (1399-1435)
The Xuande Emperor reportedly suffered from a heavy injury after war which reduced his lifespan and while on his deathbed he had decreed that officials Yang Rong, Yang Shiqi and Yang Pu were to assist his eight year old son in governance, he had emphasized that both his mother and Empress Sun were to be consulted on the political matters but itself having been a rather faint will it drew both mother and daughter in law at odds.
Empress Sun at the time being the mother of the Emperor would have enjoyed the Imperial prerogatives but Empress Zhang being the eldest member of the Imperial family still withstanding divided the Imperial Court into two hostile camps as Empress Zhang and Empress Sun openly vied for power and eventually the Grand Empress Dowager Zhang prevailed and sidelined her daughter in law the Empress Dowager Sun.
Anecdotes claim that Empress Zhang though never formally declared as regent she ruled as one and citations from history assert even that with the absence of a precedent in the Dynasty where a young Emperor had ascended the throne, she chose to turn down the offer of being named one yet in contrast, Empress Sun who would have ensured the latter her powers weren't entirely quelled as she had the support of the Imperial relatives and she came from a more powerful family than her mother in law which would be helpful in the later years.
Grand Empress Dowager Zhang
While Grand Empress Dowager Zhang is asserted to have been the most powerful Empress of the Ming Dynasty, there's little evidence of her passing decrees as it was a case common with most female de facto bosses and Ming Dynasty's historical records seem to have been lenient enough to accord her a very passive political acumen or rather as it may have seemed they weren't ready to bolster another image of Wu Ze Tian and purposely recorded less of Empress Zhang's political indulgences to keep future generations from erring.
Nonetheless, there are some previleges that appear to have been withheld like celebration of birthdays with special names and reserving the final say to herself, formally meeting with officials in the absence of a silk screen or curtain which made her seem to be a rather actual ruler than a virtual one and attending the daily morning Assemblies, she didn't send envoys in her name and reserved a stagnant foreign policy until her death in 1442.
Zhang Ting's Ming Dynasty however narrates a rather different story and portrays Grand Empress Dowager Zhang to be a by far politically detached Empress while recognizing Empress Sun as the Regent it might have drawn a lot of criticism.
Actually, as a result of the death of the Xuande Emperor, the series refers to Empress Sun as a more political bold figure than her mother in law and nonetheless the one thing that remains historically confirmed is that Empress Sun's power only increased with the death of her mother in law.
Being a political barrier, the Grand Empress Dowager Zhang had done very little to restrain the powers of her influential daughter in law and though never directly honoured as a nominal Regent the portrayal by Tang Wei though controversial gives us a clear painting of how astute the Empress Sun was.
Aside from receiving the officials all of them came to pay her so much respect and as seen in the series MING DYNASTY, the Emperor Yingzong grew seeing his mother like an Emperor on her own.
Despite the commanding and astute image that her mother in law had left behind, the Empress Sun still proved herself to be yet another controversial figure when drawn into comparison of her predecessor and even though never recognized to have actively participated in politics of the Ming Dynasty, present day historians can assert that she played a rather influential role that was very significant in them.
A more likely predecessor the Empress Sun had imitated was the Southern Song Dynasty Empress Wu who was the second Primary wife and Empress of the Gaozong Emperor and was responsible for the abdication of three Emperors while playing a powerful role in the politics of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Empress Dowager Wu proved on a number of occasions to be a very able administrator and much of her powers came in the affiliations that she forged with Imperial relatives and additionally influential ministers in the Southern Song Court, on more than one occasion she arranged the Royal marriages and had her brothers and nephews sharing in the political administration and there was no better way of portraying her power than when she deposed the Guangzong Emperor in what was a forceful abdication and replaced him with his only surviving son Zhao Kuo who later became the Ningzong Emperor, in fact the Empress Yang was her protege and such seemed to be the identical mould that the Empress Sun followed as well.
