Again on the Big Etiquette Event during Jia Jing in Ming Dynasty

Previous studies on the Big Etiquette Event (Emperor Jia Jing suppressed those who objected to his idea and action to endorse as late emperor his father who had been son of a concubine) have generally regarded it as conflicts between the cabinet power and emperor power, the reformative party and the conservative party, and ZHU Xin’s philosophy and Yangming’s philosophy. However, the respective discourses and behaviors of the Emperor and the then upstarts reveal that the Event resulted from rather different views about the Big Etiquette Event. From the perspective of the Emperor, his conflict with Queen Mother Zhang was the principal one arising from the Event and its afterwinds: his criterion for judging supporters and objectors lied in whether they catered for his willing to endorse his biological parents and whether he could go free from Queen Mother Zhang who adopted him. The afterwinds were well aware of the fact that the victory of the Event deprived Zhang’s due status but at the same time drove the Emperor into a moral embarrassment. They advocated that Zhang should have a higher position than the Emperor’s own parents. The school of the latter then received severe punishment.