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{{Infobox Former Country
|native_name = 大明
|conventional_long_name = Great Ming
|common_name = Ming Dynasty
|continent = Asia
|region = China
|country = China
|era =
|status = Empire
|status_text =
|empire =
|government_type = Monarchy
|year_start = 1368
|year_end = 1644
|year_exile_start =
|year_exile_end =
|event_start =
|date_start = 23 January
|event_end =
|date_end = 25 April
|event1 =
|date_event1 =
|event_post =
|date_post =
|p1 = Yuan Dynasty
|flag_p1 =
|s1 = Shun Dynasty
|flag_s1 =
|s2 = Qing Dynasty
|flag_s2 = China Qing Dynasty Flag 1889.svg
|image_flag =
|flag =
|flag_type =
|image_coat =
|symbol =
|symbol_type =
|image_map=Ming-Empire2.jpg
|image_map_caption=Territory of Ming China in 1415
|capital=[[Nanjing]]<br><small>(1368–1421)</small><br>[[Beijing]]<br><small>(1421–1644)
|latd=39|latm=54|latNS=N|longd=116|longm=23|longEW=E
|common_languages=[[Chinese language|Chinese]]
|religion=[[Buddhism]], [[Taoism]], [[Confucianism]], [[Chinese folk religion]]
|currency=[[Chinese cash (currency unit)|Chinese cash]], [[Chinese coin]], [[Banknote|Paper currency]] (later abolished)
|leader1=[[Hongwu Emperor]]
|leader2=[[Chongzhen Emperor]]
|year_leader1=1368–1398
|year_leader2=1627–1644
|title_leader=[[List of emperors of the Ming Dynasty|Emperor]]
|deputy1=
|deputy2=
|year_deputy1=1
|year_deputy2=
|title_deputy=
|stat_year1=1393
|stat_area1=
|stat_pop1=72,700,000
|stat_year2=1400
|stat_area4=
|stat_pop2=65,000,000¹
|stat_year3=1600
|stat_area3=
|stat_pop3=150,000,000¹
|stat_year4=1644
|stat_area4=
|stat_pop4=100,000,000
|stat_year5=1450<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Turchin|first1=Peter|last2=Adams|first2=Jonathan M.|last3=Hall|first3=Thomas D | title = East-West Orientation of Historical Empires | journal = Journal of world-systems research|date=December 2006|volume=12|issue=2|pages=219–229|url=http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol12/number2/pdf/jwsr-v12n2-tah.pdf|accessdate=12 August 2010 |issn= 1076–156x}}</ref>
|stat_area5=6500000
|today = {{Collapsible list |titlestyle=font-weight:normal; background:transparent; text-align:left;|title=Countries today|
{{flag|Burma}}|{{flag|China}}|{{flag|Laos}}|{{flag|Mongolia}}|{{flag|North Korea}}|{{flag|Russia}}|{{flag|Vietnam}}|
}}
|footnotes=Remnants of the Ming Dynasty ruled southern China until 1662, a dynastic period which is known as the Southern Ming.<br />¹The numbers are based on estimates made by C.J. Peers in ''Late Imperial Chinese Armies: 1520–1840''
}}
{{Chinese|collapse=no|title=Ming Dynasty|c={{linktext|明|朝}}|p=Míng Cháo|w=Ming Ch'ao|wuu=men zau}}
{{History of China}}
{{Contains Chinese text}}
The '''Ming Dynasty''' ({{IPA-cmn|mǐŋ tʂʰɑ̌ʊ̯}}) was the ruling [[Dynasties in Chinese history|dynasty]] of [[China]] from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the [[Mongol Empire|Mongol]]-led [[Yuan Dynasty]]. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history",<ref>Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, John King Fairbank, Albert M. Craig (1960) ''A history of East Asian civilization, Volume 1. East Asia: The Great Tradition'', George Allen & Unwin Ltd.</ref> was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic [[Han Chinese]]. Although the Ming capital [[Beijing]] fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by [[Li Zicheng]] who established the [[Shun Dynasty]], which was soon replaced by the [[Manchu people|Manchu]]-led [[Qing Dynasty]], regimes loyal to the Ming throne (collectively called the ''[[Southern Ming Dynasty]]'') survived until 1662.
Ming rule saw the construction of a vast [[Naval history of China|navy]] and a [[standing army]] of one million troops.<ref name="ebrey east asia 271">Ebrey (2006), 271.</ref> Although private maritime trade and official tribute missions from China had taken place in previous dynasties, the tributary fleet under the [[Muslim]] [[Eunuch (court official)#China|eunuch]] admiral [[Zheng He]] in the 15th century far surpassed all others in size. There were enormous construction projects, including the restoration of the [[Grand Canal of China|Grand Canal]] and the [[Great Wall of China|Great Wall]] and the establishment of the [[Forbidden City]] in Beijing during the first quarter of the 15th century. Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from 160 to 200 million.<ref>For the lower population estimate, see {{Harvcol|Fairbank|Goldman|2006|pp=128}}, for the higher estimate see {{Harvcol|Ebrey|1999|pp=197}}.</ref>
[[Hongwu Emperor|Emperor Hongwu]] (r. 1368–1398) attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities in a rigid, immobile system that would have no need to engage with the commercial life and trade of urban centers. His rebuilding of China's agricultural base and strengthening of communication routes through the militarized [[courier]] system had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural surplus that could be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier routes. Rural culture and commerce became influenced by urban trends. The upper echelons of society embodied in the [[Gentry (China)|scholarly gentry class]] were also affected by this new consumption-based culture. In a departure from tradition, merchant families began to produce examination candidates to become [[Scholar-bureaucrats|scholar-officials]] and adopted cultural traits and practices typical of the gentry. Parallel to this trend involving social class and commercial consumption were changes in social and political philosophy, bureaucracy and governmental institutions, and even arts and literature.
By the 16th century the Ming economy was stimulated by trade with the [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]], the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]], and the [[Dutch Republic|Dutch]]. China became involved in a new global trade of goods, plants, animals, and food crops known as the [[Columbian Exchange]]. Trade with [[Early Modern Europe|European powers]] and the [[Japan]]ese brought in massive amounts of [[silver]], which then replaced copper and paper [[banknote]]s as the common [[medium of exchange]] in China. During the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and indeed the entire Ming economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient [[Little Ice Age]], natural calamities, crop failure, and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as [[Li Zicheng]] to challenge Ming authority.
==History==
{{Main|History of the Ming Dynasty}}
{{Mainlist|List of emperors of the Ming Dynasty}}
===Founding===
====Revolt and rebel rivalry====
[[File:Chinese Cannon.JPG|thumb|left|upright|A [[cannon]] from the ''[[Huolongjing]]'', compiled by [[Jiao Yu]] and [[Liu Ji (14th century)|Liu Ji]] before the latter's death in 1375.]]
The [[Mongol Empire|Mongol]]-led [[Yuan Dynasty]] (1271–1368) ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Alongside institutionalized ethnic discrimination against [[Han Chinese]] that stirred resentment and rebellion, other explanations for the Yuan's demise included overtaxing areas hard-hit by [[inflation]], and massive flooding of the [[Yellow River]] as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects.<ref name="gascoigne 2003 150"/> 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 dykes of the Yellow River.<ref name="gascoigne 2003 150">Gascoigne (2003), 150.</ref>
A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the [[Red Turban Rebellion|Red Turbans]] in 1351. The Red Turbans were affiliated with the [[White Lotus]], a [[Chinese Buddhism|Buddhist]] secret society. [[Zhu Yuanzhang]] was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352, but soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander.<ref>Ebrey (1999), 190–191.</ref> In 1356 Zhu's rebel force captured the city of [[Nanjing]],<ref name="gascoigne 2003 151">Gascoigne (2003), 151.</ref> which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang cemented his power in the south by eliminating his arch rival and rebel leader [[Chen Youliang]] in the [[Battle of Lake Poyang]] in 1363. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in 1367 while a guest of Zhu, the latter made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital [[Khanbaliq|Dadu]] (present-day [[Beijing]]) in 1368.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 191">Ebrey (1999), 191.</ref> The last Yuan emperor fled north to [[Shangdu]] and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming Dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Dadu to the ground;<ref name="ebrey cambridge 191"/> the city was renamed Beiping in the same year.<ref>{{cite book|last=Naquin|first=Susan|title = Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 | year = 2000|publisher=University of California press|isbn=0-520-21991-0|location=Berkeley|page=xxxiii}}</ref>
Instead of the traditional way of naming a dynasty after the first ruler's home district, Zhu's choice of 'Ming' or 'Brilliant' for his dynasty followed a Mongol precedent of an uplifting title.<ref name="gascoigne 2003 151"/> Zhu Yuanzhang also took [[Hongwu Emperor|Hongwu]], or 'Vastly Martial,' as his reign title. Although the White Lotus had enabled his rise to power, Hongwu later denied that he had ever been a member of their organization and suppressed the religious movement after he became emperor.<ref name="gascoigne 2003 151"/><ref name="wakeman 1977">Wakeman (1977), 207.</ref>
====Reign of the Hongwu Emperor====
Hongwu made an immediate effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km (30 mile) long [[City Wall of Nanjing|wall around Nanjing]], as well as new palaces and government halls.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 191"/> The ''[[History of Ming]]'' states that as early as 1364 Zhu Yuanzhang had begun drafting a new [[Confucianism|Confucian]] law code, the ''Da Ming Lü'', which was completed by 1397 and repeated certain clauses found in the old [[Tang Code]] of 653.<ref name="andrew rapp 2000 25">Andrew & Rapp (2000), 25.</ref> Hongwu organized a military system known as the ''weisuo'', which was similar to the [[Fubing system|''fubing'' system]] of the [[Tang Dynasty]] (618–907). The goal was to have soldiers become self-reliant farmers in order to sustain themselves while not fighting or training.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 129">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 129.</ref> The system of the self-sufficient agricultural soldier, however, was largely a farce; infrequent rations and awards were not enough to sustain the troops, and many deserted their ranks if they weren't located in the heavily supplied frontier.<ref name= "fairbank goldman 2006 134"/>
[[Image:Hongwu1.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of the [[Hongwu Emperor]] (r. 1368–1398)]]
Although a Confucian, Hongwu had a deep distrust for the [[Scholar-bureaucrats|scholar-officials]] of the [[Gentry (China)|gentry class]] and was not afraid to have them beaten in court for offenses.<ref name="ebrey 191 193">Ebrey (1999), 191–192.</ref> He halted the [[Imperial examinations|civil service examinations]] in 1373 after complaining that the 120 scholar-officials who obtained a ''jinshi'' degree were incompetent ministers.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 192">Ebrey (1999), 192.</ref><ref name="hucker 1958 13">Hucker (1958), 13.</ref> After the examinations were reinstated in 1384,<ref name="hucker 1958 13"/> he had the chief examiner executed after it was discovered that he allowed only candidates from the south to be granted ''jinshi'' degrees.<ref name ="ebrey cambridge 192"/>
In 1380 Hongwu had the Chancellor [[Hu Weiyong]] executed upon suspicion of a conspiracy plot to overthrow him; after that Hongwu abolished the [[Chancellor (China)|Chancellery]] and assumed this role as chief executive and emperor.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 192 193">Ebrey (1999), 192–193.</ref><ref>Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 130.</ref> With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the [[Jinyi Wei]], a network of [[secret police]] drawn from his own palace guard. They were partly responsible for the loss of 100,000 lives in several purges over three decades of his rule.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 192 193"/><ref>Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 129–130.</ref>
====South-Western Frontier====
[[Image:Dali-puerta-sur-c01.jpg|thumb|left|The old south gate of the ancient city of [[Dali, Yunnan]]]]
