Cheng Minzheng

Life

Cheng Xin was his father; his great-grandfather was Cheng Dushou, his grandfather Cheng Sheng, and his mother was surnamed Lin. He married a daughter of Li Xian; his younger brothers were Cheng Minde and Cheng Minxing, and his son was Cheng Xun.

As a child, he accompanied his father to Sichuan. The Sichuan governor Luo Qi recommended him as a child prodigy, and after the Yingzong Emperor summoned him for examination, he was ordered to study at the Hanlin Academy. His early examination record also lists him as a licentiate and a provincial recommended candidate. In 1462 he placed second in the Shuntian provincial examination; in 1466 he passed as the second-ranked candidate in the first class, the bangyan, and was appointed a Hanlin compiler.

While serving as a compiler, he participated in the compilation of the *Da Ming yitong zhi* and *Hongwu zhengyun*. When the *Xu Tongjian gangmu* was completed in 1476, he was promoted the following year to Left Admonisher in the Left Spring Office.

By 1487 he had been promoted to Junior Administrator of the Directorate of the Heir Apparent, concurrently serving as an Academician Lecturer, and he also took charge of the academy. He was impeached and forced into retirement in the tenth month of the first Hongzhi year. At the opening of the 1488 court lectures, he lectured in the rear hall of the Palace of Literary Brilliance on the *Book of Documents*, the *Mencius*, and the *Extended Meaning of the Great Learning*; after the lecture, the emperor addressed the lecturers as “先生,” and in the seventh month Cheng received a gold-woven crimson robe, a gold belt, a black gauze cap, and black boots.

He was cleared in 1492 and returned to Beijing the following year, resuming his former offices and the court lectures. His later offices included Grand Court卿, Director of the Directorate of the Heir Apparent, Vice Minister of Personnel, and Academician Reader; he ultimately became Vice Minister of Rites and also served in the imperial lecture corps. His career was marked by repeated impeachments and two forced retirements.

Scholarship and writings

Cheng was known for the breadth of his learning; a contemporary saying paired “Cheng Minzheng for breadth of learning” with “Li Dongyang for the finest prose.”

Examination case and posthumous status

In 1499, Cheng presided over the metropolitan examination and greatly admired Tang Yin’s provincial-examination essays. Rumors that Xu Jing, a wealthy candidate from Jiangyin who was sitting with Tang Yin, had bribed Cheng’s household servant to obtain the examination questions led Hu Chang to impeach Cheng on suspicion that he had leaked them in advance; Cheng, Xu Jing, and Tang Yin were imprisoned. The case generated competing accounts: one said that Xu had bribed the servant and that Hu therefore brought the impeachment; Lin Tingyu, a co-examiner, listed six doubts concerning the setting, reading, and selection of the papers and sought Hu’s release; Li Dongyang’s re-examination found that the papers Cheng had praised were not those of Tang and Xu; the Zhenfu Office judged the prison depositions of Hu and Xu contradictory and the truth difficult to determine; another interpretation attributed the impeachment to Fu Han’s attempt to bring Cheng down. Cheng was ultimately dismissed and sent home, developed an abscess several days later, and died; he was posthumously honored as Minister of Rites.

His works include *Xin’an wenxian zhi* (新安文獻志), *Ming wenheng* (明文衡), and *Huangdun ji* (篁墩集); the titles *Huangdun wenji* (篁墩文集) and *Huangdun zhengxu ji* (篁墩正續集) also occur, and a 93-juan *Huangdun ji* is attested. Other works include *Daoyi bian* (道一編), *Qingzhou ji* (晴洲集), and *Rongxuan gao* (容軒稿). The *Huangdun ji* contains abundant poetry: one assessment praised its best pieces as worthy of a leading author of the period, while faulting the collection for diffuseness and insufficient pruning.