Ming Dynasty Exploration to Isolation.docx

Ming Dynasty: Exploration to Isolation

TheMing Dynastywas the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644. It was the last

ethnicHan-led dynasty in China, supplanting theMongol-ledYuan Dynastybefore falling to the

Manchu-ledQing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty ruled over theEmpire of the Great Ming(Dà

Míng Guó), as China was then known. Although the Ming capital,Beijing, fell in 1644, remnants

of the Ming throne and power (now collectively called theSouthern Ming) survived until 1662.

The Civil Service and a strong centralized government developed during this period. Commerce,

trade and also naval exploration flourished with ships possibly reaching the Americas in 1421,

beforeChristopher Columbusset sail. Towards the end of the Ming rule, the first European

was used as a rallying cry up until the modern era. Towards the end of the dynasty, the Emperors

increasingly retired from public life and power devolved to influential officials, and also to

theireunuchs.

Strife among the ministers, which the eunuchs used to their advantage, and corruption in the

court all contributed to the demise of this long dynasty. Their successors would have to deal with

the increased influence of the European powers in China, and the subsequent loss of complete

autonomy. The earlier overseas explorations yielded to isolationism, as the idea that all outside

of China wasbarbariantook hold, (known as Sinocentrism). However, a China that ceased to

deal with outsiders was badly placed to deal with them, which led to her becoming a theatre for

European imperial ambition. While China was never conquered by any other power (except by

TheMongol-ledYuan Dynastyruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Some

Walker dispute this theory. Other causes include paper currency over-circulation, which caused

inflation to go up tenfold during the reign of Yuan Emperor Shundi, along with the flooding of

theYellow Riveras a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects. In Late Yuan times,

agriculture was in shambles. When hundreds of thousands of civilians were called upon to work

on the Yellow River, war broke out. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, and eventually

the group led byZhu Yuanzhang,assisted by an ancient and secret intellectual fraternity called

the Summer Palace people, established dominance. The rebellion succeeded and the Ming

Dynasty was established in Nanjing in 1368. Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu as his reign title. The

Ming dynasty emperors were members of the Zhu family.

Hongwu kept a powerful army organized on a military system known as the Wei-so system,

Hongwu supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-

peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture.

It is notable that Hongwu did not trust Confucians. However, during the next few emperors, the

Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century, once again assumed

their predominant role in running the empire.

Government

This map shows Ming Dynasty China in 1580. The distribution of guard commanders reflects the

dynasty’s concern with the north border, the Wokou threat on the eastern seaboard, and also the

continuing instability in the southwest.

The basic pattern of governmental institutions in China has been the same for two thousand

years, but every dynasty installed special offices and bureaus for certain purposes. The Ming

administration was also structured in this pattern: the Grand Secretariat neige; before:

zhongshusheng) was assisting the emperor, besides are the Six Ministries (Liubu) for Personnel

(libu), Revenue (hubu), Rites (libu), War (bingbu), Justice (xingbu), and Public Works (gongbu),

(dudufu) and personally took over the responsibility and administration of the respective ressorts,

the Six Ministries, the Five Military Commissions (wu junfu), and the censorate ressorts: a whole

administration level was cut out and only partially rebuilt by the following emperors. The Grand

Secretariat was reinstalled, but without employing Ground Counsellors (“chancellors”). The

ministries, headed by a minister (shangshu) and run by directors (langzhong) stayed under direct

Of special interest during the Ming Dynasty is the vast imperial household that was staffed with

thousands ofeunuchs, headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants (neishijian), and divided

into different directorates (jian) and Services (ju) that had to administer the staff, the rites, food,

documents, stables, seals, gardens, state-owned manufacturies and so on.[1]Famous for its

intrigues and acting as the eunuch’s secret service was the so-called Western Depot (xichang).

Princes and descendants of the first Ming emperor were given nominal military commands and

large land estates, but without title (compare the Han and Jin Dynasties, when princes were

the lowest unit was the district (xian) under a magistrate (zhixian). Like during the former

dynasties, a traveling inspector or Grand Coordinator (xunfu) from the Censorate controlled the

work of the provincial administrations. New during the Ming Dynasty was the traveling military

examinations, scholars were titled Cultivated Talents (xiuca), passing the metropolitan

examination, they obtained the title jinshi “Graduate.”

Exploration to Isolation

This is the only surviving example in the world of a major piece of lacquer furniture from the

“Orchard Factory” (the Imperial Lacquer Workshop) set up inBeijingduring the early Ming

Dynasty. Decorated indragonsandphoenixesit was made to stand in an imperial palace. Made

seven naval expeditions, which traversed the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian archipelago.

