A Chinese Biographical Dictionary/Chu I-chün
452 Chu I-chün 朱翊鈞. A.D. 1563-1620. Son of Chu Tsai-hou, whom he succeeded in 1572 as thirteenth Emperor of the Ming dynasty. His long reign ushered in the ruin of the dynasty. It opened well, his Minister Chang Chü-chêng ruling for the first ten years arbitrarily but well. In 1578 the population was returned at 60½ millions, and in 1580 the arable land was found to be over 106 million acres, an increase of 45 million acres in a century. The frontiers were kept at peace and even extended, and the country was very rich. The death of Chang left the Emperor free to indulge in sensualism and extravagance; and in 1599, the metropolitan treasuries being empty, provincial surpluses were annexed to provide Tls. 24,000,000 for the marriage of the Heir Apparent. For a quarter of a century before 1610, when one single public Court was held to celebrate the reconciliation of the Emperor with his heir, no one but eunuchs ever saw the sovereign. The Court was torn by several parties, half the offices were left vacant, memorials were not answered, and distress in the provinces went unrelieved. Meanwhile, the empire was harassed with special taxes, inquisitorially collected on petty household articles by eunuchs, to pay for mines, the proceeds of which went into the Privy Purse. The middle class were mostly ruined, and the people, finding life unendurable, took to brigandage. In 1583 Nurhachu appears in history, and before the end of the reign the Manchus had risen to power and were invading Korea and threatening Liao-yang, meeting with but a feeble resistance from the ill-paid soldiery and corrupt officers of the Mings. The Japanese invaded Korea in 1592; and when on the death of 平秀吉 P'ng Hsiu-chi they at last evacuated Fusan, China had lost incalculable sums and thousands of men. Aboriginal risings, Mongol incursions, Yellow River floods, droughts and famines, are recorded again and again; and the avaricious monarch left a ruined country to his feeble successors. Canonised as 神宗顯皇帝.