Twice ToldVeritable Records of Emperor Xianzong, juan 166, Chenghua 13, 5th month, 10th day: the memorial that ended the Western Depot
- Language
- Chinese
- Reading
- OCR, checked against the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 6 October 2026
The long entry for the 10th day (bingzi) of the 5th month records the abolition of the Western Depot’s investigators. It copies a memorial from the grand secretary Shang Lu and three other scholars of the Grand Secretariat, summarises the emperor’s angry reaction and the interview that followed, and notes the emperor’s order. Below are three extracts: the opening, the paragraph that mentions the creature of the year before (printed pp. 3007 to 3008), and the emperor’s reply. Text from the Academia Sinica database, our punctuation. No page image was seen.
○罷西廠之緝事者。時太監汪直行事官校，勢益橫，公私騷擾，道路以目，臣亦皆惴惴不自安。內閣大學士商輅，學士萬安、劉珝、劉吉言：近日伺察太繁，法令太急，刑網太密，官校拘執職官，事皆出于風聞，暮夜搜撿家財，不見有無駕帖，人心洶洶，各懷疑畏。……
一、臣等切詳此等事情，非惟與治體相關，又與天道災異相關。何也？去歲七月以後，有妖物傷人，當時人言必有應驗。及立西廠，驚動人心，一如妖物傷人之時。以此觀之，天道豫先示儆，不可不慮。今汪直年幼，未諳世事，止憑韋瑛等主使呈報，中間固有一二似為禁革姦弊，柰非祖宗舊制，所革未多，其失人心則已甚矣。若不早為除革，一旦禍興，卒難消弭。伏望皇上斷自宸衷，革去西廠，罷黜汪直閒住，以全其身，將韋瑛、王英拏送法司，會同錦衣衞推問明白，治以重罪。如此則人心可安，天意可回矣。
……已而恩等復至，傳旨曰：「卿等所言良是。汪直壞事，朕實不知。今便革去西廠，散遣官校，卿等各安心辦事。」……翌日，兵部尚書項忠具奏草，會諸部院大臣共上之，奏留中不出。遂罷西廠，召恩數直罪而責之，退還本監，調韋瑛于邊衞差操，散諸旗校還錦衣衞。
Translation
The Western Depot’s investigators were abolished. At that time the eunuch Wang Zhi’s investigating officers and soldiers had become more overbearing, public and private life was disturbed, people on the roads looked at each other and said nothing, and even officials were anxious and uneasy. The grand secretary Shang Lu and the scholars Wan An, Liu Xu and Liu Ji said: Recently the watching has been too heavy, the laws too harsh, the net of punishment too tight. Officers arrest officials on hearsay alone, search household property at night, and show no warrant. People are in uproar and each one suspects and fears. […]
“One more point. We have considered all this closely, and it concerns not only government but also Heaven’s way and its disasters. Why? Last year, from the seventh month on, a monster hurt people, and people said at the time that it must foretell something. Then the Western Depot was set up and it alarmed people exactly as it did when the monster was hurting them. Seen this way, Heaven gave a warning in advance, and we cannot fail to think about it. Wang Zhi is young and knows little of the world; he relies only on Wei Ying and others to direct him and make his reports. Among them there are perhaps one or two things that look like stopping abuses, but they are not the ancestors’ old system, little has been put right, and the loss of people’s trust is already great. If it is not removed soon, then when trouble comes it will be hard to put out. We humbly hope that Your Majesty will decide for yourself to abolish the Western Depot, dismiss Wang Zhi to idle retirement so that he may be kept whole, and hand Wei Ying and Wang Ying to the legal officials to be questioned with the Embroidered Uniform Guard and punished severely. Then people’s hearts can be calmed and Heaven’s will turned back.”
[…] Presently [the eunuch] Huai’en and the others came again and conveyed the emperor’s words: “What you gentlemen say is quite right. Wang Zhi has done harm, and I truly did not know. I now abolish the Western Depot, send its officers and soldiers away, and you may all go back to your work with an easy mind.” […] The next day the minister of war, Xiang Zhong, drew up a memorial of his own, and all the ministers and offices submitted it together; it was kept inside the palace and not answered. Then the Western Depot was abolished. [The emperor] summoned Huai’en, listed Wang Zhi’s offences and rebuked Wang Zhi, sent Wang Zhi back to his own directorate, posted Wei Ying to a frontier garrison, and sent the officers and soldiers back to the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Notes
- The memorial is quoted inside the Shilu entry; it does not appear as a separate document. It is addressed to the emperor in the voice of the four ministers.
- 十日 is the database’s day number for the entry, whose heading is 丙子 (bingzi). Julian date: 20 June 1477 (Academia Sinica converter; the 5th month began on 11 June 1477). The Ming Shi annals give “5th month, bingzi: the grand secretary Shang Lu and the minister Xiang Zhong asked for the Western Depot to be abolished, and it was granted”, and name Xiang Zhong; the Shilu entry has Shang Lu’s memorial first and Xiang Zhong’s the next day.
- The ministers’ wording is “去歲七月以後” (“from the seventh month of last year on”), so they place the creature’s time in July 1476 and after.
- 妖物傷人 appears twice in the sentence. The ministers do not call the creature 黑眚.
- The Shilu says “the monster” (妖物) here and in all the entries we read; heisheng is the Ming Shi’s and the later writers’ name for it.
- Checked 2026-10-06 against the page images: the passage from 一、臣等切詳此等事情 to 卒難消弭 (file page 29) and from 已而恩等復至 to 散遣官校，卿等各安心辦事 and 遂罷西廠 to 還錦衣衞 (file page 31). They agree with the database text apart from variant character forms. The opening summary (罷西廠之緝事者 to 各懷疑畏) was not compared with the page.