Tai Ping

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Tai Ping descended from the He clan of Jingzhao and from a family of meritorious officials in the early Yuan. His great-grandfather He Ben had submitted to the Mongols at an early stage and risen through military service. His grandfather He Renjie served under both Kublai Khan and Temür Khan and reached the office of Left Chancellor of the Central Secretariat; he was later posthumously enfeoffed as Duke of Qin. His father He Sheng, courtesy name Gongli, rose to Grand Defender of Shangdu but was later executed in connection with an unspecified case. Tai Ping was originally named He Weiyi. After his family fell into disgrace, he temporarily concealed his identity. When the family was rehabilitated, he was, according to the source, granted a Mongol surname in the Zhizheng era and renamed Tai Ping.

Tai Ping entered official service through hereditary privilege and received the rank Gentleman for Court Service. Educated in the Confucian classics and histories, he was regarded as administratively capable and became known in local office for integrity and competence. During the Yuantong era (1333–1335), he was transferred to the Central Secretariat and successively served as director in the Right Office and as a council official, gradually entering the center of Yuan politics.

Mid-Career: Entering the Central Secretariat and the River-Control Debate

In 1344 (Zhizheng 4), the Yellow River burst its banks and flooded areas of Shandong and Henan. The Yuan court debated intensely over how to control the river. As a director in the Right Office of the Central Secretariat, Tai Ping strongly supported large-scale dredging and endorsed the combined dredging-and-diking plan advocated by Minister of Works Jia Lu, calling for new channels and embankments to address the floods comprehensively. In 1346 Tai Ping was promoted to assistant administrator of the Central Secretariat and began participating directly in national fiscal and political decisions.

In 1349 he became a chief administrator of the Central Secretariat. Yuan finances were then in severe difficulty and the paper-money system had deteriorated. Tai Ping took part in fiscal reorganization and the “Zhizheng paper-currency reform,” which attempted to replace heavily depreciated notes with new currency. Because of insufficient backing and resistance among the population, the policy did not fundamentally solve the financial crisis. When the Red Turban uprisings erupted in 1351, military pressure rose sharply. Tai Ping advocated mobilizing armies from several regions and supplementing regular forces with armed groups controlled by local powerful families.

Chancellorship and Central Government

In 1352, Tai Ping became Left Chancellor of the Central Secretariat and one of the officials effectively directing Yuan government. The Red Turban movement was spreading and the dynasty was in serious danger. The Chinese source summarizes three major areas of his activity while in office: coordinating military and administrative logistics and supporting commanders such as Tuo Tuo; reorganizing finances in an effort to relieve the treasury’s shortage; and handling court factional struggle, particularly attempting to mediate the conflict between Emperor Shun and crown prince Ayushiridara.

In 1354, Tuo Tuo led a major army against Zhang Shicheng at Gaoyou, while Tai Ping handled logistical support from the capital. Tuo Tuo was soon dismissed after accusations against him, plunging the central government into turmoil. Because Tai Ping’s political views had been close to Tuo Tuo’s, he was also implicated and briefly removed from the chancellorship in 1355. His established position at court enabled a return to office, and in 1357 he again became Left Chancellor. By then internal court conflict had intensified, with open confrontation between the crown prince’s faction and the emperor’s close associates, leaving Tai Ping in a precarious position between them.

Demotion and Ordered Death

In 1360, the powerful official Hama, who was not a eunuch and then served as Right Chancellor of the Central Secretariat, together with Čosgen and others, accused Tai Ping of forming a private faction and plotting disloyalty. Emperor Shun ordered his demotion to Left Chancellor of the Shaanxi Branch Secretariat, effectively expelling him from the political center. While Tai Ping was traveling toward Shaanxi, another imperial order commanded him to die. According to the History of Yuan, he remained composed before death and told the envoy that he had nothing of which to be ashamed before the state and therefore no reason to regret dying. He then drank poison, at about age sixty.

Major Activities

Yellow River Works

After the Yellow River flooding of 1344, the Yuan court argued over methods of river control. Tai Ping supported active intervention and Jia Lu’s combined dredging-and-diking plan. In 1351 Jia Lu directed major river works, mobilizing 150,000 civilian laborers and 20,000 soldiers. The project lasted eight months and opened 280 li of channel, redirecting the Yellow River eastward to the sea. The source states that Tai Ping helped provide fiscal and manpower support at court and was one of the officials who made implementation possible.

Fiscal Reorganization

Tai Ping repeatedly participated in fiscal reforms during the Zhizheng era. He supported the Zhizheng paper-currency reform in an attempt to replace severely depreciated old notes, but warfare, insufficient monetary backing, and public resistance prevented success. He also proposed reducing palace expenditures and eliminating redundant offices to relieve pressure on the treasury, but such measures met strong resistance from vested interests.

Military and Administrative Coordination

After the Red Turban uprisings began, Tai Ping handled military coordination in the Central Secretariat. He worked with Tuo Tuo and other commanders to secure supplies for the front and advocated using armed forces controlled by local elites, including Da Shibadoulu and Chaghan Temür, to supplement the regular armies. The Chinese source states that these measures delayed the dynasty’s collapse to some extent but could not fundamentally reverse the situation.

Relations with Contemporaries

Tai Ping interacted with many leading figures of the late Yuan. He and Tuo Tuo held similar positions on river control and suppression of uprisings and supported one another on these questions. He was politically opposed to Hama and Čosgen and was ultimately accused by them. He also tried to mediate the conflict between Emperor Shun and the crown prince, but the effort failed and instead drew him further into factional politics.

