Wei Zhongxian

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Wei Zhongxian was born on the thirtieth day of the first lunar month of the second year of Longqing, corresponding to February 27, 1568, in Suning County of Hejian Prefecture in Northern Zhili, now Suning County in Hebei. His original name was Wei Si. He came from a poor family and as a youth spent time in the streets. The source states that he was illiterate but skilled in archery and riding and was fond of gambling, drinking, and visiting prostitutes. According to the History of Ming, he frequently lost at gambling, was driven by gambling debts to castrate himself, adopted the name Li Jinzhong, and entered palace service. Unofficial histories later claimed that the castration was incomplete, but the source notes that this is unconfirmed.

Entering the Palace and Building Connections

During the Wanli era, Li Jinzhong entered palace service and was attached to the eunuch Sun Xian. Through personal connections he entered the Jiazi Storehouse and later arranged to serve the food needs of Lady Wang, mother of the imperial eldest grandson Zhu Youxiao. This allowed him to cultivate the eunuch Wei Chao. Wei Chao repeatedly praised him to Wang An, a Bingbi Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and Wang An also treated him favorably. Lady Ke, wet nurse of the imperial eldest grandson, had previously been paired with Wei Chao. After Li Jinzhong entered her circle she turned away from Wei Chao and formed a close relationship with Li Jinzhong.

Early Tianqi Reign: Rapid Rise to Power

In 1620, the first year of Taichang, the Wanli and Taichang emperors died within a short period and Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne as the Tianqi Emperor. Wei Zhongxian and Lady Ke enjoyed the new emperor's favor. Lady Ke was soon granted the title Lady Fengsheng, while her son Hou Guoxing, her younger brother Ke Guangxian, and Wei Zhongxian's elder brother Wei Zhao received appointments as chiliarchs in the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Wei rose from the Bureau of Firewood to become Bingbi Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial while also supervising the Baohe commercial establishments. The source notes that because he was illiterate he would ordinarily have been ineligible for the Directorate of Ceremonial, but Lady Ke's influence helped him gain the post.

In 1621, the first year of Tianqi, Wei forced Wei Chao from the palace and, regarding Wang An as an obstacle, plotted his death and removed Wang An's followers. Thereafter Wei and Lady Ke controlled palace affairs with the support of Wang Tigan, Li Yongzhen, Shi Yuanya, Tu Wenfu, and other eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial. Officials including Zhou Zongjian, Chen Bangzhan, and Ni Sihui remonstrated and were rebuked or demoted. Wei also encouraged the emperor to select eunuchs for military drills and the manufacture of firearms inside the palace and cultivated Grand Secretary Shen Hong as an ally.

Tianqi Years Three to Four: Consolidation of Autocratic Power

In the spring of 1623, the third year of Tianqi, Wei helped his associate Wei Guangwei enter the Grand Secretariat and used Censor Guo Gong to attack Zhou Zongjian, Liu Yijing, Zou Yuanbiao, Yang Lian, and others over their support for Xiong Tingbi. In the autumn, posts in the Embroidered Uniform Guard granted through Wei Zhongxian and Lady Ke's son Hou Guoxing were made hereditary. Wei thereafter acted with increasing impunity, expanding palace drill units to ten thousand men who moved armed within the forbidden precincts. The source states that he forged imperial commands that led to the death of Lady Zhao, a selected consort of the Taichang Emperor; that Consort Yu, Lady Zhang, who was pregnant, was slandered by Lady Ke and killed; that Consort Cheng, Lady Li, lost her title; and that Empress Zhang suffered a miscarriage after being targeted by Lady Ke. In the winter of that year Wei also took control of the Eastern Depot.

In 1624, the fourth year of Tianqi, Supervising Secretary Fu Kui formed a sworn-brother relationship with Wei Zhongxian's nephew Fu Yingxing and falsely accused Secretariat official Wang Wenyan, implicating Zuo Guangdou and Wei Dazhong. Liu Qiao, who controlled the Northern Pacification Office, punished only Wang Wenyan. Wei Zhongxian became furious, dismissed Liu, and replaced him with his associate Xu Xianchun. Vice Censor-in-Chief Yang Lian then submitted a memorial denouncing twenty-four major crimes attributed to Wei. Wei, alarmed, appealed to Han Kuang without success and then wept before the emperor while Lady Ke and Wang Tigan defended him. The Tianqi Emperor rejected the accusations and harshly rebuked Yang Lian. Wei Dazhong, Supervising Secretaries Chen Liangxun and Xu Yuqing, and more than seventy others submitted further impeachments. Ye Xianggao and Weng Zhengchun asked that Wei be sent back to his private residence, but the emperor refused.

Tianqi Years Four to Six: Purging Opponents

Wei Zhongxian sought to eliminate his enemies. Gu Bingqian secretly recorded the names of those Wei disliked so that they could be dismissed one by one. Wang Tigan advocated the use of the court beating. When Ministry of Works official Wan Jing memorialized against Wei, he was beaten to death. An incident involving Censor Lin Ruzhu was then used to humiliate Ye Xianggao, who retired. Zhao Nanxing, Minister of Personnel; Gao Panlong, Censor-in-Chief; Chen Yuting, Vice Minister of Personnel; Yang Lian; Zuo Guangdou; Wei Dazhong; and many others were dismissed, while Han Kuang and Vice Minister of War Li Banghua were also driven from office.

Wei issued false imperial orders to recall or promote Zhu Tongmeng, Guo Yunhou, Lü Pengyun, Sun Jie, Huo Weihua, Guo Xingzhi, Xu Jinglian, Jia Jichun, Yang Weiyuan, and others as supporters and restored the previously exiled Cui Chengxiu as censor. Cui compiled the Tianjian Lu and Tongzhi Lu, while Wang Shaohui compiled the Dianjiang Lu, identifying those who did not support Wei as members of the Donglin faction and submitting the lists to him.

