MOST OF HISTORY: THE FIRST HUMANS

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Era 5 in East AsiaThe Ming Dynasty
WHGCEs Era 5 Craig Benjamin
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Introduction Restoring Traditional Chinese Values

• During the 13th and 14th centuries China
  experienced the trauma of rule by the Yuan
  Dynasty of nomadic Mongols
• Mongols ignored Chinese political and cultural
  traditions, and replaced Chinese bureaucrats with
  Turkish, Persian and other foreign administrators
• So when the Mongol reign was over, the Ming
  emperors who succeeded it attempted to erase all
  signs of Mongol influence and restore traditional
  ways to China

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Ming and Qing Conservatism

• Looking to the Tang and Song for inspiration,
  they built a powerful imperial state, revived the
  Confucian civil service, and promoted Confucian
  values
• Rulers of the succeeding Qing dynasty were
  themselves Manchus of nomadic origin, but they
  too worked hard to promote Chinese ways
• Ming and Qing were deeply conservative - focused
  mainly on maintaining stability in a large
  agrarian society
• By adopting policies that favored Chinese
  traditions, they maintained a successful and
  stable state for half a millennium

Ming dynasty (1403-24), Celestial globe vase with
dragon and floral design, porcelain
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To Include

• Part One Political History of the Ming Dynasty
• Part Two The Civil Service Exam System Under the
  Ming
• Part Three
• Global Trade
• Under the Ming
• Part Four
• Christianity in
• China Under
• the Ming

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Part One Political History of the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644)

• When the Yuan Dynasty collapsed, the Ming Dynasty
  restored native rule to China
• Hongwu (1368-98) founder of the Ming
  (brilliant) Dynasty drove the Mongols out of
  China and built a tightly centralized state
• Hongwu was the third of only three peasants ever
  to become leader of China

Hongwu
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Mandarins and Eunuchs

• As emperor, Hongwu made extensive use of
  mandarins
• These were imperial government officials who
  traveled throughout the land and supervised the
  implementation of government policies
• He also placed great trust in eunuchs, because
  they could not generate families and therefore
  could not build power bases that would challenge
  imperial authority

Eunuch
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International Navy

• The Emperor Yongle (1403-1424) launched a series
  of naval expeditions that sailed throughout the
  Indian Ocean basin and showed Chinese colors as
  far away as east Africa
• Yongles successors discontinued these expensive
  maritime expeditions but maintained the tightly
  centralized state that Hongwu had established

Yongle, and Ming Junk
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• Ming Emperors were determined to prevent new
  invasions of China
• In 1421 Yongle moved the capital from Nanjing in
  the south to Beijing, to keep a close watch on
  the Mongols and other nomadic peoples to the
  north
• The early Ming emperors commanded powerful armies
  that controlled the Mongols militarily, but by
  the mid-15th Century they had lost their
  effectiveness
• Mongol forces massacred several Chinese armies in
  the 1440s, and in 1449 they captured the Ming
  emperor himself

Foreign Affairs
Ming Military Costumes
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Imperial Court Painting of 16th century Ming
cavalry and infantry soldiers brandishing swords
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• The later Ming emperors tried to protect their
  realm by building and extending new
  fortifications in the Great Wall system
• Construction of the Great Walls had begun under
  Qin Shi Huangdi in the 3rd Century BCE
• But these ancient walls had fallen into ruin, so
  the Ming made the reconstruction of the Great
  Wall a major priority

The Great Wall
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• Hundreds of thousands of workers labored
  throughout the late-15th and 16th Centuries to
  build a formidable stone and brick barrier that
  ran some 1,550 miles
• The Ming Great Wall was 33 50 feet high and
  included watch and signal towers and
  accommodations for troops stationed on the borders

Rebuilding the Great Walls
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Eradicating Yuan Influence

• Ming rulers set out to eradicate Mongol (and all
  other foreign) cultural influences and create a
  stable society in the image of the Chinese past
• With Ming encouragement, individuals gave up the
  Mongol names and dress they had adopted under the
  Yuan
• The government sponsored study of
• Chinese cultural traditions that the
• Mongols had suppressed or ignored,
• especially Confucianism
• Also provided financial support
• for imperial academies and regional
• colleges
• Most important, they restored the civil
• service exam system that the Mongols
• had dismantled

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Ming Decline Pirates!