In 1381, the Ming Dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the [[Kingdom of Dali]]. By the end of the 14th century, some 200,000 military colonists settled some 2,000,000 ''mu'' (350,000 acres) of land in what is now [[Yunnan]] and [[Guizhou]].<ref name="ebrey cambridge 195">Ebrey (1999), 195.</ref> Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers came in later periods; these migrations caused a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, since more than half of the roughly 3,000,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty were non-Han peoples.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 195"/> In this region, the Ming government adopted a policy of dual administration. Areas with majority ethnic Chinese were governed according to Ming laws and policies; areas where native tribal groups dominated had their own set of laws while {{dn|Tusi|tribal chiefs}} promised to maintain order and send tribute to the Ming court in return for needed goods.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 195"/> From 1464 to 1466, the [[Miao people|Miao]] and [[Yao people]]s revolted against what they saw as oppressive government rule; in response, the Ming government sent an army of 30,000 troops (including 1,000 Mongols) to join the 160,000 local troops of [[Guangxi]] and crushed the rebellion.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 197">Ebrey (1999), 197.</ref> After the scholar and philosopher [[Wang Yangming]] (1472–1529) suppressed another rebellion in the region, he advocated joint administration of Chinese and local ethnic groups in order to bring about [[Sinicization|sinification]] in the local peoples' cultures.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 197"/>
====Relations with Tibet====
{{Main|Tibet during the Ming Dynasty}}
[[Image:17th century Central Tibeten thanka of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra, Rubin Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|upright|A 17th century Tibetan [[thangka]] of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra; the Ming Dynasty court gathered various tribute items which were native products of Tibet (such as thangkas),<ref name="information office of the state council 2002 73">{{cite book|last1=Zhang|first1= Yuxin|last2=Xiang|first2=Hongjia|title=Testimony of History|year=2002|publisher=China Intercontinental Press|isbn=7-80113-885-6|page=73|coauthors=Information Office of the State Council. People's Republic of China|location=China}}</ref> and in return granted gifts to Tibetan tribute-bearers.<ref>Wang Jiawei & Nyima Gyaincain (1997), 39–41.</ref>]]
Scholarship outside China{{Who|date=June 2011}} generally regards Tibet as having been independent during the Ming Dynasty, whereas historians in China today take an opposing point of view. The ''[[History of Ming|Mingshi]]''—the official history of the Ming Dynasty compiled later by the [[Qing Dynasty]] in 1739—states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while also renewing titles of ex-Yuan Dynasty officials from [[Tibet]] and conferring new princely titles on leaders of [[Tibetan Buddhism|Tibet's Buddhist sects]].<ref name= "mingshi">''[[Mingshi]]''-Geography I «明史•地理一»: 東起朝鮮，西據吐番，南包安南，北距大磧。; Geography III «明史•地理三»: 七年七月置西安行都衛於此，領河州、朵甘、烏斯藏、三衛。; Western territory III «明史•列傳第二百十七西域三»</ref> However, Turrell V. Wylie states that [[censorship]] in the ''Mingshi'' in favor of bolstering the Ming emperor's prestige and reputation at all costs obfuscates the nuanced history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming era.<ref name="wylie 2003 470"/>
Modern scholars still debate on whether or not the Ming Dynasty really had [[sovereignty]] over Tibet at all, as some believe it was a relationship of loose [[suzerainty]] which was largely cut off when the [[Jiajing Emperor]] (r. 1521–1567) persecuted Buddhism in favor of [[Daoism]] at court.<ref name="wylie 2003 470">Wylie (2003), 470.</ref><ref name="wang nyima 1997 1 40">Wang & Nyima (1997), 1–40.</ref><ref name="laird 2006 106 107">Laird (2006), 106–107.</ref> Helmut Hoffman states that the Ming upheld the facade of rule over Tibet through periodic missions of "tribute emissaries" to the Ming court and by granting nominal titles to ruling lamas, but did not actually interfere in Tibetan governance.<ref name= "Hoffman 2003 65">Hoffman (2003), 65.</ref> Wang Jiawei and Nyima Gyaincain disagree, stating that Ming China had sovereignty over Tibetans who did not inherit Ming titles, but were forced to travel to Beijing to renew them.<ref name ="wang nyima 1997 37">Wang & Nyima (1997), 37.</ref> Melvyn C. Goldstein writes that the Ming had no real administrative authority over Tibet since the various titles given to Tibetan leaders already in power did not confer authority as earlier [[Yuan Dynasty|Mongol Yuan]] titles had; according to him, "the Ming emperors merely recognized political reality."<ref name = "goldstein 1997 4 5">Goldstein (1997), 4–5.</ref> Some scholars argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship of the Ming court with Tibetan lamas is underrepresented in modern scholarship.<ref name="norbu 2001 52">Norbu (2001), 52.</ref><ref name="kolmas 32">Kolmas, 32.{{Nonspecific|date=August 2010}}</ref> Others underscore the commercial aspect of the relationship, noting the Ming Dynasty's insufficient amount of horses and the need to maintain the [[Tibet during the Ming Dynasty#Tribute and exchanging tea for horses|tea-horse trade]] with Tibet.<ref name="wang nyima 1997 39">Wang & Nyima (1997), 39–40.</ref><ref name="sperling 2003 474 475">Sperling (2003), 474–475, 478.</ref><ref name="perdue 2000 273">Perdue (2000), 273.</ref><ref name="kolmas 28 29">Kolmas, 28–9.{{Nonspecific|date=August 2010}}</ref><ref name="laird 2006 131">Laird (2006), 131</ref> Scholars also debate on how much power and influence— if any —the Ming Dynasty court had over the ''de facto'' successive ruling families of Tibet, the [[Phagmodrupa dynasty|Phagmodru]] (1354–1436), Rinbung (1436–1565), and [[Tsangpa]] (1565–1642).<ref name="kolmas 29">Kolmas, 29.{{Nonspecific|date=August 2010}}</ref><ref name="chan 1988 262">Chan (1988), 262.</ref><ref name="norbu 2001 58">Norbu (2001), 58.</ref><ref name="laird 2006 137"/><ref name="wang nyima 1997 42">Wang & Nyima (1997), 42.</ref><ref name="dreyfus 2003 504">Dreyfus (2003), 504.</ref>
The Ming initiated sporadic armed intervention in Tibet during the 14th century, while at times the Tibetans also used successful armed resistance against Ming forays.<ref name="langlois 1988 139 161">Langlois (1988), 139, 161.</ref><ref name="geiss 1988 417 418">Geiss (1988), 417–418.</ref> Patricia Ebrey, Thomas Laird, Wang Jiawei, and Nyima Gyaincain all point out that the Ming Dynasty did not garrison permanent troops in Tibet,<ref name="laird 2006 137">Laird (2006), 137.</ref><ref name="ebrey 1999 227">Ebrey (1999), 227.</ref><ref name="wang nyima 1997 38">Wang & Nyima (1997), 38.</ref> unlike the former Mongol Yuan Dynasty.<ref name="laird 2006 137"/> The [[Wanli Emperor]] (r. 1572–1620) made attempts to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations in the wake of a [[History of Tibet#The origin of the title of 'Dalai Lama'|Mongol-Tibetan alliance]] initiated in 1578, the latter of which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Manchu [[Qing Dynasty]] (1644–1912) of China in their support for the [[Dalai Lama]] of the [[Gelug|Yellow Hat]] sect.<ref name="wylie 2003 470"/><ref name="kolmas 31">Kolmas, 30–31.{{Nonspecific |date=August 2010}}</ref><ref name="goldstein 1997 8">Goldstein (1997), 8.</ref><ref name="laird 2006 143 144">Laird (2006), 143–144.</ref><ref name="The Ming Biographical History Project of the Association for Asian Studies 23">The Ming Biographical History Project of the Association for Asian Studies (1976), 23.</ref> By the late 16th century, the Mongols proved to be successful armed protectors of the Yellow Hat Dalai Lama after their increasing presence in the [[Amdo]] region, culminating in [[Güshi Khan]]'s (1582–1655) [[Tibet during the Ming Dynasty#Civil war and Güshi Khan|conquest of Tibet in 1642]].<ref name="wylie 2003 470"/><ref name="kolmas 34 35">Kolmas, 34–35.{{Nonspecific|date=August 2010}}</ref><ref name= "goldstein 1997 6 8">Goldstein (1997), 6–9.</ref><ref name="laird 2006 152">Laird (2006), 152.</ref>
===Reversal of Hongwu's policies===
====Imposing standards and relocations====
According to historian [[Timothy Brook (historian)|Timothy Brook]], the Hongwu Emperor attempted to immobilize society by creating rigid, state-regulated boundaries between villages and larger townships, discouraging trade and travel in society not permitted by the government.<ref name="brook 1998 19">Brook (1998), 19.</ref> Hongwu attempted to instill austere values by imposing uniform dress codes, standard methods of speech, and standard style of writing [[Chinese literature#Classical prose|classical prose]] that did not flaunt the skills of the highly educated.<ref name= "brook 1998 30 32">Brook (1998), 30–32.</ref> His suspicion for the educated elite matched his disdain for the commercial elites, imposing inordinately high taxes upon the hotbed of powerful merchant families in the region of [[Suzhou]] in [[Jiangsu]].<ref name="ebrey cambridge 192"/> He also forcibly moved thousands of wealthy families from the southeast and resettled them around Nanjing in the [[Jiangnan]] region, forbidding them to move once they were settled.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 192"/><ref name="brook 1998 28 29">Brook (1998), 28–29.</ref> To keep track of the merchants' activities, Hongwu forced them to register all of their goods once a month.<ref name="brook 1998 65 67">Brook (1998), 65–67.</ref> One of his main goals as ruler was to permanently curb the influence of merchants and landlords, yet several of his policies would eventually encourage them to amass more wealth.
Hongwu's oppressive system of massive relocation and the desire to escape his harsh taxes encouraged many to become [[itinerant]] retailers, peddlers, or migrant workers finding tenant landowners who would rent them space to farm and labor on.<ref>Brook (1998), 27–28, 94–95.</ref> By the mid Ming era, emperors had abandoned Hongwu's relocation scheme and instead trusted local officials to document migrant workers in order to bring in more revenue.<ref name="brook 1998 97"/> An elite of wealthy landlords and merchants reigning over land tenants, wage laborers, domestic servants, and migrant workers was hardly the vision of Hongwu's: strict adherence to the hierarchic status system of the [[four occupations]].<ref>Brook (1998), 85, 146, 154.</ref>
====Self-sufficient agriculture, surplus, and urban trends====
[[Image:Porcelaine chinoise Guimet 271108.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A [[Chinese ceramics|porcelain]] vase from the [[Jiajing Emperor|Jiajing reign period]] (1521–1567); Chinese culture became a consumptionary-based culture by the late Ming. Social elites were expected to know the difference between shoddy crafts and fine wares, and even which type of plants were to be appreciated as rare and exotic enough for [[Chinese garden|one's garden]].<ref>Brook (1998), 136–137.</ref>]]
Hongwu revived the agricultural sector to create self-sufficient communities that would not rely on commerce, which he assumed would remain only in urban areas.<ref name= "brook 1998 69">Brook (1998), 69.</ref> Yet the surplus created from this revival encouraged rural farmers to make profits by first selling their goods at thoroughfares; by the mid Ming era they began selling their goods in regional urban markets.<ref>Brook (1998), 65–66, 112–113.</ref> As the countryside and urban areas became more connected through commerce, households in rural areas began taking on traditionally urban specializations, such as production of silk and cotton textiles.<ref>Brook (1998), 113–117.</ref> By the late Ming there was a growing concern amongst conservative Confucians that the metaphorical delicate fabric holding together the communal social order was being undermined by country rustics accepting every manner of urban life and decadence.<ref name = "brook 1998 124 125">Brook (1998), 124–125.</ref>
The rural farmer was not the only social group affected by growing commercialization of Chinese society; it also heavily influenced the landholding gentry that traditionally produced scholar-officials for civil service. The scholar-officials were traditionally held as frugal individuals who deterred themselves from arrogance in the wealth garnered from a prestigious career; they were known even to walk from their country homes into the city where they were employed. By the time of the [[Zhengde Emperor]] (1505–1521), officials chose to be hauled around in luxurious [[Litter (vehicle)|sedan chairs]] and began purchasing lavish homes in affluent urban neighborhoods instead of living in the countryside.<ref name="brook 1998 144 145">Brook (1998), 144–145.</ref> By the late Ming era, gaining wealth became the prime indicator of social prestige, even more so than gaining a scholarly degree.<ref>Brook (1998), 128, 144.</ref>
====Fusion of the merchant and gentry classes====
[[Image:Cishou Temple Pagoda.JPG|thumb|upright|[[Pagoda of Cishou Temple|Cishou Temple Pagoda]], built in 1576; the Chinese believed that building pagodas on certain sites according to [[Feng shui|geomantic principles]] brought about auspicious events;<ref name="brook 1998 7">Brook (1998), 7.</ref> merchant-funding for such projects was needed by the late Ming period.]]