In 1625, the fifth year of Tianqi, using the Xiong Tingbi case, Wei had Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong, Zhou Chaorui, Yuan Huazhong, and Gu Dazhang arrested and persecuted to death. In 1626, the sixth year, Gao Panlong, Zhou Qiyuan, Zhou Shunchang, Miao Changqi, Zhou Zongjian, Huang Zunsu, and Li Yingsheng were also killed. The source calls these men the “Seven Donglin Gentlemen.” Donglin Academy was destroyed, lectures ceased, and political opposition was severely weakened.

Tianqi Years Six to Seven: Peak of Power

In 1626, the sixth year of Tianqi, the emperor granted Wei a seal bearing the title “Senior Minister Entrusted with the Dying Sovereign's Commands.” His power reached its height. From the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries to regional governors-general and governors, his followers occupied important posts. He was called the “Nine-Thousand-Year Lord,” and some even called him the “Nine-Thousand-Nine-Hundred-Year Lord.” Officials seeking favor demolished private houses, fields, and graves to build living shrines to him. Zhejiang governor Pan Ruzhen took the lead, and officials such as Ji-Liao governor-general Yan Mingtai and Xuan-Da governor-general Zhang Pu followed. At Wei's sixtieth-birthday celebrations, regional officials and commanders competed to send rare valuables and flattering inscriptions.

The source states that fiscal conditions deteriorated sharply while Wei dominated government. Arrears in frontier military pay rose rapidly, and from the fifth through seventh years of Tianqi unpaid military wages reportedly exceeded 4.65 million taels. Soldiers complained of hunger, deserted, and sometimes mutinied. To complete the Three Great Halls project, Wei imposed contributions from officials' salaries, extracted silver from local treasuries, and even sold grain stores and state lands, leaving local finances depleted. The number of surplus personnel in the Embroidered Uniform Guard and inner court also grew substantially. Annual additional expenditures reportedly reached 28,000 taels of silver and 370,000 shi of grain. The old reserve of the Court of the Imperial Treasury was reduced to 114,000 taels, prompting Minister of Revenue Guo Yunhou to memorialize that the signs of shortage were deeply alarming.

Downfall

In the eighth month of 1627, the seventh year of Tianqi, the Tianqi Emperor became gravely ill. He summoned Prince Xin Zhu Youjian and reportedly told him that he should become a sage ruler while also saying that Wei Zhongxian should continue to be entrusted with responsibility. Zhu Youjian, however, had long disliked eunuch domination. Wei considered arrangements for a regency but abandoned them after Shi Fenglai objected; he also considered using Tu Wenfu, eunuch supervisor of the Zhongyong Camp, to launch a coup, but Cui Chengxiu dissuaded him by warning that such action might provoke armed opposition.

After the Tianqi Emperor died, Zhu Youjian ascended the throne as the Chongzhen Emperor. Wei grew anxious and tried to determine the emperor's intentions. Chongzhen initially avoided an immediate confrontation. Soon afterward, tribute student Qian Jiazheng of Jiaxing submitted a memorial accusing Wei of ten major crimes. The emperor summoned Wei and ordered palace attendants to read the accusations aloud. The source says Wei was terrified. In the eleventh month, Chongzhen ordered him demoted and sent to Fengyang; while he was on the road, the emperor ordered his arrest. Reaching Fucheng, Wei heard the news and hanged himself. Chongzhen then ordered his corpse dismembered and his head displayed publicly at Hejian, while his property was confiscated.

His Entry into the Palace and His Bond with Madam Ke

Wei Zhongxian was a man of Suning in the Northern Metropolitan Region. As a youth he was a rogue, and gambling with a crew of bad young men he lost and was harried by them, so that in his rage he castrated himself and changed his name to Li Jinzhong; afterwards he resumed his surname and was granted the name Zhongxian. In the Wanli period he was chosen into the palace and attached to the eunuch Sun Xian, and by crooked ways entered the Jia repository, and then sought to be the food steward of the mother of the eldest imperial grandson, the lady of talent Wang, and fawned upon Wei Chao; Wei Chao praised Wei Zhongxian several times before Wang An, and Wang An also treated him well. The imperial grandson's nurse was named Madam Ke, who had long privately served Wei Chao in the pairing of food; and when Wei Zhongxian came in he had commerce with her too, and Madam Ke slighted Wei Chao and loved Wei Zhongxian, and the two were joined deeply. When Emperor Guangzong died and the eldest grandson succeeded, he being Emperor Xizong, Wei Zhongxian and Madam Ke were both favoured. Within a month Madam Ke was enfeoffed as the lady of Fengsheng, and her son Hou Guoxing, her brother Ke Guangxian and Wei Zhongxian's brother Wei Zhao were all made chiliarches of the embroidered-uniform guard. Wei Zhongxian was presently moved from the fuel office to be palace eunuch of the vermilion brush in the directorate of ceremonial, with charge of the Baohe three shops; and Wei Zhongxian, not knowing letters, was by rule unfit to enter the directorate, but through Madam Ke he got it.

