Its institutions were generally preserved by the following Qing dynasty. Civil service dominated government to an unprecedented degree at this time. During the Ming dynasty, the territory of China expanded and in some cases also retracted greatly. For a brief period during the dynasty northern Vietnam was included in Ming territory. Other important developments included the moving of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing.
The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty — ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty. 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 dikes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in Zhu Yuanzhang was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in , but soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander.
Zhu was a born into a desperately poor tenant farmer family in Zhongli Village in the Huai River plain, which is in present-day Fengyang, Anhui Province.
When he was sixteen, the Huai River broke its banks and flooded the lands where his family lived. Subsequently, a plague killed his entire family, except one of his brothers. He buried them by wrapping them in white clothes. Destitute, Zhu accepted a suggestion to take up a pledge made by his late father and became a novice monk at the Huangjue Temple, a local Buddhist monastery.
He did not remain there for long, as the monastery ran short of funds and he was forced to leave. For the next few years, Zhu led the life of a wandering beggar and personally experienced and saw the hardships of the common people. After about three years, he returned to the monastery and stayed there until he was around twenty-four years old. He learned to read and write during the time he spent with the Buddhist monks.
The monastery where Zhu lived was eventually destroyed by an army that was suppressing a local rebellion. In , Zhu joined one of the many insurgent forces that had risen in rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. He rose rapidly through the ranks and became a commander. His rebel force later joined the Red Turbans, a millenarian sect related to the White Lotus Society, and one that followed cultural and religious traditions of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and other religions.
Widely seen as a defender of Confucianism and neo-Confucianism among the predominantly Han Chinese population in China, Zhu emerged as a leader of the rebels that were struggling to overthrow the Yuan dynasty. Zhu enlisted the aid of many able advisors, including the artillery specialists Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen.
Zhu cemented his power in the south by eliminating his arch rival, rebel leader Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang in This battle was—in terms of personnel—one of the largest naval battles in history. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in while a guest of Zhu, Zhu made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital in The last Yuan emperor fled north into Mongolia and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Dadu present-day Beijing to the ground.
Born a poor peasant, he later rose through the ranks of a rebel army and eventually overthrew the Yuan leaders and established the Ming dynasty. Although the White Lotus had instigated his rise to power, the emperor later denied that he had ever been a member of the organization, and suppressed the religious movement after he became emperor.
Zhu Yuanzhang drew on both past institutions and new approaches in order to create jiaohua civilization as an organic Chinese governing process. This included building schools at all levels and increasing study of the classics as well as books on morality. There was also a distribution of Neo-Confucian ritual manuals and a new civil service examination system for recruitment into the bureaucracy.
The economy of the Ming dynasty was characterized by extreme inflation, the return to silver bullion, and the rise of large agricultural markets. The economy of the Ming dynasty — of China was the largest in the world during that period. The period was marked by the increasing political influence of the merchants, the gradual weakening of imperial rule, and technological advances.
The early Ming dynasty attempted to use paper currency, with outflows of bullion limited by its ban on private foreign commerce. Like its forebears, paper currency experienced massive counterfeiting and hyperinflation.
In , Ming notes were trading at about 0. The notes remained in circulation as late as , but their printing ceased in Minor coins were minted in base metals, but trade mostly occurred using silver ingots. As their purity and exact weight varied, they were treated as bullion and measured in tael. In the midth century, the paucity of circulating silver caused a monetary contraction and an extensive reversion to barter. By the late Ming, the amount of silver being used was extraordinary; at a time when English traders considered tens of thousands of pounds an exceptional fortune, the Zheng clan of merchants regularly engaged in transactions valued at millions of taels.
However, a second silver contraction occurred in the midth century when King Philip IV of Spain began enforcing laws limiting direct trade between Spanish South America and China at about the same time the new Tokugawa shogunate in Japan restricted most of its foreign exports, cutting off Dutch and Portuguese access to its silver.
Spring Morning in a Han Palace by Qiu Ying — : Excessive luxury and decadence marked the late Ming period, spurred by the enormous state bullion of incoming silver and by private transactions involving silver. In order to recover from the rule of the Mongols and the wars that followed, the Hongwu Emperor enacted pro-agricultural policies. The state invested extensively in agricultural canals and reduced taxes on agriculture to 3. Ming farmers also introduced many innovations such as water-powered plows, and new agricultural methods such as crop rotation.
This led to a massive agricultural surplus that became the basis of a market economy. The Ming saw the rise of commercial plantations that produced crops suitable to their regions. Tea, fruit, paint, and other goods were produced on a massive scale by these agricultural plantations.
Regional patterns of production established during this period continued into the Qing dynasty. The Columbian exchange brought crops such as corn. Still, large numbers of peasants abandoned the land to become artisans. The population of the Ming boomed; estimates for the population of the Ming range from to million.
