Taichang Emperor

The Taichang Emperor (; 28 August 1582 – 26 September 1620), personal name Zhu Changluo, was the 15th emperor of the Ming dynasty. He was the eldest son of the Wanli Emperor and succeeded his father as emperor in 1620. However, his reign came to an abrupt end less than one month after his coronation when he was found dead one morning in the palace following a bout of diarrhea. He was succeeded by his son, Zhu Youjiao, who was enthroned as the Tianqi Emperor. His era name, "Taichang", means "grand prosperity." His reign was the shortest in Ming history. Early life Zhu Changluo was born in 1582, the 10th year of the Wanli era, to the Wanli Emperor and a palace attendant, Lady Wang, who served under the Emperor's mother, Empress Dowager Xiaoding. After it was discovered that Lady Wang was pregnant, the Emperor was persuaded by his mother to make her a concubine and awarded her the title "Consort Gong of the Second Grade" (恭妃). However she was never one of the Wanli Emperor's favourite consorts. After his birth, Zhu Changluo was largely ignored by his father even though he, as the firstborn son of the emperor, was by default the heir apparent (crown prince) according to the Ming dynasty's traditional rules of succession. He was born shortly after his elder sister, the Princess Rongchang; the Wanli Emperor's eldest child and only child with his primary wife Empress Xiaoduanxian. Zhu Changluo spent most of his life as a hapless pawn in a power struggle for the title of crown prince. The Wanli Emperor openly preferred naming Zhu Changxun, his younger son born to his favourite consort Noble Consort Zheng as crown prince over the seniority of Zhu Changluo, but his intention was met with vehement opposition by most of his Confucian-educated ministers who insisted that the Emperor adhered to dynastic traditions. Frustrated by the multiple petitions to install Zhu Changluo as crown prince, the Wanli Emperor decided to stonewall the issue and left the question of his designated heir in suspense. Some historians have suggested that the impasse on the selection of crown prince was part of the cause of the Wanli Emperor's withdrawal from daily government administration. Caught in this political limbo, Zhu Changluo was deliberately not assigned a regular tutor or given any systematic Confucian education even after he started school at the age of 13, an unusually late age for Ming princes to begin their education.