Ming Dynasty, 1368-1662
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Míng Dynasty (Chinese: pinyin: Míng Cháo) 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 Míng Dynasty ruled
over the Empire of the Great Míng (???; Dà Míng Guó), as China
was then known. Although the Míng capital, Beijing, fell in 1644,
remnants of the Míng throne and power (now collectively called
the Southern Míng) survived until 1662.
Under Míng rule, a vast army and navy were built, including four-masted
ships of 1,500 tons displacement in the former, and a standing
army of 1,000,000 troops. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were
produced in North China (roughly 1 kg per inhabitant), and many
books were printed using movable type. There were strong feelings
amongst the Han ethnic group against the rule by non-Han ethnic
groups during the subsequent Qing Dynasty, and the restoration
of the Míng dynasty was used as a rallying cry up until the modern
era.
Origins of the Míng Dynasty
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The Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty ruled
before the establishment of the Míng Dynasty. Some historians
believe the Mongols' discrimination against Han Chinese
during the Yuan dynasty is the primary cause for the end
of that dynasty. The discrimination led to a peasant revolt
that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes.
However, historians such as JAG Roberts dispute this theory.
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Other causes include paper currency over-circulation, which caused
inflation to go up ten-fold during the reign of Yuan Emperor Shundi,
along with the flooding of the Yellow River as 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 Míng 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, which was similar to the Fu-ping system
of the Tang Dynasty. According to Ming Shih Gao, the political
intention of the founder of the Míng Dynasty in establishing the
Wei-so system was to maintain a strong army while avoiding bonds
between commanding officers and soldiers.
Hongwu supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural
communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song
times were expropriated with the establishment of the Míng Dynasty.
Great land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented
and rented out; private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after
the death of the Yongle Emperor, independent 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.
Exploration to Isolation
The Chinese gained influence over Turkestan. The maritime Asian
nations sent envoys with tributes for the Chinese emperor. Internally,
the Grand Canal was expanded to its farthest limits and proved
to be a stimulus to domestic trade. The most extraordinary venture,
however, during this stage was the dispatch of Zheng He's 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,
the Americas. 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 divert state funds from the anti-clerical efforts
of the Confucian scholar gentry. The first expedition in 1405
consisted of 317 ships and 28,000 men--then the largest naval
expedition in history. Zheng He's multi-decked ships carried up
to 500 troops but also cargoes of export goods, mainly silks and
porcelains, and brought back foreign luxuries such as spices and
tropical woods.
The economic motive for these huge ventures may have been important,
and many of the ships had large private cabins for merchants.
But the chief aim was probably political; to enroll further states
as tributaries and mark the dominance of the Chinese Empire. The
political character of 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 low 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 15th century, imperial subjects were forbidden
from either building oceangoing ships or leaving the country.
Some historians speculate that this measure was taken in response
to piracy. But during the mid-1500s, trade started up again when
silver replaced paper money. The value of silver skyrocketed relative
to the rest of the world, and both trade and inflation increased
as China began to import silver.
Historians of the 1960s, such as John Fairbank III and Joseph
Levinson have argued that this renovation turned into stagnation,
and that science and philosophy were caught in a tight net of
traditions smothering any attempt at something new. Historians
who held to this view argue that in the 15th century, by imperial
decree the great navy was decommissioned; construction of seagoing
ships was forbidden; the iron industry gradually declined.
Míng Military Conquests
The beginning of the Míng Dynasty was marked
by Ming Dynasty military conquests as they sought to cement
their hold on power.
Early in his reign the first Míng Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang
provided instructions as injunctions to later generations.
These instructions included the advice that those countries
to the north were dangerous and posed a threat to the Míng
polity and those to the south did not. |
Mingforeign relations 1580 |
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 Míng expansion over the following
century. This prolonged entanglement in the south with no long-lasting
tangible benefits ultimately weakened the Míng.
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 favour
the poor, whom he tried to help to support themselves and their
families. For instance, in 1370 an order was given that some land
in Hunan and Anhui should be distributed to young farmers who
had reached manhood. To preclude the confiscation or purchase
of this land by unscrupulous landlords, it was announced that
the title to the land was not transferable. At approximately the
middle of Hongwu's reign, an edict was published declaring that
those who cultivated wasteland could keep it as their property
and would never be taxed. The response of the people was enthusiastic.
In 1393, the cultivated land rose to 8,804,623 ching and 68 mou,
a record which no other dynasty has reached.
