Military pay was originally a special material for the army, and the court allocated it to train the army to serve the country. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Minister Han Wen (1441-1526) had a good story to tell about the military pay to save the country.
Han Wen was a descendant of Han Qi (1008-1075), a famous minister of the Song Dynasty. Han Wen’s name has another origin. According to the History of Ming Dynasty, on the day of Han Wen’s birth, his father had a dream in which he saw a man dressed in purple bringing Wen Yanbo (1006-1097), a famous minister of the Song Dynasty, to his house. When his father woke up from the dream, he named his newborn son Han Wen.
Han Wen was smart and studious, and in the second year of Chenghua, he was admitted to the Imperial College and entered the civil service, where he became the minister of the Ministry of War and the minister of the Ministry of Household, equivalent to the minister of defense and the minister of finance today.
One year, Nanjing had a bad harvest and a famine, and food prices doubled and soared, so the people could not afford to buy rice. As the disaster became more and more serious, the price of food also became higher and higher.
At that time, Han Wen was the minister of military affairs, and he thought that if the price of food was allowed to rise, the people’s discontent would grow, and hunger might lead to fierce conflicts and even civil unrest, and then, even if the army could be called to quell the unrest, the people would still be harmed. The most urgent task is to stabilize the price of rice, eliminate the people’s anger, and provide benefits to the people in order to solve the current dilemma.
Han Wen came up with a brilliant plan, asking the Ministry of Finance to advance the military pay for three months! The military pay included silver money and grain and straw, which was the special material prepared by the court for the army. Han wanted to release the military pay in advance to effectively regulate the price of rice and provide relief to the people.
But military pay is a special material for the army and is not allowed to flow into the market, so the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs were in a difficult position and did not dare to do that. Han Wen said, “Relief is like putting out a fire. If the emperor blames me, I will bear the responsibility alone.”
So the Ministry of Household Affairs issued 160,000 koku of rice, and as a result, the price of rice quickly stabilized, stopping the potential civil unrest. As a result of this merit, Han Wen became the Minister of Household Affairs in the following year.
Han Wen was a kind and gentle person, cautious and modest, but when faced with important issues, he was firm and decisive and did not compromise easily. When Han Wen was the minister of household, he advocated cutting expenses, eliminating redundant staff, and cherishing money for the country. When Princess Chun’an was awarded 300 hectares of land, she wanted to take over the people’s property in Renqiu, but Han Wen argued strongly and stopped her.
Han Wen tried his best to control the power of sycophants. At that time, eight eunuchs led by Liu Jin, called “eight tigers”, persuaded the emperor to play with dogs and horses, to release eagles and rabbits, and to listen to songs and dances every day, so that the emperor was neglecting the imperial government.
Whenever Han Wen retired from the court, he often shed tears when he told his colleagues about these incidents. Li Mengyang (1472-1529), a minister of the court, said, “You are a minister of the court and have an obligation to rest with the state, what is the use of crying here?” He advised Han Wen to lead his ministers into the court and fight to the end to remove the “eight tigers”.
In the third year of Zhengde (1508), Han Wen took his ministers to the palace and submitted a petition to the emperor, stating the current shortcomings and requesting to punish the “eight tigers” who bewitched the king, and to clarify the punishment so that the eunuchs would not mislead the country in the future. The emperor read the medallion, shocked to tears, Liu Jin and other people were also terrified.
Liu Jin was jealous of Han Wen, and had his faults searched for, and pursued Han Wen’s crimes on the grounds that the country had fake silver in its inventory; the next year, he found an excuse to arrest Han Wen and his colleagues, and fined them rice Chin-shek, and only after a few months, they were released.
After Liu Jin was executed, Han Wen was reinstated to the court. After the reign of Emperor Shi Zong of Ming Dynasty (1507-1567), he sent special condolences to Han Wen, and made him the crown prince’s tutor, treating him with great respect.
Han Wen died in the fifth year of Jiajing at the age of 86, posthumously named Zhongding. Han Wen’s courage to speak out and take responsibility was praised by future generations, and his use of military funds to save the country left a good story.
References.
History of Ming Dynasty, Volume 186
The Complete Collection of Eight Virtues: Han Wen’s Relief of the Deserts, Volume 6
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