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大明 Great Ming ← 1368 – 1644 →   → Ming China under the Yongle Emperor Capital Nanjing (1368-1421) Beijing (1421-1644) Language(s) Chinese Religion Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion Government Monarchy Emperor  - 1368-1398 Hongwu Emperor  - 1627-1644 Chongzhen Emperor Chancellor  - 1368–1398 Liu Ji  - – Yan Song Tan Lun  - – Zhang Juzheng Zhu Guozhen History  - Established in Nanjing January 23, 1368  - Fall of Beijing June 6, 1644  - End of the Southern Ming April, 1662 Population  - 1393 est. 72,700,000   - 1400 est. 65,000,000¹   - 1600 est. 150,000,000¹   - 1644 est. 100,000,000  Currency Chinese cash, Chinese coin, Paper currency (later abolished) Remnants of the Ming Dynasty ruled southern China until 1662, a dynastic period which is known as the Southern Ming. ¹ The numbers are based on estimates made by C.J. Peers in Late Imperial Chinese Armies: 1520-1840

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The Ming Dynasty (Chinese: 明朝; pinyin: Míng Cháo), or Empire of the Great Ming (traditional Chinese: 大明國; simplified Chinese: 大明国; pinyin: Dà Míng Guó), was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Hans (the main Chinese ethnic group), before falling to the rebellion led in part by Li Zicheng (李自成) and soon after replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. Although the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662.

Ming rule saw the construction of a vast navy and a standing army of one million troops.^[1] Although private maritime trade and official tribute missions from China had taken place in previous dynasties, the tributary fleet under the Muslim eunuch admiral Zheng He in the 15th century surpassed all others in sheer size. There were enormous projects of construction, including the restoration of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall and the establishment of the Forbidden City in Beijing during the first quarter of the 15th century. Estimates for the population in the late Ming era vary from 160 to 200 million.^[2] The University of Calgary states that "the Ming created one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history."^[3]

Emperor Hongwu (r. 1368–1398) attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities in a rigid, immobile system that would have no need to engage with the commercial life and trade of urban centers. His rebuilding of China's agricultural base and strengthening of communication routes through the militarized courier system had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural surplus that could be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier routes. Rural culture and commerce became influenced by urban trends. The upper echelons of society embodied in the scholarly gentry class were also affected by this new consumption-based culture. In a departure from tradition, merchant families began to produce examination candidates to become scholar-officials and adopted cultural traits and practices typical of the gentry class. Parallel to this trend involving social class and commercial consumption were changes in social and political philosophy, bureaucracy and governmental institution, and even arts and literature.

By the 16th century the Ming economy was stimulated by maritime trade with the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. China became involved in a new global trade of goods, plants, animals, and food crops known as the Columbian Exchange. Trade with European powers and the Japanese brought in massive amounts of silver, which then replaced copper and paper banknotes as the common medium of exchange in China. During the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and indeed the entire Ming economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age, natural calamities, crop failure, and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority.

History

Main article: History of the Ming Dynasty

Further information: List of Emperors of the Ming Dynasty

Founding

Revolt and rebel rivalry

The Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Alongside institutionalized ethnic discrimination against Han Chinese that stirred resentment and rebellion, other explanations for the Yuan's demise included overtaxing areas hard-hit by crop failure, inflation, and massive flooding of the Yellow River as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects.^[4] Consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River.^[4]

A cannon from the Huolongjing, compiled by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji before the latter's death in 1375.

A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans (红巾军) in 1351. The Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352, but soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander.^[5] In 1356 Zhu's rebel force captured the city of Nanjing,^[6] which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) cemented his power in the south by eliminating his arch rival and rebel leader Chen Youliang (陈友谅) in the Battle of Lake Poyang (鄱阳湖水战) in 1363. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in 1367 while hosted as a guest of Zhu, the latter made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital in 1368.^[7] The last Yuan emperor fled north to Shangdu and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming Dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces of Khanbaliq (Beijing) to the ground.^[7]

Instead of the traditional way of naming a dynasty after the first ruler's home district, Zhu's choice of 'Ming' or 'Brilliant' for his dynasty followed a Mongol precedent of an uplifting title.^[6] Zhu Yuanzhang also took Hongwu, or 'Vastly Martial' as his reign title. Although the White Lotus had fomented his rise to power, Hongwu later denied that he had ever been a member of their organization and suppressed the religious movement after he became emperor.^[6][8]