An ambitiouseunuchof Hui descent, a quintessential outsider in the establishment of Confucian

scholar elites, Zheng He led seven expeditions from 1405 to 1433 with six of them under the

auspices of Yongle. He traversed perhaps as far as theCape of Good Hopeand, according to the

controversial 1421 theory, to the Americas[2]Zheng’s appointment in 1403 to lead a sea-faring

task force was a triumph the commercial lobbies seeking to stimulate conventional trade,

notmercantilism.

The interests of the commercial lobbies and those of the religious lobbies were also linked. Both

were offensive to the neo-Confucian sensibilities of the scholarly elite: Religious lobbies

encouraged commercialism and exploration, which benefited commercial interests, in order to

expedition in 1405 consisted of 317 ships and 28,000 men—then the largest naval expedition in

Zheng He’s voyages indicates the primacy of the political elites. Despite their formidable and

unprecedented strength, Zheng He’s voyages, unlike European voyages of exploration later in

the fifteenth century, were not intended to extend Chinese sovereignty overseas. Indicative of the

competition among elites, these excursions had also become politically controversial. Zheng

He’s voyages had been supported by his fellow-eunuchs at court and strongly opposed by the

Confucian scholar officials. Their antagonism was, in fact, so great that they tried to suppress

any mention of the naval expeditions in the official imperial record. A compromise interpretation

realizes that theMongolraids tilted the balance in the favor of the Confucian elites.

By the end of the fifteenth century, imperial subjects were forbidden from either building

oceangoing ships or leaving the country. Some historians speculate that this measure was taken

Historians of the 1960s, such as John Fairbank III and Joseph Levinson have argued that this

seagoing ships was forbidden; theironindustry gradually declined.

Ming Military Conquests

later generations. These instructions included the advice that those countries to the north were

dangerous and posed a threat to the Ming polity and those to the south did not. Furthermore, he

stated that those to the south, not constituting a threat, were not to be subject to attack. Yet, either

because of or despite this, it was the polities to the south which were to suffer the greatest effects

of Ming expansion over the following century. This prolonged entanglement in the south with no

long-lasting tangible benefits ultimately weakened the Ming Dynasty.

Agricultural Revolution

Historians consider the Hongwu emperor to be a cruel but able ruler. From the start of his rule,

he took great care to distribute land to small farmers. It seems to have been his policy to favor

the poor, whom he tried to help to support themselves and their families. For instance, in 1370 an

other dynasty has reached.

One of the most important aspects of the development of farming was water conservancy. The

Having himself come from a peasant family, Hong Wu emperor knew very well how much

farmers suffered under the gentry and the wealthy. Many of the latter, using influence with

magistrates, not only encroached on the land of farmers, but also by bribed sub-officials to

transfer the burden of taxation to the small farmers they had wronged. To prevent such abuses

the Hongwu Emperor instituted two very important systems: “Yellow Records” and “Fish Scale

people’s enjoyment of their property.

time of peace each soldier was given forty to fifty mou of land. Those who could afford it

supplied their own equipment; otherwise it was supplied by the government. Thus the empire

was assured strong forces without burdening the people for its support. The Ming Shih states that

army were able to produces five million piculs of grain, which not only supported great numbers

of troops but also paid the salaries of the officers.

Commerce Revolution

Hong Wu’s prejudice against the merchant class did not diminish the numbers of traders. On the

contrary, commerce was on much greater scale than in previous centuries and continued to

increase, as the growing industries needed the cooperation of the merchants. Poor soil in some

called “Tu pien hsin shu” gives a detailed description about the activities of merchants at that

for the transport of grain to the borders. In payments, the government issued salt tickets to the

merchants, who could then sell them to the people. These deals were highly profitable for the

merchants.

Private trade continued in secret because the coast was impossible to patrol and police

adequately, and because local officials and scholar-gentry families in the coastal provinces

and Southeast Asia, and it picked up aftersilverlodes were discovered in Japan in the early

1500s. Since silver was the main form of money in China, lots of people were willing to take the

risk of sailing to Japan or Southeast Asia to sell products for Japanese silver, or to invite

Japanese traders to come to the Chinese coast and trade in secret ports. The Ming court’s attempt

Also, Spanish Peruvian silver was entering the market in huge quantities, and there was no

restriction on trading for it in Manila. The widespread introduction of silver into China helped

monetize the economy (replacingbarterwithcurrency), further facilitating trade.

The legal code drawn up in the time of Hong Wu emperor was considered one of the great

achievements of the era. The Ming shih mentions that early as 1364, the monarch had started to

draft a code of laws known as Ta-Ming Lu. Hong Wu emperor took great care over the whole

project and in his instruction to the ministers told them that the code of laws should be

Tang Dynasty as regards to treatment ofslaves. Under the Tang code slaves were treated almost