In the first half of the Ming era, scholar-officials would rarely mention the contribution of merchants in society while writing their local [[gazetteer]];<ref name="brook 1998 73">Brook (1998), 73.</ref> officials were certainly capable of funding their own public works projects, a symbol of their virtuous political leadership.<ref>Brook (1998), 6–7, 90–91.</ref> However, by the second half of the Ming era it became common for officials to solicit money from merchants in order to fund their various projects, such as building bridges or establishing new schools of Confucian learning for the betterment of the gentry.<ref name="brook 1998 90 93">Brook (1998), 90–93.</ref> From that point on the gazetteers began mentioning merchants and often in high esteem, since the wealth produced by their economic activity produced resources for the state as well as increased production of books needed for the education of the gentry.<ref>Brook (1998), 90–93, 129–130, 151.</ref> Merchants began taking on the highly cultured, connoisseur's attitude and cultivated traits of the gentry class, blurring the lines between merchant and gentry and paving the way for merchant families to produce scholar-officials.<ref>Brook (1998), 128–129, 134–138.</ref> The roots of this social transformation and class indistinction [[Society of the Song Dynasty#Social class|could be found in the Song Dynasty]] (960–1279),<ref>Gernet (1962), 60–61, 68–69.</ref> but it became much more pronounced in the Ming. Writings of family instructions for lineage groups in the late Ming period display the fact that one no longer inherited his position in the categorization of the four occupations (in descending order): [[Four occupations#The shi (士)|gentry]], [[Four occupations#The nong (农)|farmers]], [[Four occupations#The gong (工)|artisans]], and [[Four occupations#The shang (商)|merchants]].<ref name="brook 1998 161">Brook (1998), 161.</ref>
====Courier network and commercial growth====
Hongwu believed that only government couriers and lowly retail merchants should have the right to travel far outside their home town.<ref name="brook 1998 65 67"/> Despite his efforts to impose this view, his building of an efficient communication network for his military and official personnel strengthened and fomented the rise of a potential commercial network running parallel to the courier network.<ref>Brook (1998), 10, 49–51, 56.</ref> The shipwrecked Korean scholar-official [[Choe Bu]] (1454–1504) remarked in 1488 how the locals along the eastern coasts of China did not know the exact distances between certain places, which was virtually exclusive knowledge of the [[Three Departments and Six Ministries|Ministry of War]] and courier agents.<ref name="brook 1998 40 43">Brook (1998), 40–43.</ref> This was in stark contrast to the late Ming period, when merchants not only traveled further distances to convey their goods, but also bribed courier officials to use their routes and even had printed geographical guides of commercial routes that imitated the couriers' maps.<ref>Brook (1998), 10, 118–119.</ref>
====Merchants, an open market, and silver====
[[Image:MingLacquerTable1.jpg|thumb|upright|The only surviving piece of furniture from the "Orchard Factory" (the Imperial [[Lacquer]] Workshop) set up in [[Beijing]] in the early Ming Dynasty. Decorated in [[dragon]]s and [[Phoenix (mythology)|phoenixes]], it was made during the [[Xuande Emperor|Xuande]] era (1426–1435). The imperial workshops in the Ming era were overseen by a eunuch bureau.<ref name="hucker 1958 25"/> ([[media:MingLacquerTable2.jpg|See closeup for detail]])]]
The scholar-officials' dependence upon the economic activities of the merchants became more than a trend when it was semi-institutionalized by the state in the mid Ming era. Qiu Jun (1420–1495), a scholar-official from [[Hainan]], argued that the state should only mitigate market affairs during times of pending crisis and that merchants were the best gauge in determining the strength of a nation's riches in resources.<ref name="brook 1998 102">Brook (1998), 102.</ref> The government followed this guideline by the mid Ming era when it allowed merchants to take over the state monopoly of salt production. This was a gradual process where the state supplied northern frontier armies with enough grain by granting merchants licenses to trade in salt in return for their shipping services. The state realized that merchants could buy salt licenses with silver and in turn boost state revenues to the point where buying grain was not an issue.<ref name="brook 1998 108">Brook (1998), 108.</ref> The governments of both Hongwu and [[Zhengtong]] (r. 1435–1449) attempted to cut the flow of silver into the economy in favor of paper currency, yet mining the precious metal simply became a lucrative illegal pursuit practiced by many.<ref>Brook (1998), 68–69, 81–83.</ref> Hongwu was unaware of economic inflation even as he continued to hand out multitudes of banknotes as awards; by 1425, paper currency was worth only 0.025% to 0.014% its original value in the 14th century.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 134">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 134.</ref> The value of standard copper coinage dropped significantly as well due to counterfeit minting; by the 16th century, new maritime trade contacts with Europe provided massive amounts of imported silver, which increasingly became the common [[medium of exchange]].<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 134 135">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 134–135.</ref> As far back as 1436, the southern grain tax had been partially commuted to payments in silver.<ref name="brook 1998 xx">Brook (1998), xx.</ref> In 1581 the Single Whip Reform installed by [[Grand Secretary]] [[Zhang Juzheng]] (1525–1582) finally assessed taxes on the amount of land paid entirely in silver.<ref>Brook (1998), xxi, 89.</ref>
===Reign of the Yongle Emperor===
[[File:Anonymous-Ming Chengzu.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of the [[Yongle Emperor]] (r. 1402–24)]]
====Rise to power====
Hongwu's grandson Zhu Yunwen assumed the throne as the [[Jianwen Emperor]] (1398–1402) after Hongwu's death in 1398. In a prelude to a three-year-long civil war beginning in 1399,<ref name ="robinson 2000 527">Robinson (2000), 527.</ref> Jianwen became engaged in a political showdown with his uncle Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan. Jianwen was aware of the ambitions of his princely uncles, establishing measures to limit their authority. The militant Zhu Di, given charge over the area encompassing Beijing to watch the Mongols on the frontier, was the most feared of these princes. After Jianwen arrested many of Zhu Di's associates, Zhu Di plotted a rebellion. Under the guise of rescuing the young Jianwen from corrupting officials, Zhu Di personally led forces in the revolt; the palace in Nanjing was burned to the ground, along with Zhu Di's nephew Jianwen, his wife, mother, and courtiers. Zhu Di assumed the throne as the [[Yongle Emperor]] (1402–1424); his reign is universally viewed by scholars as a "second founding" of the Ming Dynasty since he reversed many of his father's policies.<ref name="atwell 2002 84">Atwell (2002), 84.</ref>
====New capital and a restored canal====
Yongle demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in [[Beijing]]. Construction of a new city there lasted from 1407 to 1420, employing hundreds of thousands of workers daily.<ref name="ebrey east asia 272">Ebrey (2006), 272.</ref> At the center was the political node of the [[Imperial City (Beijing)|Imperial City]], and at the center of this was the [[Forbidden City]], the palatial residence of the emperor and his family. By 1553, the Outer City was added to the south, which brought the overall size of Beijing to 4 by 4½ miles.<ref name= "ebrey cambridge 194">Ebrey (1999), 194.</ref>
[[File:Noel 2005 Pékin tombeaux Ming voie des âmes.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Ming Dynasty Tombs]] located 50 km (31 miles) north of [[Beijing]]; the site was chosen by Yongle.]]
After laying dormant and dilapidated for decades, the [[Grand Canal (China)|Grand Canal]] was restored under Yongle from 1411–1415. The impetus for restoring the canal was to solve the perennial problem of shipping grain north to Beijing. Shipping the annual 4,000,000 ''shi'' (one shi is equal to 107 liters) was made difficult with an inefficient system of shipping grain through the [[East China Sea]] or by several different inland canals that necessitated the transferring of grain onto several different barge types in the process, including shallow and deep water barges.<ref>Brook (1998), 46–47.</ref> Yongle commissioned some 165,000 workers to dredge the canal bed in western [[Shandong]] and built a series of fifteen [[canal lock]]s.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 194"/><ref name="brook 1998 47">Brook (1998), 47.</ref> The reopening of the Grand Canal had implications for Nanjing as well, as it was surpassed by the well-positioned city of [[Suzhou]] as the paramount commercial center of China.<ref name="brook 1998 74 75">Brook (1998), 74–75.</ref>
Although he ordered episodes of bloody purges like his father—including the execution of Fang Xiaoru, who refused to draft the proclamation of his succession—Yongle had a different attitude about the scholar-officials. He had a selection of texts compiled from the [[Cheng Yi (philosopher)|Cheng]]-[[Zhu Xi|Zhu]] school of Confucianism— or[[Neo-Confucianism]]—in order to assist those who studied for the civil service examinations. Yongle commissioned two thousand scholars to create a 50-million word (22,938-chapter) long encyclopedia—the ''[[Yongle Encyclopedia]]''—from seven thousand books.<ref name="ebrey east asia 272">Ebrey (2006), 272.</ref> This surpassed all previous encyclopedias in scope and size, including the 11th century compilation of the [[Four Great Books of Song]]. Yet the scholar-officials weren't the only political group that Yongle had to cooperate with and appease. Historian Michael Chang points out that Yongle was an "emperor on horseback" who often traversed between two capitals like in the Mongol Yuan tradition and constantly led expeditions into Mongolia.<ref name="chang 2007 66 67">Chang (2007), 66–67.</ref> This was opposed by the Confucian establishment while it served to bolster the importance of eunuchs and military officers whose power depended upon the emperor's favor.<ref name="chang 2007 66 67"/>
====Treasure fleet====
[[Image:Yongle-Giraffe1.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[giraffe]] brought from the [[Ajuuraan Empire]] in the [[Horn of Africa]], during the [[1414|12th year of Yongle (1414)]]; the Chinese associated the giraffe with the mythical [[qilin]].]]
Beginning in 1405, the Yongle Emperor entrusted his favored eunuch commander [[Zheng He]] (1371–1433) as the admiral for a gigantic new fleet of ships designated for international tributary missions. The Chinese had [[Foreign relations of Imperial China|sent diplomatic missions]] over [[History of the Han Dynasty|land and west since]] the [[Han Dynasty]] (202 BCE – 220 CE) and had been engaged in [[Economy of the Song Dynasty|private overseas trade]] leading all the way to [[Chinese exploration|East Africa for centuries]]—culminating in the Song and Yuan dynasties—but no government-sponsored tributary mission of this grandeur and size had ever been assembled before. To service seven different tributary missions abroad, the Nanjing shipyards constructed two thousand vessels from 1403 to 1419, which included the large [[treasure ship]]s that measured 112 m (370 ft) to 134 m (440 ft) in length and 45 m (150 ft) to 54 m (180 ft) in width.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 137">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 137.</ref> However, these claims have been called into question by some researchers who put the actual length of the ships to values as short as 59 m (~200 feet).<ref>Xin Yuanou: ''Guanyu Zheng He baochuan chidu de jishu fenxi (A Technical Analysis of the Size of Zheng He's Ships).'' Shanghai 2002, p. 8.</ref><ref name="Sally Church">{{citation | first = Sally K | last = Church: The Colossal Ships of Zheng He — Image or Reality?}} in {{citation | editor1-first = Claudine | editor1-last = Salmon | title = Zheng He — Images & Perceptions | series = South China and Maritime Asia | volume = 15 | editor2-first = Roderich | editor2-last = Ptak | editor3-first = Thomas | editor3-last = Höllmann | publisher = O. Harrasowitz | place = Wiesbaden | number = 15 | year = 2005 | pages = 155–176 | ISBN = 3-447-05114-0 | ISSN 0945-9286}}.</ref> The first voyage from 1405 to 1407 contained 317 vessels with a staff of 70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers, and 300 military officers commanding a total estimated force of 26,800 men.<ref>Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 137–138.</ref>
The enormous tributary missions were discontinued after the death of Zheng He, yet his death was only one of many culminating factors which brought the missions to an end. Yongle had [[Fourth Chinese domination (History of Vietnam)|conquered Vietnam]] in 1407, but Ming troops were pushed out in 1428 with significant costs to the Ming treasury; in 1431 the new [[Lê Dynasty]] of Vietnam was recognized as an independent tribute state.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 138"/> There was also the threat and revival of Mongol power on the northern steppe which drew court attention away from other matters; to face this threat, a massive amount of funds were used to build the [[Great Wall of China|Great Wall]] after 1474.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 139">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 139.</ref> Yongle's moving of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing was largely in response to the court's need of keeping a closer eye on the Mongol threat in the north.<ref>Robinson (1999), 80.</ref> Scholar-officials also associated the lavish expense of the fleets with eunuch power at court, and so halted funding for these ventures as a means to curtail further eunuch influence.<ref>Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 138–139.</ref>
===Tumu Crisis and the Ming Mongols===
{{Main|Tumu Crisis|Rebellion of Cao Qin}}
[[Image:Chemin de ronde muraille long.JPG|thumb|left|The [[Great Wall of China]]; although the [[rammed earth]] walls of the ancient [[Warring States]] were combined into a unified wall under the [[Qin Dynasty|Qin]] and [[Han Dynasty|Han]] dynasties, the vast majority of the brick and stone Great Wall as it is seen today is a product of the Ming Dynasty.]]
The [[Oirats|Oirat]] Mongol leader [[Esen Tayisi]] launched an invasion into Ming China in July of 1449. The chief eunuch [[Wang Zhen (eunuch)|Wang Zhen]] encouraged [[Zhengtong Emperor|Emperor Zhengtong]] (r. 1435–1449) to personally lead a force to face the Mongols after a recent Ming defeat; marching off with 50,000 troops, Zhengtong left the capital and put his half-brother [[Zhu Qiyu]] in charge of affairs as temporary regent. On September 8, Esen routed Zhengtong's army, and Zhengtong was captured — an event known as the [[Tumu Crisis]].<ref name="ebrey east asia 273">Ebrey (2006), 273.</ref> Esen then raided Ming territory as far as the suburbs of Beijing.<ref>Robinson (2000), 533–534.</ref> The Beijing area was again plundered in November by local bandits and ethnic Mongol deserters from the Imperial army posing as invading Mongols.<ref>Robinson (2000), 534.</ref> Many Han Chinese also took to [[brigandage]] soon after the Tumu incident.<ref>''Yingzong Shilu'', 184.17b, 185.5b.</ref><ref>Robinson (1999), 85, footnote 18.</ref>
The Mongols held the Zhengtong Emperor for ransom. However, this scheme was foiled once Zhengtong's younger brother assumed the throne as the [[Jingtai Emperor]] (r. 1449–1457); the Mongols were also repelled once Jingtai's confidant and defense minister [[Yu Qian]] (1398–457) gained control of the Ming armed forces. Holding Zhengtong in captivity was a useless bargaining chip for the Mongols as long as another sat on his throne, so they released him back into Ming China.<ref name="ebrey east asia 273"/> Zhengtong was placed under house arrest in the palace until the coup against Jingtai in 1457 known as the "Wresting the Gate Incident".<ref name="robinson 1999 83">Robinson (1999), 83.</ref> Zhengtong retook the throne as the Tianshun Emperor (r. 1457–1464).