The Expulsion of Wei Chao and the Killing of Wang An

In the first year of Tianqi a decree granted Madam Ke incense-field land and commended Wei Zhongxian's service in repairing the imperial ancestor's tomb, and the censor Wang Xinyi remonstrated without being heard. And when the emperor took a wife, the censor Bi Zuozhou and Liu Lan asked that Madam Ke be sent out, and the grand secretary Liu Yizhu said the same; but the emperor could not bear to part with her, saying that the empress was young and still needed the nurse's care, and that they would discuss it after the imperial ancestor was buried. Wei Zhongxian, monopolising Madam Ke, drove Wei Chao from the palace; and dreading that Wang An would uphold what was right, he murdered him by plot and drove out all the eunuchs of Wang An's following. Madam Ke was licentious and cruel, and Wei Zhongxian, though unlettered, had a good memory and was suspicious, cruel, insidious and fond of flattery; and the emperor trusted these two deeply, so that their power grew the more, and they used the palace eunuch Wang Tigan and Li Yongzhen, Shi Yuanya and Tu Wenfu as wings, so that none in the palace dared cross them. Presently Madam Ke went out and was recalled. The censor Zhou Zongjian, the vice minister Chen Bangzhan, the censor Ma Mingqi and the supervising secretary Hou Zhenyang one after another argued earnestly and were all reprimanded; and when the supervising secretaries Ni Sihui, Zhu Qinxiang and Wang Xinyi spoke again they were all banished, none having yet pointed at Wei Zhongxian. Wei Zhongxian then urged the emperor to choose fighting eunuchs and refine firearms for drill within, and secretly joined the grand secretary Shen Hong as his support, and daily drew the emperor into the company of singers and actors, dogs, horses and hunting. Liu Zongzhou, a secretary of the ministry of justice, was the first to impeach him, and the emperor was enraged; but by the grand secretary Ye Xianggao's aid he escaped.

The Overthrow of the Donglin and the Expulsion of Upright Men

At first, when Emperor Shenzong had long reigned and was idle in government, memorials were mostly unread; and the court ministers gradually set up factions and took pride in perilous and violent words, and the dispute over the root of the state pointed at the palace precincts, so that when the chief ministers were struck at by the remonstrants they at once pleaded illness and withdrew. Gu Xiancheng, a director of the ministry of personnel, lectured at the Donglin academy, and the scholars of the realm mostly attached themselves to him, and the name Donglin began from this. Presently the three cases of the club, the red pill and the removal of the palace arose, and the whole court wrangled like litigants, and those who crossed the Donglin were looked on by the many as the wicked faction. Early in Tianqi the Donglin were all but wholly dismissed, and those who knew already feared that such excess would breed a change; and when Wei Zhongxian's power was complete, his party indeed plotted to lean on him to overthrow the Donglin. Xu Dahua, Huo Weihua and Sun Jie were the first to attach themselves to him, and Liu Yizhu and the minister Zhou Jiamo were both impeached away by Sun Jie. But at that time Ye Xianggao and Han Kuang were in the government, and Zou Yuanbiao, Zhao Nanxing, Wang Ji and Gao Panlong held great offices, while Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong and Huang Zunsu were in the remonstrance, and all upheld the pure discussion, so that Wei Zhongxian could not yet work his will. In the second year, for the service at the Qing tomb, Wei Zhongxian's brother and nephew were enfeoffed as assistant commanders of the embroidered-uniform guard; and the supervising secretary Hui Shiyang and the minister Wang Ji, discussing Shen Hong's dealings with Madam Ke and Wei Zhongxian, were both reprimanded and removed. When hail fell out of season in early summer, Zhou Zongjian said that hail out of season was caused by Wei Zhongxian's slander and malice, and the compiler Wen Zhenmeng and the assistant coachman of the imperial equipage Man Chaozian said the same in turn, and were likewise dismissed. In the spring of the third year he brought in his own man Wei Guangwei as grand secretary and had the censor Guo Gong impeach Zhou Zongjian, Liu Yizhu, Zou Yuanbiao and Yang Lian, Zhou Chaorui and the rest as having recommended Xiong Tingbi and ruined the state through faction; the censor Fang Daren helped Zhou Zongjian to attack Guo Gong and Wei Zhongxian, and both failed. In the autumn of that year a decree made the embroidered-uniform offices held by Wei Zhongxian and by Madam Ke's son Hou Guoxing hereditary, and the minister of war Dong Hanru, the supervising secretary Cheng Zhu and the censor Wang Silun remonstrated together, and were not heeded.

The Drill Within, the Mischief in the Palace, and the Charge of the Eastern Depot

Wei Zhongxian, the more without scruple, increased the drill within to ten thousand men, who came and went in armour and indulged in tyranny. By forged decree he had the chosen attendant of Emperor Guangzong, the lady Zhao, put to death; the honoured consort Zhang being with child, Madam Ke slandered and killed her; he took away the fief of the honoured consort Li; and when the empress Zhang was with child Madam Ke by a trick caused her to miscarry, so that the emperor was left without an heir. Others whom he harmed, the palace consorts such as the honoured lady Feng and the eunuchs Wang Guochen, Liu Kejing and Ma Jian and many more, cannot be told in detail, the secrets of the palace being kept close. In the winter of that year he took charge also of the Eastern Depot. In the fourth year, the supervising secretary Fu Kui, having become sworn brothers with Wei Zhongxian's nephew Fu Yingxing, falsely impeached the palace secretary Wang Wenyan, involving Zuo Guangdou and Wei Dazhong; and Wang Wenyan was put in the guard prison, where a great web was to be woven, but the guardian of the guard prison, Liu Qiao, by Ye Xianggao's instruction, convicted Wang Wenyan alone. Wei Zhongxian was enraged, struck Liu Qiao's name from the rolls, and put his own man Xu Xianchun in his place. At that time the censor Li Yingsheng remonstrated about the drill within, the supervising secretary Huo Shouqu about Wei Zhongxian's begging for a temple tablet, the censor Liu Tingzuo about his excessive hereditary offices, and the supervising secretary Shen Weibing about the standing cangue, and Wei Zhongxian reprimanded them all by forged decree.