Reign of the Hongwu Emperor

Portrait of the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368 - 1398)

Hongwu immediately set to rebuilding state infrastructure. He built a 48 km (30 mile) long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces and government halls.^[7] The Mingshi 明史 states that as early as 1364 Zhu Yuanzhang had begun drafting a new Confucian law code known as the Daming Lu, which was completed by 1397 and repeated certain clauses found in the old Tang Code of 653.^[9] Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The goal was to have soldiers become self-reliant farmers in order to sustain themselves while not fighting or training.^[10] The system of the self-sufficient agricultural soldier, however, was largely a farce; infrequent rations and awards were not enough to sustain the troops, and many deserted their ranks if they weren't located in the heavily-supplied frontier.^[11]

Although a Confucian, Hongwu had a deep distrust for the scholar-officials of the gentry class and was not afraid to have them beaten in court for offenses.^[12] He halted the civil service examinations in 1373 after complaining that the 120 scholar-officials who obtained a jinshi degree were incompetent ministers.^[13][14] After the examinations were reinstated in 1384,^[14] he had the chief examiner executed after it was discovered that he allowed only candidates from the south to be granted jinshi degrees.^[13]

In 1380 Hongwu had the Chancellor Hu Weiyong (左丞相 胡惟庸) executed upon suspicion of a conspiracy plot to overthrow him; after that Hongwu abolished the Chinese Chancellery and assumed this role as chief executive and emperor.^[15][16] With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyi Wei (锦衣卫), a network of secret police drawn from his own palace guard. They were partly responsible for the loss of 100,000 lives in several purges over three decades of his rule.^[15][17]

South-Western Frontier

The old south gate of Dali, Yunnan, which was established as a Chinese-style city in 1382 shortly after the Ming conquest of the region.

In 1381, the Ming Dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali. By the end of the 14th century, some 200,000 military colonists settled some 2,000,000 mu (350,000 acres) of land in what is now Yunnan and Guizhou.^[18] Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers came in later periods; these migrations caused a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, since more than half of the roughly 3,000,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty were non-Han peoples.^[18] In this region, the Ming government adopted a policy of dual administration. Areas with majority ethnic Chinese were governed according to Ming laws and policies; areas where native tribal groups dominated had their own set of laws while tribal chiefs promised to maintain order and send tribute to the Ming court in return for needed goods.^[18] From 1464 to 1466 the Miao and Yao people revolted against what they saw as oppressive government rule; in response, the Ming government sent an army of 30,000 troops (including 1,000 Mongols) to join the 160,000 local troops of Guangxi and crushed the rebellion.^[19] After the scholar and philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) suppressed another rebellion in the region, he advocated joint administration of Chinese and local ethnic groups in order to bring about sinification in the local peoples' culture.^[19]

Relations with Tibet

Main article: Tibet during the Ming Dynasty

A 17th century Tibetan thangka of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra; the Ming Dynasty court gathered various tribute items which were native products of Tibet (such as thangkas),^[20] and in return granted Tibetan tribute-bearers with gifts.^[21]

Scholarship outside China generally regards Tibet as having been independent during the Ming Dynasty, whereas historians in China today take an opposing point of view. The Mingshi— the official history of the Ming Dynasty compiled later by the Qing Dynasty in 1739—states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while also renewing titles of ex-Yuan Dynasty officials from Tibet and conferring new princely titles on leaders of Tibet's Buddhist sects.^[22] However, Turrell V. Wylie states that censorship in the Mingshi in favor of bolstering the Ming emperor's prestige and reputation at all costs obfuscates the nuanced history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming era.^[23] Modern scholars still debate on whether or not the Ming Dynasty really had sovereignty over Tibet at all, as some believe it was a relationship of loose suzerainty which was largely cut off when the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521–1567) persecuted Buddhism in favor of Daoism at court.^[24][25][23] Helmut Hoffman states that the Ming upheld the facade of rule over Tibet through periodic missions of "tribute emissaries" to the Ming court and by granting nominal titles to ruling lamas, but did not actually interfere in Tibetan governance.^[26] Wang Jiawei and Nyima Gyaincain disagree, stating that Ming China had sovereignty over Tibetans who did not inherit Ming titles, but were forced to travel to Beijing to renew them.^[27] Melvyn C. Goldstein writes that the Ming had no real administrative authority over Tibet since the various titles given to Tibetan leaders already in power did not confer authority as earlier Mongol Yuan titles had; according to him, "the Ming emperors merely recognized political reality."^[28] Some scholars argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship of the Ming court with Tibetan lamas is underrepresented in modern scholarship.^[29][30] Others underscore the commercial aspect of the relationship, noting the Ming Dynasty's insufficient amount of horses and the need to maintain the tea-horse trade with Tibet.^{[31][32][33][34][35]} Scholars also debate on how much power and influence—if any—the Ming Dynasty court had over the de facto successive ruling families of Tibet, the Phagmodru (1354–1436), Rinbung (1436–1565), and Tsangpa (1565–1642).^{[36][37][38][39][40][41]}

