A Study On Zhu Yuanzhang's Imperial Thought

ZiShi Tongxun is a book about folk custom and the way of running a country written by ZhuYuanzhang in February of the eighth year of Hongwu.In this book,Zhu Yuanzhang elaborated his orientations,opinions and expectations about every stratum of society including the monarch,subjects,gentry,peasants,artisans,merchant,Buddhists and Taoists,and their functions in the book which concentrates his political view,social view and his understanding of humanity.Moreover,this book reflects his thought of social governance and ideal social blueprint.It is an important literature for us to research Zhu Yuanzhang's related thoughts.In this book,Zhu Yuanzhang prescribed political roles which correspond to the stratum including monarch and subjects.In his view,the emperor should play dual roles as sovereign and teacher.To solve the contradiction between revolution and moral orders and demonstrate the paradox between self-legitimacy and the prohibition of subjects' rebellion,Zhu Yuanzhang put forward “God would not favor the leader of the revolt”.Besides,he combined Confucian belief in manifest destiny with Taoist thought,and held that “the chosen one rules the world”.As for subjects,he believed that officials should be selfless to serve the country and be the emperor's tool for educating and raising people because they always gained support from monarch and common people.When it comes to social management thought,Zhu Yuanzhang advanced the theory “raising people by laws” and thought that “if there was not a emperor,the society would be disordered”,so he established five penalties and five teachings to maintain social stability and nurture subjects.Subjects should show gratitude by ways including responding positively to the call of monarch,practicing ethics,bearing the taxes and corvee,and complying with their duties,since the monarch had the grace of rebirth to them.Then,Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated the functions and positions of gentry,peasants,artisans,merchant,Buddhists and Taoists.To better govern “fools”,with the help of Buddhism,Taoism,spirits and other beliefs,Zhu Yuanzhang used the method of “The Instructing According to the Sacred Way” to alert subjects.In addition,to strength the control of the society,Zhu Yuanzhang also encouraged the accusation of the lawbreakers,and he even made laws that ne.These measures reflect that Zhu Yuanzhang's partiality for the management style of terroristic means and his dependence on it.Moreover,through understanding the chapters of Yu Chi Zhang and Zao Yan Zhang in Zi Shi Tong Xun and combining with relevant historical materials,this paper analyzes Zhu Yuanzhang's knowledge of humanity.In Zhu Yuanzhang's view,“human is foolish” and thought that people did something evil because of their private interest.The private interest and public interest could not exist simultaneously,and if there is more private interest,there will be less public interest.So he thought that private interests were the root of all evils,and people were selfish because they had desires.Every man has his desires.Gentlemen can take measures to control it through “thinking” and establish correct concept of honor and disgrace and ideal pursuit,which is called “ambition”,but the foolish villain indulges their own desires.So there must be gentlemen to govern the foolish and enter an era of peace and order.This paper argues that Zhu Yuanzhang's imperial thought is deeply influenced by the political culture of his era,and he is good at using a variety of ideological resources to serve for the building of imperial politic and social control thought.His discourse systems,mode of thinking and political ideals which are accompanied by his distinctive personal characteristics,all come from the traditional political culture.The promulgation of Zi Shi Tong Xun reflects Zhu Yuanzhang's social management thought that he consciously stands in the emperor's position to control the society through the nation and takes others as tools,and his statism values that he judges the value of others by their value to the country.Zhu Yuanzhang's political thoughts of imperial power formed by traditional political culture as resources and social management thoughts deeply affected the following Chinese political culture.They had great influence on the political culture of Ming and Qing Dynasty,and later scholar-bureaucrats and emperors treated them as standards.