Yang Lian's Twenty-Four Crimes and the Case of the Six Gentlemen

Thereupon the assistant censor-in-chief Yang Lian, in great indignation, impeached Wei Zhongxian for twenty-four crimes. When the memorial was presented Wei Zhongxian was afraid and asked Han Kuang to save him, and Han Kuang would not, so he ran to the emperor weeping and complaining and resigned the Eastern Depot, while Madam Ke explained matters at his side and Wang Tigan and the rest helped him. The emperor, dull and unable to distinguish, comforted him with kind words and kept him, and the next day sent down Yang Lian's memorial with a stern decree of reproof. When Yang Lian was thus silenced, Wei Dazhong with the supervising secretaries Chen Liangxun and Xu Yuqing, the marquis of Funing Zhu Guobi, the minister of war at Nanjing Chen Daoheng and the vice minister Yue Yuansheng, more than seventy in all, memorialised one after another against Wei Zhongxian's lawlessness; and Ye Xianggao with the minister of rites Weng Zhengchun asked that Wei Zhongxian be sent back to his own house to stop the talk, and were not permitted. At this time Wei Zhongxian was in great fury and meant to kill all who differed from him, and Gu Bingqian secretly made a list of those he hated and gave it to Wei Zhongxian, who dismissed them one by one; and Wang Tigan again spoke loudly of using the court beating to overawe the ministers. Presently Wan Zhu, a director of the ministry of works, memorialised against Wei Zhongxian and was beaten to death at once; and by the affair of the censor Lin Ruzhu they insulted Ye Xianggao, so that he retired from office, and Lin Ruzhu was also beaten; and the court ministers were all terrified. Among those dismissed at one time were the minister of personnel Zhao Nanxing, the left censor-in-chief Gao Panlong, the vice minister of personnel Chen Yuting and Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong and several dozen others, and then Han Kuang and the vice minister of war Li Banghua were driven out; the good men left the state as thick as falling leaves. And by forged inner decree they had the examining and supervising posts filled by their own, making Zhu Tongmeng and Guo Yunhou assistant coachmen, Lü Pengyun and Sun Jie assistant ministers of justice, restoring Huo Weihua and Guo Xingzhi as supervising secretaries and Xu Jinglian, Jia Jichun and Yang Weiyuan as censors, and raising Xu Zhaokui, Wang Shaohui, Qiao Yingjia, Xu Shaoji, Ruan Dacheng and others to be their claws. Presently they restored the condemned Cui Chengxiu as censor; and Cui Chengxiu made the registers Heaven's Mirror and Comrades, and Wang Shaohui made the Roll of Captains, all taking Zou Yuanbiao, Gu Xiancheng, Ye Xianggao and Liu Yizhu as the chiefs and enrolling all who did not follow Wei Zhongxian, calling them the Donglin party men, and presented them to Wei Zhongxian. Wei Zhongxian was delighted, and the petty men vied still more in flattering him and bared their arms against the Donglin. The censors Zhang Ne and Ni Wenhuan, the supervising secretary Li Lusheng and the director of works Cao Qincheng vied in striking at good men for revenge; and the censor Liang Menghuan revived the case of Wang Wenyan, who was tortured to death in the guard prison. Xu Xianchun framed the record, implicating Zhao Nanxing, Yang Lian and more than twenty others, who were variously struck from the rolls and exiled; and Yang Lian with Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong, Zhou Chaorui, Yuan Huazhong and Gu Dazhang, six in all, were arrested and drawn into the case of Xiong Tingbi and tortured to death in prison. They killed Xiong Tingbi too, and beat to death his son-in-law the censor Wu Yuzhong. And they struck and drove out the ministers Li Zongyan and Zhang Wenda and the vice ministers Gong Nai and more than fifty others, so that the court offices were emptied; and they specially summoned Yuan Shijiao and Liu Shuzu as censors and raised their own men out of order, so that Wei Zhongxian's party filled all the key places.

The Tyranny of the Depot and Guard

At that time the runners of the Eastern Depot ran wild, and whatever they seized, true or false, was ruined. The imperial kinsman Li Cheng'en, son of the grand princess of Ning'an, kept in his house vessels given by the princess, and Wei Zhongxian falsely accused him of stealing the emperor's carriage robes and had him condemned to death. When the palace secretary Wu Huaixian read Yang Lian's memorial he beat time and praised it; a slave informed, and Wu Huaixian was killed and his house confiscated. When the officer Jiang Yingyang pleaded for Xiong Tingbi he was executed at once. If common talk in the streets ever touched Wei Zhongxian, men were seized and slain, even flayed and their tongues cut out, and those killed cannot be counted, so that men looked at one another on the roads. In that year, for the service of the gate, he was given the third rank of grace and the hereditary office of deputy commander, and his clan-uncle Wei Zhide was made assistant commander, and Fu Yingxing was raised to left commander with honour to his mother, while Wei Liangqing was made a signatory of the embroidered-uniform guard in charge of the southern guard prison. By the Ming history there were once four men drinking by night in a closed room, and one of them, warm with wine, cursed Wei Zhongxian while the other three kept silent in fear; and before the cursing was done the runners dragged the four to Wei Zhongxian's lodging, put the curser to death by dismemberment, and rewarded the three with gold, and they were out of their wits and dared not move.