The Ming initiated sporadic armed intervention in Tibet during the 14th century, while at times the Tibetans also used successful armed resistance against Ming forays.^[42][43] Patricia Ebrey, Thomas Laird, Wang Jiawei, and Nyima Gyaincain all point out that the Ming Dynasty did not garrison permanent troops in Tibet,^[44][39][45] unlike the former Mongol Yuan Dynasty.^[39] The Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620) made attempts to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations in the wake of a Mongol-Tibetan alliance initiated in 1578, the latter of which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Manchu Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) of China in their support for the Dalai Lama of the Yellow Hat sect. ^{[23][46][47][48][49]} By the late 16th century, the Mongols proved to be successful armed protectors of the Yellow Hat Dalai Lama after their increasing presence in the Amdo region, culminating in Güshi Khan's (1582–1655) conquest of Tibet in 1642.^{[23][50][51][52]}

Reversal of Hongwu's policies

Imposing standards and relocations

The City Wall of Nanjing

According to historian Timothy Brook, the Hongwu Emperor attempted to immobilize society by creating rigid, state-regulated boundaries between villages and larger townships, discouraging trade and travel in society not permitted by the government.^[53] Hongwu attempted to instill austere values by imposing uniform dress codes, standard methods of speech, and standard style of writing classical prose that did not flaunt the skills of the highly educated.^[54] His suspicion for the educated elite matched his disdain for the commercial elites, imposing inordinately high taxes upon the hotbed of powerful merchant families in the region of Suzhou in Jiangsu.^[13] He also forcibly moved thousands of wealthy families from the southeast and resettled them around Nanjing in the Jiangnan region, forbidding them to move once they were settled.^[13][55] To keep track of the merchants' activities, Hongwu forced them to register all of their goods once a month.^[56] One of his main goals as ruler was to permanently curb the influence of merchants and landlords, yet several of his policies would eventually encourage them to amass more wealth.

Hongwu's oppressive system of massive relocation and the desire to escape his harsh taxes encouraged many to become itinerant retailers, peddlers, or migrant workers finding tenant landowners who would rent them space to farm and labor on.^[57] By the mid Ming era, emperors had abandoned Hongwu's relocation scheme and instead trusted local officials to document migrant workers in order to bring in more revenue.^[58] An elite of wealthy landlords and merchants reigning over land tenants, wage laborers, domestic servants, and migrant workers was hardly the vision of Hongwu's: strict adherence to the hierarchic status system of the four occupations.^[59]

Self-sufficient agriculture, surplus, and urban trends

A porcelain vase from the Jiajing reign period (1521–1567); Chinese culture became a consumptionary-based culture by the late Ming. Social elites were expected to know the difference between shoddy crafts and fine wares, and even which type of plants were to be appreciated as rare and exotic enough for one's garden.^[60]

Hongwu revived the agricultural sector to create self-sufficient communities that would not rely on commerce, which he assumed would remain only in urban areas.^[61] Yet the surplus created from this revival encouraged rural farmers to make profits by first selling their goods at thoroughfares; by the mid Ming era they began selling their goods in regional urban markets.^[62] As the countryside and urban areas became more connected through commerce, households in rural areas began taking on traditionally urban specializations, such as production of silk and cotton textiles.^[63] By the late Ming there was a growing concern amongst conservative Confucians that the metaphorical delicate fabric holding together the communal social order was being undermined by country rustics accepting every manner of urban life and decadence.^[64]

