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Yan Song
Ming grand secretary from Fenyi who won the Jiajing emperor's trust with Daoist prayer texts, ran the cabinet with his son Yan Shifan and fell from power in 1562
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 Weizhong · Hao Jiexi
- Roles
- Chief Ministers
Yan Song, courtesy name Weizhong, came from Fenyi in Jiangxi; after gaining his jinshi in 1505 he went home on sick leave and studied for ten years at Mount Qian. As minister of rites he backed the Jiajing emperor's wish to honour his natural father, wrote Daoist prayer texts for him, and in 1542 entered the Grand Secretariat. From the execution of his rival Xia Yan in 1548 he led the cabinet for most of the next fourteen years, sharing control with his son Yan Shifan, while critics such as Yang Jisheng and Shen Lian were put to death. After the censor Zou Yinglong impeached Yan Shifan in 1562, the emperor ordered Yan Song to retire; his son was beheaded in 1565 and the family property confiscated. Yan Song ended his days lodging in a graveyard hut and died in 1567. The Ming History (Mingshi) places him among its treacherous ministers, and his poems and prose survive as the Qianshan Hall Collection.
Life and times
Dates 1480 CE–1567 CE