• Vigor of the early Ming emperors did mot survive
  beyond the mid-16th Century, when a series of
  problems weakened the dynasty
• Between the 1520s and 1560s, pirates and
  smugglers operated almost at will along the east
  coast of China
• The Ming navy and coastal defenses were
  ineffective, and conflicts with pirates severely
  disrupted coastal regions and sometimes the
  interior
• In 1555 a gang of 67 pirates went on a
  three-month rampage, looted a dozen cities in
  three provinces and killed 4000 people!

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Later Ming Emperors

• It took more than 40 years to suppress the
  pirates, because of an increasingly inept
  government
• The latter Ming emperors lived extravagantly in
  the Forbidden City, a vast imperial enclave in
  Beijing
• They only received news about the outside world
  from eunuchs and servant administrators
• The emperors sometimes ignored government affairs
  for decades while satisfying their various
  appetites

Forbidden City Emperors Theater
(L) Imperial Throne (R)
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Wanli (1572-1620)

• Throughout his long reign, for example,
• Emperor Wanli refused to meet with
• government officials
• Instead he conducted business through eunuch
  intermediaries, and indulged his taste for wine!
• Powerful eunuchs won the favor of later Ming
  emperors by acquiring concubines for them and
  providing for their amusement
• Eunuchs then used their power to live lives of
  luxury, and as their power increased, corruption
  spread and weakened the state

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Ming Collapse

• When a series of famines struck China in the
  early 17th Century, the government was incapable
  of organizing relief efforts
• Peasants were so hungry they ate grass roots and
  tree bark
• In the 1630s, peasants began organizing revolts,
  and as they gathered momentum city after city
  withdrew its loyalty from the Ming
• Manchu invaders from the north joined forces with
  the peasants and attacked the Ming
• By the early1640s the combined rebel and Manchu
  forces controlled much of China, and turned
  towards Beijing

Manchu Rulers (above)Manchu archers (below)
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Chinese movie about the last Ming Emperor,
Chongzen
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The Last Emperor

• Sheltered from the bad news by court eunuchs, the
  last Ming emperor did not even know the location
  of the rebel forces until they began climbing
  over the walls of the Forbidden City
• As rebels looted the imperial quarter, the
  emperor and his family committed suicide
• The Ming Dynasty had come to an end!

On 17 March 1644 the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen
was forced to flee to the eastern foot of
Jingshan Hill where he hanged himself from a
pagoda tree when the forces of Li Zi cheng
captured the inner city. The original pagoda tree
no longer exists, but the replacement tree has an
historical storyboard attached to it to explain
that era of Ming Dynasty history.
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Part Two The Civil Service Exam System Under the
MingThe Scholar Bureaucrats

• Both the Ming and (later) Qing dynasties presided
  over a tightly centralized state
• This was administered through a bureaucracy
  staffed by Confucian scholars
• For more than 500 years the autocratic state
  created by Hongwu governed Chinas fortunes

Ming 'Head of an Official' 14th17th C,
limestone
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The Son of Heaven
Ming Yongle
Ming Taizu

• The emperor was not quite a god, but he was
• certainly no mere mortal
• According to tradition he was the Son of
• Heaven, a human being designated by heavenly
  powers to maintain order on earth
• He lived a privileged life within the Forbidden
  City, with hundreds of concubines and thousands
  of eunuchs to take care of his desires
• His day was completely orchestrated, and all
  performances carefully choreographed audiences,
  inspections, banquets

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• The Ming Emperor with some of his concubines and
  eunuchs in a garden in the Forbidden City Palace
• (16th Century silk screen)

Chinese actress Hao Lei as the concubine Kong Si
Zhen
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Awesome Authority

