Yunnan into the empire, on the pretext that the presence in Kunming
of a Mongol prince posed a threat to the dynasty. A force of almost a
quarter of a million men took first Kunming, then Dali, but it was
another three years before the region was declared ‘pacified’, and then
only after considerable loss of life. Principalities ruled by non-Chinese
were overthrown in both Yunnan and Guizhou and either made to
acknowledge Chinese suzerainty through payment of an annual
tribute, or brought under direct Chinese administration. In 1388, the
first of three invasions was launched against the Tai principality of
Luchuan, southwest of Dali, an area never previously claimed by any
Chinese dynasty. The independence of Vietnam was not threatened
during Hongwu’s reign, though it was required, as a Chinese vassal
state, to supply rice to Ming forces in Guizhou.
The Chinese invasion and conquest of Dali extended the south-
ern frontier of the empire, while Chinese migration into the region
reinforced Chinese control. Yet these actions were rationalised not in
strategic or security terms, but as punishment for refusing to acknow-
ledge Chinese suzerainty and for ‘obstructing culture’.^7 Emperor
Hongwu’s proclamation that he had no intention of attacking small
barbarian countries in Southeast Asia had proved hollow for the Tai
principalities on China’s southern frontier, for a pretext had easily
been found that they were ‘causing trouble’.
Hongwu and his Confucian court did not see themselves as
pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. Instead, they saw foreign relations
as flowing naturally from a reassertion of Chinese rule within the
Middle Kingdom, which brought with it restoration of the cosmologi-
cal basis of the Chinese world order. The barbarian Yuan had been
defeated because, lacking virtue (de), they had lost the mandate to rule.
The deof the new dynasty could not be taken for granted, however. Its
real and practical proof lay in acknowledgment of China’s superior
status at the summit of the hierarchy of powers through homage and
tribute, and in the universal extension of peace and harmony beyond
China’s frontiers—if necessary through the use of force.^8
Sea power, tribute and trade