The rural farmer was not the only social group affected by growing commercialization of Chinese society; it also heavily influenced the landholding gentry that traditionally produced scholar-officials for civil service. The scholar-officials were traditionally held as frugal individuals who deterred themselves from arrogance in the wealth garnered from a prestigious career; they were known even to walk from their country homes into the city where they were employed.^[65] By the time of the Zhengde Emperor (1505–1521), officials chose to be hauled around in luxurious sedan chairs and began purchasing lavish homes in affluent urban neighborhoods instead of living in the countryside.^[65] By the late Ming era, gaining wealth became the prime indicator of social prestige, even more so than gaining a scholarly degree.^[66]

Fusion of the merchant and gentry classes

Cishou Temple Pagoda, built in 1576; the Chinese believed that building pagodas on certain sites according to geomantic principles brought about auspicious events;^[67] merchant-funding for such projects was needed by the late Ming period.

In the first half of the Ming era, scholar-officials would rarely mention the contribution of merchants in society while writing their local gazetteer;^[68] officials were certainly capable of funding their own public works projects, a symbol of their virtuous political leadership.^[69] However, by the second half of the Ming era it became common for officials to solicit money from merchants in order to fund their various projects, such as building bridges or establishing new schools of Confucian learning for the betterment of the gentry.^[70] From that point on the gazetteers began mentioning merchants and often in high esteem, since the wealth produced by their economic activity produced resources for the state as well as increased production of books needed for the education of the gentry.^[71] Merchants began taking on the highly-cultured, connoisseur's attitude and cultivated traits of the gentry class, blurring the lines between merchant and gentry and paving the way for merchant families to produce scholar-officials.^[72] The roots of this social transformation and class indistinction could be found in the Song Dynasty (960–1279),^[73] but it became much more pronounced in the Ming. Writings of family instructions for lineage groups in the late Ming period display the fact that one no longer inherited his position in the categorization of the four occupations (in descending order): gentry, farmers, artisans, and merchants.^[74]

Courier network and commercial growth

Hongwu believed that only government couriers and lowly retail merchants should have the right to travel far outside their home town.^[56] Despite his efforts to impose this view, his building of an efficient communication network for his military and official personnel strengthened and fomented the rise of a potential commercial network running parallel to the courier network.^[75] The shipwrecked Korean Choe Bu (1454–1504) remarked in 1488 how the locals along the eastern coasts of China did not know the exact distances between certain places, which was virtually exclusive knowledge of the Ministry of War and courier agents.^[76] This was in stark contrast to the late Ming period, when merchants not only traveled further distances to convey their goods, but also bribed courier officials to use their routes and even had printed geographical guides of commercial routes that imitated the couriers' maps.^[77]

Merchants, an open market, and silver

The only surviving piece of furniture from the "Orchard Factory" (the Imperial Lacquer Workshop) set up in Beijing in the early Ming Dynasty. Decorated in dragons and phoenixes, it was made during the Xuande era (1426–1435). The imperial workshops in the Ming era were overseen by a eunuch bureau.^[78] (See closeup for detail)

The scholar-officials' dependence upon the economic activities of the merchants became more than a trend when it was semi-institutionalized by the state in the mid Ming era. Qiu Jun (1420–1495), a scholar-official from Hainan, argued that the state should only mitigate market affairs during times of pending crisis and that merchants were the best gauge in determining the strength of a nation's riches in resources.^[79] The government followed this guideline by the mid Ming era when it allowed merchants to take over the state monopoly of salt production. This was a gradual process where the state supplied northern frontier armies with enough grain by granting merchants licenses to trade in salt in return for their shipping services.^[80] The state realized that merchants could buy salt licenses with silver and in turn boost state revenues to the point where buying grain was not an issue.^[80] The governments of both Hongwu and Zhengtong (r. 1435–1449) attempted to cut the flow of silver into the economy in favor of paper currency, yet mining the precious metal simply became a lucrative illegal pursuit practiced by many.^[81] Hongwu was unaware of economic inflation even as he continued to hand out multitudes of banknotes as awards; by 1425, paper currency was worth only 0.025% to 0.014% its original value in the 14th century.^[11] The value of standard copper coinage dropped significantly as well due to counterfeit minting; by the 16th century, new maritime trade contacts with Europe provided massive amounts of imported silver, which increasingly became the common medium of exchange.^[82] As far back as 1436, the southern grain tax had been partially commuted to payments in silver.^[83] In 1581 the Single Whip Reform installed by Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng (1525–1582) finally assessed taxes on the amount of land paid entirely in silver.^[84]

Reign of the Yongle Emperor

Portrait of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424).