• Everything about his person and the institution
  he represented conveyed a sense of awesome
  authority
• His clothes and personal effects bore designs
  forbidden to other people, and the written
  characters of the emperors name were taboo
  throughout China
• Any individual with the rare privilege of meeting
  the emperor personally had to kowtow three
  kneelings and nine head knockings!
• Even minor offences would be severely punished
  even the highest official could have his bare
  buttocks flogged with bamboo (which sometimes
  caused death)

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The Scholar Bureaucrats

• Day to day governing was the job of
  scholar-bureaucrats appointed by the emperor
• These were mostly gentlemen from the class of
  well-educated and highly literate men known as
  the scholar-gentry
• These men had earned academic degrees by passing
  rigorous civil service examinations
• They dominated Chinas political and social life

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Preparing for the Exams

• Preparations for the exams began at an early age
• Sometimes they took place in local schools which
  (like the exams themselves) were only open to
  males
• Wealthy families employed tutors, which made
  formal education also available for girls
• By the time students were 10 or 11 they had
  memorized several thousand characters that were
  necessary to deal with the Confucian literature,
  including the Analects
• They also studied calligraphy,
• poetry and essay writing
• Students also had to know a
• large corpus of commentaries,
• histories and literary works
• before sitting the exam

Ming Calligraphy
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Civil Service Examinations Quotas

• The examinations
• consisted of a large
• number of tests
• administered at the
• district, provincial
• and metropolitan
• levels
• Stiff official quotas
• restricted the number
• of successful candidates
• in each exam
• Only 300 students could pass the metropolitan
  exam, e.g., so students frequently took the exam
  several times before earning a degree

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The Exam

• Writing the exam was grueling!
• At the appointed hour candidates presented
  themselves in the examination compound with a
  water pitcher, chamber pot, bedding, food, an
  inkstone, ink and brushes
• After they were verified and searched (for cheat
  sheets) they were led through narrow corridors
  to small cells that contained a bench, bed and
  desk
• For the next 3 days and 2 nights they spent their
  time writing essays with eight distinct sections
  on questions posed by the examiners
• There were no interruptions, no communication
  between candidates, and if a candidate died
  during the exam his body was wrapped in straw and
  tossed over the compound walls!

Imperial examination cells in Guangdong, 1873
(R) 2005 (L)
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Competition and Corruption
Recreation of a cell used by students taking the
metropolitan exam

• Possibility of bureaucratic service (with rich
  financial and social rewards) meant that
  competition for degrees was ferocious at all
  levels
• Sometimes cheating candidates and corrupt
  examiners compromised the system
• Even obtaining a degree did not ensure employment
  (under the Qing there were a million degree
  holders for only 20,000 jobs)
• Those who only passed the district exams usually
  spent their careers teaching in local schools or
  as private tutors
• Those who passed the metropolitan exams could
  look forward to powerful positions in the
  imperial bureaucracy

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The Examination System and Chinese Society

• By opening the door to honor, power and rewards,
  the exam system encouraged serious pursuit of
  formal, higher education
• System also provided an avenue of social upward
  mobility, because they were open to all males
  regardless of age or class
• But so expensive to travel to the examination
  sites that wealthy families had a distinct
  advantage
• System also molded the personal values of those
  who governed China, by ensuring that it was
  Confucianism that would be at the heart of
  Chinese education and government

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Part Three Global Trade Under the Ming

• During the Ming and Early Qing Eras, global trade
  brought tremendous prosperity to China
• Chinese workers produced vast quantities of silk,
  porcelain, lacquerware and tea for consumers in
  the Indian Ocean basin, Central Asia and Europe
• Silk industry was especially well organized in
  workshops paying regular wages and producing fine
  satins and brocades for export
• Imports were few spices, exotic birds and
  animal skins and some woolen textiles from Europe
• Payment for exports was usually in the form of
  silver bullion, which supported a silver-based
  economy

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Maritime Expeditions

• Commercial growth and expansion took place in an
  atmosphere of tight government control
• In the early 15th Century, Yongle set out to
  establish a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean
  basin, and he sponsored seven massive maritime
  expeditions between 1405 and 1433 led by the
  eunuch admiral Zheng He
• The Chinese fleet numbered up to 317 vessels and
  included 28,000 men!

