The Diligence and Integrity Chapter of Linchuan Culture | Tang Xianzu Petitions Against Corruption

In the spring of the nineteenth year of the Wanli reign (1591), Tang Xianzu submitted his “Memorial on the Grand Secretaries and Censors,” a renowned treatise on contemporary affairs and, at the time, a stirring denunciation of corruption that sent shockwaves throughout the court and the realm.
The origins of this story must be traced back to the era in which Tang Xianzu lived. From the Jiajing and Longqing reigns onward, the Ming dynasty faced internal strife and external threats, with the state treasury depleted and the people impoverished. Court officials vied for power, and the political situation steadily deteriorated. By the early years of the Wanli reign, the young Emperor Shenzong, Zhu Yijun, who had ascended the throne at the age of ten, saw a slight turn for the better during the decade when Empresses Dowager Chen and Li presided over affairs and Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng vigorously pursued reforms. Yet soon the tide turned: upon reaching adulthood, Shenzong, feeling constrained by the limits on his authority, came to regard them as stifling. Claiming that he had previously been deceived, he publicly denounced Zhang Juzheng’s alleged crimes after the latter’s death in the tenth year of Wanli, appointed mediocre and unscrupulous figures like Shen Shixing as grand secretaries, and grew increasingly indifferent to state business—so much so that, by the year Tang Xianzu submitted his memorial, the emperor had not attended court for many years. The imperial court remained utterly indifferent to the suffering of the people, while corruption among officials at all levels had become rampant—even Zhang Juzheng himself, during his lifetime, was far from known for frugality. Coupled with successive nationwide famines, the economy collapsed, and the populace endured unimaginable hardship. In one of his poems, Tang Xianzu recorded: “In the northwest, people have long been reduced to eating one another; for thousands of miles, there is no sign of smoke or life.” Across vast stretches of the northwest, ordinary folk struggled amid famine and plague, to the point where cannibalism became a grim reality. Even then, loyal ministers and righteous men were not lacking. For instance, Hai Rui, shortly after being promoted to Right Censor-in-Chief of Nanjing, presented a memorial to the emperor, urging the adoption of severe punishments to curb corrupt officials. Though his proposal fell like a boulder dropped into still water, it only drew ridicule from his peers, who accused Hai Rui of posing as a sage, deriding Confucius and Mencius, and despising the emperor. Meanwhile, Zhang Zhenguan, an inspector-general in the Ministry of War, submitted a petition after Taozhou in Shaanxi fell to the Huoluo tribe, calling for “the abolition of market rewards and greater emphasis on defense and combat.” Likewise, Wan Guoqin, an inspector-general of Shanxi, along with officials in Nanjing such as Cai Shiding, Zhang Shoucheng, and Liu Yingqiu, repeatedly impeached Grand Secretary Shen Shixing, exposing his widespread bribery, protection of private interests, and actions that misled the emperor and harmed the nation. Yet their efforts brought only misfortune; Wan Guoqin, for example, was demoted to Jianzhou (in Baoning, Sichuan). Tang Xianzu felt deep sympathy and indignation at the plight of this fellow provincial from Jiangxi. On his way to take up his post, passing through Nanjing, he composed a lengthy poem titled “To Magistrate Wan, Departing for Jianzhou, with a Gift Upon Passing Jinling.”

The immediate catalyst for Tang Xianzu’s submission of the memorial “On the Grand Secretaries and Censorial Officials” was, in fact, an imperial edict published in the official gazette on the fourteenth day of the intercalary third month of the nineteenth year of the Wanli reign. The edict stated that in early spring of the Xinmao year (1591), a comet appeared in the sky—an ominous sign heralding impending national calamity. It rebuked the censors, accusing them of habitually blaming the court for all faults, seeking to win popular favor and seize personal glory. They were said to seize upon hearsay to satirize the emperor and the ruling grand secretaries, peddle private agendas, deceive the sovereign, pursue selfish gain, and plot against the state. The edict further condemned them for failing to recognize “whose rank they hold and whose salary they receive.” When Tang Xianzu, stationed at the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing, read this perverse edict, he felt deeply weighed down. He knew full well that, though officially labeled an “imperial edict,” it was in reality a vehicle for voicing the views of Shen Shixing. The edict’s ostensible call for loyal, forthright counsel was but a smokescreen; its true purpose was to divert attention, forestall public scrutiny of Shen Shixing and his associates sparked by talk of the celestial phenomenon, and to preemptively control public opinion—thus safeguarding itself while striking at those who had slandered upright ministers.
Tang Xianzu was filled with righteous indignation. On the twenty-fifth night of the intercalary third month, as the spring chill cut through the air, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Since Emperor Shenzong reproached people for not speaking the truth, he resolved to lay bare all that was in his heart. He rose from his bed, spread out a sheet of paper, ground his inkstone, and, by the light of the candle, began to write furiously.
At the outset of his memorial, after setting forth his general views on the chief ministers and the censors and stating the purpose of his address, he proceeded to lay bare his own opinion, sharply and incisively pointing out that the chief minister Shen Shixing and his faction were secretly scheming to usurp power: “The emperor’s authority and prerogatives have been quietly transferred into the hands of the chief minister Shen Shixing; accordingly, the sentiments of the censors—whether for or against—are entirely at his disposal.”
Subsequently, Tang Xianzu offered a penetrating analysis of the underlying causes, citing the recent cases in which censors such as Ding Cilü, Wan Guoqin, and Li Yongzhong, in their “single‑voiced loyalty,” exposed corruption in the imperial examinations, deceit in frontier garrisons, and the practice of fraudulent registration—only to suffer retaliation at the hands of Shen Shixing and his faction. Fearing the loss of wealth and prestige, the officials of the censorate were compelled to “muffle their voices and curb their indignation,” thereby allowing Shen Shixing and his cohorts to commit one offense after another without so much as a single impeachment. Among the censors and inspectors, there were those who lacked integrity, believing that the emperor could not reward the loyal and upright, while failing to recognize that all their daily gains ultimately derived from the emperor’s grants of rank and emoluments. He even challenged the Emperor Shenzong: if the sovereign could ensure that the upright and just never lost their prosperity, who would then dare to serve the corrupt and unrighteous? And if the emperor were to deny the corrupt and unscrupulous any share of fortune, who in the realm would not strive to be honest and upright?


