121 The Economy under the Ming Dynasty
Learning Objective
- Explain why the Ming dynasty supported the agricultural classes
Key Points
- The economy of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China was the largest in the world during that period, but suffered many inflations and contractions of currency.
- Because of hyperinflation of paper currency, the government returned to using silver as currency, which saw a major boom but later crashed, giving rise to widespread smuggling.
- Both because of his upbringing as a poor peasant and in order to recover from the rule of the Mongols and the wars that followed, the Hongwu Emperor enacted pro-agricultural policies.
- The Ming saw the rise of large commercial plantations, cash crops, and expanded markets.
- Hongwu Emperor initiated extensive land reform, including the distribution of land to peasants.
Terms
autarkic
The quality of being self-sufficient, especially in economic or political systems.
bullion
Gold bars, silver bars, and other bars or ingots of precious metal used as currency.
Overview
The economy of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China was the largest in the world during that period. It is regarded as one of China’s three golden ages (the other two being the Han and Song periods). The period was marked by the increasing political influence of the merchants, the gradual weakening of imperial rule, and technological advances.
Currency during the Ming Dynasty
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 1425, Ming notes were trading at about 0.014% of their original value under the Hongwu Emperor. The notes remained in circulation as late as 1573, but their printing ceased in 1450. 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. These privately made “sycee” first came into use in Guangdong, spreading to the lower Yangtze sometime before 1423, the year sycee became acceptable for payment of tax obligations.
In the mid-15th century, the paucity of circulating silver caused a monetary contraction and an extensive reversion to barter. The problem was met through smuggled, then legal, importation of Japanese silver, mostly through the Portuguese and Dutch, and Spanish silver from Potosí carried on the Manila galleons. Silver was required to pay provincial taxes in 1465, the salt tax in 1475, and corvée exemptions in 1485. 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 mid-17th century when King Philip IV of Spain began enforcing laws limiting di