Entry
Wan-li: Year 11, Month 12, Day 22
3 Feb 1584
Zhang Ding-si, a supervising secretary in the Office of Scrutiny for War, and others advised: "The Mang chieftain and his son forcibly occupied Pegu and have swallowed up land and yi. The various pacification commissions and superintendencies have given their allegiance to Mang and have acted as guides. This has been going on for quite some time. The various local officials have fomented rebellion and fostered banditry. We sent envoys to spy but they took with them rich silks. This bandit did not seek to have contact with us, and rather we first sought to have contact with the bandit. In the bamboo-leaf letter there was no indication of tribute intentions and yet there was a rash proposal that we reward him. The rewards were refused. Despite this, it was claimed that he had submitted goods in tribute. This is a crime of deception. How can guilt be shirked! It is requested that those involved be separately subject to punishment." As the officials had hindered matters and had deceived superiors, the Emperor ordered that the Regional Inspector Liu Wei and the Vice Commissioner Hu Xin-de be dismissed from their posts and reduced to commoners, that the Grand Coordinator Rao Ren-kan be deprived of his headwear and belt, that the Qian-guo Duke Mu Chang-zuo be required to make efforts to realize achievements in order to atone for his crime, that the surveillance commissioner Wei Ti-ming be fined half a year's salary and that the Military Commissioner Zhao Qiong be subject to interrogation and the results memorialized. As the provincial administration commissioner Tao Cheng-xue had already retired, he was exempted from investigation.
Shen-zong: juan 144.6a-b
Zhong-yang Yan-jiu yuan Ming Shi-lu, volume 102, page 2689/90
Preferred form of citation for this entry:
Geoff Wade, translator, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an open access resource, Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/reign/wan-li/year-11-month-12-day-22, accessed January 22, 2019