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  "birth": {
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    "year": 1507
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  "createdAt": "2026-10-25",
  "death": {
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    "year": 1567
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      "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10011"
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    {
      "id": "zhwiki",
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    {
      "id": "zhengshi",
      "title": "明史卷十七（维基文库）",
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  "status": "published",
  "summary": "Zhu Houcong (1507–1567) was the eleventh emperor of the Ming dynasty. His temple name was Shizong and his era name was Jiajing.",
  "tags": [
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  "title": "Zhu Houcong",
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---

# Zhu Houcong

Zhu Houcong (1507–1567) was the eleventh emperor of the Ming dynasty. His temple name was Shizong and his era name was Jiajing.

Zhu Houcong was the eleventh emperor of the Ming dynasty. His temple name was Shizong and his era name was Jiajing. This account follows juan 17 of the Ming History and the sources already cited on this entry.[^zhengshi][^wikidata]

## Family

The Ming History gives his personal name as Houcong. He was a grandson of the Chenghua Emperor. His father, Prince Youyuan of Xing, held the principality of Anlu. When that prince died in the fourteenth year of Zhengde, Houcong was thirteen and managed the domain as heir. The name Zhu Houcong is the form given in the sources cited here.[^zhengshi][^wikidata]

This entry records his birth in 1507, his death in 1567, and his birthplace as Zhongxiang.[^wikidata] Juan 17 of the Ming History ends in the twenty-first year of Jiajing and does not describe his death.[^zhengshi]

## Accession

In the third month of the sixteenth year of Zhengde, the Zhengde Emperor died without a son. Empress Dowager Cishou and Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe decided to summon the prince from his residence at Xing. He left Anlu and reached the suburbs of the capital in the fourth month. The ritual officers wanted him to ascend as an heir apparent. He replied that the testament made him successor to the throne, not an imperial son. He entered through Daming Gate the same day, took the throne in the Fengtian Hall, and named the next year the first of Jiajing.[^zhengshi]

## The ritual dispute

Court ritualists first proposed that he treat the Hongzhi Emperor as his imperial father and call the Prince of Xing an imperial uncle. The jinshi Zhang Cong argued that Zhu Houcong inherited the throne without becoming an adopted son, and asked that his own parents be honored and that a temple for the Prince of Xing be built in the capital. Yang Tinghe and others objected. The emperor did not accept their view. In the first year of Jiajing the court for a time called the Hongzhi Emperor imperial father and the prince and princess of Xing his natural parents. In the third year the Prince of Xing was given the title of natural imperial father, and the words "natural" were later removed. Officials knelt at the palace gate to protest. Ma Li and 133 others were imprisoned, and sixteen died under the rod. Yang Shen and others were beaten and banished or demoted. That year the Hongzhi Emperor was designated imperial uncle-father, and the emperor's own father was designated imperial father. In the seventh year the Minglun Dadian was completed, and Yang Tinghe and others were posthumously stripped of rank.[^zhengshi]

## The early Jiajing years

In the fifth year the Daoist Shao Yuanjie was named a zhenren. In the seventeenth year the emperor's father received the temple name Ruizong and his tablet was placed in the imperial ancestral temple, ranked above the Zhengde Emperor. In the eighteenth year Zaihuo was named heir apparent, Zaihou was made Prince of Yu, and Zaichuan Prince of Jing. The emperor traveled to Chengtian and visited the Xianling. In the nineteenth year Yang Zui of the Court of the Imperial Stud remonstrated against the use of elixirs and was beaten to death. In the twenty-first year Minister of Rites Yan Song entered the Grand Secretariat. In the same year a palace plot was punished and Consort Cao and Consort Wang were executed. Juan 17 ends at that point.[^zhengshi]

## Basic facts

- Name: Zhu Houcong[^wikidata]
- Temple name: Shizong[^zhengshi]
- Era name: Jiajing[^zhengshi]
- Birthplace: [Zhongxiang](/en/places/zhongxiang-420881.html)[^wikidata]

更新时间：2026-10-25

## 标签

- [中国古代](/en/tags/ancient-china.html)

## 关系

- Born in：[Zhongxiang City](/en/places/zhongxiang-420881.html) 

## 来源

- Wikidata Q10011：https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10011 
- 明世宗（维基百科）：https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E4%B8%96%E5%AE%97 
- 明史卷十七（维基文库）：https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E5%8F%B2/%E5%8D%B717