Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644)

 

After almost 100 year of leadership the Mongolian Yuan Empire started to rumble. The last Mongol emperor, Tonghon Temür, was only 13 years when he entered the throne, and a numerous of bad decisions made the intruding mongols even more hated than before.

Upon leading a victorious rebellion against the foreign Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty, a previous buddhist monk named Zhu Yuanzhang seized control of China and founded the Ming Dynasty in 1368. As emperor, he moved the capital southwards from Mongol treats to Nanjing and adopted the name Hongwu as his reign title. Hongwu, literally meaning “vast military,” reflects the increased prestige of the army during the Ming Dynasty. Due to the very realistic threat still posed by the Mongols, Hongwu realized that a strong military was essential to Chinese prosperity. The empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navys dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world.

Like the founders of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- 220 A.D.), Hongwu was extremely suspicious of the educated courtiers that advised him and, fearful that they might attempt to overthrow him, he successfully consolidated control of all aspect of government. Hongwu replaced the Mongol bureaucrats who had ruled the country for nearly a century with native Chinese administrators. 

Unlike the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), which received most of its taxes from mercantile commerce, the Ming economy was based primarily on agriculture, reflecting both the peasant roots of its founder as well as the Confucian belief that trade was ignoble and parasitic.

 

The Yongle Emperor removed the capital back to Beijing to be closer to the front against the Mongols.  He teared down the old Mongol palaces, and constructed the Forbidden City. Building and furnishing two new capitals cities within 60 years placed a tremendous strain on the economy. To ensure a good communication of goods and soldiers between the old and new capital, Yongle restored the Grand Canal with a length of almost 1500 km, the longes man made canal ever. 

Around 1405 Yongle appointed Zheng He, a eunuch of Muslim descendants, to lead seven enormous voyages of explorations (1405-1433) into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa to explore the world outside China. Some expeditions contained over 300 ships and the some of biggest were almost 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, the largest in the world by far at this point.

However these expedition costed a fortune and gave little back according to the next  Emperor Xuande. He wanted to emphasize on rebuilding the Wall against the always threatening Mongols and banned expensive ships with more than two masts. The largest feet in the world soon became history and totally unsignificant just before the appearance of European invasion by the turn of the 14th century.

A culturally great innovation of the Ming Dynasty was the introduction of the novel. Developed from the folk tales of traditional storytellers, these works were transcribed in the everyday vernacular language of the people. Advances in printmaking and the increasing population of urban dwellers largely contributed to the success of these books.

Architecturally, the most famous monument of the Ming Dynasty is surely the complex of temples and palaces known as the Forbidden City that was constructed in Beijing after the third ruler of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Yongle, moved the capital there. Today, the Forbidden Palace remains one of the hallmarks of traditional Chinese architecture and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the vast nation.

The Ming Dynasty is probably most famous for its blue-white porcelain. Hundreds of kilns were producing the exclusive Ming porcelain. Much of the best work in ceramics, textiles and other media was produced anonymously over a long period by various Imperial factories or workshops.  It was used both internally by the court, and distributed abroad on a grand scale to demonstrate the wealth and power of the Emperors. 

 

At the end of the Ming dynasty it is estimated that the total trade value of Chinese export mostly silk, rice, tea and porcelain, was around 25% of the global trade value, and rising to almost 30% around 1820.

As a tool to simplify trade, Hong Wu introduced the worlds first paper-money around 1375 (see next page) a currency valuable over the whole dynasty of China.

Combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the Ming dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. 

It is relevant to ask how such a small population of almost 2 million Manchurian could concur such a large and Empire as China with over 100 million people and with a much more advanced civilization? Despite the Wall, China should again be under control for almost 270 years by a small tribal and barbarian culture from the north of Manchuria.