Agriculture during the Ming changed significantly. Firstly, gigantic areas devoted to cash crops sprung up, and there was demand for the crops in the new market economy. Secondly, agricultural tools and carts, some water powered, help to create a large agricultural surplus that formed the basis of the rural economy. Besides rice, other crops were grown on a large scale. Although images of autarkic farmers who had no connection to the rest of China may have some merit for the earlier Han and Tang dynasties, this was certainly not the case for the Ming dynasty.
During the Ming dynasty, the increase in population and the decrease in quality land made it necessary for farmers to make a living off cash crops. Markets for these crops appeared in the rural countryside, where goods were exchanged and bartered.
A second type of market that developed in China was the urban-rural type, in which rural goods were sold to urban dwellers. This was common when landlords decided to reside in the cities and use income from rural land holdings to facilitate exchange in those urban areas.
Professional merchants used this type of market to buy rural goods in large quantities. This market involved not only the exchanges described above, but also products produced directly for the market. Unlike earlier dynasties, many Ming peasants were no longer generating only products they needed; many of them produced goods for the market, which they then sold at a profit.
As the Hongwu Emperor came from a peasant family, he was aware of how peasants used to suffer under the oppression of the scholar-bureaucrats and the wealthy.
However, the reforms did not eliminate the threat of the bureaucrats to peasants. Instead, the expansion of the bureaucrats and their growing prestige translated into more wealth and tax exemption for those in government service. The bureaucrats gained new privileges and some became illegal money-lenders and managers of gambling rings.
Various military leaders rose from the midst of these rebellions, among them a general from Nanjing named Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded in unifying an army that was able to drive the despised foreigners out of China and back to Inner Mongolia. In he declared himself emperor of the new Ming dynasty, and came to be known in the histories as Hongwu r. The capital remained in Nanjing until , when the third emperor, Yongle , chose to move the court to Beijing.
Comparatively speaking, the Ming era was one of the more stable and long-lived periods of Chinese dynastic history. In particular, the reign of Xuande is regarded in later histories as a particularly glorious period, both for Xuande's wise and compassionate rule and for nurturing of the arts. It was during this decade that porcelain production in the Jingdezhen kilns reached its height of production. To generalize, it may be said that the Ming dynasty was one dominated by nationalism, compounded by a desire to rediscover China's own rich cultural heritage, which had suffered so long under the foreign rule imposed by the Mongols, the Jurchen and the Khitan.
Archaism became all the rage among the scholarly class, and the collection of ancient Chinese archeological objects, such as Han-era jades and bronzes, as well as a revisiting of Tang-era painting styles grew in popularity. This technique was later adopted by European countries, although most of the porcelain was still produced in the Jingdezhen factory.
A blue-and-white porcelain dish with a dragon. Image Source. Beijing was the main bureaucratic and military centre, while towns like Nanjing became famous for their social life and festivals. Under the Ming regime, literary examinations were re-established. This, combined with the growth in urban culture, resulted in a higher literacy rate.
Consequently, a literacy boom emerged during the Ming Dynasty. Books became affordable for commoners. Religious books, Confucian literature and civil service examinations guides were popular.
Writers of vernacular literature made significant contributions to novels and drama. Many of the full-length novels were adaptations of ancient story cycles that stemmed from centuries of oral tradition. To accompany these books, woodblock illustration was implemented. This method allowed for publishers to easily reproduce images. It was also a trademark that distinguished publishers from each other.
An image of Chinese woodblock print. Traditional Chinese drama practice was banned during the Song dynasty, and led the practice underground and further south. During the Ming Dynasty, this was brought back. Tang Xianzu was a playwright that was popular during the Ming Dynasty.
These forms were adapted to form fuller-length operas. China sent their trade goods to western Asia and Europe via the Silk Road. This was a 6 kilometre overland journey that ended at the Mediterranean sea.
Chinese junks were unique ships that were used from as early as the 5th Century AD. They often returned with exotic animals, spices, ivory and prisoners of war. This fleet was extended by Emperor Yongle during the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Yongle invested a large amount of money into extending the fleet. Chinese junks had two predominant features: a yuloh oar for steering and stiffened sails supported by bamboo battens. Legend suggests that this design was inspired by the way that fish use their tails to thrust themselves forward [44].
Junks were huge, with a length of m and width of 46m. Emperor Yongle instructed Admiral Zheng He to explore the oceans in search of goods. Foreign countries were impressed by Chinese inventions and tradeable goods.
Chinese inventions included the magnetic compass, paper, the wheelbarrow, suspension bridges, gunpowder, porcelain, movable type and the mechanical clock. This technology allowed for more accurate travel towards their destinations. During the first five decades of the Ming Dynasty, The Mongols were driven north to what is now known as Mongolia.
The emperor at the time, Yingzong, led an unsuccessful counterattack. Emperor Yingzong was ambushed at Tumu. This incident caused a shift from expansionist policy to a defensive frontier strategy. In , a barrier over the Qin Dynasty walls were built out of brick and stone.
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