Rise to power

Hongwu's grandson Zhu Yunwen assumed the throne as the Jianwen Emperor (1398–1402) after Hongwu's death in 1398. In a prelude to a three-year-long civil war beginning in 1399,^[85] Jianwen became engaged in a political showdown with his uncle Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan. Jianwen was aware of the ambitions of his princely uncles, establishing measures to limit their authority. The militant Zhu Di, given charge over the area encompassing Beijing to watch the Mongols on the frontier, was the most feared of these princes. After Jianwen arrested many of Zhu Di's associates, Zhu Di plotted a rebellion. Under the guise of rescuing the young Jianwen from corrupting officials, Zhu Di personally led forces in the revolt; the palace in Nanjing was burned to the ground, along with Zhu Di's nephew Jianwen, his wife, mother, and courtiers. Zhu Di assumed the throne as the Yongle Emperor (1402–1424); his reign is universally viewed by scholars as a "second founding" of the Ming Dynasty since he reversed many of his father's policies.^[86]

New capital and a restored canal

Yongle demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in Beijing. Construction of a new city there lasted from 1407 to 1420, employing hundreds of thousands of workers daily.^[87] At the center was the political node of the Imperial City, and at the center of this was the Forbidden City, the palatial residence of the emperor and his family. By 1553, the Outer City was added to the south, which brought the overall size of Beijing to 4 by 4½ miles.^[88]

The Ming Dynasty Tombs located 50 km (31 miles) north of Beijing; the site was chosen by Yongle.

After laying dormant and dilapidated for decades, the Grand Canal was restored under Yongle from 1411–1415. The impetus for restoring the canal was to solve the perennial problem of shipping grain north to Beijing. Shipping the annual 4,000,000 shi (one shi is equal to 107 liters) was made difficult with an inefficient system of shipping grain through the East China Sea or by several different inland canals that necessitated the transferring of grain onto several different barge types in the process, including shallow and deep water barges.^[89] Yongle commissioned some 165,000 workers to dredge the canal bed in western Shandong and built a series of fifteen canal locks.^[88][90] The reopening of the Grand Canal had implications for Nanjing as well, as it was surpassed by the well-positioned city of Suzhou as the paramount commercial center of China.^[91]

Although Yongle ordered episodes of bloody purges like his father—including the execution of Fang Xiaoru who refused to draft the proclamation of his succession—Yongle had a different attitude about the scholar-officials.^[87] He had a selection of texts compiled from the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism—or Neo-Confucianism—in order to assist those who studied for the civil service examinations.^[87] Yongle commissioned two thousand scholars to create a 50-million word (22,938-chapter) long encyclopedia—the Yongle Encyclopedia—from seven thousand books.^[87] This surpassed all previous encyclopedias in scope and size, including the 11th century compilation of the Four Great Books of Song. Yet the scholar-officials weren't the only political group that Yongle had to cooperate with and appease. Historian Michael Chang points out that Yongle was an "emperor on horseback" who often traversed between two capitals like in the Mongol Yuan tradition and constantly led expeditions into Mongolia.^[92] This was opposed by the Confucian establishment while it served to bolster the importance of eunuchs and military officers whose power depended upon the emperor's favor.^[92]

Treasure fleet

A giraffe brought from Africa in the twelfth year of Yongle (1414); the Chinese associated the giraffe with the mythical qilin.

