Ming7: Summary

 

 

I. Phase 1: Reconstruction, creation of new institutions, expansion

 

a.     reconstruction of the agrarian economy

irrigation channels, dykes, canals, reforestation, population transfers

 

b.     installation of an autocratic rule

 

The emperor headed institutions that were directly responsible:

► Six Ministries:  1. Ministry of Rites

                    2. Ministry of Justice

                    3. Ministry of Public Administration

                    4. Ministry of Revenue

                    5. Ministry of War

                    6. Ministry of Public Works

 

► Five Armies

► Brocade Uniform Guard

 

 

c.      installation of agrarian taxation system to supervise families with hereditary occupations:

- the Ministry of Revenue controlled the peasants in the rural areas

               - the Ministry of War controlled the soldiers (in frontier and coastal regions)

               - the Ministry of Public Works controlled the artisans (recruited especially in the neighborhood of the capitals)

                 and the labor obligation system

 

The lijia-system of units of tens and hundreds of households was installed for

 purposes of population registration and tax-collection (taxes in kind and in labor

 services). The system was only successful in its initial stages.

 

The system deteriorated eventually. When the concentration of land in the hands

of large landowners became prominent small working landowners disappeared.

Most of them became tenants or left the countryside to take up other occupations.

Poor families became increasingly dependant on the country gentry.

 

The aversion against the scholar elite of the founding emperor Hongwu  caused a

minimalization of bureaucracy  in the beginning of the Ming. The entire Ming

empire was administered by ca. 16.000 officials who had a hard time to enforce

the laws and regulations decreed by the central administration.

 

d.     military and diplomatic expansion

 

In the 15th century military expeditions to Mongolia, Manchuria, and Vietnam were led in order to keep the Mongols, the Vietnames, the Oirats in the Northwest and the tungusic Tatars in the Northeast under control.

The maritime expeditions by Admiral Zheng He served to explore the western countries and to secure the recognition of Ming power and prestige in Southeast Asia. Sinc the official documentation of th expedition was destroyed the only records that document some of the expeditions were the writings by the eunuch Ma Huan who accompanied Zheng He on the first, fourth and seventh of his travels. (Treatise on the Barbarian Kingdoms of the Western Oceans (1434), Marvels Discovered by Boat-Band for the Galaxy (1436), Marvels of the Oceans (1451)).

 

During  phase 1 the Confucian orthodoxy was reinforced. The curriculum for exam candidates consisted of a canon of the philosophers of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Five Classics mentioned by Confucius (Classic of Changes, Classic of Documents, Classic of Poetry, Classic of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals) and the Four Books edited by the philosopher Zhu Xi in 1190 (Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects of Confucius, Mengzi). Although this canon remained the obligatory basis of scholarship, the orthodoxy became challenged by new thinkers after 1600.

 

       II. Phase 2: Withdrawal and defense

          Constant attacks by pirates called for intensive defense of coastal ports.

          International trade was limited, at times terminated. Ships were destroyed, ship building was controlled.

 

Repeated attacks by the Mongols especially between 1438 and 1449 when

Emperor Zhengtong was taken prisoner (released 1451) led to a limitation of fairs

in border regions. Horse-fairs were reduced and at times cancelled.

Foreign embassies to China were limited. Japanese embassies were officially

scaled down to one in every ten years. Sulphur, copper, wood for dyes, and fans

were imported from Japan in exchange for books, paintings, silk, and copper

coins.

 

III. Phase 3: Economic changes and urban revival 

          The compulsory services in the capitals and official workshops was transformed into payments in silver between

          1485 and 1562.

          Land prices dropped. Industrial crops were developed: cotton, plants used for vegetable oils, sugar cane, tobacco.

          In the textile industry work distribution begins to resemble industrial workforces. Technical progress is made in

          woodblock printing, irrigation and seed-sowing. New crops are introduced from the Americas: sweet potatoes,

          maize, peanuts.

 

IV. Phase 4: Financial and political crises

 

          Severe financial problems occur in the end of the Ming caused by:

-         overspending of the court with regard to allowances paid to members of the

      imperial family (to an extent that a suspension of marriage permits for the

      princes is issued between 1573 and 1628)

-         overspending of the court in building imperial tombs

-         the Ming court buys peace when the Japanese invade Korea

-         they enter a war in Korea (1593-1598) when the Liao prince Nurhaci who had supported the Ming against the Japanese turns against the Ming

-         rebellions and minority revolts in the southeast and southwest call for additional internal military engagement

 

 

The political crisis becomes severe when the factions of eunuchs and loyal scholar-officials who are often based in local academies (such as the Donglin Academy in Wuxi in Jiangsu province).