Empress Wu of Southern Song (1115-1197)
Empress Sun throughout her Regime as Empress and Empress Dowager despite being sidelined in her mother in law's regency, she reserved a virtual right in influencing the Imperial marriages amongst the members of the Royal family and despite her family being respectable, it is recorded that they possessed a considerable amount of power.
Following the death of her influential mother in law, at the time the Yingzong Emperor who wished to govern on his own showed no interest in the adoption of any advice from his mother she had a considerable power base of the old conservative ministers Yang Rong, Yang Pu and Yang Shiqi who were yet reinforced with another powerful and outspoken character Yu Qian.
Yu Qian who seemed to have fostered a closer relationship with the Dowager Empress used her protection to voice out her requests in Court in fact as alleged it is possible that where she had failed to face the Emperor with her ideas, her allies did the job for her and for what seemed like an individual compulsion from many of these Courtiers, she was the real controller of the strings effectively averting any attention or resentment from her son and also unlike her mother in law, using a virtual grip over the affairs of the state which later downplayed her political role in the annals of History but still later historians still argue that one way her presence would still be felt especially when she actively participated in offering ceremonies and sacrifices in front of the ancestral Temple of Zhu and even had her Royal titles improved in their styles she often referred to herself as the High And Sacred Empress Dowager instead of the ordinary Empress Dowager as her mother in law or other predecessors in the Ming Dynasty had, a practice that was last practiced still by Empress Dowager Liu and Empress Dowager Yang both from the Song Dynasty.
For the next six years or so things would continue that way but soon enough her opposition was built from a very unlikely opponent one that even her mother in law had failed at annihilating who was the Eunuch Wang Zhen.
Following the death of the Xuande Emperor and himself leaving behind an infant son who was only about eight years of age, the young Zhu Qi Zhen might have had quite an uncomfortable childhood without much of fatherly or motherly love.
His Ascension to the dragon throne was an even a bigger problem as his mother and grandmother were both very strict with his upbringing as an Emperor and the two openly vying for power worsened the situation in the palace, quite often he lamented his disinterest in studying for the whole day and while both women that raised him were overly indulged in political matters and other matters of the Imperial family, the young Emperor lacking attention grew closer to a Eunuch in whom he found his abode.
Wang Zhen who seemed concerned about His Master's loneliness could have resented the influence of the overbearing mother and grandmother that he succeeded in bribing a number of officials who would act as passive aids to the young Emperor's Independence and this was initially a move that even worried the Grand Empress Dowager Zhang who feared that he was too influential she initially planned to bludgeon him.
In fact an anecdote says that She summoned the ministers and group of female officials, armed them with clubs and lashes and called upon Wang Zhen who unknowingly rushed to her only to be met with a death sentence on the spot with the order to the ministers and female officials to kill him immediately. Her move seemingly backfired to show how powerful Wang Zhen was when the emperor and the very ministers she had ordered to kill him instead begged her to pardon Wang Zhen and in the end she did so and warned the latter not to err again but shortly after meeting her demise, she left with the Empress Dowager Sun what was her most poisonous rival.
In July 1449, Esen Taishi launched a large-scale, three-pronged invasion of the Ming with his puppet khagan Toqtaq-Buqa. He personally advanced on Datong (in northern Shanxi province) in August.
Particularly close to the Emperor Wang Zhen who dominated the Ming court, used this influence with a couple of Ministers to push the the 22-year-old Emperor Yingzong into a military campaign against the Oirats and the other tribes of the prairie beyond the Great Wall, Yingzong whose reign had been no more than fourteen years during his grandmother's seven year regency had done little to pursue a glorious foreign policy and he had inherited a very prosperous kingdom himself being a descendant of warrior Emperors Hongwu, Yongle and Xuande. On a number of occasions the Empress Dowager Sun who barred by her juvenile son openly voiced out her opposition to this war policy but the Emperor convinced by his other officials playing by the orders of Wang Zhen, juvenile fatuity and mass excitement turned down her petitions and organized an army of 500,000 soldiers to humble the Oirats and teach them to fear him like they had done with his ancestors which was a move that was destined to backfire in what was known as the Battle of Tumu despite its command being made up of 20 experienced generals and a large entourage of high-ranking civil officials, with Wang Zhen acting as field marshal.