His financial reorganisation in the later part of his career and his death by imperial order after being framed form the two ends of his political life.

His offices and financial measures in the Zhizheng period belong to the sequence of changes in the Yuan Secretariat, and his death by imperial order after being framed is connected with factional strife within the court at that time.

His offices and transfers in the middle and later Yuan and the circumstances of his death by imperial order are scattered through the History of Yuan and the writings of the time; his position as left chief councillor of the Secretariat and his financial reorganisation are a record of the attempts of the late Yuan centre to deal with the currency and revenue, and his end shows how deeply factional strife had entered the palace.

He twice served as left chief councillor of the Secretariat in the Zhizheng years, directing financial reorganisation that touched on the currency, the salt dues and revenue and expenditure, and his eventual framing by Hama, banishment to Shaanxi and immediate execution show that in the late Yuan the chancellorship could hardly be held for long amid the struggle for power at the centre. His record concerns chiefly his offices, transfers and conviction, the details of his measures being scattered through the writings of the time and the relevant treatises and biographies of the History of Yuan, which the entry sets out as the sources give them.

His offices and conviction in the late Yuan also reflect the tension between the Secretariat and the censorate at the time.

His career in the late Yuan is bound up with the financial crisis of the time: in the Zhizheng years the currency law was in ruins and military costs were heavy, and the Secretariat changed its heads repeatedly, so that his reorganisation as left chief councillor took place against that background, while his framing and death by imperial order coincided with the ascendancy of Hama and others in the palace. As evidence, the biographies and treatises of the History of Yuan preserve the essentials of his offices and conviction, while the detailed provisions of his measures are mostly lost, so the entry keeps to the years and events the sources give.

As to the financial problems of the late Yuan, the reorganisation he directed concerned both the currency and revenue: with military costs and rewards heavy in the Zhizheng years, paper money was issued in excess and depreciated sharply, and the Secretariat repeatedly responded by adjusting the currency law and verifying the quotas, measures that offended the vested interests of the powerful and the monasteries and were therefore hard to sustain; the resistance he met in office and his eventual framing should be understood against this background.

Some of his appointments as chancellor are recorded, and both the place of his disgrace and his place of banishment lay in Shaanxi.

His appointment and disgrace came within three years of each other.

His conviction rested on the framing by Hama and others, and his death came by imperial order.

The interval between his being left chief councillor and his disgrace and death was very short, an instance of the frequency with which the Yuan centre changed hands at the end of the dynasty.

Personal Relations

• He Ben: great-grandfather; early Yuan meritorious official
• He Renjie: grandfather; Left Chancellor of the Central Secretariat and posthumously Duke of Qin
• He Sheng, courtesy name Gongli: father; Grand Defender of Shangdu
• Tuo Tuo: colleague with similar political views; they supported one another on river works and suppression of uprisings
• Jia Lu: colleague and principal executor of the river-control program
• Hama: political opponent who accused Tai Ping and contributed to his ordered death
• Čosgen: political opponent who participated in accusing Tai Ping
• Emperor Shun of Yuan (Toghon Temür): ruler who both employed and later distrusted Tai Ping
• Crown Prince Ayushiridara: Tai Ping attempted to mediate his conflict with Emperor Shun

Historical Assessment

Yuan / Contemporary Assessments

• The History of Yuan says that Tai Ping reached the chancellorship as the son of a famous ministerial family but lived in a time of repeated crisis; even if he wished to act, circumstances gave him little opportunity to do so.
• Quan Heng’s Unofficial History of the Gengshen Era describes Tai Ping as cautious and without major misconduct but as lacking the talent needed to rescue the state from crisis.
• Yuan court edicts referred to him as a veteran official of successive reigns and a notable minister of the state, while also accusing him of failing to maintain rectitude and thereby attracting criticism.

Early Ming through Mid-Qing

• Song Lian and other early Ming compilers of the History of Yuan described Tai Ping as a member of a hereditary elite family who understood government affairs, but held that his efforts to patch deficiencies at a time of dynastic collapse could not prevent defeat.
• Qing historian Shao Yuanping, in Classified Compilation of Yuan History, described him as possessing the bearing of a great minister but living in an age in which even a worthy official could accomplish little.
• Bi Yuan’s Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance states that Tai Ping spent several years in the chancellorship without major fault but also without major achievements, comparing him to a nominal chancellor who merely occupied a place at the table.

Late Qing and Republican Period

• Wei Yuan’s New Compilation of Yuan History argued that Tai Ping lacked the talent to manage an age of transformation but maintained uprightness better than many contemporary chancellors.
• Tu Ji’s Historical Records of the Mongols characterized him as a descendant of a meritorious family who encountered the final age of the dynasty and lacked the power to save it despite his intentions.

Modern Assessments

• Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing, discussing Tai Ping in work on ethnicity, culture, and the examination system under the Yuan, regarded him as one of the relatively few Han Chinese officials at the end of the dynasty who maintained personal integrity, while remaining constrained by his period and political system.
• Yao Dali’s work on political change from the late Yuan to early Ming uses Tai Ping’s failure to illustrate the rigidity and intense factional struggle of the late Yuan bureaucracy, when individual ability could no longer reverse the broader crisis.