According to recent research, after the Song dynasty, there was a transformation of the political culture in imperial China according to which Confucian elites and dynastic rulers ceased to construct political legitimacy by interpreting prophecies. By examining the process of how Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, utilized a popular prophecy and how he concealed his utilization of this prophecy after enthronement, this article offers a more nuanced narrative of the transformation. It shows that during the Yuan-Ming transition, rulers sought to employ prophecies to construct their image as sovereigns favoured by Heaven, but, ironically, in official writings rulers tended to hide their utilization of prophecies so as to highlight their virtues which deserved the Mandate of Heaven. This article argues that after the Song, the role of prophecies changed in the political arena—not from important to unimportant, but from officially recognized to officially concealed.
