Zhu Wan

Zhu Wan (Chinese: 朱紈; September 29, 1494 – January 2, 1550),courtesy name Zichun (子純) and art name Qiuya (秋崖), was a Chinese general of the Ming dynasty. He was known for his uncompromising stance against the Jiajing wokou pirates (so named because they raided during the Jiajing era) and the gentry members who secretly supported them.

Zhu Wan was born in Changzhou (長洲), now a part of Suzhou, to the schoolteacher Zhu Ang (朱昂) and his concubine surnamed Shi (施). Throughout his upbringing, Zhu Wan and his mother were subject to various abuse by his father's principal wife and his half-brothers. The abuses started three days after he was born when they tried to starve him to death and lasted as late as 1546. His mother shielded him from the abuse when she could and once, an uncle and a cousin intervened to save him from death. Zhu Wan did not mention his father's role in the abuses, but wrote that his father was patient and strict when he taught him the classics and history. These experiences might have formed Zhu Wan's moral code, which was characterized by strict self-discipline and adherence to authority.

Zhu Wan passed the imperial examination and earned a jinshi degree in June 1521, and started his career in the Ming bureaucracy by being an apprentice at the Ministry of Works in Beijing, but he apparently disliked his position and returned home. This short apprenticeship was his only position in the capital over his whole career. In 1522, he was appointed as the subprefecture magistrate of Jingzhou (景州知州), and was transferred to Kaizhou (開州) the next year. From 1527 to 1532, Zhu Wan served several vice-director and director positions in the secondary capital Nanjing under the Ministry of Justice (南刑部), Ministry of War (南兵部), and Ministry of Personnel (南吏部).

In 1532, Zhu Wan was transferred from the metropolitan areas to the provinces, where he remained until his death. He was first sent to Jiangxi, where he served as assistant administration commissioner (江西布政司右參議) and dealt with Dongxiang inhabitants who resisted mandatory labour service. He then was sent to Sichuan as surveillance vice commissioner (四川按察司副使) in 1536, where he restructured local defences put down the Maozhou (茂州) and Weizhou aboriginal bandits militarily, putting a stop to the previous practice of paying them off. He recorded his Sichuan experiences in his Maobian Jishi (茂邊紀事).

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