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Huang Zicheng
Early Ming official, top candidate of the 1385 metropolitan examination, who with Qi Tai urged the Jianwen emperor to cut down the princes' fiefs and was executed by Zhu Di after Nanjing fell
In a council hall, a long table holds an unrolled map scroll, a brass-cornered chest and a brush pot, with tall-backed chairs around it and a bronze lamp at the left; a figure stands with their back turned on the balcony at the right, with palace roofs beyond.
Also known as Ming Shi · Zi Zicheng
- Roles
- Chief Ministers
Huang Zicheng, given name Shi, came from Fenyi in Jiangxi. He placed first in the metropolitan examination of 1385 and third in the palace examination, entered the Hanlin Academy, rose to chief minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. Asked by the imperial grandson Zhu Yunwen at the Eastern Corner Gate how to handle his uncles' armies, he cited Emperor Jing of Han crushing the Seven States. Once Zhu Yunwen reigned as the Jianwen emperor, Huang and the war minister Qi Tai led the removal of the princes of Zhou, Xiang, Qi, Dai and Min, and the Prince of Yan, Zhu Di, rebelled in the name of punishing them. Huang's choice of Li Jinglong to replace Geng Bingwen as commander proved disastrous. When Yan forces crossed the Yangzi in 1402 he was raising troops in Suzhou; captured, he refused to submit and was executed by slicing, and his kin were killed with him. The Southern Ming and the Qianlong emperor each granted him posthumous names.
Life and times
Dates 1350 CE–1402 CE