paper revising

C H A P T E R 1 The Late Ming

1 . 1 A N D 1 . 2 T W O A C C O U N T S O F T H E S u z ~ o u R I O T , 1 6 0 1

In the final decades o f the Ming dynasty, the throne relied heavily on eunuch advisors who won their prestige through thcir prescnce in the F o r - bidden City and impcrial patronage. T h e eunuchs wcrc dcspiscd by the scholar orficials of Peking w h o saw thcir growing powcr as illegitimate. T h e result o f this opposition was a series of factional battles in which eunuchs o u g h t to consolidate their position at the expcnsc o r thcir literati opponents while the scholars alrncd ar purging the court of eunuch influ- ence. Ultrmatcly, the eunuchs wcrc largely successful in obtaining thcir ends and continued t o play a powcrful role until the collapse of the Ming dynasty in 1644.

T h c t w o documcnts rranslatcd bclow trace thr consequences of eunuch cncroachmcnt within the ranks o ~ o f f i c i a l d o m in the context of a sct of riots and disturbances that occurred in Suzhou in 1601. T h e Wan11 Empcror (1563-1620) used e u n u c h commissioners to fulfill a varicry of official tasks and thcir corruption and vrnality reached scandalous propor- rions in a n u m b e r of celebrated cases.

W h c n the p o w c r h l eunuch S u n Long (d. July 2, 1601) was appointed to averrec the impcrial silk works in Suzhou, onc of the three factories that provided silk for the impcrial household and the state, h e abused his pow- ers in ways found intolerable by local silk workcrs.' T h e result was the set of popular disturbances in Suzhou that arc described here by the Ming

1. L. Carrington Goodrlch and Chaoying Fang, Dicrionory of Ming Bmgruphy. 1 1 W 1 6 4 4 ( N e w York: Colunnhia Unlvcrriry Prcss, 1976), pp. 405, 868.