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Chapter 10 On 29 January 1443, one year before his death, Yang Shiqi
楊士奇 (1365–1444), the leading grand secretary at the Ming
Fashioning the Imperial imperial court, wrote a preface for his completed Record of

Imperial Pronouncements of Three Reigns (Sanchao shengyu lu 三朝
Legacy: Yang Shiqi and 聖諭錄). He cited his old age – he was 78 sui (77 years of age)
1
– and he referred to his decades of service to the throne. He
the Record of Imperial was, he explained, one of the first to answer the call in 1402
to serve the Yongle 永樂 emperor (r. 1403–24) upon his
Pronouncements accession, ‘correcting the great succession’ (zheng datong 正大統)
after usurping the throne from his nephew, the Jianwen 建文
emperor (r. 1399–1402). In his preface, Yang posed a
Peter Ditmanson rhetorical questioning of his own compilation: should the
secrets of the court be preserved in a private work?
The question indicates Yang’s recognition that this kind
of record, an account of things that emperors had said to
him, was not the norm, and that he had done something new
in his day. ‘In reply’, he explained, ‘I say that my fear is that
the bountiful splendour of my sovereigns might vanish. Why
should I have other concerns?’ And he argued that there
were precedents for this kind of work, harking back to the
11th-century Song dynasty statesmen Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修
(1007–72) and Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–86), who had
produced similar works: Ouyang’s Record of Memorials on
Affairs (Zoushi lu 奏事錄), and the Debates on [the Prince of] Pu
(Pu yi 濮議) and Sima Guang’s Records by Hand (Shoulu 手錄).
These accounts, claimed Yang, had ‘recorded the
interactions between ruler and ministers at that time,
comprehensively and in detail, such that they reflect an era
of a brilliant and capable match between them’. Such
compilations, then, created a moral mirror for reflection on
the personal dynamics that make effective governance
possible and explain the virtue of his own compilation. ‘And
so in what I have recorded, there is sagely virtue, there is
sagely admonition, and there is special favour. I only fear
that I have not recorded the details. Why should I have other
concerns?’
Official records of the pronouncements of these emperors
had already been compiled. The Ming Veritable Records (Ming
shilu 明實錄), a large bureaucratic aggregate account of
edicts, memorials and events, had been compiled for the
Yongle and Hongxi emperors in February of 1430, under the
supervision of Yang Shiqi and others. The Veritable Record of
the Xuande emperor was compiled in May of 1438, also
under Yang. These records were for consultation only by the
emperor and the top officials of the bureaucracy, the grand
secretaries and Hanlin officials, and these materials did not
circulate further. One set were stored in a special stone
chamber built for this purpose, while another was kept in the
library of the Grand Secretariat (Neige 内閣).
2
Along with the Veritable Records, for each emperor the court
produced a collection of Precious Admonitions (baoxun 寳訓),
composed of pronouncements of the ruler on important
subjects of significant political or philosophical import. The
term Precious Admonitions can be traced back to ancient times,
but in the early Ming, the inspiration to compile this record
was the iconic Governing Essentials of the Zhenguan Reign
(Zhenguan zhengyao, 貞觀政要) of Tang Taizong 唐太宗
(r. 627–49). From the Yongle reign onwards, the Precious
3
Admonitions were produced and presented at court in tandem
with the Veritable Records. And like the Veritable Records, the

94 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450