Tianshun's reign was a troubled one and Mongol forces within the Ming military structure continued to be problematic. On August 7, 1461, the Chinese general Cao Qin and his Ming troops of Mongol descent [[Rebellion of Cao Qin|staged a coup against Tianshun]] out of fear of being next on his purge-list of those who aided Jingtai's succession.<ref>Robinson (1999), 84–85.</ref> Mongols serving the Ming military also became increasingly circumspect as the Chinese began to heavily distrust their Mongol subjects after the Tumu Crisis.<ref>Robinson (1999), 96–97.</ref> Cao's rebel force managed to set fire to the western and eastern gates of the [[Imperial City (Beijing)|Imperial City]] (doused by rain during the battle) and killed several leading ministers before his forces were finally cornered and he was forced to commit suicide.<ref>Robinson (1999), 79, 101–108.</ref>
Under [[Dayan Khan]] and his successors, the Mongol threat to China was at its greatest level in the 15th century, although periodic raiding continued throughout the dynasty. Like in the Tumu Crisis, the Mongol leader [[Altan Khan]] (1507–1582) invaded China and raided as far as the outskirts of Beijing.<ref name= "robinson 1999 81">Robinson (1999), 81.</ref><ref>Laird (2006), 141.</ref> The Ming employed troops of Mongol descent to fight back Altan Khan's invasion, as well as Mongol military officers against Cao Qin's abortive coup.<ref>Robinson (1999), 83, 101.</ref> While the Ming [[Yongle Emperor]] staged five major offensives north of the [[Great Wall]] against the Mongols, following [[Emperor Hongwu]]'s crushing of the remnants of the Yuan, the constant threat of Mongol incursions prompted the Ming authorities to fortify the Great Wall from the late 15th century to the 16th century; nevertheless, John Fairbank notes that "it proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality."<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 139">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 139.</ref> Yet the Great Wall was not meant to be a purely defensive fortification; its towers functioned rather as a series of lit beacons and signalling stations to allow rapid warning to friendly units of advancing enemy troops.<ref>Ebrey (1999), 208.</ref>
=== Isolation to globalization ===
====Illegal trade, piracy, and war with Japan====
[[Image:Wokou.jpg|thumb|16th century [[Wokou|Japanese]] pirate raids.]]
{{See|Qi Jiguang}}
In 1479, the vice president of the Ministry of War burned the court records documenting Zheng He's voyages; it was one of many events signalling China's shift to an inward foreign policy.<ref name = "fairbank goldman 2006 138">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 138.</ref> Shipbuilding laws were implemented that restricted vessels to a small size; the concurrent decline of the Ming navy allowed the growth of piracy along China's coasts. Japanese pirates—or [[wokou]]—began staging raids on Chinese ships and coastal communities, although much of the piracy was carried out by native Chinese.<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 139"/>
Instead of mounting a counterattack, Ming authorities chose to shut down coastal facilities in order to starve the pirates out; all foreign trade was henceforth conducted by the state under the guise of formal tribute missions.<ref name = "fairbank goldman 2006 139"/> These policies were known as the [[hai jin]] laws, which enacted a strict ban on private maritime activity until the laws' formal abolishment in 1567.<ref name = "fairbank goldman 2006 138"/> In this period government-managed overseas trade with Japan was carried out exclusively at the seaport of [[Ningbo]], trade with the [[Philippines]] exclusively at [[Fuzhou]], and trade with [[Indonesia]] exclusively at [[Guangzhou]].<ref name="ebrey cambridge 211"/> Even then the Japanese were only allowed into port once every ten years and were allowed to bring a maximum of three hundred men on two ships; these laws encouraged many Chinese merchants to engage in widespread illegal trade and smuggling.<ref name ="ebrey cambridge 211"/>
The low point in relations between Ming China and Japan occurred during the rule of the great Japanese warlord [[Hideyoshi]], who in 1592 announced he was going to conquer China. In two campaigns that are known collectively as the [[Imjin War]], the Japanese fought with the Korean and Ming armies. Both sides won victories in the war, which was fought almost entirely in Korea and the surrounding waters. Decisive battles were won by Ming and Korean forces, and with Hideyoshi's death in 1598, the Japanese gave up their last Korean bases and retreated to Japan. However, the victory came at an enormous cost to the Ming government's treasury: some 26,000,000 ounces of silver.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 214">Ebrey (1999), 214.</ref>
====Trade and contact with Europe====
[[Image:Ming foreign relations 1580.jpg|thumb|Military command centers in 1580, concentrated mostly along the seacoast, the northern border, and the southwest; major courier routes shown are based on a map from Timothy Brook's ''The Confusions of Pleasure''.]]
Although [[Jorge Álvares]] was the first to land on [[Lintin Island]] in the [[Pearl River Delta]] in May of 1513, it was [[Rafael Perestrello]]—a cousin of the famed [[Christopher Columbus]]—who became the first European explorer to land on the southern coast of mainland China and trade in [[Guangzhou]] in 1516, commanding a [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] vessel with a crew from a Malaysian junk that had sailed from [[Malacca]].<ref name="brook 1998 124">Brook (1998), 124.</ref><ref name= "pfoundes 1882 89">Pfoundes (1882), 89.</ref><ref>Nowell (1947), 8.</ref> The Portuguese sent a large subsequent expedition in 1517 to enter port at Guangzhou and open formal trade relations with Chinese authorities. During this expedition the Portuguese attempted to send an inland delegation in the name of [[Manuel I of Portugal]] to the court of the Ming emperor Zhengde; instead, the diplomatic mission languished in a Chinese jail and died there.<ref name= "brook 1998 124"/> After the death of Zhengde in April 1521, the conservative faction at court that was against expanding commercial relations ordered that the [[Portuguese Malacca|Portuguese conquest of Malacca]]—a loyal vassal to the Ming—was grounds enough to reject the Portuguese embassy.<ref name = "cambridge 339">Mote et al. (1998), 339.</ref> Simão de Andrade, brother to ambassador [[Fernão Pires de Andrade]], had also stirred Chinese speculation that the Portuguese were kidnapping Chinese children to eat them; Simão had purchased kidnapped children as slaves who were later found in [[Diu]], India.<ref name= "mote cambridge 337 338">Mote et al. (1998), 337–338.</ref> In 1521, Ming Dynasty naval forces fought and repulsed Portuguese ships at [[Tuen Mun]], where some of the first [[breech-loading weapon|breech-loading]] culverins were introduced to China.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 369.</ref> Despite these initial hostilities, by 1549 the Portuguese were sending annual trade missions to [[Shangchuan Island]].<ref name="brook 1998 124"/> In 1557, the Portuguese managed to convince the Ming court to agree on a legal port treaty that would establish [[Macau]] as an official Portuguese trade colony on the coasts of the [[South China Sea]].<ref name="brook 1998 124"/> The Portuguese friar [[Gaspar da Cruz]] (c. 1520 – February 5, 1570) traveled to Guangzhou in 1556 and wrote the first complete book on China and the Ming Dynasty that was published in Europe (fifteen days after his death); it included information on its geography, provinces, royalty, official class, bureaucracy, shipping, architecture, farming, craftsmanship, merchant affairs, clothing, religious and social customs, music and instruments, writing, education, and justice.<ref name="dictionary of ming biography">The Ming Biographical History Project of the Association for Asian Studies (1976), 410–411.</ref>
From China the major exports were silk and porcelain. The [[Dutch East India Company]] alone handled the trade of 6 million porcelain items from China to Europe between the years 1602 to 82.<ref name="brook 1998 206">Brook (1998), 206.</ref> [[Antonio de Morga]] (1559–1636), a Spanish official in [[Manila]], listed an extensive inventory of goods that were traded by Ming China at the turn of the 17th century, noting there were "rarities which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it".<ref>Brook (1998), 205–206.</ref> After noting the variety of silk goods traded to Europeans, Ebrey writes of the considerable size of commercial transactions:
[[Image:Matteo Ricci Far East 1602 Larger.jpg|thumb|Map of [[East Asia]] by the Italian Jesuit [[Matteo Ricci]] in 1602; Ricci (1552–1610) was the first European allowed into the Forbidden City, taught the Chinese how to construct and play the [[spinet]], translated Chinese texts into [[Latin]] and vice versa, and worked closely with his Chinese associate [[Xu Guangqi]] (1562–1633) on mathematical work.]]
{{quote |In one case a galleon to the Spanish territories in the New World carried over 50,000 pairs of silk stockings. In return China imported mostly silver from Peruvian and Mexican mines, transported via Manila. Chinese merchants were active in these trading ventures, and many emigrated to such places as the Philippines and Borneo to take advantage of the new commercial opportunities.<ref name ="ebrey cambridge 211">Ebrey (1999), 211.</ref>}}
After the Chinese had banned direct trade by Chinese merchants with Japan, the Portuguese filled this commercial vacuum as intermediaries between China and Japan.<ref name="spence 1999 19 20">Spence (1999), 19–20.</ref> The Portuguese bought Chinese silk and sold it to the Japanese in return for Japanese-mined silver; since silver was more highly valued in China, the Portuguese could then use Japanese silver to buy even larger stocks of Chinese silk.<ref name="spence 1999 19 20"/> However, by 1573—after the Spanish established a trading base in Manila—the Portuguese intermediary trade was trumped by the prime source of incoming silver to China from the Spanish Americas.<ref name="spence 1999 20">Spence (1999), 20.</ref><ref name = "brook 1998 205">Brook (1998), 205.</ref>
Although the bulk of imports to China were silver, the Chinese also purchased crops from the [[Americas]] via the [[Spanish Empire]]. This included [[sweet potato]]es, [[maize]], and [[peanut]]s, foods that could be cultivated in lands where traditional Chinese staple crops—wheat, millet, and rice—couldn't grow, hence facilitating a rise in the population of China.<ref name= "ebrey cambridge 211"/><ref name="crosby 2003 198 201">Crosby (2003), 198–201.</ref> In the Song Dynasty (960–1279), rice had become the major staple crop of the poor;<ref>Gernet (1962), 136.</ref> after sweet potatoes were introduced to China around 1560, it gradually became the traditional food of the lower classes.<ref name="crosby 2003 200">Crosby (2003), 200.</ref>
=== Decline ===
====Reign of the Wanli Emperor====
[[Image:Wanli-Emperor.JPG|thumb|upright|left|[[Wanli Emperor]] (r. 1572–1620)]]
The financial drain of the Imjin War in Korea against the Japanese was one of the many problems—fiscal or other—facing Ming China during the reign of the [[Wanli Emperor]] (r. 1572–1620). In the beginning of his reign, Wanli surrounded himself with able advisors and made a conscientious effort to handle state affairs. His Grand Secretary [[Zhang Juzheng]] (in office from 1572 to 1582) built up an effective network of alliances with senior officials. However, there was no one after him skilled enough to maintain the stability of these alliances;<ref name="hucker 1958 31">Hucker (1958), 31.</ref> officials soon banded together in opposing political factions. Over time Wanli grew tired of court affairs and frequent political quarreling amongst his ministers, preferring to stay behind the walls of the Forbidden City and out of his officials' sight.<ref name="spence 1999 16">Spence (1999), 16.</ref>
Officials aggravated Wanli about which of his sons should succeed to the throne; he also grew equally disgusted with senior advisors constantly bickering about how to manage the state.<ref name= "spence 1999 16"/> There were rising factions at court and across the intellectual sphere of China stemming from the philosophical debate for or against the teaching of [[Wang Yangming]] (1472–1529), the latter of whom rejected some of the orthodox views of [[Neo-Confucianism]].<ref name="ebrey east asia 281 283">Ebrey (2006), 281–283.</ref><ref>Ebrey (1999), 203–206, 213.</ref> Annoyed by all of this, Wanli began neglecting his duties, remaining absent from court audiences to discuss politics, lost interest in studying the [[Chinese classic texts|Confucian Classics]], refused to read petitions and other state papers, and stopped filling the recurrent vacancies of vital upper level administrative posts.<ref name = "spence 1999 16" /><ref name = "ebrey cambridge 194 195" /> Scholar-officials lost prominence in administration as eunuchs became intermediaries between the aloof emperor and his officials; any senior official who wanted to discuss state matters had to persuade powerful eunuchs with a bribe simply to have his demands or message relayed to the emperor.<ref name="spence 1999 17"/>
====Role of eunuchs====
[[File:Porcelain_tea_cups_from_the_reign_of_the_Tianqi_Emperor.jpg|thumb|[[Tianqi Emperor|Tianqi era]] teacups, from the Nantoyōsō Collection in Japan; the Tianqi Emperor was heavily influenced and largely controlled by the eunuch [[Wei Zhongxian]] (1568–1627).]]
It was said that Hongwu forbade eunuchs to learn how to read or engage in politics. Whether or not these restrictions were carried out with absolute success in his reign, eunuchs in the Yongle reign period and after managed huge imperial workshops, commanded armies, and participated in matters of appointment and promotion of officials. The eunuchs developed their own bureaucracy that was organized parallel to but was not subject to the civil service bureaucracy.<ref name = "ebrey cambridge 194"/> Although there were several dictatorial eunuchs throughout the Ming, such as Wang Zhen, Wang Zhi, and [[Liu Jin]], excessive tyrannical eunuch power did not become evident until the 1590s, when Wanli increased their rights over the civil bureaucracy and granted them power to collect provincial taxes.<ref name ="ebrey cambridge 194 195">Ebrey (1999), 194–195.</ref><ref name="spence 1999 17">Spence (1999), 17.</ref><ref name="hucker 1958 11">Hucker (1958), 11.</ref>
The eunuch [[Wei Zhongxian]] (1568–1627) dominated the court of the [[Tianqi Emperor]] (r. 1620–1627) and had his political rivals tortured to death, mostly the vocal critics from the faction of the [[Donglin movement|Donglin Society]]. He ordered temples built in his honor throughout the Ming Empire, and built personal palaces created with funds allocated for building the previous emperor's tombs. His friends and family gained important positions without qualifications. Wei also published a historical work lambasting and belitting his political opponents.<ref name="spence 1999 17 18">Spence (1999), 17–18.</ref> The instability at court came right as natural calamity, pestilence, rebellion, and foreign invasion came to a peak. Although the [[Chongzhen Emperor]] (r. 1627–1644) had Wei dismissed from court—which led to Wei's suicide shortly after—the problem with court eunuchs persisted until the dynasty's collapse less than two decades later.