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Zheng Hes flag ship was 5 times as long as
Columbus St. Maria
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First Maritime Expedition

• First expeditions embarked in July 1405 from
  Liujia Harbor near Suzhou
• Purpose was to establish relations with foreign
  countries, to expand trade contacts and to look
  for treasures for Yongle
• Under the command of the eunuch admiral Zheng He
  (pictured right) was a fleet of 62 ships manned
  by more than 27, 800 men (including sailors,
  clerks, interpreters, officers and soldiers,
  artisans, medical men and meteorologists)
• The cargo on board could be broken down into over
  40 different categories, including silk goods,
  porcelain, gold and silver ware, copper utensils,
  iron implements, cotton goods, mercury, umbrellas
  and straw mats

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Route of First Voyage

• Fleet sailed along the coast of Fujian, down
  south to Zhancheng and, after crossing the South
  China Sea eventually to Java and Sri Lanka
• On the return journey it sailed along the east
  coast of India and triumphantly returned to the
  home port in 1407

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Subsequent Expeditions

• Between 1405 and 1433 Zheng He (over a period of
  28 years) led seven voyages to some 30 countries
  and regions countries west of China
• Each time he commanded a large fleet and a staff
  of more than 20,000 men
• On subsequent voyages they visited Yemen, Iran
  and Mecca and the coast of East Africa

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Ban on Maritime Travel

• Zheng He intervened in local conflicts in Sumatra
  and Ceylon, suppressed pirates in SE Asian
  waters, intimidated local authorities with a show
  of strength in Arabia and Mogadishu, and
  generally made Chinas presence strongly felt
  throughout the Indian Ocean
• After the reign of Yongle, however, the Ming
  government withdrew its support for expensive
  maritime expeditions
• They even tried to persuade Chinese merchants
  from dealing with foreign people
• Eventually (as we will see next week) the Qing
  tried to ban maritime travel altogether!

A modern illustration shows Zheng He and one of
the giant, nine-masted treasure ships in which
he made seven voyages around the Indian Ocean,
traveling as far west as Jeddah, trading and
collecting tribute. Had the voyages not been
abruptly curtailed by a change of government
policy, Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean
might have countered that of Portugal
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Part Four Christianity in China Under the Ming

• Nestorian Christianity had established churches
  in China as early as the 7th C CE
• Catholic communities were prominent in China
  under the Yuan Dynasty
• But Christianity disappeared from China after the
  collapse of the Yuan
• When Roman Catholic missionaries returned in the
  16th C, they had to start from scratch in their
  efforts to establish a Christian community

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Mateo Ricci (1552-1610)

• Most prominent missionaries were the Jesuits, who
  worked to strengthen Catholicism in Europe and to
  spread the faith abroad
• Founder of the mission to China was the Italian
  Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who aimed to convert all of
  China to Christianity, beginning with the emperor
  Wanli
• Ricci was learned, brilliant and polished and
  became a popular figure in the Ming Court
• After arriving at Macau in 1582, Ricci immersed
  himself in Chinese language and Confucian texts
• When he first traveled to Beijing in 1601 he was
  able to write learned Chinese and converse with
  Confucian scholars

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Influence of the Jesuits

• Riccis mastery opened doors for the Jesuits,
  who were able to dazzle their hosts with European
  science and technology
• Ricci and his colleagues (who had had an
  advanced mathematical education) were able to
  correct Chinese calendars that consistently
  miscalculated solar eclipses
• The Jesuits also prepared maps of the world
  (with China at the center) on the basis of
  knowledge European explorers and cartographers
  had accumulated
• The Jesuits even supervised the casting of high
  quality bronze canons for the Ming and Qing

