33 Ming Dynasty: Exploration to Isolation
The Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644. It was the last ethnic Han-led dynasty in China, supplanting the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty before falling to the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty ruled over the Empire of the Great Ming (Dà Míng Guó), as China was then known. Although the Ming capital, Beijing, fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (now collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662. The Civil Service and a strong centralized government developed during this period. Commerce, trade and also naval exploration flourished with ships possibly reaching the Americas in 1421, before Christopher Columbus set sail. Towards the end of the Ming rule, the first European colony, Macao, was founded (1557).
Ming rule saw the construction of a vast navy, including four-masted ships of 1,500 tons displacement, and a standing army of 1,000,000 troops. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced in North China (roughly 1 kg per inhabitant), and many books were printed using movable type. There were strong feelings amongst the Han ethnic group against the rule by non-Han ethnic groups during the subsequent Qing Dynasty, and the restoration of the Ming dynasty was used as a rallying cry up until the modern era. Towards the end of the dynasty, the Emperors increasingly retired from public life and power devolved to influential officials, and also to their eunuchs.
Strife among the ministers, which the eunuchs used to their advantage, and corruption in the court all contributed to the demise of this long dynasty. Their successors would have to deal with the increased influence of the European powers in China, and the subsequent loss of complete autonomy. The earlier overseas explorations yielded to isolationism, as the idea that all outside of China was barbarian took hold, (known as Sinocentrism). However, a China that ceased to deal with outsiders was badly placed to deal with them, which led to her becoming a theatre for European imperial ambition. While China was never conquered by any other power (except by Japan during World War II) from the sixteenth century on, the European powers gained many concessions and established several colonies which undermined the Emperor’s own power.
Origins of the Ming Dynasty
The Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Some historians believe the Mongols’ discrimination against Han Chinese during the Yuan dynasty is the primary cause for the end of that dynasty. The discrimination led to a peasant revolt that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes. However, historians such as Joseph Walker dispute this theory. Other causes include paper currency over-circulation, which caused inflation to go up tenfold during the reign of Yuan Emperor Shundi, along with the flooding of the Yellow Riveras a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects. In Late Yuan times, agriculture