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Jiajing Emperor
Birth and death:	16 September 1507–23 January 1567
Family name:	Zhu (朱)
Given name:	Houcong (厚熜)
Dates of reign:	May 27, 1521–23 January 1567
Dynasty:	Ming (明)
Era name:	Jiajing (嘉靖)
Era dates:	28 January 1522–8 February 1567
Temple name:	Shizong (世宗)
Posthumous name: (short)	Emperor Su (肅皇帝)
Posthumous name: (full)	Emperor Qintian Lüdao Yingyi Shengshen Xuanwen Guangwu Hongren Daxiao Su 欽天履道英毅聖神宣文廣武洪仁 大孝肅皇帝
General note: Dates given here are in the Julian calendar. They are not in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.

The Jiajing (or Chia-ching) Emperor (September 16, 1507–January 23, 1567) was Emperor of China from 1521 to 1567, the 11th emperor of the Ming dynasty. Born Zhu Houcong, he was the Zhengde Emperor's cousin.

As the nephew of the Hongzhi Emperor, Jiaqing was not brought up to succeed to the throne. However, the throne became vacant in 1521 with the sudden death of the Hongzhi Emperor's son, Emperor Zhengde, who did not leave an heir. The 14 year old Jiajing was chosen to become emperor, and so relocated from his father's fief to Beijing.

Custom dictated that an emperor who was not an immediate descendant of the previous one should be adopted by the previous one, to maintain an unbroken line. Such a posthumous adoption of Zhu Houcong by Emperor Zhengde was proposed, but he resisted, preferring instead to have his father declared emperor posthumously. This conflict is known as "The Great Rites Controversy." The Jiajing Emperor prevailed, and several of his opponents were banished or executed.^[1] Among the banished was the great Ming poet Yang Shen.

The Jiajing Emperor 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. Ignoring state affairs, Jiajing employed incapable individuals such as Zhang Cong and Yan Song, on whom he thoroughly relied to handle affairs of state. Loyal individuals such as Hai Rui and Yang Xusheng were dismissed or executed. He also 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.

Jiajing's ruthlessness also led to an internal plot by his concubines to assassinate him in October, 1542 by strangling him while he slept. The plot was ultimately foiled. All of the concubines involved, as well as their families, were summarily executed.

The Ming dynasty had enjoyed a long period of peace, but in 1542 the Mongol leader Altan Khan began to harass China along the northern border. In 1550 he even reached the suburbs of Beijing. Eventually the empire appeased him by granting special trading rights. The empire also had to deal with Japanese pirates attacking the southeastern coastline;^[2] general Qi Jiguang was instrumental in defeating these pirates.

Starting in 1550, Beijing was enlarged by adding the "Outer" or "Chinese City".^[3]

The deadliest earthquake of all times, the Shaanxi earthquake of 1556 that killed over 800,000 people, occurred during the Jiajing Emperor's reign.

He was a devote follower of Taoism and attempted to suppress Buddhism. He built the three Taoist temples Temple of Sun, Temple of Earth and Temple of Moon and extended the Temple of Heaven by adding the Earthly Mount. Over the years, Jiaqing's devotion to Taoism was to become a heavy financial burden for the empire and create dissent across the country.

Particularly during his later years, Jiajing was known for spending a great deal of time on alchemy 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.

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, the Longqing Emperor. Though his long rule gave the dynasty an era of stability, Jiajing's neglect of his official duties 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.

1. ^ Invasion of the great green algae monster, Salon.com, 25 June 2007
2. ^ "China > History > The Ming dynasty > Political history > The dynastic succession", Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007
3. ^ "Beijing." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007.