Xu Jie

Life

Xu Jie studied diligently from childhood, passed the provincial examination as a young man, placed third in the palace examination in Jiajing 2 (1523), and was appointed a Hanlin compiler. In his youth he met Nie Bao, a member of the Jiangyou branch of Wang Yangming's school, and won the esteem of Yang Tinghe.

His opposition to Zhang Fu-jing—called Zhang Cong in another account—led to his demotion as a judge of Yanping Prefecture; one account further says that the Jiajing emperor had a stele made declaring, “Xu Jie is a petty man and will never be employed again.” He then spent more than a decade as a regional education inspector; with Xia Yan's assistance he returned to the capital, first serving in the Imperial College, where he became acquainted with Yang Jisheng and other remonstrating officials, and later moving through the Ministries of Rites and Personnel and the Hanlin Academy.

His subsequent appointments included an assistant judicial commissioner, an education commissioner, a vice commissioner in Jiangxi, and a palace attendant in the Directorate of the Heir Apparent; he also served as a Hanlin reader-lecturer, libationer of the Imperial College, vice minister in the Ministries of Rites and Personnel, Hanlin academician, and Minister of Rites. When receiving subordinate officials, he regularly asked about frontier and interior strategic concerns, administrative conditions, and the people's circumstances.

While serving in the Hanlin Academy, Xu Jie became acquainted with Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong, and other men who later became leading ministers. His skill in green-prose memorials brought him into the Wuyi Hall, and during the Gengxu crisis he was responsible for Beijing's defenses as Minister of Rites, delaying the enemy and protecting the capital. He also reformed abuses in the Ministries of Personnel and Rites and the Imperial Medical Academy in an effort to improve their efficiency.

When Yan Song was chief grand secretary, Xu Jie judged that he could not yet challenge him, so he outwardly served him cautiously and carefully managed the imperial Daoist rituals to accommodate the Jiajing emperor. He entered the Grand Secretariat in Jiajing 31 (1552), subsequently holding the posts of Grand Secretary of the Wenyuan and Wuying halls and concurrently serving as Minister of Personnel, while participating in state deliberations.

Xu Jie secretly memorialized the crimes of Qiu Luan, which led to Qiu's execution. In Jiajing 41, he had Zou Yinglong impeach Yan Song's son Yan Shifan; Yan Song was compelled to retire, and Xu Jie succeeded him as chief grand secretary. After the Jiajing emperor's death, Xu Jie drafted the succession edict, abolishing the abuses of Daoist rites and large-scale construction and restoring officials who had been punished for remonstrating. At the end of the Jiajing reign he also persuaded the emperor to abandon a proposed journey to Chengtian Prefecture and halt its construction projects, urged him to stop taking elixirs when he was gravely ill, and had the court's Daoist practitioners and the eunuchs allied with them put to death.

At the beginning of the Longqing reign, Xu Jie remained chief grand secretary, repeatedly mediating between the Muzong emperor and the outer court and memorializing against the expansion of eunuch power. He retired in Longqing 2 after being pressed aside by Gao Gong. He spent seventeen years in the Grand Secretariat, seven of them as first grand secretary, and more than forty years in public service.

After his retirement, wrongdoing by members of his household drew Xu Jie into repeated legal danger; he even wrote to friends for help, while Gao Gong and others challenged him over old cases. He died at his home in Huating in Wanli 11 (1583). His posthumous official honor is given variously as Grand Guardian or Grand Preceptor, while his posthumous name was Wenzhen.

Family and associations

Xu Jie's great-grandfather was Xu Gongxian and his grandfather was Xu Gongli. His younger brother Xu Zhi, whose courtesy name was Ziming, passed the Jiajing dingwei examination and served as Vice Minister of the Nanjing Ministry of Justice; his son was Xu Kun.

Political thought and assessment

In office, Xu Jie fostered political figures including Zhang Juzheng, sought to alter the place of the Grand Secretariat in the government, and proposed the “three phrases” program to improve its operation. He also used newly appointed officials to instruct eunuchs through moral principles, hoping that they would not become successors to figures such as Liu Jin.

His contemporaries praised him as an “eminent minister” and a “famous chief minister,” and Feng Menglong and others admired him. Modern scholars have differed over his career; one favorable assessment holds that, compared with his student Zhang Juzheng, Xu Jie was steadier and less attached to power. Zhi Dalun, by contrast, criticized his reliance on ornate green-prose memorials and his flattering conduct in office, arguing that his achievements appeared chiefly during the Longqing period. Other assessments attribute to Xu Jie the wrongful execution of the anti-piracy commander Zhang Jing, the death of Hu Zongxian in prison, and the later discord between Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng.

Works

Xu Jie is credited with the Shijing Hall Collection and the Shaohu Collection. The titles associated with him also include the fifty-volume Complete Shijing Hall Collection, the Continued Shijing Hall Collection, Xueze, the one-volume Xueze bian, the twenty-four-volume Baoxun of Xu Jie, Mengxun, the forty-volume Chengtian Gazetteer, Yue miao ji, and the one-volume Yue Wumu yiyi; the titles Shijing Hall Literary Collection and Shaohu Literary Collection are also found.