Beginning in 1405, the Yongle Emperor entrusted his favored eunuch commander Zheng He (1371–1433) as the naval admiral for a gigantic new fleet of ships designated for international tributary missions. The Chinese had sent diplomatic missions over land and west since the Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) and had been engaged in private overseas trade leading all the way to East Africa for centuries—culminating in the Song and Yuan dynasties—but no government-sponsored tributary mission of this grandeur and size had ever been assembled before. To service seven different tributary missions abroad, the Nanjing shipyards constructed two thousand vessels from 1403 to 1419, which included the large treasure ships that measured 112 m (370 ft) to 134 m (440 ft) in length and 45 m (150 ft) to 54 m (180 ft) in width.^[93] The first voyage from 1405 to 1407 contained 317 vessels with a staff of 70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers, and 300 military officers commanding a total estimated force of 26,800 men.^[94]

The enormous tributary missions were discontinued after the death of Zheng He, yet his death was only one of many culminating factors which brought the missions to an end. Yongle had conquered Vietnam in 1407, but Ming troops were pushed out in 1428 with significant costs to the Ming treasury; in 1431 the new Lê Dynasty of Vietnam was recognized as an independent tribute state.^[95] There was also the threat and revival of Mongol power on the northern steppe which drew court attention away from other matters; to face this threat, a massive amount of funds were used to build the Great Wall after 1474.^[96] Yongle's moving of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing was largely in response to the court's need of keeping a closer eye on the Mongol threat in the north.^[97] Scholar-officials also associated the lavish expense of the fleets with eunuch power at court, and so halted funding for these ventures as a means to curtail further eunuch influence.^[98]

Tumu Crisis and the Ming Mongols

Main articles: Tumu Crisis and Rebellion of Cao Qin

The Oirat Mongol leader Esen Tayisi launched an invasion into Ming China in July of 1449. The chief eunuch Wang Zhen encouraged Emperor Zhengtong (r. 1435–1449) to personally lead a force to face the Mongols after a recent Ming defeat; marching off with 50,000 troops, Zhengtong left the capital and put his half-brother Zhu Qiyu in charge of affairs as temporary regent. In the battle that ensued on September 8, his force of 50,000 troops were decimated by Esen's army and Zhengtong was captured and held in captivity by the Mongols—an event known as the Tumu Crisis.^[99] After Zhengtong's capture, Esen's forces plundered their way across the countryside and all the way to the suburbs of Beijing.^[100] Following this was another plundering of the Beijing suburbs in November of that year by local bandits and Ming Dynasty soldiers of Mongol descent who dressed as invading Mongols.^[101] Many Han Chinese also took to brigandage soon after the Tumu incident.^[102][103]

The Great Wall of China; although the rammed earth walls of the ancient Warring States were combined into a unified wall under the Qin and Han dynasties, the vast majority of the brick and stone Great Wall as it is seen today is a product of the Ming Dynasty.

The Mongols held the Zhengtong Emperor for ransom. However, this scheme was foiled once Zhengtong's younger brother assumed the throne as the Jingtai Emperor (r. 1449–1457); the Mongols were also repelled once Jingtai's confidant and defense minister Yu Qian (1398–1457) gained control of the Ming armed forces. Holding Zhengtong in captivity was a useless bargaining chip for the Mongols as long as another sat on his throne, so they released him back into Ming China.^[99] Zhengtong was placed under house arrest in the palace until the coup against Jingtai in 1457 known as the "Wresting the Gate Incident".^[104] Zhengtong retook the throne as the Tianshun Emperor (r. 1457–1464).

Tianshun's reign was a troubled one and Mongol forces within the Ming military structure continued to be problematic. On August 7, 1461, the Chinese general Cao Qin and his Ming troops of Mongol descent staged a coup against Tianshun out of fear of being next on his purge-list of those who aided Jingtai's succession.^[105] Mongols serving the Ming military also became increasingly circumspect as the Chinese began to heavily distrust their Mongol subjects after the Tumu Crisis.^[106] Cao's rebel force managed to set fire to the western and eastern gates of the Imperial City (doused by rain during the battle) and killed several leading ministers before his forces were finally cornered and he was forced to commit suicide.^[107][108]

The Mongol threat to China was at its greatest level in the 15th century, although periodic raiding continued throughout the dynasty. Like in the Tumu Crisis, the Mongol leader Altan Khan (1507–1582) invaded China and raided as far as the outskirts of Beijing.^[109][110] Interestingly enough, the Ming employed troops of Mongol descent to fight back Altan Khan's invasion, as well as Mongol military officers against Cao Qin's abortive coup.^[111] The Mongol incursions prompted the Ming authorities to construct the Great Wall from the late 15th century to the 16th century; John Fairbank notes that "it proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality."^[96] Yet the Great Wall was not meant to be a purely defensive fortification; its towers functioned rather as a series of lit beacons and signalling stations to allow rapid warning to friendly units of advancing enemy troops.^[112]

Isolation to globalization

Illegal trade, piracy, and war with Japan

16th century Japanese pirate raids.

