Hu Weiyong

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Hu Weiyong's year of birth is unknown. His native place was Dingyuan County in the Henan administrative region, in present-day Anhui. Dingyuan lies near Haozhou, present-day Fengyang, an area central to Zhu Yuanzhang's rise in the late Yuan. Many early followers of Zhu, including Li Shanchang, Xu Da, and Tang He, came from the Haozhou region. Hu Weiyong and Li Shanchang were fellow natives, and this local connection became important to Hu's later political career.

In 1355, the first year of the Longfeng era, Zhu Yuanzhang was stationed at Hezhou before crossing the Yangzi. Hu Weiyong joined him that year and was appointed a low-ranking clerical messenger in the Marshal's Office, responsible for duties such as transmitting documents. He then advanced through a succession of offices: dispatch officer, registrar of Ningguo County, magistrate of the same county, assistant prefect of Ji'an Prefecture, and an assistant official in the Huguang Branch Secretariat. During this period he served mainly in local administration, gaining administrative experience without yet entering the central political elite.

Rise at the Center

In 1367, Zhu Yuanzhang's Wu year one, Hu Weiyong was transferred to the central government as Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and was soon promoted to minister of that institution. The court was responsible for state sacrifices and ritual music. Although it was not among the most powerful offices, it placed Hu near the political center and gave him access to the highest decision-making circles.

In 1370, the third year of the Hongwu era, Hu became a Participating Councillor in the Secretariat, formally entering the chief central administrative institution. He soon succeeded Wang Guangyang as Left Vice Councillor of the Secretariat. In the first lunar month of 1373, Right Grand Councilor Wang Guangyang was demoted to a post in the Guangdong Branch Secretariat. Zhu Yuanzhang did not immediately fill the vacancy, partly because he found it difficult to choose another grand councilor, and Hu Weiyong consequently gained dominant control of Secretariat affairs. In the seventh lunar month of the same year, Hu was formally appointed Right Grand Councilor and was soon promoted to Left Grand Councilor, while Wang Guangyang later again served as Right Grand Councilor. Hu thus became the effective head of the Secretariat.

Earlier, Yang Xian, a Left Vice Councillor of the Secretariat, had been executed for abusing power. Zhu Yuanzhang considered Hu Weiyong capable and initially trusted him. At the beginning of his tenure as grand councilor, Hu carefully accommodated the emperor's intentions and won favor through caution. Once his position became secure, however, he increasingly displayed an autocratic style. He was said to decide legal cases and appointments without reporting them to Zhu Yuanzhang and to intercept memorials from central and local offices, withholding those unfavorable to himself.

Concentration of Power and Faction Building

While serving as grand councilor, Hu Weiyong worked to expand his personal power. Men seeking office and former military meritorious officials who had lost their posts flocked to his residence and offered him gifts of gold, silk, fine horses, and valuables. He established a marriage connection with Grand Preceptor Li Shanchang by marrying his elder brother's daughter to Li Shanchang's nephew Li You, strengthening his ties to the Huai region's founding elite.

Hu's exercise of power aroused opposition among senior officials. Xu Da, Duke of Wei, strongly disliked him and secretly reported him to Zhu Yuanzhang. After Hu learned of this, he allegedly tried to induce Xu's gatekeeper Fushou to murder Xu, but the plan was exposed by Fushou. Liu Ji, then Censor-in-chief, also criticized Hu before Zhu Yuanzhang, comparing him to an inferior horse that would overturn a carriage if harnessed to it. When Liu Ji later fell ill, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Hu Weiyong with a physician to visit him. Liu died soon after taking the prescribed medicine, and Hu was consequently accused of poisoning him, though another account holds that Liu Ji died naturally.

After Liu Ji's death, the sources portray Hu Weiyong as becoming still less restrained. At his old home in Dingyuan, a stone shoot supposedly emerged from a well and rose several feet above the water. Flatterers called it an auspicious sign. Other stories claimed that the graves of three generations of his ancestors glowed with fire each night. According to the narrative, such omens increased his self-confidence and gradually encouraged rebellious ambition.

Treason Charges and Downfall

Hu Weiyong was accused of secretly drawing disaffected military nobles into his network. Lu Zhongheng, Marquis of Ji'an, had used official relay carriages without authorization while returning from Shaanxi and was angrily reprimanded by Zhu Yuanzhang. Fei Ju, Marquis of Pingliang, was sent to pacify the people of Suzhou but became absorbed in drinking and pleasure; he was later ordered to recruit Mongols and failed to accomplish the task. Both were heavily rebuked and became fearful. Hu allegedly used threats and inducements to have them gather troops outside the capital.