====Economic breakdown and disaster====
[[Image:Ch'iu Ying 001.jpg|thumb|left|''Spring morning in a Han palace'', by [[Qiu Ying]] (1494–1552); excessive luxury and decadence were hallmarks of the late Ming period, spurred by the enormous state [[bullion]] of incoming silver and private transactions involving silver.]]
During the last years of Wanli's reign and those of his two successors, an economic crisis developed that was centered around a sudden widespread lack of the empire's chief medium of exchange: silver. The [[Protestantism|Protestant]] powers of the [[Dutch Republic]] and the [[Kingdom of England]] staged frequent raids and acts of piracy against the [[Catholicism|Catholic]]-based empires of Spain and Portugal in order to weaken their global economic power.<ref name="spence 1999 19">Spence (1999), 19.</ref> Meanwhile, [[Philip IV of Spain]] (r. 1621–1665) began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from [[Viceroyalty of New Spain|Mexico]] and [[Viceroyalty of Peru|Peru]] across the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] towards China, in favor of shipping American-mined silver directly from Spain to Manila. In 1639, the new [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa]] regime of Japan shut down most of its foreign trade with European powers, causing a halt of yet another source of silver coming into China. However, the greatest stunt to the flow of silver came from the Americas, while Japanese silver still came into China in limited amounts.<ref name="brook 1998 208">Brook (1998), 208.</ref> Some scholars even assert that the price of silver rose in the 17th century due to a falling demand for goods, not declining silver stocks.<ref name="brook 1998 289">Brook (1998), 289.</ref>
These events occurring at roughly the same time caused a dramatic spike in the value of silver and made paying taxes nearly impossible for most provinces. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it, forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline. In the 1630s, a string of one thousand copper coins was worth an ounce of silver; by 1640 this was reduced to the value of half an ounce; by 1643 it was worth roughly one-third of an ounce.<ref name="spence 1999 20">Spence (1999), 20.</ref> For peasants this was an economic disaster, since they paid taxes in silver while conducting local trade and selling their crops with copper coins.<ref>Spence (1999), 20–21.</ref>
In this early half of the 17th century, famines became common in northern China because of unusual dry and cold weather that shortened the growing season; these were effects of a larger ecological event now known as the [[Little Ice Age]].<ref name="spence 1999 21">Spence (1999), 21.</ref> Famine, alongside tax increases, widespread military desertions, a declining relief system, and natural disasters such as flooding and inability of the government to properly manage irrigation and flood-control projects caused widespread loss of life and normal civility.<ref name="spence 1999 21"/> The central government was starved of resources and could do very little to mitigate the effects of these calamities. Making matters worse, a widespread epidemic spread across China from Zhejiang to Henan, killing a large but unknown number of people.<ref name = "spence 1999 22 24">Spence (1999), 22–24.</ref> The deadliest earthquake of all times, the [[1556 Shaanxi earthquake|Shaanxi earthquake]] of 1556 that killed approximately 830,000 people, occurred during the [[Jiajing Emperor]]'s reign.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4128509.stm Tsunami among world's worst disasters]. ''BBC News.'' December 30, 2004.</ref>
===Fall of the Ming Dynasty===
{{Main|Fall of the Ming Dynasty}}
====Rise of the Manchu====
[[Image:ShanhaiguanGreatWall.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Shanhaiguan]] along the Great Wall, the gate where the Manchus were repeatedly repelled before being finally let through by [[Wu Sangui]] in 1644.]]
A tribal leader named [[Nurhaci]] (r. 1616–1626), starting with just a small tribe, rapidly gained control over all the [[Manchuria]]n tribes. During the [[Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)]], he offered to lead his tribes in support of the Ming and [[Joseon Dynasty|Joseon]] army. This offer was declined, but he was granted honorific Ming titles for his gesture. Recognizing the weakness of Ming authority north of their border, he took control over all of the other unrelated tribes surrounding his homeland.<ref name="spence 1999 27">Spence (1999), 27.</ref> In 1610, he broke relations with the Ming court; in 1618 he demanded the Ming pay tribute to him to redress the ''seven grievances'' which he documented and sent to the Ming court. This was effectively a declaration of war, as the Ming were not about to pay money to a former tributary.
Under the commander [[Yuan Chonghuan]] (1584–1630), the Ming were able to fight off the Manchus repeatedly, notably in 1626 at the [[Battle of Ningyuan]] (in which Nurhaci was mortally wounded) and in 1628. Under Yuan's command the Ming had securely fortified the [[Shanhaiguan|Shanhai pass]], thus blocking the Manchus from crossing the pass to attack Beijing. Using knowledge of firearms that he might have acquired from his cook, Yuan was able to stave off Nurhaci's advances along the [[Liao River]].<ref name = "spence 1999 24">Spence (1999), 24.</ref> Although he was named field marshal of all the northeastern forces in 1628, he was executed in 1630 on trumped-up charges of colluding with the Manchus as they staged their raids.<ref name= "spence 1999 24 25">Spence (1999), 24–25.</ref> Succeeding generals proved unable to eliminate the Manchu threat.
Unable to attack the heart of Ming directly, the Manchu instead bided their time, developing their own artillery and gathering allies. They were able to enlist Ming government officials and generals as their strategic advisors. A large part of the Ming Army deserted to the Manchu banner. In 1632, they had conquered much of [[Inner Mongolia]],<ref name="spence 1999 24"/> resulting in a large scale recruitment of Mongol troops under the [[Eight Banners|Manchu banner]] and the securing of an additional route into the Ming heartland.
By 1636, the Manchu ruler [[Huang Taiji]] renamed his dynasty from the "Later Jin" to "[[Qing Dynasty|Great Qing]]" at [[Shenyang]], which had fallen to the Manchu in 1621 and was made their capital in 1625.<ref name="spence 1999 24 28">Spence (1999), 24, 28.</ref><ref name="chang 2007 92">Chang (2007), 92.</ref> Huang Taiji also adopted the Chinese imperial title ''[[Emperor of China|huangdi]]'', took the reign title [[Huang Taiji|Chongde]] ("Revering Virtue"), and changed the ethnic name of his people from [[Jurchen people|Jurchen]] to [[Manchu people|Manchu]].<ref name="chang 2007 92"/><ref name="spence 1999 31">Spence (1999), 31.</ref> In 1638 the Manchu defeated and conquered Ming China's traditional ally Joseon with an army of 100,000 troops. Shortly after the Koreans renounced their long-held loyalty to the Ming Dynasty.<ref name="spence 1999 31"/>
====Rebellion, invasion, collapse====
[[Image:Emperor Shunzhi.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Shunzhi Emperor]] (1644–1661), proclaimed the ruler of China on October 8, 1644.]]
A peasant soldier named [[Li Zicheng]] (1606–1645) mutinied with his fellow soldiers in western Shaanxi in the early 1630s after the government failed to ship much-needed supplies there.<ref name= "spence 1999 21"/> In 1634 he was captured by a Ming general and released only on the terms that he return to service.<ref>Spence (1999), 21–22.</ref> The agreement soon broke down when a local magistrate had thirty-six of his fellow rebels executed; Li's troops retaliated by killing the officials and continued to lead a rebellion based in Rongyang, central [[Henan]] province by 1635.<ref name="spence 1999 22">Spence (1999), 22.</ref> By the 1640s, an ex-soldier and rival to Li—[[Zhang Xianzhong]] (1606–1647 —had created a firm rebel base in [[Chengdu]], [[Sichuan]], while Li's center of power was in [[Hubei]] with extended influence over Shaanxi and Henan.<ref name="spence 1999 22"/>
In 1640, masses of Chinese peasants who were starving, unable to pay their taxes, and no longer in fear of the frequently defeated Chinese army, began to form into huge bands of rebels. The Chinese military, caught between fruitless efforts to defeat the Manchu raiders from the north and huge peasant revolts in the provinces, essentially fell apart. Unpaid and unfed, the army was defeated by Li Zicheng—now self-styled as the Prince of Shun—and deserted the capital without much of a fight.<ref name= "spence 1999 25" /> Li's forces were allowed into the city when the gates were treacherously opened from within.<ref name="spence 1999 25"/> On May 26, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng; during the turmoil, [[Chongzhen Emperor|the last Ming emperor]] hanged himself [[Guilty Chinese Scholartree|on a tree in the imperial garden]] outside the Forbidden City.<ref name="spence 1999 25">Spence (1999), 25.</ref>
Seizing opportunity, the Manchus crossed the [[Great Wall]] after the Ming border general [[Wu Sangui]] (1612–1678) opened the gates at [[Shanhai Pass]]. This occurred shortly after he learned about the fate of the capital and an army of Li Zicheng marching towards him; weighing his options of alliance, he decided to side with the Manchus.<ref name="spence 1999 32 33">Spence (1999), 32–3.</ref> The Manchu army under the Manchu Prince [[Dorgon]] (1612–50) and Wu Sangui approached Beijing after the army sent by Li was destroyed at [[Shanhaiguan]]; the Prince of Shun's army fled the capital on the fourth of June. On June 6, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young [[Shunzhi Emperor]] ruler of China. After being forced out of [[Xi'an]] by the Manchus, chased along the [[Han River (Hanshui)|Han River]] to [[Wuchang, Hubei|Wuchang]], and finally along the northern border of [[Jiangxi]] province, Li Zicheng died there in the summer of 1645, thus ending the [[Shun Dynasty]]. One report says his death was a suicide; another states that he was beaten to death by peasants after he was caught stealing their food.<ref name="spence 1999 33">Spence (1999), 33.</ref> Zhang Xianzhong was killed in January of 1647 by Manchu troops after he fled Chengdu and employed [[scorched earth]] policy.<ref>Spence (1999), 34–35.</ref>
Scattered Ming remnants held out after 1644, including that of [[Koxinga]] (Zheng Chenggong) on [[Taiwan]] (Formosa). Despite the loss of Beijing and the death of the emperor, Ming power was by no means totally destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi, and Yunnan were all strongholds of Ming resistance. However, there were several pretenders for the Ming throne, and their forces were divided. Each bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until 1662, when the last real hopes of a Ming revival died with the Yongli emperor, [[Prince of Gui|Zhu Youlang]]. Despite the Ming defeat, smaller loyalist movements continued until the proclamation of the [[Republic of China]].
==Government==
===Province, prefecture, subprefecture, county===
[[Image:PanYongzheng-ProcessionalTombFigurines-ShanghaiMuseum-May27-08.jpg|thumb|Processional figurines from the [[Shanghai]] tomb of Pan Yongzheng, a Ming Dynasty official who lived during the 16th century]]
The Ming emperors took over the provincial administration system of the Yuan Dynasty, and the thirteen Ming provinces are the precursors of the modern provinces. Throughout the Song Dynasty, the largest political division was the [[Circuit (country subdivision)|circuit]] (''lu'').<ref>Yuan (1994), 193–194.</ref> However, after the [[Jingkang Incident|Jurchen invasion]] in 1127, the Song court established four semi-autonomous regional command systems based on territorial and military units, with a detached service secretariat that would become the provincial administrations of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.<ref name="hartwell 1982 397 398">Hartwell (1982), 397–398.</ref> Copied on the Yuan model, the Ming provincial bureaucracy contained three commissions: one civil, one military, and one for surveillance. Below the level of the [[Province (China)|province]] (''sheng'') were [[Prefecture (China)|prefectures]] (''fu'') operating under a prefect (''zhifu''), followed by [[Zhou (country subdivision)|subprefectures]] (''zhou'') under a subprefect. The lowest unit was the [[County (China)|county]] (''xian''), overseen by a magistrate. Besides the provinces, there were also two large areas that belonged to no province, but were metropolitan areas (''jing'') attached to Nanjing and Beijing.<ref name="hucker 1958 5">Hucker (1958), 5.</ref>
===Institutions and bureaus===
====Institutional trends====
[[Image:Gugong.jpg|thumb| The [[Forbidden City]], the official imperial household of the Ming and Qing dynasties from 1420 until 1924, when the [[Republic of China]] evicted [[Puyi]] from the Inner Court.]]
Departing from the main central administrative system generally known as the [[Three Departments and Six Ministries]] system, [[Government of the Han Dynasty|which was instituted by various dynasties]] since late [[Han Dynasty|Han]] (202 BCE – 220 CE), the Ming administration had only one Department, the Secretariat, that controlled the Six Ministries. Following the execution of the [[Chancellor (China)|Chancellor]] Hu Weiyong in 1380, emperor Hongwu abolished the Secretariat, the [[Censorate]], and the Chief Military Commission and personally took charge of the Six Ministries and the regional Five Military Commissions.<ref name="hucker 1958 28">Hucker (1958), 28.</ref><ref name="chang 2007 15 footnote 42">Chang (2007), 15, footnote 42.</ref> Thus a whole level of administration was cut out and only partially rebuilt by subsequent rulers.<ref name="hucker 1958 28"/> The [[Grand Secretariat]], at the beginning a secretarial institution that assisted the emperor with administrative paperwork, was instituted, but without employing grand counselors, or [[Chancellor (China)|chancellors]]. The ministries, headed by a minister and run by directors remained under direct control of the emperor until the end of the Ming.