Further information: Qi Jiguang

In 1479, the vice president of the Ministry of War burned the court records documenting Zheng He's voyages; it was one of many events signalling China's shift to an inward foreign policy.^[95] Shipbuilding laws were implemented that restricted vessels to a small size; the concurrent decline of the Ming navy allowed the growth of piracy along China's coasts.^[96] Japanese pirates—or wokou—began staging raids on Chinese ships and coastal communities, although much of the piracy was carried out by native Chinese.^[96]

Instead of mounting a counterattack, Ming authorities chose to shut down coastal facilities and starve the pirates out; all foreign trade was to be conducted by the state under the guise of formal tribute missions.^[96] These policies were known as the hai jin laws, which enacted a strict ban on private maritime activity until the laws' formal abolishment in 1567.^[95] In this period government-managed overseas trade with Japan was carried out exclusively at the seaport of Ningbo, trade with the Philippines exclusively at Fuzhou, and trade with Indonesia exclusively at Guangzhou.^[113] Even then the Japanese were only allowed into port once every ten years and were allowed to bring a maximum of three hundred men on two ships; these laws encouraged many Chinese merchants to engage in widespread illegal trade and smuggling.^[113]

The low point in relations between Ming China and Japan occurred during the rule of the great Japanese warlord Hideyoshi, who in 1592 announced he was going to conquer China. In two campaigns that are known collectively as the Imjin War, the Japanese fought with the Korean and Ming armies. Both sides won victories in the war but with Hideyoshi's death in 1598, the Japanese gave up their last Korean bases and returned to Japan. Despite this and the great leadership of Koreans such as the admiral Yi Sun-sin, the Ming generals took credit for the victory. However, the victory came at an enormous cost to the Ming government's treasury: some 26,000,000 ounces of silver.^[114]

Trade and contact with Europe

Military command centers in 1580, concentrated mostly along the seacoast, the northern border, and the southwest; major courier routes shown are based on a map from Timothy Brook's The Confusions of Pleasure.

Although Jorge Álvares was the first to land on Lintin Island in the Pearl River Delta in May of 1513, it was Rafael Perestrello—a cousin of the famed Christopher Columbus—who became the first European explorer to land on the southern coast of mainland China and trade in Guangzhou in 1516, commanding a Portuguese vessel with a crew from a Malaysian junk that had sailed from Malacca.^{[115][116][117]} The Portuguese sent a large subsequent expedition in 1517 to enter port at Guangzhou and open formal trade relations with Chinese authorities.^[115] During this expedition the Portuguese attempted to send an inland delegation in the name of Manuel I of Portugal to the court of the Ming emperor Zhengde; instead the diplomatic mission languished in a Chinese jail and died there.^[115] After the death of Zhengde in April 1521, the conservative faction at court that was against expanding commercial relations ordered that the Portuguese conquest of Malacca—a loyal vassal to the Ming—was grounds enough to reject the Portuguese embassy.^[118] Simão de Andrade, brother to ambassador Fernão Pires de Andrade, had also stirred Chinese speculation that the Portuguese were kidnapping Chinese children to eat them; Simão had purchased kidnapped children as slaves who were later found in Diu, India.^[119] In 1521, Ming Dynasty naval forces fought and repulsed Portuguese ships at Tuen Mun, where some of the first breech-loading culverins were introduced to China.^[120] Despite initial hostilities, by 1549 the Portuguese were sending annual trade missions to Shangchuan Island.^[115] In 1557 the Portuguese managed to convince the Ming court to agree on a legal port treaty that would establish Macau as an official Portuguese trade colony on the coasts of the South China Sea.^[115] The Portuguese friar Gaspar da Cruz (c. 1520 – February 5, 1570) traveled to Guangzhou in 1556 and wrote the first complete book on China and the Ming Dynasty that was published in Europe (fifteen days after his death); it included information on its geography, provinces, royalty, official class, bureaucracy, shipping, architecture, farming, craftsmanship, merchant affairs, clothing, religious and social customs, music and instruments, writing, education, and justice.^[121]