He was also said to have examined empire-wide military registers in the Secretariat with Censor-in-chief Chen Ning; to have ordered Commander Mao Xiang to recruit the guard Liu Yuxian and the fugitive Wei Wenjin as personal followers; and to have instructed Li Cunyi, Assistant Director of the Court of Imperial Stud, to sound out Li Shanchang. Li Shanchang, already elderly, reportedly did not firmly refuse, saying, “I am old. Wait until I die, and then you may do as you wish.” The account claims that Hu took this as encouragement. He then allegedly sent Lin Xian, a commander of Mingzhou Guard, overseas to seek assistance from Japan and set a date for coordination, while dispatching the former Yuan official Feng Ji to submit to the Northern Yuan and request troops as external support.

At about this time, Hu Weiyong's son fell from a carriage racing through the marketplace and died. Hu angrily killed the driver. Zhu Yuanzhang, upon hearing of the incident, ordered that Hu answer for the killing. Hu offered gold and silk as compensation to the driver's family, but Zhu refused. Fearing the consequences, Hu was said to have joined Chen Ning, Tu Jie, and others in planning an uprising.

In the ninth lunar month of 1379, the twelfth year of the Hongwu era, a tribute mission from Champa arrived, but Hu Weiyong and other Secretariat officials did not report it to Zhu Yuanzhang. A eunuch saw the envoys and informed the emperor. Zhu became furious and reprimanded the Secretariat. Hu and Wang Guangyang kowtowed and apologized, while privately shifting blame to the Ministry of Rites, which in turn blamed the Secretariat. Zhu Yuanzhang became still more angry and imprisoned the officials for investigation. Wang Guangyang was soon ordered to commit suicide. One of Wang's concubines, a woman surnamed Chen, died with him. Zhu then discovered that she was the daughter of a magistrate Chen whose household had been confiscated by the state. He angrily declared that confiscated women were to be assigned only to the households of military meritorious officials and demanded to know how a civil official had obtained one. He ordered the judicial authorities to investigate, and Hu Weiyong together with officials of the Six Ministries became implicated.

In the first lunar month of 1380, Censor-in-chief Tu Jie accused Hu Weiyong of rebellion, and another senior censor, Shang Gao, also denounced the alleged plot. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered repeated interrogations by court officials. The confessions implicated Chen Ning and Tu Jie themselves. Court officials concluded that Tu Jie had originally taken part in the plot and had informed only when he saw it would fail, and therefore argued that he too could not be spared. Hu Weiyong, Chen Ning, and Tu Jie were all executed; Hu's three kinship groups were exterminated. The prosecutions became known as the Case of Hu Weiyong. Zhu Yuanzhang used the case to launch a wider purge and abolished both the Secretariat and the office of grand councilor, removing the institutional power of the chief ministers and further concentrating authority in the emperor.

From Old Retainer of the Rising to the Height of Power

Hu Weiyong, whose courtesy name was Zizhong, was a native of Dingyuan county in Fengyang prefecture of Nanzhili, a chancellor in the early Ming and the last chancellor in Chinese history. He followed Zhu Yuanzhang from the first rising and was much trusted, serving successively as a clerk of the marshal's office, magistrate of Ningguo, assistant of Ji'an and vice minister of the court of sacrifices. In the third year of Hongwu, 1370, Hu Weiyong, then chief of the court of sacrifices, was made assistant administrator of the secretariat; in the first month of the fourth year the assistant administrator Hu Weiyong was made left assistant of the secretariat. In the first month of the sixth year of Hongwu, 1373, the right chancellor Wang Guangyang was demoted to assistant of the Guangdong provincial administration, and the Ming founder, finding it hard to choose a chancellor, left the office unfilled for a long time, so that Hu Weiyong alone managed the affairs of the secretariat; in the seventh month of that year he was made right chancellor. In the tenth year of Hongwu, 1377, he was advanced to left chancellor and stood at the head of the hundred officials. As his power grew he became daily more overbearing, deciding of his own will the life and death and the promotion and dismissal of officials, and gathering to himself officials both within and without the court.