The Hongwu Emperor sent his heir apparent to Shaanxi in 1391 to "tour and soothe" (''xunfu'') the region; in 1421 the Yongle Emperor commissioned 26 officials to travel the empire and uphold similar investigatory and patrimonial duties. By 1430 these ''xunfu'' assignments became institutionalized. Hence, the Censorate was reinstalled and first staffed with investigating censors, later with censors-in-chief. By 1453, the "grand coordinators"—or "touring pacifiers", as Michael Chang notes—were granted the title vice censor-in-chief or assistant censor-in-chief and were allowed direct access to the emperor.<ref name="chang 2007 16">Chang (2007), 16.</ref> As in prior dynasties, the provincial administrations were monitored by a travelling inspector from the Censorate. Censors had the power to impeach officials on an irregular basis, unlike the senior officials who were to do so only in triennial evaluations of junior officials.<ref name="chang 2007 16"/><ref name="hucker 1958 16">Hucker (1958), 16.</ref>
Although decentralization of state power within the provinces occurred in the early Ming, the trend of central government officials delegated to the provinces as virtual provincial governors began in the 1420s. By the late Ming Dynasty, there were central government officials delegated to two or more provinces as supreme commanders and viceroys, a system which reined in the power and influence of the military by the civil establishment.<ref name="hucker 1958 23">Hucker (1958), 23.</ref>>
====Grand Secretariat and Six Ministries====
[[Image:Portrait of Jiang Shunfu.jpg| thumb | upright | A portrait of the official Jiang Shunfu (1453–1504), now in the [[Nanjing Museum]]. The decoration of two [[Crane (bird)|cranes]] on his chest is a "[[Mandarin square|rank badge]]" that indicates he was a civil official of the first rank.]]
Governmental institutions in China conformed to a similar pattern for some two thousand years, but each dynasty installed special offices and bureaus, reflecting its own particular interests. The Ming administration had the [[Grand Secretaries]] assisting the emperor, with paperwork handled by them under [[Yongle Emperor|Yongle]]'s reign and finally appointed as top officials of agencies and Grand Preceptor, a top-ranking, non-functional civil service post, under the [[Hongxi Emperor]] (r. 1424–1425).<ref>Hucker (1958), 29–30.</ref> The Grand Secretariat drew its members from the [[Hanlin Academy]] and were considered part of the imperial authority, not the ministerial one (hence being at odds with both the emperor and ministers at times).<ref name="hucker 1958 30">Hucker (1958), 30.</ref> The Secretariat was a coordinating agency, whereas the Six Ministries—which were Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Public Works—were direct administrative organs of the state.<ref>Hucker (1958), 31–32.</ref> The Ministry of Personnel was in charge of appointments, merit ratings, promotions, and demotions of officials, as well as granting of honorific titles.<ref name="hucker 1958 32">Hucker (1958), 32.</ref> The Ministry of Revenue was in charge of gathering census data, collecting taxes, and handling state revenues, while there were two offices of currency that were subordinate to it.<ref name="hucker 1958 33">Hucker (1958), 33.</ref> The Ministry of Rites was in charge of state ceremonies, rituals, and sacrifices; it also oversaw registers for Buddhist and Daoist priesthoods and even the reception of envoys from tributary states.<ref name="hucker 1958 33 35">Hucker (1958), 33–35.</ref> The Ministry of War was in charge of the appointments, promotions, and demotions of military officers, the maintenance of military installations, equipment, and weapons, as well as the courier system.<ref name="hucker 1958 35">Hucker (1958), 35.</ref> The Ministry of Justice was in charge of judicial and penal processes, but had no supervisory role over the Censorate or the Grand Court of Revision.<ref name="hucker 1958 36">Hucker (1958), 36.</ref> The Ministry of Works was in charge of government construction projects, hiring of artisans and laborers for temporary service, manufacturing government equipment, the maintenance of roads and canals, standardization of weights and measures, and the gathering of resources from the countryside.<ref name="hucker 1958 36"/>
====Bureaus and offices for the imperial household====
[[File:Ming coinage 14th 17th century.jpg|thumb|Ming [[Ancient Chinese coinage|coinage]], 14–17th century]]
The imperial household was staffed almost entirely by eunuchs and ladies with their own bureaus.<ref name="hucker 1958 24">Hucker (1958), 24.</ref> Female servants were organized into the Bureau of Palace Attendance, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apparel, Bureau of Foodstuffs, Bureau of the Bedchamber, Bureau of Handicrafts, and Office of Staff Surveillance.<ref name="hucker 1958 24"/> Starting in the 1420s, eunuchs began taking over these ladies' positions until only the Bureau of Apparel with its four subsidiary offices remained.<ref name="hucker 1958 24"/> Hongwu had his eunuchs organized into the Directorate of Palace Attendants, but as eunuch power at court increased, so did their administrative offices, with eventual twelve directorates, four offices, and eight bureaus.<ref name="hucker 1958 24"/> The dynasty had a vast imperial household, staffed with thousands of eunuchs, who were headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants. The eunuchs were divided into different directorates in charge of staff surveillance, ceremonial rites, food, utensils, documents, stables, seals, apparel, and so on.<ref name="hucker 1958 25">Hucker (1958), 25.</ref> The offices were in charge of providing fuel, music, paper, and baths.<ref name="hucker 1958 25"/> The bureaus were in charge of weapons, silverwork, laundering, headgear, bronzework, textile manufacture, wineries, and gardens.<ref name="hucker 1958 25"/> At times, the most influential eunuch in the Directorate of Ceremonial acted as a ''de facto'' dictator over the state.<ref>Hucker (1958), 11, 25.</ref>
Although the imperial household was staffed mostly by eunuchs and palace ladies, there was a civil service office called the Seal Office, which cooperated with eunuch agencies in maintaining imperial seals, tallies, and stamps.<ref>Hucker (1958), 25–26.</ref> There were also civil service offices to oversee the affairs of imperial princes.<ref name="hucker 1958 26">Hucker (1958), 26.</ref>
===Personnel===
====Scholar-officials====
[[Image:Ming-Beamtenprüfungen1.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Candidates who had taken the civil service examinations would crowd around the wall where the results were posted; detail from a handscroll in ink and color on silk, by [[Qiu Ying]] (1494–552).<ref>Ebrey (1999), 200.</ref>]]
After the reign of Hongwu—who from 1373 to 84 staffed his bureaus with officials gathered through recommendations only—the scholar-officials who populated the many ranks of bureaucracy were recruited through a rigorous [[Imperial examinations|examination system]] that was first established by the [[Sui Dynasty]] (581–618).<ref name="hucker 1958 12"/><ref>Ebrey (2006), 96.</ref><ref>Ebrey (1999), 145–146.</ref> Theoretically the system of exams allowed anyone to join the ranks of imperial officials (although frowned upon for merchants to join); in reality the time and funding needed to support the study in preparation for the exam generally limited participants to those already coming from the landholding class. However, the government did exact provincial quotas while drafting officials.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 199">Ebrey (1999), 199.</ref> This was an effort to curb monopolization of power by landholding gentry who came from the most prosperous regions, where education was the most advanced.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 198 199">Ebrey (1999), 198–199.</ref> The expansion of the [[Technology of the Song Dynasty#Movable type printing|printing industry since Song times]] enhanced the spread of knowledge and number of potential exam candidates throughout the provinces.<ref>Ebrey (1999), 201–202.</ref> For young schoolchildren there were printed [[multiplication table]]s and [[Primer (textbook)|primers]] for elementary vocabulary; for adult examination candidates there were mass-produced, inexpensive volumes of Confucian classics and successful examination answers.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 202">Ebrey (1999), 202.</ref>
As in earlier periods, the focus of the examination was classical Confucian texts,<ref name="hucker 1958 12">Hucker (1958), 12.</ref> while the bulk of test material centered on the [[Four Books]] outlined by [[Zhu Xi]] in the 12th century.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 198">Ebrey (1999), 198.</ref> Ming era examinations were perhaps more difficult to pass since the 1487 requirement of completing the "[[eight-legged essay]]", a departure from basing essays off progressing literary trends.<ref name="hucker 1958 13">Hucker (1958), 13.</ref><ref name="ebrey cambridge 198"/> The exams increased in difficulty as the student progressed from the local level, and appropriate titles were accordingly awarded successful applicants. Officials were classified in nine hierarchic grades, each grade divided into two degrees, with ranging salaries (nominally paid in piculs of rice) according to their rank.<ref name="hucker 1958 11 12">Hucker (1958), 11–12.</ref> While provincial graduates who were appointed to office were immediately assigned to low-ranking posts like the county graduates, those who passed the palace examination were awarded a ''jinshi'' ('presented scholar') degree and assured a high-level position.<ref name="hucker 1958 14">Hucker (1958), 14.</ref><ref>Brook (1998), xxv.</ref> In 276 years of Ming rule and ninety palace examinations, the number of doctoral degrees granted by passing the palace examinations was 24,874.<ref name="hucker 1958 14"/> Ebrey states that "there were only two to four thousand of these ''jinshi'' at any given time, on the order of one out of 10,000 adult males."<ref name="ebrey cambridge 199"/> This was in comparison to the 100,000 ''shengyuan'' ('government students'), the lowest tier of graduates, by the 16th century.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 199"/>
The maximum tenure in office was nine years, but every three years officials were graded on their performance by senior officials.<ref>Hucker (1958), 15–16.</ref> If they were graded as superior then they were promoted, if graded adequate then they retained their ranks, and if graded inadequate they were demoted one rank. In extreme cases, officials would be dismissed or punished. Only capital officials of grade 4 and above were exempt from the scrutiny of recorded evaluation, although they were expected to confess any of their faults.<ref name="hucker 1958 16"/> There were over 4,000 school instructors in county and prefectural schools who were subject to evaluations every nine years. The Chief Instructor on the prefectural level was classified as equal to a second-grade county graduate.<ref name="hucker 1958 17">Hucker (1958), 17.</ref> The Supervisorate of Imperial Instruction oversaw the education of the heir apparent to the throne; this office was headed by a Grand Supervisor of Instruction, who was ranked as first class of grade three.<ref name= "hucker 1958 26"/>
====Lesser functionaries====
[[Image:Ming Emperor Xuande playing Golf.jpg|thumb|The [[Xuande Emperor]] playing [[chuiwan]] with his eunuchs, a game similar to [[golf]], by an anonymous court painter of the Xuande period (1425–1435).]]
Scholar-officials who entered civil service through examinations acted as executive officials to a much larger body of non-ranked personnel called lesser functionaries. They outnumbered officials by four to one; Charles Hucker estimates that they were perhaps as many as 100,000 throughout the empire. These lesser functionaries performed clerical and technical tasks for government agencies. Yet they should not be confused with lowly lictors, runners, and bearers; lesser functionaries were given periodic merit evaluations like officials and after nine years of service might be accepted into a low civil service rank.<ref name="hucker 1958 18">Hucker (1958), 18.</ref> The one great advantage of the lesser functionaries over officials was that officials were periodically rotated and assigned to different regional posts and had to rely on the good service and cooperation of the local lesser functionaries.<ref name="hucker 1958 18 19">Hucker (1958), 18–19.</ref>
====Eunuchs, princes, and generals====
[[File:Detail of The Emperor's Approach, Xuande period.jpg|thumb|left|165px | Detail of ''The Emperor's Approach'' showing the [[Wanli Emperor]]'s royal carriage being pulled by elephants and escorted by cavalry ([[:File:Departure Herald-Ming Dynasty.jpg|full panoramic painting here]])]]
Eunuchs during the Ming Dynasty gained unprecedented power over state affairs. One of the most effective means of control was the secret service stationed in what was called the Eastern Depot at the beginning of the dynasty, later the Western Depot. This secret service was overseen by the Directorate of Ceremonial, hence this state organ's often totalitarian affiliation.<ref name= "hucker 1958 25"/> Eunuchs had ranks that were equivalent to civil service ranks, only theirs had four grades instead of nine.<ref>Hucker (1958), 24–25.</ref>
Princes and descendants of the first Ming emperor were given nominal military commands and large land estates without title. These estates were not feudatories, the princes did not serve any administrative function, and it was only during the reign of the first two emperors that they partook in military affairs.<ref name= "hucker 1958 8">Hucker (1958), 8.</ref> By contrast, princes in the Han and Jin Dynasties had been installed as local kings. Although princes served no organ of state administration, princes, consorts of imperial princesses, and ennobled relatives did staff the Imperial Clan Court, which took care of the imperial [[genealogy]].<ref name="hucker 1958 26"/>
Like scholar-officials, military generals were ranked in a hierarchic grading system and were given merit evaluations every five years (as opposed to three years for officials).<ref name="hucker 1958 19">Hucker (1958), 19.</ref> However, military officers had less prestige than officials. This was due to their hereditary service (instead of solely merit-based) and Confucian values that dictated those who chose the profession of violence (wu) over the cultured pursuits of knowledge (wen).<ref name="hucker 1958 19"/><ref>Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 109–112.</ref> Although seen as less prestigious, military officers were not excluded from taking civil service examinations and after 1478 the military even held their own examinations to test military skills.<ref name="hucker 1958 19 20">Hucker (1958), 19–20.</ref> In addition to taking over the established bureaucratic structure from the Yuan period, the Ming emperors established the new post of the travelling military inspector. In the early half of the dynasty, men of noble lineage dominated the higher ranks of military office; this trend was reversed during the latter half of the dynasty as men from more humble origins eventually displaced them.<ref name="robinson 1999 116 117">Robinson (1999), 116–117.</ref>
{{-}}
==Society and culture==
===Literature and arts===
{{See|Ming Dynasty painting}}
[[Image:B-ChinesischeLackdose.JPG|thumb|A Ming Dynasty red [[lacquer]] box with intricate carving of people in the countryside, surrounded by a floral border design.]]
