Page 98 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plate 9.1 Wine jar showing a man playing a
qin, Ming dynasty, 1436–49 (Zhengtong
reign), Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province.
Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue
decoration, height 35.6cm, diameter
39.4cm. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, 6840-1860

Prince of Ning 寧王 and Zhu Quan’s great-grandson, Artistic and imperial upbringing
launched from Nanchang. Judging from surviving works This strategic consumption was possible because he grew up
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and the known titles of destroyed treatises, however, Zhu as an artistic and scholarly man. Nurtured by an imperial
Quan wrote or finalised most of his writings after arriving father and educated by erudite teachers, he diligently and
at Nanchang in 1403 at the age of 26. Living an artistic and practically learned the craft of rulership. Having regularly
princely life there for 45 years, he produced a great deal; he participated in court, military and ritual exercises, the
obviously had all kinds of help from his artistic-cultural prince insightfully grasped artistic, intellectual and practical
partners and servants. facets of civil and military arts. By the time he was
As precocious as Zhu Quan was, he would hardly have dispatched, in 1393 at the age of 16, to preside at his assigned
figured as a mature producer and consumer of drama and princedom in Daning 大寧, in present-day Inner Mongolia,
music before his arrival in Nanchang. As a young and Zhu Quan operated as a young, versatile and well-informed
ambitious prince actively involved in military and political prince-general-artist-scholar. Supporting his overseeing of
affairs around the struggles for the Ming throne, he would not the princedom and furthering his artistic and intellectual
have had the erudition and time required to comprehensively education and pursuits was a critical group of scholar-
and effectively develop his artistic and scholarly enterprise. As officials, palace entertainers, servants and maids, in addition
described by Yao Pinwen, Zhu Quan’s Tongjian bolun 通鋻博論 to recruited commoner artists and craftsmen.
(A General Discussion of Dynastic Histories) and Han Tang mishi That Zhu Quan grew up amid music is attested by his
漢唐秘史 (A Secret History of the Han and Tang Dynasties) are palace poems, or gongci. Around the year 1408, Zhu wrote a
more educational and historical exercises than original and series of palace poems reflecting his experiences with music
substantive treatises. And as his reconstructed bibliography performed inside the palace. Poem 2 reports that orchestral
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shows, more than half of his writings address Daoist topics. music floated over palace halls and pavilions, and Poem 67
Only after 1403 did he become an active Daoist. notes how processional music accompanied movements of
Among Zhu Quan’s preserved works, three are now imperial dignitaries. Poem 4 notices how qin performers
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studied as historically significant works of Chinese drama, (Pl. 9.1) practised elegant music inside moonlit palace
literature and music; these are the Taihe zhengyinpu 太和正音譜 venues, while Poem 10 chronicles young palace maids
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(A Formulary of Correct Tones for a Period of Great Harmony, 1407), learning to sing ‘Picking Lotus’ and other womanly songs. In
the Shenqi mipu 神奇秘譜 (A Treasured Score of Celestial and a number of palace poems, Zhu Quan alludes to individual
Distinctive Qin Compositions, 1425) and a series of over 70 palace women playing the flute or pipa to enhance musically
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palace poems (c. 1408). Comprehensive and sophisticated in their feminine charm or lament their loneliness.
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content and scope, these writings illustrate early Ming The genre of gongci is distinctive within Chinese poetry for
performing arts and artistic living with a degree of detail highlighting imperial men’s impressions of palace women’s
that few other contemporary documents provide, rendering lives and sentiments. As a result, gongci ignores many other
it clear that Zhu Quan produced and consumed drama and types of palace musical performances. For example, Zhu
music expressively and strategically. Quan’s palace poems do not allude to musical performances

88 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450