One of the most important aspects of the development of farming
was water conservancy. The Hong Wu emperor paid special attention
to the irrigation of farms all over the empire, and in 1394 a
number of students from Kuo-tzu-chien were sent to all of the
provinces to help develop irrigation systems. 40,987 ponds and
dikes were dug.
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 Records",
which served to guarantee both the government's income from land
taxes and the people's enjoyment of their property.
Hongwu kept a powerful army organized on a military system
known as the wei-so system. The wei-so system in the early Míng
period was a great success because of the tun-tien system. At
one time the soldiers numbered over a million and Hong Wu emperor,
well aware of the difficulties of supplying such a number of men,
adopted this method of military settlements. In 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 Míng Shih states that
70% of the soldiers stationed along the borders took up farming,
while the rest were employed as guards. In the interior of the
country, only 20% were needed to guard the cities and the remaining
occupied themselves with farming. So, one million soldiers of
the Míng 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 provinces and over-population were key forces
that led many to enter the trade markets. A book called "Tu pien
hsin shu" gives a detailed description about the activities of
merchants at that time. In the end, the Hong Wu policy of banning
trade only acted to hinder the government from taxing private
traders. Hong Wu did continue to conduct limited trade with merchants
for necessities such as salts. For example, the government entered
into contracts with the merchants 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 actually colluded
with merchants to build ships and trade. The smuggling was mainly
with Japan 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 Míng court's
attempt to stop this 'piracy' was the source of the wokou wars
of the 1550s and 1560s. After private trade with Southeast Asia
was legalized again in 1567, there was no more black market. Trade
with Japan was still banned, but merchants could simply get Japanese
silver in Southeast Asia. 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 Míng Code
The legal code drawn up in the time of Hong Wu emperor was considered
one of the great achievements of the era. The Míng 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 comprehensive and intelligible,
so as not to leave any loophole for sub-officials to misinterpret
the law by playing on the words. The code of Míng Dynasty was
a great improvement on that of Tang Dynasty as regards to treatment
of slaves. Under Tang code slaves were treated almost like domestic
animals. If they were killed by a free citizen, the law imposed
no sanction on the killer. Under the Míng Dynasty, however, this
was not so. The law assumed the protection of slaves as well as
free citizens, an ideal that harkens back to the reign of Han
Dynasty emperor Guangwu in the first century CE. The Míng code
also laid great emphasis on family relations. Ta-Ming Lu was based
on Confucian ideas and remained one of the factors dominating
the law of China until the end of the nineteenth century.
Scrapping The Prime Minister Post
Many argue that Hongwu emperor, wishing to concentrate absolute
authority in his own hands, abolished the office of prime minister
and so removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors.
However the statement is misleading as a new post was created
called "Senior Grand secretary" which replaced the abolished prime
minister post. Ray Huang, Professor from Sate University of college
argues that Grand-secretaries, outwardly powerless, could exercise
considerable positive influence from behind the throne. Because
of their prestige and the public trust which they enjoyed, they
could act as intermediaries between emperor and the ministerial
officals, thus provide stabilizing force in the court.
Decline of the Míng
The Yongle Emperor, being a warrior, was able to maintain the
foreign policy of his father. However, Yongle's successors attached
little importance to foreign affairs and this lead to deterioration
of the army. Annam regained its independence in 1427 and in the
north the Mongols quickly regained their strength. Starting around
1445, the Oirat Horde became a military threat under their new
leader Esen Taiji. The Zhengtong Emperor personally led a punitive
campaign against the Horde but the mission turned into a disaster
as the Chinese army was annihilated and the Emperor was captured.
Later, under Jia-Jing Emperor, the capital itself nearly fell
into the hands of the Mongols, if not for the heroic efforts of
the patriot Yu Qian. At the same time the Japanese pirates were
raging along the coast - a front so extensive that it was scarcely
within the power of the government to guard it. It was not until
local militia were formed under Qi Jiguang that the Japanese raid
ended. Next, the Japanese under the leadership of Hideyoshi set
out to conquer Korea and China. While the Chinese defeated the
Japanese, the empire suffered financially. By the 1610s, the Míng
Dynasty had lost de facto control over northeast China. A tribe
descended from Jin dynasty rapidly extended its power as far south
as Shanhai Pass, i.e. directly opposite the Great Wall, and would
have taken over China quickly if not for the brilliant Ming commander,
Yuan Chonghuan. Indeed, the Ming did produce capable commanders
such as Yuan Chonghuan, Qi Jiguang, and others; who were able
to turn this unfavourable sitation into a satisfising one. The
corruption within the court, largely the fault of the eunuchs,
also contributed to the decline of the Ming Dynasty.
