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China’s domination over the area
by exacting tribute and other
gestures of homage to the emperor.The later Ming
However, the enormous cost of
Zheng He’s ambitious ventures put
great strain on the treasury, and
to ensure they would never be
repeated, all records relating to
them were destroyed. Official
ideology regarded China as the
center of the world, and the later
Ming saw no reason to encourage
further maritime contact. The
Chinese did not regard relations
with foreign powers as possible on
an equal basis: where diplomatic
relations were conducted, the
foreigners were considered (by the
Ming, at least) as tributaries. The
confidence and stability of the
Ming bureaucracy also created a
sense of self-sufficiency, with little
use for external influences.
Ocean-going vessels were made
to report all the cargo they landed,
and private maritime trade was
periodically banned (until it was
legalized again in 1567 for all
except trade with Japan). In Beijing,
a shopkeeper’s unauthorized
contact with foreigners could result
in the confiscation of his stock.Diplomatic isolation was reinforced
by military uncertainty: Annam
became independent once more in
1428, while huge resources were
devoted to containing the threat
posed by the Mongol tribes on
China’s northern borders. In 1449,
Emperor Zhengtong personally led
a disastrous expedition against the
Mongol leader Esen Khan in which
the majority of the 500,000 Chinese
soldiers died of hunger, were picked
off by the enemy, or perished in a
final battle as they retreated.Extending the Great Wall
In the 1470s, the building of the
final stages of the Great Wall—
begun by the Qin dynasty in the
3rd century bce—was not only a
bid to prevent a similar disaster,
but also to compensate for the
Ming’s waning energy. Like their
predecessors, they were unable to
absorb the lands of the nomadic
groups to the north of the border,
or to send out expeditions that had
any lasting effect on discouraging
their raids. Therefore, a fixed,
strongly garrisoned border defense
was the best compromise.
During the 16th century, a
succession of short-lived emperors
who were dominated by theirHONGWU FOUNDS THE MING DYNASTY
Hongwu’s final resting place, the
Xiaoling Mausoleum, lies at the foot of
the Purple Mountain in Nanjing, and is
guarded by an avenue of stone statues
of pairs of animals, including camels.On taking the throne, Hongwu
issued his own traditional bronze
coinage, although a shortage of metal
led to the reinstatement of paper
money, made of mulberry bark.consorts, mothers, or by eunuch
(castrated) advisers, was capped by
the long reign of Wanli (1573–1620),
who simply withdrew from public
life entirely: for the last decades of
his reign, he refused even to meet
with his ministers. The dynasty
began to decline: the machinery of
government faltered and the army
had little strength to respond to the
serious threat posed by the Jurchen
in Manchuria (now in northeast
China). In 1619, this tribal people,
who later renamed themselves
Manchu, began to encroach on
China’s northern borders.Global trade
Economically, however, Ming
China’s great productivity was
a magnet for European maritime
states seeking new commercial
connections in East Asia, and in
the early 16th century, European
traders finally reached the coast of
China. In 1514, a Portuguese fleetUS_120-127_Hongwu_founds_Ming.indd 126 15/02/2016 16:41
127
appeared off Canton (now
Guangzhou) in the south, and by
1557, Portugal had established a
permanent base at Macao. Spanish
and Portuguese merchants (the
former operating from Nagasaki
in Japan and Manila in the
Philippines)—and from 1601, the
Dutch—secured an important
share in trade with China.
Even though Ming policy
discouraged foreign maritime trade,
individual Chinese merchants had
participated actively in the revived
economy. Before long there were
flourishing Chinese colonies in
Manila and on Java in Indonesia,
near the Dutch-controlled trading
city of Batavia, and Chinese
merchants controlled a large share
of local trade in Southeast Asia.
The technical sophistication of the
Chinese porcelain industry under
the Ming led for the first time to the
mass production of ceramics for
export to European markets.
The effects, though, of this
growth in trade were not wholly
positive: while a huge influx of
silver from the Americas and
Japan, used by the Europeans to
pay for Chinese goods such as
silk, lacquerware, and porcelain,
stimulated economic growth, it
also caused inflation.Technological change
Ming China had inherited a legacy
of scientific and technological
innovation from the Song dynasty,
which had left the country at the
forefront of many scientific fields,
including navigation and the
military applications of gunpowder—
a substance discovered during the
Tang era whose use had spread
to Europe from China in the 13th
century. Under the Ming, though,
the pace of progress slowed and
by the later part of the dynasty, ideas
had begun to flow in from Europe.The Chinese military began to use
artillery of European manufacture,
and knowledge of European
mathematics and astronomy was
introduced to the country through
Jesuit missionaries, including
Matteo Ricci, who lived in Beijing
from 1601 to 1610. He translated
the ancient Greek mathematician
Eucl id’s Geometry into Chinese, as
well as a treatise on the astrolabe
(an astronomical instrument used
for taking the altitude of the sun or
stars). In 1626, the German Jesuit
Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote
the first treatise in Chinese on the
telescope, bringing Heliocentrism
(an astronomical model in which
the sun lies at the center of the
universe) to a Chinese audience.The Ming collapse
The late Ming began to suffer many
of the same issues that had led to
the fall of the Yuan. Crop failures
reduced the productivity of China’s
vast agriculture, and famines and
floods led to widespread unrest in
rural areas. The army’s pay began
to fall into arrears, leading to
discipline problems and desertions,
while localized peasant uprisingsTHE MEDIEVAL WORLD
coalesced into more general revolts.
Meanwhile, on the northeastern
frontier, the Manchus had built
a state along Chinese lines at
Mukden in Manchuria—calling
their regime the Qing dynasty in
1636—and were now poised to take
advantage of the Ming’s imminent
collapse. They were aided in this
by a revolt led by Li Zicheng, a rebel
leader whose forces entered Beijing
in 1644 unopposed, prompting the
emperor to commit suicide. In
desperation, the Ming military
called on the Manchus for help. The
tribesmen swept into the capital
and drove out the rebels, but then
seized the throne, and proclaimed
the Qing dynasty in China.An enduring legacy
Although the Ming had fallen
victim to an agrarian crisis that
coincided with renewed nomadic
activity on its frontiers, this was
a combination that had also brought
down dynasties before it. The
bureaucracy that had given China
centuries of constancy and reduced
the possibility, or even the need, for
internal dissent, was slow to adapt
itself to times of fast-moving crisis.
Yet even so, the Ming era had
brought great wealth and success
to China. The population expanded
from around 60 million at the start
of its rule, to around three times
that number by 1600. Much of this
growth was centered in medium-
sized market towns, rather than
in large cities, and an increase in
agricultural production led to the
rise of an affluent merchant class in
the provinces. Many of the elements
of orderly government that Hongwu
had inaugurated were carried over
into the succeeding Qing dynasty,
providing China with a degree of
unity, stability, and prosperity that
the European states of that period
could only envy and admire. ■Today the great civil and
military officers, the numerous
officials, and the masses
join in urging us to ascend
the throne.
Proclamation
Document of the
Hongwu Emperor, 1368US_120-127_Hongwu_founds_Ming.indd 127 15/02/2016 16:41