The Ming Dynasty by then a world superpower of the 15th Century in Asia were to suffer the most humiliating defeat that was known to man kind and discontented with his March, the Emperor leading the campaign with the intention to boost the morale of his troops had to leave behind a nominal Regent to look after the Capital and On 3 August 1449, he appointed his younger half-brother regent however contemporary sources allege that the real power rested in the hands of Empress Dowager Sun who was considered by most officials a senior member of the Imperial family that needed to be consulted on the political matters as her son embarked on what was bound to be the Ming Dynasty's greatest fiasco.
THE BATTLE OF TUMU
Emperor Yingzong of Ming having chosen to lead his own armies into battle against Esen . On August 4, he left Beijing by a southerly route through Yuzhou. Initially the march was mired by heavy rain. At Juyong Pass the civil officials and generals wanted to halt and send the emperor back to Beijing, but their opinions were overruled by Wang Zhen. On August 16, the army came upon the corpse-strewn battlefield of Yanghe. When it reached Datong on August 18, reports from garrison commanders persuaded Wang Zhen that a campaign into the steppe would be too dangerous. The "expedition" was declared to have reached a victorious conclusion and on August 20 the army set out back toward the Ming.
Fearing that the restless soldiers would cause damage to his estates in Yuzhou, Wang Zhen decided to strike northeast and return by the same exposed route as they had come. The army reached Xuanfu on August 27. On August 30 the Northern Yuan forces attacked the rearguard east of Xuanfu and wiped it out. Soon afterwards they also annihilated a powerful new rearguard of cavalry, led by the elderly General Zhu Yong, at Yaoerling. On August 31, the imperial army camped at the post station of Tumu. Wang Zhen refused his ministers' suggestion to have the emperor take refuge in the walled city of Huailai, just 45 km ahead.
Esen sent an advance force to cut access to water from a river south of the Ming camp. By the morning of September 1 they had surrounded the Ming army. Wang Zhen rejected any offers to negotiate and ordered the confused army to move toward the river. A battle ensued between the disorganized Ming army and the advance guard of Esen's army (Esen was not at the battle). The Ming army basically dissolved and was almost annihilated. The Northern Yuan forces captured a huge quantity of arms and armour while killing most of the Ming troops. All the high-ranking Ming generals and court officials were killed. According to some accounts, Wang Zhen was killed by his own officers. The Emperor was captured, and on September 3 he was sent to Esen's main camp near Xuanfu.
THE TUMU CRISIS AND THE DEFENSE OF BEIJING
At the battle of Tumu, the Emperor decided to change his route as per the ill advice of the Eunuch Wang Zhen and diverted from one which had been instructed by the Ministry of Defense and War, when the Yingzong Emperor was consequently surrounded and captured by the Mongol tribes, it was a dawn of political insecurity at home and later on what was known as the Tumu Crisis set in.
Empress Dowager Sun and the officials back at the capital receiving the news of their Emperor's captivity the leader of the Mongol tribes and Khan Esen used it to his advantage and ordered the march of his troops towards Beijing with the captive Emperor and through his envoys to the Capital he ordered the Empress Dowager Sun and the government of the Entire Ming Dynasty to surrender and welcome him without any resistance or he'd butcher his way in which set the Defense of Beijing into two phases.
The First Phase
For Empress Dowager Sun unwillingly a moment had presented itself and at the time she took advantage of the situation at home claiming that even with the Emperor in captivity the Ming Dynasty still had to be ruled she consolidated herself in power and equally threatened the Mongol Khan that should his troops set foot in Beijing then she would not hesitate to throw their corpses behind the Great Wall.