The Hu Weiyong Case and the Abolition of the Chancellorship

The Ming records concerning the case of Hu Weiyong are much at variance. One account has it that the assistant censor Tu Jie, seeing that rebellion would not succeed, gave himself up and reported it; another, that Hu Weiyong falsely declared that sweet spring water had suddenly appeared in the well of his rear courtyard and invited Zhu Yuanzhang to come and see it, while secretly moving troops into his residence, hidden in double walls, behind screens and among the flowers and trees, to fall upon him the moment he arrived; and that this plot became known to Yun Qi, an attendant guarding the West Flowery Gate, who risked death to stop the imperial carriage, and being choked with anger and unable to speak, was beaten with staves by the attendants until his arms were nearly broken, but still pointed at Hu Weiyong's residence, so that Zhu Yuanzhang, looking out from the tower of the imperial city, saw armour glinting among the flowering trees and at once sent the guards to surround the house. On the second day of the first month of the thirteenth year of Hongwu, 8 February 1380, Tu Jie reported the matter and denounced Hu Weiyong, and the assistant censor Shang Gao, then degraded to a clerk of the secretariat, also denounced his plot. The Ming founder was enraged and had the court ministers interrogate him in turn. On the sixth day of the month, 12 February, the ministers held that Tu Jie had himself been party to the plot and had denounced it only when he saw it would fail, and so could not be spared; and the Ming founder ordered the execution of Hu Weiyong, Chen Ning and Tu Jie. Thereafter the Ming founder abolished the chancellorship and the secretariat, and strictly provided that later sovereigns should never again appoint a chancellor, and that any subject who memorialised for one should suffer heavy punishment; after the abolition the business was divided among the Six Ministries, whose heads reported directly to the emperor. In the twenty-third year of Hongwu, 1390, Li Shanchang too was drawn into the case.

Major Activities

Political Activity

Hu Weiyong was the last grand councilor of the Ming Secretariat. He served as grand councilor from 1373 to 1380, roughly seven years, and for much of that period was the dominant chief minister. The sources describe him as exercising effective control over the Secretariat, making decisions on legal cases and appointments on his own authority and reviewing memorials before they reached the emperor, suppressing those unfavorable to himself. Through marriage ties with Grand Preceptor Li Shanchang, connections with military nobles such as Lu Zhongheng and Fei Ju, and the recruitment of followers such as Liu Yuxian and Wei Wenjin, he attempted to create a personal political network.

Case of Hu Weiyong

The Case of Hu Weiyong was one of the most consequential political cases of the early Ming. In the first lunar month of 1380, Censor-in-chief Tu Jie accused Hu Weiyong of plotting rebellion. Hu was executed and his three kinship groups were exterminated. Zhu Yuanzhang then abolished the Secretariat and the office of grand councilor, making the Six Ministries directly responsible to the emperor and sharply increasing the concentration of monarchical authority. The case continued to expand in later years. By 1390, the twenty-third year of the Hongwu era, Li Shanchang had been ordered to die, and the source states that more than thirty thousand people were killed over the course of the prosecutions, with many founding meritorious officials caught in the purge.

Diplomatic Incident

In the ninth lunar month of 1379, a tribute mission from Champa was not promptly reported by Hu Weiyong and other officials of the Secretariat. Zhu Yuanzhang reacted with anger, and the incident became one of the immediate triggers leading to the investigation that culminated in the Case of Hu Weiyong.

The Concentration of Power under a Sole Chancellor

For many years as chancellor Hu Weiyong, relying on the favour of the Ming founder, deceived his sovereign and oppressed those below, formed factions for private ends and did as he pleased. He held in his hand the great power of life and death and of dismissal and promotion, and loyal officials and upright men who dared to speak plainly were all brought to ruin by him. In matters of life and death and of dismissal he sometimes acted on his own authority without reporting to the Ming founder; and of the memorials from every office within and without, he first took them to read, and whatever was against his interest he held back and did not send up. Men eager for fame and place, and meritorious soldiers who had lost their posts, hastened to his gate, sending gold and silk, fine horses and rare playthings beyond counting. He also secretly used threats and bribes on certain commanders, bringing them into private correspondence with him; and Li Shanyi, the younger brother of Li Shanchang and father of Hu Weiyong's son-in-law Li You, was made by him to persuade Li Shanchang in secret, so that Li Shanchang, being old and unable to refuse firmly, first would not consent and afterwards wavered.

