If It Was Not for An Earthquake the Capital Might Be in Nanjing Today
The Hongxi emperor only ruled for 8 months but during his brief tenure he ordered that the capital should be moved back to Nanjing.
On March 28 1425, Beijing’s status as capital was abruptly changed:
“It is ordered that all government offices need to add temporary residence 行在 to their names…,the Emperor has decided to move the capital back to Nanjing….”
It had taken more than 10 years to build Beijing as China’s capital, the move however had never been popular among many Southern based officials. In a twist of fate, on the very same day the order to downgrade Beijing was issued, an earthquake erupted in Nanjing, making it impossible to start relocating. Ironically, a similar disaster had happened in Beijing in 1421, only a year after the Imperial palace been completed. The three most important throne halls had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground. It was undoubtedly this that had provided an excuse to move the court back to Nanjing in the first place. Everything now seemed to be up in the air - for 16 years the status of Beijing was kept in limbo, and during this period all institutions were still labeled “temporary”. In the Ming dynasty annals, the discussion for and against relocation continued to pop up as late as 1441:
Mayor of Zhejiang Ningbo Zhengluo suggests to the Emperor: “To have two capitals follow the old tradition, since taizong made Beijing capital there has been four emperors in Beijing, from Beijing you can face south and logistically people can easily get to Beijing to pay respect”. It has already been 40 years, but Beijing is still called temporary capital, that is not appropriate, Beijing should be recognized as a real capital. …”Minister of Libu (board of rituals) says that temporary was a word that Taizong decided to use, it should never be changed. There were no further discussion.
Moving capital and earthquakes
- Ming Record, March 28, 1425 《明实录》1425
Continued discussion about the fate of the capital
- Ming Record, August 30, 1441 《明实录》1441
Finally, in 1441, the order was given to rebuild the throne halls and change Beijing’s status to a real, permanent capital. What exactly prompted the change is unknown, but the decision consolidated an enormous change in China, because moving the capital changed not only the map of the country, but also the language. The language of the civil servants had long been based on the Southern dialect while the capital was in Nanjing. This meant that nearly all officials selected for high office were from this region. Emperor Yongle wanted to diminish this dominance, so he developed a new language for the officials based on the Northern dialect. For a while China operated with two languages for the officials, but finally the Northern new version of Chinese prevailed, and the language of the Chinese officials - Mandarin - became solely based on the Northern dialect, just as standard Chinese is today.