The more Tang Xianzu wrote, the more agitated he became, his indignation at the corruption and moral decay of the political scene at the time reaching a boiling point. Disregarding his own safety, he turned his sharp criticism once again against Yang Wenju and others—trusted associates of Shen Shixing who were notorious and had been branded as part of the “Eight Dogs and Three Rams.”
His writing is incisive and vivid, painting a striking portrait of the corrupt and lawless bureaucratic world of the feudal era. Yang Wenju, dispatched to Jiangnan to oversee famine relief, was greedy for money and covetous of every kind of gain; he indulged in extravagant pleasures and decadent luxuries, while in office he openly peddled official appointments, rigged criminal cases, deceived superiors and misled subordinates, and fooled the common people. Yet, according to the Ministry of Personnel’s evaluation records, this man—utterly indifferent to the plight of the people and the nation’s interests, guilty of countless misdeeds, and brazenly rampant—was deemed a good official. This stark contradiction reveals the emperor’s incompetence and the pervasive darkness of society at the time. During the Wanli reign, a popular folk song went: “If you wish for peace and prosperity, banish the eight dogs and the three rams.” Tang Xianzu’s memorial likewise voiced the will of the people.
Tang Xianzu also scornfully cited another corrupt official, Hu Runing. Both Hu Runing and Rao Shen were natives of Jinxian County in Jiangxi. Rao Shen was an upright official who, in his day, had publicly censured the Right Junior Secretary Huang Hongxian for colluding with influential patrons to secure the admission of candidates whose essays were substandard. Yet, in order to advance his own career, Hu Runing did not hesitate to denounce Rao Shen, thereby framing this fellow townsman. Skilled in flattery and sycophancy, he once submitted a memorial during a drought, calling for a ban on catching toads, claiming that only such a measure could move Heaven. And yet, it was precisely such a despicable petty man who ended up being lavishly favored and promoted.
Finally, Tang Xianzu candidly observed that during the Shenzong Emperor’s twenty-year reign, “in the first decade, Zhang Juzheng, though firm and ambitious, was undermined by a clique of private interests; in the second decade, Shi Xing, though mild and equally ambitious, likewise succumbed to the corrosive influence of such cliques.” He earnestly urged the emperor to make wise use of his authority over “titles and salaries,” “talent,” and “legal institutions” in order to usher in an era of great achievement. He further implored the emperor to issue a special edict to Shen Shixing, calling for him to “seize the opportunity presented by the celestial warnings, engage in profound self‑examination and repentance, and make amends through meritorious service.” Moreover, he petitioned that officials such as Yang Wenju and Hu Runing be removed from office and replaced with well‑known figures of integrity, so as to restore proper moral standards.

After Tang Xianzu’s memorial was submitted, the shock it sent through the imperial court was no less profound than that of celestial omens; yet whereas the latter was accompanied by superstition and ignorance, the former carried with it a chilling aura of righteous integrity. Honest officials wholeheartedly endorsed it, believing that Tang Xianzu had voiced what they themselves wished to say but dared not. By contrast, the corrupt and sycophantic despised him with bitter hatred. Wang Zunxun, an inspector-general of the Ministry of Revenue, was the first to leap to the fore, slandering Tang Xianzu on the grounds that his petition stemmed from his being assigned to a minor post, left unused and thus harboring resentment. On the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month, Tang Xianzu was summoned before the emperor and subjected to stern reprimands from Emperor Shenzong. Even more absurd and laughable was the fact that in his edict, Zhu Yijun actually sought to reassure the senior ministers, declaring, “There is no need to take such idle rumors to heart.” Thereafter, Yang, Hu, and others proceeded to defend themselves with brazen impunity and launch a frenzied counterattack.
The imperial court was mired in darkness, and loyal ministers bore their grievances in silence. On the sixteenth day of the fifth month, Tang Xianzu was demoted to the post of magistrate of Xuweng County in Guangdong. Yet even so, the influence of his memorial, “On the Ministers and Censors,” had already shaken the very foundations of the corrupt officials. In the sixth month of that year, Yang Wenju retired on grounds of illness; two years later, in the twenty-first year of the Wanli reign, both Yang Wenju and Hu Runing were stripped of their offices and reduced to commoners. Following a series of censures by the censorial officials, Shen Shixing was likewise forced to resign that same year.