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Map of the world produced by the Jesuits for
the Ming Dynasty Government
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Ming Dazzled by European Technology

• Jesuits played on Chinese curiosity for
  mechanical devices
• Finely ground glass prisms became immensely
  popular because of the way they refracted
  sunlight into component parts
• Harpsichords also of great fascination, and
  skilled Jesuits dazzled their hosts with
  compositions written especially for (and about)
  their hosts
• The most popular device of all was what the
  Chinese called the self singing bells
  spring-driven mechanical clocks that kept
  accurate time and chimed the hours (sometimes
  even the quarter hours)

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Conversion to Christianity

• Jesuits used technology to capture Chinese
  attention, but their ultimate goal was to win
  converts to Christianity
• Portrayed Christianity as a high faith similar to
  Chinese cultural traditions
• Ricci wrote a treatise called The True Meaning of
  the Lord of Heaven in which he argued that the
  doctrines of Jesus and Confucius were similar
• He even suggested that adoption of Christianity
  would represent a return to a more pure and
  original form of Confucianism
• The Jesuits held Christian services in Chinese
  languages, and allowed converts to continue the
  practice of ancestor worship

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Failure to Attract Significant Numbers of Converts

• Yet, in spite of their skill, their genuine
  respect for their hosts, and their flexibility,
  the Jesuits attracted few converts to
  Christianity
• By the mid-18th C (under the Qing) Chinese
  Christians numbered about 200,000 out of a
  population of 225 million
• The Chinese disliked the exclusive nature of
  Christianity for centuries they had honored
  Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism
• But Christianity (like Islam) claimed to be the
  only true religion, so conversion implied that
  the other creeds were all wrong, an idea most
  Chinese were unwilling to accept!

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• Ultimately, the Roman Catholic mission to China
  came to an end because of squabbles between the
  Jesuits, Dominicans and Franciscans (who also
  sought converts in China)
• Jealous of the influence of the Jesuits in the
  Ming Court, their rivals complained to the Pope
  about the Jesuits conducting services in Chinese,
  and allowing ancestor worship
• Pope sided with their critics and issued
  proclamations ordering all missionaries to
  suppress ancestor worship and conduct services in
  European languages
• In response to this demand,
• the emperor Kangxi ordered
• an end to the preaching of
• Christianity in China
• By the mid-18th Century,
• the Christian missions
• had all disappeared

End of the Jesuit Mission
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Two-Way Cultural Impacts

• Roman Catholic mission to China did not convert
  large numbers of Chinese, but it did have
  important cultural impacts
• Besides making European science and technology
  known in China, the Jesuits also made China known
  to Europe
• In letters, reports and other writings
  distributed widely throughout Europe, the Jesuits
  described China as an orderly and rational society

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Impact on Europe

• Confucian civil service exam system attracted the
  attention of European rulers, who began to design
  their own civil service bureaucracies in the 18th
  Century
• Rational moral philosophy of Confucius also
  appealed to the Enlightenment philosophers of
  Europe, who began to seek alternatives to
  Christianity as the foundation for ethics and
  morality
• For the first time since Marco Polo, the Jesuits
  made firsthand observations of China available to
  Europeans
• Stimulated strong European interest in all East
  Asian societies!

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Conclusion

• China controlled its own affairs throughout the
  early modern era, avoiding the sort of turmoil
  that afflicted the Americas and Africa after the
  arrival of the Europeans
• After driving the Mongols back to the steppelands
  of Central Asia, rulers of the Ming Dynasty built
  a powerful centralized state
• Worked hard to eradicate all vestiges of Mongol
  rule and restore traditional ways by reviving
  Chinese political institutions (particularly the
  exam system)
• Also provided state sponsorship for
  neo-Confucianism
• After a burst of astonishing expeditions, the
  Ming restricted foreign expeditions, and also the
  access of foreign merchants and missionaries to
  China
• The Ming thus brought considerable stability to
  China, and as we will see in the next lecture,
  the succeeding Qing Dynasty pursued very similar
  policies