Strangely enough at this rate being the most Senior Member of the Imperial family, the Empress Dowager Sun assumed full control as Commander in Chief of the Ming Dynasty's forces, the sole arbitrator of Government policy and Bureaucratic disputes, formulator of government regulation and reserved the final say in everything at the table without much resistance given that a number of officials saw the need in her governance.
Yu Qian was promoted to minister of war by the Empress Dowager Sun although he had been already planning and arranging measures for the defense of Beijing beforehand. He had believed that a major reason for the defeat in the Tumu Crisis was caused by poor logistics and lack of supplies. Large granaries were set up and the logistic network was reworked. Reserves forces from neighboring provinces such as Shanxi, Shandong and Henan were mobilized to defend the capital and weapon manufacturing was significantly increased. By the time of the battle, Beijing had a force of around 220,000 soldiers ready.
For the first three weeks, the Empress Dowager Sun on the battlefield and outside the walls of Beijing led a series of campaigns which to the side of the Oirats were destructive and in due course the enemy's built morale was withered and the Ming Dynasty proved herself yet the worst enemy that they had made.
The Ming forces retreated behind the walls, not from the arrows of spears that the Oirats launched at them but merely the corpses of Mongol soldiers that piled up in heaps of masses tasting the might of their Red Cannons and blunderbusses. For Sun what was yet a defensive measure partially constituted a successful foreign policy against the Nomad tribes and at home she proved herself yet a worthy ruler soon enough the Ming people praised her while the Oirats called her what was the "Massacring Demon."
Temporarily the initial attack out of haste had to be suspended by the Oirats and a short informal truce set in but the Ming forces were still certain of another Mongol attack in the not so distant future which with due course happened to prevail.
Devastated by the losses of the Oirats at the built up morale of the Ming Dynasty's troops, Esen resorted to publicly ashaming the Ming Dynasty's Yingzong Emperor which jeopardized the morale of Ming Soldiers, infact, dragging into the third week of the Tumu Crisis and the ongoing war between the Ming and the Nomad Mongol tribes, the justification for war amongst the Ming had lost purpose as the Emperor they were fighting for was being held captive.
At home many of the Courtiers fearing that the defense of Beijing might fail had opted to follow the example of the Southern Song Dynasty against the Jurchens to shift their administration Southward and regroup to conquer the North but Empress Dowager Sun supported Yu Qian and his party and the proposal was overruled in the end to quell the advancing Oirats' ambition the Empress Dowager chose to use yet another more efficient political scheme.
What made a man different from an Emperor was an Imperial Dragon Robe and If it was an Emperor that the Ming forces needed to get back onto their feet then using her full powers as Empress Dowager and temporary Regent she drafted an Imperial Edict declaring her one year old Grandson, Zhu Qi Zhen's blood child Crown Prince on 15th September, 1449 and his step brother Zhu Qi Yu who was only a couple of years younger his Regent but while he fought bravely on the battlefield did little to meet the ministers and decide the affairs of state the final stay remained with his step mother, this arrangement only lasted a couple of days until it was overthrown by herself and she vested the mandate of heaven into Zhu Qi Yu who was much older and a popular military figure in the defense of Beijing and declared her son deposed and Retired Emperor while his step brother ascended the throne as the Jingtai Emperor on 23 September, 1449 as his one year old nephew was incapable of ruling and Orders claimed to be issued by the previous Emperor were to be ignored and no negotiations regarding the hostage situation would be entertained. The rationale was that the emperor's life is not as important as the fate of the country and Empress Dowager Sun then gave herself a regnal name THE HIGH AND SACRED EMPRESS DOWAGER which further identified her position close to that of a deity figure, a practice for female impersonations of Emperors going a long way back in the history of Imperial China determined to drag what the Mongol forces had made a Ming Dynasty mockery and turn it into yet another Mongol fiasco.