As in earlier dynasties, the Ming Dynasty saw a flourishing in the arts, whether it was [[Chinese painting|painting]], [[Chinese poetry|poetry]], [[Music of China|music]], [[Chinese literature|literature]], or [[Chinese opera|dramatic theater]]. Carved designs in [[lacquerware]]s and designs glazed onto [[porcelain]] wares displayed intricate scenes similar in complexity to those in painting. These items could be found in the homes of the wealthy, alongside embroidered silks and wares in [[Chinese jade|jade]], ivory, and [[cloisonné]]. The houses of the rich were also furnished with rosewood furniture and feathery [[latticework]]. The writing materials in a scholar's private study, including elaborately carved brush holders made of stone or wood, were all designed and arranged ritually to give an aesthetic appeal.<ref name="spence 1999 10">Spence (1999), 10.</ref>
Connoisseurship in the late Ming period centered around these items of refined artistic taste, which provided work for art dealers and even underground scammers who made phony imitations of originals and false attributions to works of art.<ref name="spence 1999 10"/> This was noted even by the Jesuit [[Matteo Ricci]] while staying in Nanjing, writing that Chinese scam artists were ingenious when it came to making forgeries of artwork and made huge profits.<ref name="brook 1998 224 225">Brook (1998), 224–225.</ref> However, there were guides to help the wary new connoisseur; in [[Liu Tong]]'s (d. 1637) book printed in 1635, he told his readers various ways to spot a fake and authentic pieces of art.<ref name = "brook 1998 225">Brook (1998), 225.</ref> He revealed that a [[Xuande|Xuande era]] (1426–1435) bronzework could be authenticated if one knew how to judge its sheen; porcelain wares from the Yongle era (1402–1424) could be judged authentic by their thickness.<ref name="brook 1998 225 226">Brook (1998), 225–226.</ref>
[[Image:Lofty Mt.Lu by Shen Zhou.jpg|thumb|left|''Lofty [[Mount Lu]]'', by [[Shen Zhou]], 1467.]]
There was a great amount of literary achievement in the Ming Dynasty. [[Xu Xiake]] (1587–1641), a [[travel literature]] author, published his ''Travel Diaries'' in 404,000 written [[Chinese characters|characters]], with information on everything from local [[History of geography|geography]] to [[mineralogy]].<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 3, 524.</ref><ref>Hargett (1985), 69.</ref> The first reference to the publishing of private newspapers in Beijing was in 1582; by 1638 the Beijing [[Gazette]] switched from using [[woodblock printing|woodblock print]] to [[movable type]] printing.<ref name="brook 1998 xxi">Brook (1998), xxi.</ref> The new literary field of the moral guide to business ethics was developed by the late Ming period, for the readership of the merchant class.<ref>Brook (1998), 215–217.</ref> Although short story fiction was popular as far back as the Tang Dynasty (618–907),<ref>Ebrey (2006), 104–105.</ref> and the work of contemporaneous authors such as Xu Guangqi, Xu Xiake, and Song Yingxing were often technical and encyclopedic, the Ming era witnessed the development of the novel. While the gentry elite were educated enough to fully comprehend the language of [[Classical Chinese]], those with rudimentary education—such as women in educated families, merchants, and shop clerks—became a large, potential audience for literature and performing arts that employed [[Vernacular Chinese]].<ref name="ebrey cambridge 202 203">Ebrey (1999), 202–203.</ref> The ''[[Jin Ping Mei]]'', published in 1610, is considered by some to be the fifth great novel of pre-modern China, in reference to the [[Four Great Classical Novels]]. Two of these novels, the ''[[Water Margin]]'' and ''[[Journey to the West]]'' were products of the Ming Dynasty. To complement the work of novels, the theater scripts of playwrights were equally imaginative. One of the most famous plays in Chinese history, ''[[The Peony Pavilion]]'', was written by the Ming playwright [[Tang Xianzu]] (1550–1616), with its first performance at the [[Pavilion of Prince Teng]] in 1598.
In contrast to Xu Xiake, who focused on technical aspects in his travel literature, the Chinese poet and official [[Yuan Hongdao]] (1568–1610) used travel literature to express his desires for individualism as well as autonomy from and frustration with Confucian court politics.<ref name="chang 2007 318 319">Chang (2007), 318–319.</ref> Yuan desired to free himself from the ethical compromises which were inseparable from the career of a scholar-official. This anti-official sentiment in Yuan's travel literature and poetry was actually following in the tradition of the Song Dynasty poet and official [[Su Shi]] (1037–1101).<ref name="chang 2007 319">Chang (2007), 319.</ref> Yuan Hongdao and his two brothers, Yuan Zongdao (1560–1600) and [[Yuan Zhongdao]] (1570–1623), were the founders of the Gong'an School of letters.<ref name="chang 2007 318">Chang (2007), 318.</ref> This highly individualistic school of poetry and prose was criticized by the Confucian establishment for its association with intense sensual lyricism, which was also apparent in Ming vernacular novels such as the ''Jin Ping Mei''.<ref name= "chang 2007 318"/> Yet even gentry and scholar-officials were affected by the new popular romantic literature, seeking courtesans as soulmates to reenact the heroic love stories which arranged marriages often could not provide or accommodate.<ref name="brook 1998 229 231">Brook (1998), 229–231.</ref>
[[Image:Chen Hongshou, leaf album painting.jpg|thumb|Painting of flowers, a butterfly, and [[Chinese scholar's rocks|rock sculpture]] by [[Chen Hongshou]] (1598–1652); small leaf album paintings like this one first [[Culture of the Song Dynasty|became popular in the Song Dynasty]].]]
There were many famous visual artists in the Ming period, including [[Ni Zan]], [[Shen Zhou]], [[Tang Yin]], [[Wen Zhengming]], [[Qiu Ying]], [[Dong Qichang]], and many others. They drew upon the techniques, styles, and complexity in painting achieved by their Song and Yuan predecessors, but added some new techniques and styles. Well-known Ming artists could make a living simply by painting, due to the high prices they demanded for their artworks and the great demand by the highly cultured community to collect precious works of art. The artist Qiu Ying was once paid 2.8 kg (100 oz) of silver to paint a long handscroll for the occasion of an eightieth birthday celebration for the mother of a wealthy patron. Renowned artists often gathered an entourage of followers, some who were amateurs who painted while pursuing an official career and others who were full-time painters.<ref name= "ebrey cambridge 201">Ebrey (1999), 201.</ref>
Beyond painters, some potters also became renowned for their artwork, such as [[He Chaozong]] in the early 17th century for his style of [[Blanc-de-Chine|white porcelain]] sculpture. The major production centers for porcelain items in the Ming Dynasty were [[Jingdezhen]] in [[Jiangxi]] province and [[Dehua]] in [[Fujian]] province. The [[Dehua porcelain factories]] catered to European tastes by creating [[Chinese export porcelain]] by the 16th century. In ''The Ceramic Trade in Asia'', Chuimei Ho estimates that about 16% of late Ming era Chinese ceramic exports were sent to Europe while the rest were destined for Japan and South East Asia.<ref name="brook 1998 206">Brook (1998), 206.</ref>
===Religion===
[[Image:SFEC BritMus Asia 021.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Chinese glazed [[stoneware]] statue of a [[Daoist]] deity, from the Ming Dynasty, 16th century.]]
The dominant religious beliefs during the Ming dynasty were the traditional mixtures of [[Ancestor Veneration in China|ancestor worship]], [[Daoism]] and [[Buddhism]]. The Chinese believed in a host of deities in what may be termed [[Chinese folk religion]].
The late Ming period saw the first arrival of [[Jesuit China missions|Jesuit missionaries]] from Europe such as [[Matteo Ricci]] and [[Nicolas Trigault]]. There were also other denominations including the [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]] and [[Franciscan]]s.
Ricci worked with the Chinese mathematician, astronomer, and agronomist [[Xu Guangqi]] to translate the [[Greek mathematics|Greek mathematical]] work ''[[Euclid's Elements]]'' into Chinese for the first time in 1607. The Chinese were impressed with European knowledge in astronomy, calendrical science, mathematics, hydraulics, and geography. Most European monks presented themselves more as educated elites than religious figures, in an effort to gain trust and admiration from the Chinese.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 212">Ebrey (1999), 212.</ref> However, most Chinese were suspicious and even outright critical of Christianity due to Chinese beliefs and practices that did not coincide with the Christian faith.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 212"/> The highpoint of this contention was the Nanjing Religious Incident of 1616–1622, a temporary triumph of the Confucian traditionalists when Western missionaries and science were rejected in favor of the belief that Western science derived from a superior Chinese model; this was soon rejected in favor of once again staffing the Imperial Astronomical Board with Western missionaries learned in science.<ref name="wong 1963 30 32">Wong (1963), 30–32.</ref>
Besides Christianity, the [[Kaifeng Jews]] had a long history in China; Ricci discovered this when he was contacted by one of them in Beijing and learned of [[History of the Jews in China|their history in China]].<ref>White (1966), Volume 1, 31–38.</ref> [[Islam in China]] had existed since the early 7th century [[Islam during the Tang Dynasty|during the Tang Dynasty]]; [[Islam during the Ming Dynasty|during the Ming Dynasty]] there were several prominent figures—including [[Zheng He]]—who was Muslim. The Hongwu Emperor also employed Muslim commanders in his army, such as Chang Yuqun, [[Lan Yu (general)|Lan Yu]], Ding Dexing, and [[Mu Ying]].<ref>Lipman (1998), 39.</ref>
===Philosophy===
[[Image:Wang-yang-ming.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Wang Yangming]] (1472–1529), considered the most influential Confucian thinker since [[Zhu Xi]].]]
====Wang Yangming's Confucianism====
During the Ming Dynasty, the doctrines of the Song Dynasty scholar-official [[Zhu Xi]] (1130–1200) and [[Neo-Confucianism]] were embraced by the court and the Chinese literati at large. However, total conformity to a single mode of thought was never a reality in the intellectual sphere of society. There were some in the Ming who—like [[Su Shi]] (1037–1101) of the Song—were rebels at heart and were not abashed to criticize the mainstream dogmatic modes of thought. Leading a new strand of Confucian teaching and philosophy was the scholar-official [[Wang Yangming]] (1472–1529), whose critics said that his teachings were contaminated by [[Zen|Chan Buddhism]].<ref name="ebrey east asia 282">Ebrey (2006), 282.</ref>
In analyzing Zhu Xi's concept of "the extension of knowledge" (i.e. gaining understanding through careful and rational investigation of things and events), Wang realized that universal principles were concepts espoused in the minds of all.<ref name="ebrey east asia 281">Ebrey (2006), 281.</ref> Breaking from the mold, Wang said that anyone, no matter what socioeconomic status or background, could become as wise as the ancient sages [[Confucius]] and [[Mencius]], and that the writings of the latter two were not the source of truth, but merely guides that could have flaws if carefully examined.<ref name="ebrey east asia 281 282">Ebrey (2006), 281–282.</ref> In Wang's mind, a peasant who had many experiences and drew natural truths from these was more wise than an official who had carefully studied the Classics but had not experienced the real world in order to observe what was true.<ref name="ebrey east asia 281 282"/>
====Conservative reaction====
[[Image:Confucius on his way to Luoyang.jpg|thumb|A Ming Dynasty print drawing of [[Confucius]] on his way to the [[Zhou Dynasty]] capital of [[Luoyang]].]]
Conservative Confucian officials were wary of Wang's philosophical interpretation of the [[Chinese classic texts|Confucian classics]], the increasing number of his disciples while still in office, and his overall socially rebellious message.<ref name="ebrey east asia 282"/> To curb his political influence he was often sent out to deal with military affairs and rebellions far away from the capital.<ref name="ebrey east asia 282"/> Yet his ideas penetrated mainstream Chinese thought, and spurred new interest in Daoism and Buddhism.<ref name="ebrey east asia 282"/> Furthermore, people began to question the validity of the social hierarchy and the idea that the scholar was above the farmer.<ref name="ebrey east asia 282"/> Wang Yangming's disciple and salt-mine worker Wang Gen gave lectures to commoners about pursuing education to improve their lives, while his follower He Xinyin challenged the elevation and emphasis of the family in Chinese society.<ref name="ebrey east asia 282"/> His contemporary [[Li Zhi (Ming Dynasty)|Li Zhi]] (1527–1602) even taught that women were the intellectual equals of men and should be given a better education; both Li and He eventually died in prison, jailed on charges of spreading "dangerous ideas".<ref name="ebrey east asia 283">Ebrey (2006), 283.</ref> Yet these "dangerous ideas" of educating women had long been embraced with mothers giving their children primary education,<ref name="ebrey cambridge 158">Ebrey (1999), 158.</ref> as well as [[courtesan]]s who were as literate and similarly trained in calligraphy, painting, and poetry as their male hosts.<ref name="brook 1998 230">Brook (1998), 230.</ref>
In opposition to the liberal views of Wang Yangming were the conservative officials in the censorate—a governmental institution with the right and responsibility to speak out against malfeasance and abuse of power—and the senior officials of the [[Donglin Academy]], which was reestablished in 1604.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 213">Ebrey (1999), 213.</ref> These conservatives wanted a revival of orthodox Confucian ethics. Conservatives such as Gu Xiancheng (1550–1612) argued against Wang Yangming's idea of innate moral knowledge, stating that this was simply a legitimization for unscrupulous behavior such as greedy pursuits and personal gain.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 213"/> These two strands of Confucian thought created factionalism amongst ministers of state, who—[[Society of the Song Dynasty#Political partisanship and reform|like the old days]] of [[Wang Anshi]] and [[Sima Guang]] in the Song Dynasty—used any opportunity to impeach members of the other faction from court.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 213"/>
===Urban and rural life===
Wang Gen was able to give philosophical lectures to many commoners from different regions because—following the trend already apparent in the Song Dynasty—communities in Ming society were becoming less isolated as the distance between market towns was shrinking. Schools, descent groups, religious associations, and other local voluntary organizations were increasing in number and allowing more contact between educated men and local villagers.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 206">Ebrey (1999), 206.</ref> [[Jonathan Spence]] writes that the distinction between what was town and country was blurred in Ming China, since suburban areas with farms were located just outside and in some cases within the walls of a city. Not only was the blurring of town and country evident, but also of socioeconomic class in the traditional four occupations, since artisans sometimes worked on farms in peak periods and farmers often traveled into the city to find work during times of dearth.<ref name= "spence 1999 13">Spence (1999), 13.</ref>
[[Image:Freer 024.jpg|thumb|left|''Emperor Minghuang's Journey to Sichuan'', a Ming Dynasty painting after [[Qiu Ying]] (1494–1552).]]