From China the major exports were silk and porcelain. The Dutch East India Company alone handled the trade of 6 million porcelain items from China to Europe between the years 1602 to 1682.^[122] Antonio de Morga (1559–1636), a Spanish official in Manila, listed an extensive inventory of goods that were traded by Ming China at the turn of the 17th century, noting there were "rarities which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it".^[123] After noting the variety of silk goods traded to Europeans, Ebrey writes of the considerable size of commercial transactions:

Map of East Asia by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in 1602; Ricci (1552–1610) was the first European allowed into the Forbidden City, taught the Chinese how to construct and play the spinet, translated Chinese texts into Latin and vice versa, and worked closely with his Chinese associate Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) on mathematical work.

In one case a galleon to the Spanish territories in the New World carried over 50,000 pairs of silk stockings. In return China imported mostly silver from Peruvian and Mexican mines, transported via Manila. Chinese merchants were active in these trading ventures, and many emigrated to such places as th Philippines and Borneo to take advantage of the new commercial opportunities.

– ^[113]

After the Chinese had banned direct trade by Chinese merchants with Japan, the Portuguese filled this commercial vacuum as intermediaries between China and Japan.^[124] The Portuguese bought Chinese silk and sold it to the Japanese in return for Japanese-mined silver; since silver was more highly valued in China, the Portuguese could then use Japanese silver to buy even larger stocks of Chinese silk.^[124] However, by 1573—after the Spanish established a trading base in Manila—the Portuguese intermediary trade was trumped by the prime source of incoming silver to China from the Spanish Americas.^[125][126]

Although the bulk of imports to China were silver, the Chinese also purchased New World crops from the Spanish Empire. This included sweet potatoes, maize, and peanuts, foods that could be cultivated in lands where traditional Chinese staple crops—wheat, millet, and rice—couldn't grow, hence facilitating a rise in the population of China.^[113][127] In the Song Dynasty (960–1279), rice had become the major staple crop of the poor;^[128] after sweet potatoes were introduced to China around 1560, it gradually became the traditional food of the lower classes.^[129]

Decline

Reign of the Wanli Emperor

The financial drain of the Imjin War in Korea against the Japanese was one of the many problems—fiscal or other—facing Ming China during the reign of the Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620). In the beginning of his reign, Wanli surrounded himself with able advisors and made a conscientious effort to handle state affairs. His Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng (in office from 1572 to 1582) built up an effective network of alliances with senior officials.^[130] However, there was no one after him skilled enough to maintain the stability of these alliances;^[130] officials soon banded together in opposing political factions. Over time Wanli grew tired of court affairs and frequent political quarreling amongst his ministers, preferring to stay behind the walls of the Forbidden City and out of his officials' sight.^[131]

Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620).

Officials aggravated Wanli about which of his sons should succeed to the throne; he also grew equally disgusted with senior advisors constantly bickering about how to manage the state.^[131] There were rising factions at court and across the intellectual sphere of China stemming from the philosophical debate for or against the teaching of Wang Yangming (1472–1529), the latter of whom rejected some of the orthodox views of Neo-Confucianism.^[132][133] Annoyed by all of this, Wanli began neglecting his duties, remaining absent from court audiences to discuss politics, lost interest in studying the Confucian Classics, refused to read petitions and other state papers, and stopped filling the recurrent vacancies of vital upper level administrative posts.^[131][134] Scholar-officials lost prominence in administration as eunuchs became intermediaries between the aloof emperor and his officials; any senior official who wanted to discuss state matters had to persuade powerful eunuchs with a bribe simply to have his demands or message relayed to the emperor.^[135]

Role of eunuchs

It was said that Hongwu forbade eunuchs to learn how to read or engage in politics.^[88] Whether or not these restrictions were carried out with absolute success in his reign, eunuchs in the Yongle reign period and after managed huge imperial workshops, commanded armies, and participated in matters of appointment and promotion of officials.^[88] The eunuchs developed their own bureaucracy that was organized parallel to but was not subject to the civil service bureaucracy.^[88] Although there were several dictatorial eunuchs throughout the Ming, such as