Ministers › Chief Ministers
Xu Youzhen
Ming official who urged flight south after the Tumu disaster, later sealed the Yellow River breach at Shawan, and helped return the captive-turned-retired emperor to the throne in 1457
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 Zi Yuanyu
- Roles
- Chief Ministers
Xu Youzhen, originally named Xu Cheng, courtesy name Yuanyu, came from Wu county and passed the jinshi in 1433. When the Oirats captured the Zhengtong emperor at Tumu in 1449, he cited the stars and the calendar to argue for moving the capital south and was rebuked in open court by Yu Qian, after which he changed his name. Sent in the Jingtai years to close the breach at Shawan in Shandong, he cut the Guangji Canal and built the Tongyuan sluice, sealing a Yellow River gap that had stayed open for seven years. In 1457 he joined Shi Heng and Cao Jixiang in returning the deposed emperor to the throne, entered the Grand Secretariat and was made Earl of Wugong. He soon quarrelled with both men, was slandered, jailed and banished to Jinchi on the Yunnan frontier, and was allowed home only after Shi Heng's fall; he died in 1472. He left the Wugong Collection (Wugong ji), and the calligrapher Zhu Yunming was his daughter's son.
Life and times
Dates 1407 CE–1472 CE