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May 27, 1521
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23 January , 1567
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Ming (明)
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Houcong (厚熜)
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Shizong (世宗)
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Emperor Su (肅皇帝)
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Jiajing (嘉靖)
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The (
September 16 ,
1507 –
January 23 ,
1567 ) was the 11th
Emperor Of China (
Ming Dynasty ) between
1521 -
1567 . Born '''Zhu Houcong''', he was the
Zhengde Emperor 's cousin.
Jiaqing was never brought up to succeed the throne but was rather the nephew of the
Hongzhi Emperor . The throne became vacant with the sudden death of Emperor Zhengde in 1521 and the 14 year old Jiajing was eventually chosen to become emperor and relocated from his father's fief to Beijing.
From the beginning of Jiaqing's reign, he was infatuated with young women and
Taoist pursuits. He was known to be a cruel and self-aggrandizing emperor and he also chose to reside outside of the
Forbidden City in Beijing so he could live in isolation while ignoring state affairs. Jiaqing employed incapable individuals such as
Zhang Cong and
Yan Gao , on whom he thorougly relied to handle affairs of state. He abandoned the practice of seeing his ministers altogether from
1539 onwards and for a period of almost 25 years refused to give official audiences, choosing instead to relay his wishes through eunuchs and officials. This eventually led to corruption at all levels of the Ming government. Jiaqing's ruthlessness also led to an internal plot by his concubines to assassinate him in
1542 by strangling him while he slept. The plot was ultimately foiled and all of the concubines involved were summarily executed.
Particularly during his later years, Jiajing was known for spending a great deal of time on Taoist pursuits in hopes of finding medicines to prolong his life. He would forcibly recruit young girls in their early teens and engaged in sexual activities in hopes of empowering himself, along with the consumption of potent elixirs. He employed Taoist priests to collect rare minerals from all over the country to create elixirs, including elixirs containing mercury, which inevitably posed health problems at high doses. Over the years, Jiaqing's mad devotion to Taoism was to become a heavy financial burden for the empire and create dissent across the country.
After 45 years on the throne (the second longest reign in the Ming dynasty), Emperor Jiajing died in 1567–possibly due to mercury overdose–and was succeeded by his son. Though his long rule gave the dynasty an era of stability, Jiajing neglected his official duties which resulted in the decline of the dynasty at the end of the 16th century. His style of governing or for that matter the lack thereof would be emulated by his grandson later in the century.