The Complications of the Case

In the first month of the thirteenth year of Hongwu, Tu Jie reported that Hu Weiyong was plotting rebellion, and the assistant censor Shang Gao, degraded to a clerk of the secretariat, likewise denounced the plot. Before the case broke, ministers of the ministry of rites had laid a certain matter to the charge of the secretariat, and the Ming founder in anger had all the officials of that office imprisoned and questioned as to who had led them; not long after he granted Wang Guangyang death, and Wang Guangyang's concubine Madam Chen died with him. When the Ming founder learned that Madam Chen was the daughter of a magistrate Chen who had been taken into official slavery, he was enraged, saying that women confiscated into slavery were given only to the families of meritorious ministers and not to civil officials, and issued an edict ordering the judicial officers to investigate; whereupon Hu Weiyong and the subordinate officials of the Six Ministries were all deemed punishable. After the case broke, the Ming founder, remembering that Hu Weiyong had ability and had once been much trusted, and that he had won favour by carefulness in affairs, nonetheless put him to death for the manifest treason and searched out his faction to the end. In the twenty-third year of Hongwu, when Feng Ji was taken in the campaign against the desert and Li Shanchang did not report it, the matter came to light, and Feng Ji, arrested and questioned, revealed how matters then stood, so that Hu Weiyong's treason was further made plain; and it happened that Li Shanchang's household slave Lu Zhongqian gave himself up and denounced the dealings between Li Shanchang and Hu Weiyong, while Feng Tiemu, a household slave of Lu Zhongheng, likewise gave himself up and denounced Lu Zhongheng's connection with Hu Weiyong.

Personal Relations

• Elder brother of Hu Weiyong: His daughter married Li You, a nephew of Li Shanchang
• Son of Hu Weiyong: Died after falling from a carriage
• Li Shanchang: Fellow native; the source states that Hu Weiyong studied under him; the two families were connected by marriage, and Li Shanchang was later implicated in the Case of Hu Weiyong and ordered to die
• Zhu Yuanzhang: Hu Weiyong's ruler; ultimately executed him for rebellion and abolished the office of grand councilor
• Wang Guangyang: Served as Right Grand Councilor and worked alongside Hu in the Secretariat; later ordered to die
• Xu Da: Strongly disliked Hu and secretly reported him to Zhu Yuanzhang; Hu was said to have tried to induce Xu's gatekeeper to kill him
• Liu Ji: Criticized Hu; later died after taking medicine while ill, leading to accusations that Hu had poisoned him, though this was disputed
• Wu Bozong: Impeached Hu and nearly suffered retaliation
• Tu Jie: Censor-in-chief; accused of having participated in Hu's conspiracy before informing on it and was executed
• Chen Ning: Censor-in-chief; accused of conspiring with Hu and executed

Historical Assessment

Ming and Contemporary Assessments

• The Veritable Records of Emperor Taizu of Ming described Hu as initially “carefully accommodating the emperor's intentions” but later as “increasingly exercising power and favor at will,” presenting a shift from caution to autocracy.
• In the edict abolishing the office of grand councilor, Zhu Yuanzhang accused Hu of “seizing the authority of the state, bending the law, and falsely accusing the worthy,” attributing the institutional abolition to Hu's misconduct.
• The Ming historian Zheng Xiao wrote in Wuxue Bian that Hu “gained favor through flattery and perished through arbitrary power,” summarizing his political rise and fall.

Early to Middle Qing

• The History of Ming, in its biography of Hu Weiyong, portrayed him as serving the ruler through caution while using harsh exactions to please the throne, and held that excessive concentration of power ultimately brought about his death.
• The Qing historian Zhao Yi discussed the case in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories and argued that Zhu Yuanzhang used the prosecution of Hu Weiyong as the means to abolish the office of grand councilor, treating the case as an instrument of centralization.
• Gu Yingtai's Mingshi Jishi Benmo gives a detailed account of the case and treats it as a major turning point in early Ming politics.

Late Qing and Republican Period

• The late Qing and early Republican scholar Meng Sen argued in Mingshi Jiangyi that the Case of Hu Weiyong contained many doubtful elements and that Zhu Yuanzhang used it to eliminate both ministerial power and founding elites; Hu's alleged treason, in this view, was not necessarily proven.
• The Republican historian Wu Han's Hu Weiyong Dang'an Kao systematically examined the case and argued that accusations of collusion with Japan and the Northern Yuan were largely fabricated and that the case functioned politically as a means for Zhu Yuanzhang to abolish the grand-councillor institution.

Modern Assessments

• The modern Ming historian Chen Wutong has described the case as a political purge carefully used by Zhu Yuanzhang to strengthen autocratic monarchy. In this interpretation, Hu did exercise power arbitrarily, but many of the specific treason allegations were constructed.
• Ray Huang, in works including 1587, A Year of No Significance, treated the case as a key point in the evolution of Ming political institutions, arguing that the emperor's direct control over the Six Ministries after the abolition of the grand councilorship contributed to the later emergence of the Grand Secretariat.
• Modern scholarship commonly treats Hu Weiyong's fall, as that of the last Ming grand councilor, as marking the end of a chief-minister institution with more than a millennium of historical precedent and as a major development in the structure of imperial government.