1449 Resurrected: Invocations of the Tumu Crisis in Ming Political Discourse, 1517–1518.
The Tumu Crisis of 1449 was consequential for the developmental trajectory of the Ming court in almost every domain. Studies have shown that militarily, the Ming actively pursued defensive retrenchment thereafter; politically, Tumu provided incontrovertible evidence that martial modes of rulership w...
| Publicado en: | Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies Vol. 71; no. 2; pp. 371 - 397 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Dec2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | The Tumu Crisis of 1449 was consequential for the developmental trajectory of the Ming court in almost every domain. Studies have shown that militarily, the Ming actively pursued defensive retrenchment thereafter; politically, Tumu provided incontrovertible evidence that martial modes of rulership were no longer legitimate. This article is interested in a domain of life in the Ming court that Tumu shaped, but which has received less attention: rhetoric. It offers a close study of invocations of the Tumu Crisis in early 16th century Ming political discourse, specifically in the years 1517–1518, when the peripatetic Zhengde emperor (r. 1506–1521) embarked on several controversial tours of the northern frontier. The article argues that Ming officials leveraged the memory of Tumu in an attempt to persuade Zhengde to conform to post-1449 modes of Ming rulership and, further, that Tumu should not only be viewed as a traumatic artifact of history but also as a rhetorical device. It concludes by positioning the Tumu Crisis as an integral part of Ming political culture more broadly. 1449年的土木之變對明朝宮廷在各個領域里的發展軌跡產生了深遠影響。一般認為，明朝宮廷在軍事上因土木事件而積極實施了內線防禦政策；政治上，土木之變為明廷群臣提供了武力統治已非合理的不可爭辯的證據。其實，土木之變對明廷政治文化也產生不可磨滅的影響，這一點從當時的宮廷論戰中就可見一斑。本文將探討明朝群臣在十六世紀政治辯論中對土木之變的幾次引述，特別是以喜愛巡遊的正德皇帝從1517到1518年數次北巡為時間範圍。本文認為，明廷群臣利用土木事件力勸正德皇帝遵從土木之後逐漸形成的統治方式，因此，土木之變不僅應當被視為一個慘重的歷史事件，而且也應當被視為一個論戰工具。最後，從更廣泛的歷史視角來看，本文認為土木之變是明代政治文化的一個重要組成部分。 |
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