Centre and Periphery in Ming Foreign Relations: The Case of Chen Cheng

Although Chen Cheng is most famous for his three overland missions to Herat, undertaken between 1413 and 1420, the topic of centre and periphery is more fruitfully examined in the context of his earlier diplomatic career, which is less well known. Soon after he passed the civil service examinations and was awarded the jinshi degree, he was appointed as a messenger (xingren 行人) in the ”messenger service” (xingren si 行人司) within the Ministry of Rites (li bu 禮部). In this capacity he received numerous domestic assignments between 1394 and 1396, and then in 1396 was entrusted with a mission further afield, to the Sari Uighurs in what is today the northern part of Qinghai province. This was followed by two other important missions, one to Annam (Dai Viet) in 1396-1397, and another to the Eastern Mongols in 1401, who at that time were based near present-day Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Chen Cheng moved easily between his domestic assignments and his peripheral ones, both of which came under the authority of the same governmental institution, the messenger service. There was a gap in his ambassadorial career between 1401 and 1413, caused by Zhu Di's civil war and subsequent usurpation, and this gap marks a clear distinction between his early and later careers. The present paper analyses the meaning of centre and periphery in the context of Chen Cheng's various missions. It also explores the usefulness of the concept of centre-periphery as a model for the conduct of early Ming foreign relations, compared to the concept of the tribute system. The paper concludes that no clear lines can be drawn between centre and periphery in the context of Ming foreign relations. There are problems with this theory as a model, as well as with the tribute system. Moreover, given that the same person participated in these various different missions, the role of the individual in embassies to distant lands is perhaps more important than is often thought.