After the Six Gentlemen, and the Essentials of Three Reigns

In the second month of the sixth year, when the imperial equipage was completed, he was given the hereditary office of assistant commander. Wei Zhongxian again had his party Li Yongzhen forge a memorial from the Zhejiang eunuch Li Shi and arrested the former grand coordinator of Yingtian, Zhou Qiyuan, and the retired ministers of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Gao Panlong, Zhou Zongjian, Miao Changqi, Zhou Shunchang, Huang Zunsu and Li Yingsheng. Gao Panlong drowned himself and Zhou Shunchang and five others died in prison. When the people of Suzhou saw Zhou Shunchang arrested they were stirred, beat two of the guard to death, and the grand coordinator Mao Yilu had Yan Peiwei and four others seized and executed. The minister of justice Xu Zhaokui, trying cases, condemned to death any whom Wei Zhongxian hated. And on Huo Weihua's advice he had Gu Bingqian and others compile the Essentials of Three Reigns, doing their utmost to vilify the wickedness of the party men; and the censor Xu Fuyang asked that the lecture academies be destroyed to cut the party's root, and the censor Lu Chengqin asked for a stele of the Donglin party, and the realm held its breath and lost heart. Huo Weihua then taught Wei Zhongxian to claim frontier merit: a man of Liaoyang, Wu Changchun, having talked wildly in a brothel, was seized by the Eastern Depot, and Xu Xianchun tortured him and deliberately exaggerated, saying that Wu Changchun was an enemy spy whose escape would mean disorder and that only the loyalty and wisdom of the depot's minister had won this rare merit; and an edict enfeoffed Wei Zhongxian's nephew Wei Liangqing as earl of Suning and gave him a mansion, lands and an iron warrant. The minister of personnel Wang Shaohui asked that his forebears be honoured, and a decree made Wei Zhongxian's four generations of ancestors grandees of his own rank; and Wei Zhongxian by forged decree sent his party the eunuchs Liu Yingkun, Tao Wen and Ji Yong to hold Shanhaiguan and gather military power; and again for merit he was given the hereditary office of deputy commander and one hereditary commander of the embroidered-uniform guard. The grand coordinator of Zhejiang, Pan Ruzhen, asked leave to build a shrine for Wei Zhongxian, and the grain-transport director Xue Zhen said that a fire in the hayfield had been harmless through Wei Zhongxian's rescue; and so those who praised his merit and virtue came one after another, and all the shrines began from this.

The Shrines and the Flatterers

The compiler Wu Kongjia, having a feud with his kinsman Wu Yangchun, lured Wu Yangchun's slave to accuse his master of secretly occupying Mount Huang, and Wu Yangchun and his son died in prison; and Wei Zhongxian sent the director Lü Xiawen and the judicial officer Xu Zhiji one after another to Huizhou to confiscate his house, harshly spreading the case, and the prefect Shi Wancheng could not bear it and shaved his head and left, and Huizhou was nearly in disorder. His party the commander Zhang Tiqian falsely accused the prefect of Yangzhou, Liu Duo, of plotting to free Li Cheng'en from prison and of binding the Daoist Fang Jingyang to curse Wei Zhongxian, and Liu Duo was beheaded; and again, for a slight grudge, he falsely accused the son of the marquis of Xincheng, the guard officer Wang Guoxing, who was condemned to death and the director Xu Shiqi dismissed; and the censor Men Kexin falsely accused the men of Wu, Gu Tongyin and Sun Wenzhi, of eulogising Xiong Tingbi and had them beheaded under the law of seditious words, and also arrested the vice minister Wang Zhizhen, who died in prison. All whom Wei Zhongxian hated deeply, such as Han Kuang, Zhang Wenda, He Shijin and Cheng Zhu, even if already gone, were struck from the rolls, and the graver exiled, and the dead had their property confiscated to ruin their houses; and if Wei Zhongxian happened to forget one, his party would be sure to bring up some former matter to rouse his anger. At this time all power within and without was Wei Zhongxian's: within, besides Wang Tigan and the rest, there were Li Chaoqin, Wang Chaofu, Sun Jin, Wang Guotai and Liang Dong, more than thirty, as his guard about him; in the outer court the civil ministers Cui Chengxiu, Tian Ji, Wu Chunfu, Li Kuilong and Ni Wenhuan directed the counsels, called the Five Tigers; the military officers Tian Er'geng, Xu Xianchun, Sun Yunhe, Yang Huan and Cui Yingyuan directed the killings, called the Five Panthers; the minister of personnel Zhou Yingqiu and the assistant coachman Cao Qincheng and others were called the Ten Dogs; there were also the names of the Ten Children and the Forty Grandsons; and those who were retainers of Cui Chengxiu and his like cannot be counted. From the grand secretariat and the six ministries to the grand coordinators and inspectors of the four quarters, his sworn party was planted everywhere. Wei Zhongxian secretly hated the empress Zhang, and in the autumn of that year falsely accused her father Zhang Guojii of letting his slaves break the law, and by forged inner decree hoped to shake the empress; the emperor made a law for the slaves and reproved Zhang Guojii. Wei Zhongxian, not satisfied, had the assistant of the Shuntian prefecture Liu Zhixuan and the censor Liang Menghuan accuse Zhang Guojii in turn and say the empress was not his daughter, until Wang Tigan checked it with grave words. In the spring of the seventh year he again made Cui Wensheng director of grain transport, Li Mingdao director of the river courses and Hu Liangfu commander of Tianjin. Throughout the realm men vied to flatter, and the great coordinators and inspectors Yan Mingtai, Liu Zhao, Li Jingbai and Yao Zongwen and the rest vied in praising his virtue and building shrines, in a clamour as if they could not be too late; and down to soldiers, merchants and common rogues each built shrines, of the utmost cunning workmanship, seizing the people's fields and houses and cutting the trees of their graves, and none dared complain; and the student of the imperial college Lu Wanying even asked that Wei Zhongxian be paired with Confucius and his father with the Holy Founder's father. Hu Shirong of the Jizhou circuit, for not providing the shrine text, and Geng Ruqi of the Zunhua circuit, for not bowing in a shrine, were both put in prison and condemned to death. So the realm went with the wind, and memorials of every size praised Wei Zhongxian, and all memorials called him the depot minister without his name; and the grand secretaries Huang Liji, Shi Fenglai and Zhang Ruitu, drafting decrees, also had to say "We and the depot minister," and none dared name Wei Zhongxian. When a qilin was born in Shandong, the grand coordinator Li Jingbai drew its picture and reported it, and Huang Liji and the rest drafted the decree that the depot minister had cultivated virtue, and so the benevolent beast had come: such was their deceit. Rewards and edicts of praise without number were given him, and his patents were drafted in the style of the nine bestowals.

