The Jiajing Emperor rounds out the back-half of his interminably long reign by hiding away in his personal palace, and only occasionally coming out to tell everyone what a terrible job they're all doing. The Mongols seize on Ming weakness to basically do whatever they want, and the Ming respond by turtling even harder and building more walls. Without a imperial guiding hand, the ministers are left to their own devices... with predictably selfish and myopic results.Time Period Covered:1550-1567 CEMajor Historical Figures:Ming Empire:The Jiajing Emperor (Zhu Houcong) [r. 1521-1567]Gen. Qiu Ruan [d. 1552]Grand Secretary Xia Yan [1482-1548]Grand Secretary Yan Song [1480-1567]Grand Secretary Xu Jie [1512-1578]Mongolia:Altan Khan [1507-1582]Prince ToghtoMajor Works Cited:Bacon, Francis. “Of empire” in The essays of Francis Bacon (1908).Geiss, James. “The Chia-ching reign, 1522-1566,” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 7: the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part I. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.