The decline of Míng Empire become more obvious in the second half
of the Míng period. Most of the Míng Emperors lived in retirement
and power often fell into the hands of influencial officials,
and also sometimes into the hands of eunuchs. Furthering the decline
was strife among the ministers, which the eunuchs used to their
advantage. Corruption in the court persisted to the end of the
dynasty.
Historians debate the relatively slower "progression" of European-style
mercantilism and industrialization in China since the Míng. This
question is particularly poignant, considering the parallels between
the commercialization of the Míng economy, the so-called age of
"incipient capitalism" in China, and the rise of commercial capitalism
in the West. Historians have thus been trying to understand why
China did not "progress" in the manner of Europe during the last
century of the Ming Dynasty. In the early 21st century, however,
some of the premises of the debate have come under attack. Economic
historians such as Kenneth Pomeranz have argue that China was
technologically and economically equal to Europe until the 1750's
and that the divergence was due to global conditions such as access
to natural resources from the new world.
Much of the debate nonetheless centers on contrast in political
and economic systems between East and West. Given the causal premise
that economic transformations induce social changes, which in
turn have political consequences, one can understand why the rise
of mercantalism, an economic system in which wealth was considered
finite and nations were set to compete for this wealth with the
assistance of imperial governments, was a driving force behind
the rise of modern Europe in the 16-1700s. Capitalism after all
can be traced to several distinct stages in Western history. Commercial
capitalism was the first stage, and was associated with historical
trends evident in Míng China, such as geographical discoveries,
colonization, scientific innovation, and the increase in overseas
trade. But in Europe, governments often protected and encouraged
the burgeoning capitalist class, predominantly consisting of merchants,
through governmental controls, subsidies, and monopolies, such
as British East India Company. The absolutist states of the era
often saw the growing potential to excise bourgeois profits to
support their expanding, centralizing nation-states
This question is even more of an anomaly considering that during
the last century of the Míng Dynasty a genuine money economy emerged
along with relatively large-scale mercantile and industrial enterprises
under private as well as state ownership, such as the great textile
centers of the southeast. In some respects, this question is at
the center of debates pertaining to the relative decline of China
in comparison with the modern West at least until the Communist
revolution. Chinese Marxist historians, especially during the
1970s identified the Ming age one of "incipient capitalism," a
description that seems quite reasonable, but one that does not
quite explain the official downgrading of trade and increased
state regulation of commerce during the Míng era. Marxian historians
thus postulate that European-style mercantilism and industrialization
might have evolved had it not been for the Manchu conquest and
expanding European imperialism, especially after the Opium Wars.
Post-modernist scholarship on China, however argues that this
view is simplistic and at worst, flat out wrong. The ban on ocean
going ships, it is pointed out, was intended to curb piracy and
was lifted in the Mid-Míng at the strong urging of the bureaucracy
who pointed out the harmful effects it was having on coastal economies.
These historians, who include Jonathan Spence, Kenneth Pomeranz,
and Joanna Waley-Cohen deny that China "turned inward" at all
and point out that this view of the Ming Dynasty is inconsistent
with the growing volume of trade and commerce that was occurring
between China and southeast Asia. When the Portuguese reached
India, they found a booming trade network which they then followed
to China. In the 16th century Europeans started to appear on the
eastern shores and founded Macao, the first European settlement
in China. As mentioned, since the era of Hongwu the emperor's
role this became even more autocratic, although Hongwu necessarily
continued to use what he called the Grand Secretaries to assist
with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, which included
memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial
edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records.
Hongwu, unlike his successors, noted the destructive role of court
eunuchs under the Song, drastically reducing their numbers, forbidding
them to handle documents, insisting that they remained illiterate,
and liquidating those who commented on state affairs. Despite
Hongwu's strong aversion to the eunuchs, encapsulated by a tablet
in his palace stipulating: "Eunuchs must have nothing to do with
the administration," his successors revived their informal role
in the governing process. Like its predecessor the Eastern Han
Dynasty, the eunuchs would be remembered as the major factor that
brings the dynasty to its knees.