Claimed Merits, Titles, and the Death of Emperor Xizong

In that year from spring to autumn Wei Zhongxian claimed the merits of pacifying Wang Shaobing and capturing Abandailuotie and the rest, and heaped up hereditary commanders of the embroidered-uniform guard to seventeen. His clan-grandsons Wei Xikong, Wei Ximeng, Wei Xiyao, Wei Xishun and Wei Pengcheng, and his connections by marriage Dong Fangming, Wang Xuan, Yang Liuqi and Yang Zuochang, all reached the rank of left and right commanders and of deputy commanders and assistant commanders; and Madam Ke's brother Ke Guangxian was also made a commander, and Wei Fumin was moved from the embroidered-uniform guard to be a minister of the seal. And Wei Zhongxian's ambition was not yet satisfied; when Yuan Chonghuan memorialised the victory at Ningyuan, Wei Zhongxian had Zhou Yingqiu memorialise to enfeoff his great-nephew Wei Pengyi as earl of Anping; and again for the merit of the three great works he enfeoffed his nephew Wei Liangdong as marquis of Dong'an, adding to Wei Liangqing the title of grand preceptor, to Wei Pengyi that of junior preceptor and to Wei Liangdong that of guardian of the heir apparent, and gave largesse to all the court ministers; and he made Cui Chengxiu minister of war and left censor-in-chief, only suppressing Yuan Chonghuan's merit from the record. At that time Wei Pengyi and Wei Liangdong were still in swaddling clothes, not yet able to walk; and Wei Liangqing even sacrificed for the Son of Heaven at the southern and northern suburbs and in the ancestral temple, so that all the realm suspected Wei Zhongxian of coveting the sacred vessel. In the winter the three halls were completed, and Li Yongzhen and Zhou Yingqiu memorialised Wei Zhongxian's merit, so that he was advanced to duke of the first class with the third rank of grace; and Wei Liangqing, then already marquis of Suning, was also made duke of Ning with revenue by the precedent of the duke of Wei, and one commander and one deputy commander of the embroidered-uniform guard were added to his hereditary offices. The minister of works Xue Fengxiang asked that a mansion be granted him; and presently the eunuch Tao Wen memorialised that the Xifeng pass was finished, the commander Wang Zhizhen that the Shanhai city was built, the minister of justice Xue Zhen that the great robber Wang Zhijin's case was closed, that the Xiaoling at Nanjing was repaired, that Ganzhen reported a victory, and that the officer of the breeding office Zhang Yongzuo had taken robbers, and all said that these came of Wei Zhongxian's plans and dispositions. Wei Zhongxian also memorialised his own three years' work of seizure and was praised by decree. In half a year the hereditary offices he obtained were four commanders of the embroidered-uniform guard, three deputy commanders and one assistant commander. He gave his nephew Wei Ximeng the hereditary office of deputy commander of the guard, and his nephews Fu Zhicong and Feng Jixian that of assistant commander, and raised Cui Chengxiu's brother Cui Ningxiu to be assistant commander of Ji. So the abuse of titles reached its height. His party held all the key places of Ji, Liao, Shanxi, Xuanfu and Datong, and the commanders Liang Zhuchao and Yang Guodong and others sent him famous horses and rare toys every season without cease. Emperor Xizong was by nature clever and fond of handling the axe, the saw and the lacquer himself, tireless for years; and whenever he was stretching the line and cutting the ink, Wei Zhongxian and the rest would memorialise business, and the emperor, wearied, would answer at random that he already knew it and they should do it well, so that Wei Zhongxian could indulge his tyranny as he pleased. Several times a year he went out, always in an ornamented carriage with feathered banners and a blue canopy, four horses flying, the sound of gongs, drums and whistling arrows rumbling in the yellow dust; guards in brocade, jade belts, boots and trousers, holding knives, riding at either side, and cooks, actors, variety performers and servants following in myriads. Memorials from all the offices were carried to him by fast riders and only then sent down. Where he passed, the gentry bowed at the roadside, some even calling him the Nine Thousand Years, and Wei Zhongxian never turned his eyes to them. Madam Ke dwelt in the palace, coercing the empress and cruelly abusing the palace consorts; and when she occasionally went out to her own house, her outriders blazed along the streets and looked like the imperial equipage. Wei Zhongxian was by nature stupid and had no other gift; his party taught him day and night, and Madam Ke was his support within, and the pack of villains stirred one another to cruelty, so that the realm was poisoned by them. In the eighth month of autumn of the seventh year Emperor Xizong died and the prince of Xin took the throne. The prince had long known Wei Zhongxian's wickedness and prepared himself in secret, and his party felt themselves in danger. Yang Suoxiu and Yang Weiyuan first attacked Cui Chengxiu to test the emperor, and the directors Lu Chengyuan and Qian Yuanke and the vice director Shi Gongsheng memorialised one after another against Wei Zhongxian. The emperor still did not act, and then Qian Jiazheng, a tribute student of Jiaxing, impeached Wei Zhongxian for ten crimes: equalling the emperor, slighting the empress, meddling with arms, having no regard for the two founders and the line of ancestors, cutting the fiefs of the princes, having no reverence for the sages, abusing titles, hiding frontier merit, fleecing the people, and trafficking in offices. When the memorial was presented the emperor summoned Wei Zhongxian and had the eunuchs read it aloud; and Wei Zhongxian, greatly afraid, hastened to bribe the former eunuch of the prince of Xin's household, Xu Yingyuan, to plead for him. Xu Yingyuan had been Wei Zhongxian's fellow gambler; the emperor knew it and drove him out. In the eleventh month he had Wei Zhongxian settled at Fengyang and presently ordered his arrest and trial. Coming to Fucheng county, Wei Zhongxian heard the order and hanged himself with his confidant Li Chaoqin. By decree his body was dismembered and his head hung up at Hejian, and Madam Ke was beaten to death in the laundry office. Wei Liangqing, Hou Guoxing, Ke Guangxian and the rest were all executed in the market and their houses confiscated; and when Madam Ke's house was searched eight palace women were found in it, for she meant to do as Lu Buwei had done, which men hated the more. In the second year of Chongzhen the grand secretary Han Kuang and others were ordered to determine the case of the traitors, and only then was Wei Zhongxian's party wholly driven out and the Donglin men employed again; and those implicated in the case plotted revenge day and night, and afterwards Wen Tiren and Xue Guoguan and their like came one after another into the government and secretly overthrew upright men to prepare for reversing the case; and the emperor too, wearied of the factions of the court, again employed eunuchs, and Ruan Dacheng and the rest of the traitor case at last did mischief in Jiangnan until the dynasty fell.

