Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

Chapter 1

Two Cases of Heroism and Intolerance

Zhu Di 朱棣 (1360–1424), the third emperor of the Ming, took power in 1402 and established the reign name of Yongle 永樂 in 1403 after successfully overthrowing his nephew. The ideological policy of his time aimed at legitimating his coup d’etat and getting people to regard him as the patron of orthodox Confucianism.¹ In 1404, he held an audience to which the seventy-year-old Zhu Jiyou 朱季友 (n.d.) from Raozhou was admitted to present his writings. The old scholar was an expert in the interpretation of Confucian Classics and was especially familiar with the controversy between Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) and Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (1139–1193).² He argued against the orthodox Neo-Confucian theories of the School of Principle (lixue 理學) that the new court was sponsoring.³ The high officials who had examined Zhu Jiyou’s writings castigated him. Among them was the Hanlin academician Xie Jin 謝縉 (1369–1415), who accused Zhu of the serious crime of misleading people with false claims. The minister of rites Li Zhigang 李至剛 (1355–1426) proposed making an example of punishing Zhu Jiyou by beating him, while imperial tutors Yang Shiqi 楊士奇 (1365–1444)⁴ and Hu Guang