TRUCE
The Scheme of the Oirats had backfired largely on them and soon enough they were routed and defeated along the Great Wall and Beijing in particular with their primary forces exhausted, the Empress Dowager used the opportunity to demand for a concession to which the Oirats agreed to Return the Ming Dynasty's Retired Emperor at the time as good as useless to them and also Esen was facing a lot of opposition from other Nomad leaders who found the campaign to be exploitative and per Sun's promise the Ming soil had quenched it's thirst on so much Mongol blood.
Nonetheless as a result of the Ming dynasty installing a new emperor, Esen was unable to use as leverage the Zhengtong Emperor to obtain a deal that therefore his chieftains agreed to move forward to invading Beijing with the baseless claim of wanting to restore the Zhengtong Emperor to power yet again an even bigger Defense of Beijing had to be employed.
On 1 October, Esen and his forces moved to capture Beijing yet a second time. Their first assault was on Datong where once again, they brought the Zhengtong Emperor to the gates and explained their aim to restore him back to the throne but however the defenders ignored their request and dismissed them repelling his forces and wounding them.
Esen eventually got compelled to change his plans from attacking Beijing through the Juyong Pass and instead would go through the Zijing Pass where the defenders were able to hold up for several days but eventually Esen's forces secured a military breakthrough and by 11 October, they had reached Beijing where they were facing the Deshengmen and Xizhimen gates from its corner in the north west.
On 12 October, Esen once again tried his diplomatic approach but was rebuffed by the Ming forces he then invited the Ming court to send leading officials to escort the Zhengtong Emperor back to the capital hoping to take more high ranking hostages. However the Ming court at the urging of Empress Dowager Sun only sent out two low ranking officers and therefore his ploy failed.
On 13 October, Esen attacked the Deshengmen gate. However a tactic Yu Qian frequently employed was to lure Esen's forces in the cities and then shut the gates once they were inside the cities were Shenjiying lying in ambush who would attack the trapped forces using ranged weapons such as firearms and rockets. Esen's brothers were killed in these attacks over and over again but fighting continued for the next few days where Ming forces would constantly use the same ambush tactics and the Mongols were declining in numbers.
On 17 October, Esen realized with his forces outnumbered and with many reinforcements being blocked from coming through the Juyong Pass, that there was no chance of success he withdrew from Beijing and on 20 October he sent envoys to negotiate a peace deal with the Ming court by 8 November, Esen's forces moved outside the Great Wall humiliated having suffered yet from the most awful campaign of his political career while the Empress Dowager Sun's regime had yet weathered the biggest crisis the Ming Dynasty was yet to see.
THE REIGN OF THE JINGTAI EMPEROR
Jingtai Emperor paid particular attention to matters affecting his country as per his step mother's advice and He repaired the Grand Canal as well as the system of dykes along the Yellow River and as a result of his administration, the economy prospered and the dynasty was further strengthened while the enemy dragging a military campaign was economically withering.
Wife of Yingzong the Retired Empress Qian immediately raised a ransom in jewels with Empress Dowager Sun and sent it off to secure the Yingzong Emperor's release and the Mongols complied soon in 1450 releasing Yingzong and allegedly knowing that the presence of two emperors would cause instability among their enemies but only ended up disappointed.
As the biggest humiliation to the Dynasty, The Yingzong Emperor had a tarnished reputation and he was immediately placed under house arrest where he lived in obscurity and after The Jingtai Emperor seemed entirely independent and unwilling to relinquish his privileges through indirect checks the Empress Dowager Sun sooner or later still had to support the cause of her own son.