Major Activities

Political Activity

During the Tianqi reign Wei Zhongxian dominated court affairs and created a notorious period of eunuch political control. By controlling the Directorate of Ceremonial and Eastern Depot, issuing forged imperial commands, eliminating rivals, and persecuting Donglin figures, he built an extensive political faction. In 1625 the “Six Donglin Gentlemen” case and in 1626 the “Seven Donglin Gentlemen” case resulted in the deaths of many officials identified in the source as upright scholar-officials. At the same time, Wei promoted supporters such as Cui Chengxiu, Wei Guangwei, Gu Bingqian, and Wang Shaohui and developed networks described by contemporary labels such as the “Five Tigers,” “Five Biao,” “Ten Dogs,” “Ten Children,” and “Forty Grandsons.”

Fiscal Misgovernment

The source attributes severe fiscal deterioration to Wei Zhongxian's period of power. To finance reconstruction of the Three Great Halls of the Forbidden City, officials were compelled to contribute nearly 830,000 taels from their salaries, local treasury funds were extracted, and grain stores and state lands were sold. Frontier wage arrears reportedly reached 4.65 million taels from the fifth through seventh years of Tianqi, contributing to desertion and mutiny. The number of Embroidered Uniform Guard personnel is said to have increased from 17,760 to 36,360, while artisans of the Wensi Office rose from 752 to 5,288, substantially increasing fiscal burdens.

Places of Activity

As a palace eunuch, Wei spent most of his life in the Beijing court. During his early palace service he was attached to Sun Xian and moved among inner-court offices. After losing power he was sent toward Fengyang and ultimately killed himself at Fucheng. His political influence nevertheless extended across the empire. The source states that living shrines to him were built in many places, including Jizhou, Miyun, Changping, Tongzhou, Zhuozhou, Hejian, Baoding, Xuanfu, and Datong.

Contemporary Associations

Lady Ke, wet nurse of the Tianqi Emperor, was Wei's political ally and the foundation of his court influence. Wang Tigan, Li Yongzhen, Shi Yuanya, and Tu Wenfu of the Directorate of Ceremonial were among his palace supporters. In the outer court, Wei Guangwei, Gu Bingqian, Cui Chengxiu, Wang Shaohui, Xu Xianchun, Tian Ergeng, and others formed the core of his faction. Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong, Gao Panlong, Zhao Nanxing, and other Donglin figures were among his political enemies.

Forged Decrees and the Control of the Directorate of Ceremonial

Wei Zhongxian used the power of the vermilion brush to forge decrees at will, strike down those who differed from him and gather a party. In the first year of Tianqi, when Emperor Xizong wished to raise Wang An, a man of upright character, to be the eunuch of the seal in the directorate of ceremonial, Wei Zhongxian, thinking this would be a great obstacle to his future monopoly, had him removed by forged decree and killed, and then made his own confidant Li Yongzhen eunuch of the vermilion brush and Wang Tigan eunuch of the seal; and from then the three were closely joined and none in the palace dared cross them. Wei Zhongxian not knowing letters, Wang Tigan and Li Yongzhen were his chief counsellors; and when the red-ink documents and corrections were to be handled they would petition for the imperial brush, Wang Tigan memorialising alone while Wei Zhongxian said nothing. In all memorials Li Yongzhen and the rest first marked the essential points and informed Wei Zhongxian for decision. So the directorate of ceremonial, seated in the forbidden and vital place, was wholly in Wei Zhongxian's hand. To seize the power of the grand secretariat Wei Zhongxian first stirred his party to attack the grand secretary Liu Yizhu in turn and force him to resign, and then from within sustained it and had a decree allowing the departure, and then by forged decree struck him from the rolls and condemned him to tend horses. Afterwards he did the like and pushed out all who differed from him in the grand secretariat and the ministries, inserting his own men; and Zhao Nanxing, the minister of personnel, was by forged decree charged with plotting factions and resigned in confession of guilt. In a short time Wei Zhongxian dismissed and drove out the upright officials of the court batch by batch.

The Drill Within and the Growth of the Depot and Guard

In the third year of Tianqi Emperor Xizong appointed Wei Zhongxian to command the Eastern Depot. He at once had his confidant Tian Er'geng control the embroidered-uniform guard and Xu Xianchun the office of judicial punishment in the guard prison, so holding both the depot and the guard firmly. The depot and guard could seize men at will without limit of law, and were furnished with every cruel instrument of torture and with special prisons, and whatever they seized, true or false, was ruined. In the Tianqi years the two bodies grew endlessly, and it is recorded that in the Wanli period the officers of the embroidered-uniform guard were already more than seventeen thousand seven hundred and sixty, and after Wei Zhongxian's rise, by the seventh year of Tianqi, they had grown to more than thirty-six thousand three hundred and sixty. This horde of spies did every evil, and not only the people suffered but upright officials of the court were often caught in their calamity. Further, to gather military power Wei Zhongxian had his own kind hold all the key places of Ji and Liao and of Shanxi, Xuanfu and Datong; and these eunuchs sent out to the frontier knew nothing of war, yet because of their special status as imperial commissioners the local grand coordinators, however much they disagreed, had to yield to them, so that they divided the spirit of the officers, fettered the hands of battle and defence, and set civil and military against each other and secretly stirred mutiny, to the great harm of frontier defence; and these resident eunuchs also withheld military funds at will and took their fill, so that mutinies broke out.