Yongle was also very active and very competent as an administrator,
but an array of bad precedents was established. First, although
Hongwu maintained some Mongol practices, such as corporal punishment,
to the consternation of the scholar elite and their insistence
on rule by virtue, Yongle exceeded these bounds, executing the
families of his political opponents, and murdering thousands arbitrarily.
Third, Yongle's cabinet, or Grand Secretariat, would become a
sort of rigidifying instrument of consolidation that became an
instrument of decline. Earlier, however, more competent emperors
supervised or approved all the decisions of the latter council.
Hongwu himself was generally regarded as a strong emperor who
ushered in an energy of imperial power and effectiveness that
lasted far beyond his reign, but the centralization of authority
would prove detrimental under less competent rulers.
Building the Great Wall
After the Míng army defeat at Battle of Tumu and later raids by
the Mongols under a new leader, Altan Khan, the Ming adopted a
new strategy for dealing with the northern horsemen: a giant impregnable
wall.
Almost 100 years earlier (1368) the Míng had started building
a new, technically advanced fortification which today is called
the Great Wall of China. Created at great expense the wall followed
the new borders of the Míng Empire. Acknowledging the control
which the Mongols established in the Ordos, south of the Huang
He, the wall follows what is now the northern border of Shanxi
and Shaanxi provinces. Work on the wall largely superseded military
expeditions against the Mongols for the last 80 years of the Míng
dynasty and continued up until 1644, when the dynasty collapsed.
The wall was a continuation of a wall created earlier by the Qin
Dynasty.
The Network of Secret Agents
In the Míng Dynasty, networks of secret agents flourished throughout
the military. Due to the humble background of Zhu Yuanzhang before
he became emperor, he harbored a special hatred against corrupt
officials and had great awareness of revolts. He created the Jinyi
Wei, to offer himself further protection and act as secret police
throughout the empire. Although there are a few successes in their
history, they were more known for their brutality in handling
crime than as an actually successful police force. In fact, many
of the people they caught were actually innocents. The Jinyi Wei
had spread a terror throughout their empire, but their powers
were decimated as the eunuchs' influence at the court increased.
The eunuchs created three groups of secret agents in their favour;
the East Factory, the West Factory and the Inner Factory. All
were no less brutal than the Jinyi Wei and probably worse, since
they were more of a tool for the eunuchs to eradicate their political
opponents than anything else.
Fall of the Míng Dynasty
The fall of the Míng Dynasty was a protracted affair, its roots
beginning as early as 1600 with the emergence of the Manchu under
Nurhaci. Under the brilliant commander, Yuan Chonghuan, the Ming
were able to repeatedly fight off the Manchus, notably in 1623
(where Nurhaci himself was killed by a much smaller force commanded
by Yuan.) and in 1628. But the tragic killing of General Yuan
in 1630 by the futile Ming emperor began to change things around;
the succeeding general proved unable to eliminate the Manchu threat.
Earlier, however, in Yuan's command he had securely fortified
the Shanhai pass, thus blocking the Manchus from crossing the
pass to attack Liaodong Peninsula.
Unable to attack the heart of Míng directly, the Manchu instead
bided their time, developing their own artillery and gathering
allies. They were able to enlist Míng government officials and
generals as their strategic advisors. Large part of the Ming Army
home mutinied to the Manchu banner. In 1633 they completed a conquest
of Inner Mongolia, resulting in a large scale recruitment of Mongol
troops under the Manchu banner and the securing of an additional
route into the Míng heartland.
By 1636 the Manchu ruler Huang Taiji was confident enough to proclaim
the Imperial Qing Dynasty at Shenyang, which had fallen to the
Manchu in 1621, taking the Imperial title Chongde. The end of
1637 saw the defeat and conquest of Míng's traditional ally Korea
by a 100,000 strong Manchu army, and the Korean renunciation of
the Míng Dynasty.
On May 26, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng.
Seizing their chance, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after
Míng border general Wu Sangui opened the gates at Shanhai Pass,
and quickly overthrew Li's short-lived Shun Dynasty. Despite the
loss of Beijing (whose weakness as an Imperial capital had been
foreseen by Zhu Yuanzhang) and the death of the Emperor, Míng
power was by no means destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi
and Yunnan could all have been and were in fact strongholds of
Míng resistance. However, the loss of central authority saw multiple
pretenders for the Míng throne, unable to work together. Each
bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until
1662, when the last real hopes of a Ming revival died with the
Yongli emperor, Zhu Youlang. Despite the Ming defeat, smaller
loyalist movements continued till the proclamation of the Republic
Of China.
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