Empress Hang had died in 1456, and the Jingtai Emperor himself had become ill that even with his death imminent in 1457, he still refused to name an heir, particularly because his own son had died mysteriously in 1453 perhaps poisoned but there's hardly any historical evidence to support any likely masterminds or hold them responsible. According to one documented school of thought the Jingtai's predecessor, his brother the sidelined Zhengtong Emperor (Yingzong) saw an opportunity to regain the throne and through a military coup overthrew the ailing Jingtai. Zhengtong then adopted a new era name, "Tianshun", and was henceforth known as the Tianshun Emperor which is largely questionable given that he was living in obscurity at the time the more likely suspect was the Empress Dowager Sun who at the time still influential and backed by the reasons of one being the Yingzong Emperor's biological mother and also requiring the succession to remain attached to her kin.
As the Oirats were no longer a threat to the Ming, nine years later in 1457, Empress Dowager Sun and her brothers led a coup that dethroned Jingtai, and placed Yingzong back on the throne which further became the last testament to prove how influential she was in the Ming Dynasty, history has it that it was carried out with little of The Yingzong Emperor's knowledge much as this allegation given Yingzong's character remains highly questionable but nonetheless qualifies to at least be the more believable narrative to the Jingtai Emperor's deposal.
The Jingtai Emperor was demoted by his brother to his previous title, Prince of Cheng, and placed under house arrest in Xiyuan this time round as it had been with his elder half-brother where he died a month later with some sources hinting that he was murdered by eunuchs on the order of the Tianshun Emperor. but the mere fact that it is greatly considered the only explanation to how successful it was and how it had minimised opposition from the Imperial relatives is the fact that by the time most of them had sides with the Empress Dowager and the politicians listened to her oftenly which is a clear depiction of Empress Dowager Sun's astuteness and stance and grip over the politics of the Ming Dynasty at the time that the Jingtai Emperor's nine year reign had to inevitably come to an End primarily with her indulgence.
By the Restoration of her son onto her throne, she felt more secure and unlike her mother in law withdrew from the politics of the country willingly as she'd trusted that her son over thirty years of age mature and had learnt from his mistake, her ministers who were already old and about the retiring age could no longer invite her opinions to a Court they would no longer belong and five years later, Empress Sun died of illness on 4 September 1462 where she was given the posthumous title EMPRESS XIAOZONG YIXIAN CIREN ZHUANGLIE QITIAN PEISHENG ZHANG (孝恭懿憲慈仁莊烈齊天配聖章皇后). She was buried on 3 November 1462 in the Jinling Mausoleum with great procession and pomp and the funeral is considered to have been one of the most extravagant ones, real mourning dragged on for a month and the Court Assemblies were dismissed, a practice that was usually laid for Empress Regents or Emperor's themselves and some schools of thought even assert that her son cried for days in front of her coffin.
THE LEGACY
Empress Sun unlike her mother in law Grand Empress Dowager Zhang who had inherited a very glorious Empire and maintained it proved her slightly more efficient political prowess than her as a leader in one of the Ming Dynasty's worst times, a crisis in which like Emperor she governed and Ming Dynasty successors did little or nothing at all to applaud her efforts as the real saviour of the Ming Dynasty from ruin, it is upon this that I can at least say that she nonetheless laid the strongest foundation for the King Dynasty to survive yet another century of turmoil.
Empress Sun who not considered to be one of the most powerful de facto bosses and Empress Regents deserves much credit for her liveliness, her stance against Nomad warriors could accord her the most brilliant heroine acumen in the Ming Dynasty and she portrays herself as yet a graceful and mature figure, decisive and political maneuvering, a Sage Mother that is industrious and strong, she is the perfect embodiment of perseverance, humility and nationalism that could ever be accorded to a woman of her regime and a woman today.
Quite happy that Zhang Ting's Ming Dynasty did give me quite the strong female character and from historical evaluation, Empress Sun remains yet another very powerful woman on her own whom the most difficult of times in the Dynasty of Zhu made of her the greatest political Mastermind and defender of the Dynasty and mother of the nation.
But what more did she give the people, a design of Immortal strength and valor and the best lively example of what colossal talents could be born even of the so called weakest and inefficient minds in the most turbulent and most chaotic of times.
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