His Grasping of Wealth and His Frontier Measures

In his rule Wei Zhongxian increased the fleecing of the people. It is recorded that the inner treasury at Nanjing was rich in gold, silver and precious things, and Wei Zhongxian had it brought out by forged decree and emptied it by theft; and the wealth he gathered in several years, if returned to the treasury, would have sufficed for the frontier pay of several years. He also took as fields for his ducal and marquisal fiefs not less than ten thousand qing of the richest land, and the shrines to him spread through the realm were built on the white bones of the labouring people. Especially after he directed the building of the three great halls of the Ming in the fifth year of Tianqi, exhausting the realm's resources to complete them, he received the rank of duke of the first class for it while the people were driven to the extremity where there was nothing left to search and nothing left to scrape. In frontier affairs and the people's livelihood, however, he had certain measures: when the war in Liaodong was urgent and horses, long in short supply, were badly needed, Wei Zhongxian, following the old Ming practice by which ministers of special merit might be granted the privilege of riding within the palace on condition of presenting a good horse at the festivals, at once granted the privilege to several hundred eunuchs and then repeatedly decreed that they present horses, gathering a stock for the front; and when the two Zhe provinces suffered disaster he urged the remission of the tribute fees paid to the inner treasury by the monopoly households who supplied the court, abolishing an evil precedent invented by the treasury eunuchs of the Ming.

Personal Relations

• Wei Zhao: elder brother; received a post as chiliarch in the Embroidered Uniform Guard
• Wei Liangqing: nephew; received exceptionally high noble titles up to the ducal and marquis ranks
• Hou Guoxing: son of Lady Ke; received a post as chiliarch in the Embroidered Uniform Guard
• Lady Ke: wet nurse of the Tianqi Emperor and political ally
• Wang Tigan: chief eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial and supporter
• Li Yongzhen, Shi Yuanya, Tu Wenfu: eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial and supporters
• Wei Guangwei: Grand Secretary and central member of Wei's faction
• Gu Bingqian: Grand Secretary and central member of Wei's faction
• Cui Chengxiu: censor and central member of Wei's faction
• Wang Shaohui: compiler of the Dianjiang Lu and central member of Wei's faction
• Xu Xianchun: officer controlling the Northern Pacification Office and factional enforcer
• Tian Ergeng: commander in the Embroidered Uniform Guard and factional enforcer
• Sun Xian: eunuch to whom Wei was attached after entering the palace
• Wei Chao: eunuch whom Wei associated with early in his career
• Wang An: Bingbi Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial who treated Wei well early in his career but was later killed through Wei's actions
• Yang Lian: Vice Censor-in-Chief who memorialized twenty-four major accusations against Wei
• Zuo Guangdou: censor and Donglin leader
• Wei Dazhong: Supervising Secretary and Donglin member
• Gao Panlong: Censor-in-Chief and Donglin leader
• Zhao Nanxing: Minister of Personnel and Donglin leader
• Ye Xianggao: Grand Secretary forced to retire
• Han Kuang: Grand Secretary forced to retire
• Zhou Zongjian: censor who repeatedly impeached Wei
• Liu Zongzhou: Ministry of Justice official who was the first to impeach him
• Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao: emperor who trusted and promoted Wei
• Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian: emperor who purged Wei after ascending the throne

Historical Assessment

Ming and Contemporary Assessments

• The History of Ming described Wei Zhongxian as illiterate but possessing a strong memory, suspicious and cruel in temperament, and fond of flattery.
• Yang Lian's memorial accused Wei of twenty-four great crimes and described his offenses as beyond enumeration, charging him with monopolizing rewards and punishments and throwing court government into disorder.
• During the purge, the Chongzhen Emperor condemned Wei for usurping power, harming upright officials, and committing grave crimes.

Early to Mid-Qing Assessments

• The Qing-compiled History of Ming argued that the catastrophe of Ming eunuch politics was severe but also depended on scholar-officials who attached themselves to and supported eunuchs such as Wei.
• Gu Yingtai's Major Events in Ming History condemned Wei for exercising power from the low status of a castrated servant and argued that even extreme punishment could not atone for the harm he caused.
• Zha Jizuo's Zuiwei Lu described Wei as a eunuch who seized power and polluted government, leaving a lasting evil reputation after death.

Late Qing and Republican Period

• Cai Dongfan's historical novel on the Ming ranked Wei first among the “four great powerful eunuchs” and depicted him as more vicious and cunning than Wang Zhen, Wang Zhi, or Liu Jin.
• Meng Sen's lectures on Ming and Qing history interpreted Wei's dictatorship as a concentrated expression of late-Ming political corruption, rooted in the Tianqi Emperor's neglect of government and the factional struggles of scholar-officials.

Modern Period

• Gu Cheng's study of the late-Ming peasant wars argued that Wei's domination contributed to fiscal collapse, military-pay arrears, and growing disorder and was an important factor in the weakening of the Ming state.
• The source attributes to Frederick W. Mote, in The Cambridge History of China: The Ming Dynasty, the judgment that Wei was one of the most infamous eunuchs in Chinese history and that his domination worsened the Ming political crisis.
• Later historians generally interpret the Wei Zhongxian crisis not only as the result of individual character but also as a product of Ming eunuch institutions and highly centralized imperial power.