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In [[1582]], after the death of his tutor & advisor Zhang Juzheng, the emperor freed himself of the Hanlin scholars who had been assigned to keep a watch over him. Wanli's first son was born in the summer that year, allowing him presumably to free himself from his mother's control even further as well. Yet, he still found himself at the mercy of eunuchs and officials when it came to making policy; factions warred amongst the officials, and just as Zhang Juzheng convinced the emperor of the benevolence, wisdom, and selflessness of his policies, leading the emperor to defend him against numerous critiques and complaints, now, beginning in 1582 when the late Zhang Juzheng was succeeded as Grand Secretary by Zhang Siwei, Siwei began working to convince the emperor that Juzheng had been controlling him, misleading him all along, and that the policies which had brought such prosperity in the first ten years of Wanli's reign were in fact bad policies, and had not done so. Convinced of Juzheng's treachery, Wanli began signing his approval to reverse many of Juzheng's policies, one by one, and to remove many of his followers from their official appointments. Where Zhang Juzheng had previously successfully convinced the emperor that his rivals' accusations were all lies, Zhang Siwei now succeeded in convincing the emperor they were not, and that Juzheng had been manipulating the emperor for his own personal gain, and that of his faction, without truly having the interests of the nation in mind.
In [[1582]], after the death of his tutor & advisor Zhang Juzheng, the emperor freed himself of the Hanlin scholars who had been assigned to keep a watch over him. Wanli's first son was born in the summer that year, allowing him presumably to free himself from his mother's control even further as well. Yet, he still found himself at the mercy of eunuchs and officials when it came to making policy; factions warred amongst the officials, and just as Zhang Juzheng convinced the emperor of the benevolence, wisdom, and selflessness of his policies, leading the emperor to defend him against numerous critiques and complaints, now, beginning in 1582 when the late Zhang Juzheng was succeeded as Grand Secretary by Zhang Siwei, Siwei began working to convince the emperor that Juzheng had been controlling him, misleading him all along, and that the policies which had brought such prosperity in the first ten years of Wanli's reign were in fact bad policies, and had not done so. Convinced of Juzheng's treachery, Wanli began signing his approval to reverse many of Juzheng's policies, one by one, and to remove many of his followers from their official appointments. Where Zhang Juzheng had previously successfully convinced the emperor that his rivals' accusations were all lies, Zhang Siwei now succeeded in convincing the emperor they were not, and that Juzheng had been manipulating the emperor for his own personal gain, and that of his faction, without truly having the interests of the nation in mind.
Later in his reign, Wanli turned away from tending to government matters, leaving a great many matters to simply go unaddressed. While his ministers were capable of doing much without him, some matters - such as the appointment of new officials - required the emperor's approval, and so went undone; towards the end of his reign, as a result, the palace went severely understaffed. Wanli did not call a general audience of all his officials for over twenty-five years, from 1589 to 1615, and he had direct meetings with the Grand Secretariat only five times over a thirty-year period from 1590 until his death in 1620. Though early in his reign memorials criticizing the emperor received, at times, harsh recourse, during the last twenty years or so of his reign, even harsh criticism simply went unread, and ignored. The emperor similarly ignored it when many officials simply resigned their posts without imperial permission. Two matters that Wanli did pay attention to were taxation, and military campaigns. From the time of his majority in the 1580s onwards, the Ming fought battles with [[Ayutthaya]] and [[Burma]] as well as with tribal minority peoples in the southwest, campaigns in Inner Mongolia, and against the [[Manchus]] in the northeast, who the Ming managed to at least hold back, for a time. Wanli also had to deal with the rather expensive campaign against samurai armies in Korea in the 1590s.
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