A variety of occupations could be chosen or inherited from a father's line of work. This would include—but was not limited to—coffinmakers, ironworkers and blacksmiths, tailors, cooks and noodle-makers, retail merchants, tavern, teahouse, or winehouse managers, shoemakers, seal cutters, pawnshop owners, brothel heads, and merchant bankers engaging in a proto-banking system involving notes of exchange.<ref name="spence 1999 20"/><ref name="spence 1999 12 13">Spence (1999), 12–13.</ref> Virtually every town had a [[brothel]] where female and male prostitutes could be had.<ref>Brook (1998), 229, 232.</ref> Male catamites fetched a higher price than female concubines since [[pederasty]] with a teenage boy was seen as a mark of elite status, regardless of [[sodomy]] being repugnant to sexual norms.<ref>Brook (1998), 232–233.</ref> [[Public bathing]] became much more common than in earlier periods.<ref>Schafer (1956), 57.</ref> Urban shops and retailers sold a variety of goods such as [[Joss paper|special paper money]] to burn at ancestral sacrifices, specialized luxury goods, headgear, fine cloth, teas, and others.<ref name= "spence 1999 12 13"/> Smaller communities and townships too poor or scattered to support shops and artisans obtained their goods from periodic market fairs and traveling peddlers. A small township also provided a place for simple schooling, news and gossip, matchmaking, religious festivals, traveling theater groups, tax collection, and bases of famine relief distribution.<ref name="spence 1999 13"/>
Farming villagers in the north spent their days harvesting crops like wheat and millet, while farmers south of the [[Huai River]] engaged in intensive rice cultivation and had lakes and ponds where ducks and fish could be raised. The cultivation of mulberry trees for silkworms and tea bushes could be found mostly south of the [[Yangzi River]]; even further south of this [[sugarcane]] and citrus were grown as basic crops.<ref name="spence 1999 13"/> Some people in the mountainous southwest made a living by selling lumber from hard bamboo. Besides cutting down trees to sell wood, the poor also made a living by turning wood into charcoal, burning [[oyster]] shells to make [[Agricultural lime|lime]], fired pots, and wove mats and baskets.<ref name="brook 1998 95">Brook (1998), 95.</ref> In the north traveling by horse and carriage was most common, while in the south the myriad of rivers, canals, and lakes provided cheap and easy water transport. Although the south had the characteristic of the wealthy landlord and tenant farmers, there were on average many more owner-cultivators north of the Huai River due to harsher climate, living not far above subsistence level.<ref name="spence 1999 14">Spence (1999), 14.</ref>
==Science and technology==
{{See|History of science and technology in China|List of Chinese inventions|List of Chinese discoveries}}
[[Image:Chinese Puddle and Blast Furnace.jpg|thumb|left|The puddling process of smelting iron [[ore]] to make [[pig iron]] and then [[wrought iron]], with the right illustration displaying men working a [[blast furnace]], from the ''[[Song Yingxing|Tiangong Kaiwu]]'' encyclopedia, 1637.]]
Compared to the flourishing of [[Song Dynasty#Technology, science, and engineering|science and technology in the Song Dynasty]], the Ming Dynasty perhaps saw fewer advancements in science and technology compared to the pace of discovery in the [[Western world]]. In fact, key advances in Chinese science in the late Ming were spurred by contact with Europe. In 1626 [[Johann Adam Schall von Bell]] wrote the first Chinese treatise on the [[telescope]], the ''Yuanjingshuo'' (''Far Seeing Optic Glass''); in 1634 the last Ming [[Chongzhen Emperor|emperor Chongzhen]] acquired the telescope of the late [[Johann Schreck]] (1576–1630).<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 3, 444–445.</ref> The [[heliocentrism|heliocentric]] model of the solar system was rejected by the Catholic missionaries in China, but [[Johannes Kepler]] and [[Galileo Galilei]]'s ideas slowly trickled into China starting with the Polish Jesuit [[Michael Boym]] (1612–1659) in 1627, Adam Schall von Bell's treatise in 1640, and finally [[Joseph Edkins]], [[Alexander Wylie (missionary)|Alex Wylie]], and [[John Fryer Thomas Keane|John Fryer]] in the 19th century.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 3, 444–447.</ref> Catholic Jesuits in China would promote [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernican]] theory at court, yet at the same time embrace the [[Ptolemy|Ptolemaic]] system in their writing; it was not until 1865 that Catholic missionaries in China sponsored the heliocentric model as their Protestant peers did.<ref name="wong 1963 31">Wong (1963), 31 (footnote 1).</ref> Although [[Shen Kuo]] (1031–1095) and [[Guo Shoujing]] (1231–1316) had laid the basis for [[History of trigonometry|trigonometry]] in China, another important work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607 with the efforts of Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 3, 110.</ref> Ironically, some inventions which had their origins in ancient China were reintroduced to China from Europe during the late Ming; for example, the [[Field mill (carriage)|field mill]].<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 255–257.</ref>
The [[Chinese calendar]] was in need of reform since it inadequately measured the [[solar year]] at 365¼ days, giving an error of 10 min and 14 sec a year or roughly a full day every 128 years.<ref name="kuttner 1975 166">Kuttner (1975), 166.</ref> Although the Ming had adopted Guo Shoujing's ''Shoushi'' calendar of 1281, which was just as accurate as the [[Gregorian Calendar]], the Ming Directorate of Astronomy failed to periodically readjust it; this was perhaps due to their lack of expertise since their offices had become hereditary in the Ming and the Statutes of the Ming prohibited private involvement in astronomy.<ref name="engelfriet 1998 78"/> A sixth-generation descendant of Emperor Hongxi, the "Prince" [[Zhu Zaiyu]] (1536–1611), submitted a proposal to fix the calendar in 1595, but the ultra-conservative astronomical commission rejected it.<ref name="kuttner 1975 166"/><ref name="engelfriet 1998 78">Engelfriet (1998), 78.</ref> This was the same Zhu Zaiyu who discovered the system of tuning known as [[equal temperament]], a discovery made simultaneously by [[Simon Stevin]] (1548–1620) in Europe.<ref>Kuttner (1975), 166–167.</ref> In addition to publishing his works on music, he was able to publish his findings on the calendar in 1597.<ref name="engelfriet 1998 78"/> A year earlier, the memorial of Xing Yunlu suggesting a calendar improvement was rejected by the Supervisor of the Astronomical Bureau due to the law banning private practice of astronomy; Xing would later serve with Xu Guangqi in reforming the calendar in 1629 according to Western standards.<ref name="engelfriet 1998 78"/>
[[Image:Ricciportrait.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of [[Matteo Ricci]] by Yu Wenhui, Latinized as Emmanuel Pereira, dated the year of Ricci's death, 1610]]
When the Ming founder Hongwu came upon the mechanical devices housed in the Yuan Dynasty's palace at Khanbaliq—such as fountains with balls dancing on their jets, [[Automaton|self-operating tiger automata]], dragon-headed devices that spouted mists of perfume, and [[Striking clock|mechanical clocks]] in the tradition of [[Yi Xing]] (683–727) and [[Su Song]] (1020–1101)—he associated all of them with the decadence of Mongol rule and had them destroyed.<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 133 508">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, pp. 133, 508.</ref> This was described in full length by the Divisional Director of the Ministry of Works, Xiao Xun, who also carefully preserved details on the architecture and layout of the Yuan Dynasty palace.<ref name= "needham volume 4 part 2 133 508"/> Later, European Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci and [[Nicolas Trigault]] would briefly mention indigenous Chinese clockworks that featured drive wheels.<ref name ="needham volume 4 part 2 438">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 438.</ref> However, both Ricci and Trigault were quick to point out that 16th century European clockworks were far more advanced than the common time keeping devices in China, which they listed as [[water clock]]s, [[incense clock]]s, and "other instruments... with wheels rotated by sand as if by water".<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 509">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 509.</ref> Chinese records—namely the ''Yuan Shi''—describe the 'five-wheeled sand clock', a mechanism pioneered by Zhan Xiyuan ([[floruit|fl.]] 1360–1380) which featured the scoop wheel of Su Song's earlier [[astronomical clock]] and a [[Dial (measurement)|stationary dial face]] over which a pointer circulated, similar to European models of the time.<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 511">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 511.</ref> This sand-driven wheel clock was improved upon by Zhou Shuxue (fl. 1530–1558) who added a fourth large gear wheel, changed gear ratios, and widened the orifice for collecting sand grains since he criticized the earlier model for clogging up too often.<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 510 511">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 510–511.</ref>
The Chinese were intrigued with European technology, but so were visiting Europeans of Chinese technology. In 1584, [[Abraham Ortelius]] (1527–1598) featured in his atlas ''Theatrum Orbis Terrarum'' the peculiar Chinese innovation of [[Wheelbarrow#The Chinese Sailing Carriage|mounting masts and sails onto carriages]], just like [[Junk (ship)|Chinese ships]].<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 276">Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 276.</ref> [[Juan González de Mendoza|Gonzales de Mendoza]] also mentioned this a year later—noting even the designs of them on Chinese silken robes—while [[Gerardus Mercator]] (1512–1594) featured them in his atlas, [[John Milton]] (1608–1674) in one of his famous poems, and [[Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest]] (1739–1801) in the writings of his travel diary in China.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 274–276.</ref>
[[Image:He Chaozong 1.JPG|thumb|upright|Bodhisattva [[Manjusri]] in ''[[Blanc-de-Chine]]'', by [[He Chaozong]], 17th century; [[Song Yingxing]] devoted an entire section of his book to the [[Chinese ceramics|ceramics industry]] in the making of porcelain items like this.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 171–172.</ref>]]
The encyclopedist [[Song Yingxing]] (1587–1666) documented a wide array of technologies, metallurgic and industrial processes in his ''Tiangong Kaiwu'' encyclopedia of 1637. This includes mechanical and hydraulic powered devices for agriculture and irrigation,<ref>Song (1966), 7–30, 84–103.</ref> nautical technology such as vessel types and [[snorkeling]] gear for pearl divers,<ref name= "autogenerated1">Song (1966), 171–172, 189, 196.</ref><ref>Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 3, 668</ref><ref>Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 3, 634, 649–650, 668–669.</ref> the annual processes of [[sericulture]] and weaving with the [[loom]],<ref>Song (1966), 36–56.</ref> metallurgic processes such as the [[crucible]] technique and [[quench]]ing,<ref>Song (1966), 237, 190.</ref> manufacturing processes such as for roasting iron [[pyrite]] in converting sulphide to oxide in [[sulfur]] used in gunpowder compositions — illustrating how ore was piled up with coal briquettes in an earthen furnace with a still-head that sent over sulfur as vapor that would solidify and [[crystallization|crystallize]]<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 126.</ref> — and the use of gunpowder weapons such as a [[naval mine]] ignited by use of a rip-cord and [[wheellock|steel flint wheel]].<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 205, 339 F.</ref>
Focusing on agriculture in his ''Nongzheng Quanshu'', the agronomist [[Xu Guangqi]] (1562–1633) took an interest in irrigation, fertilizers, famine relief, economic and textile crops, and empirical observation of the elements that gave insight into early understandings of chemistry.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 6, Part 2, 65–66.</ref>
There were many advances and new designs in gunpowder weapons during the beginning of the dynasty, but by the mid to late Ming the Chinese began to frequently employ European-style artillery and firearms.<ref name="needham volume 5 part 7 372">Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 372.</ref> The ''[[Huolongjing]]'', compiled by [[Jiao Yu]] and [[Liu Ji (14th century)|Liu Ji]] sometime before the latter's death on May 16, 1375 (with a preface added by Jiao in 1412),<ref name="needham volume 5 part 7 24 25">Needam (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 24–25.</ref> featured many types of cutting-edge gunpowder weaponry for the time. This includes hollow, gunpowder-filled [[round shot|exploding cannonballs]],<ref name = "needham volume 5 part 7 264">Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 264.</ref> [[land mine]]s that used a complex trigger mechanism of falling weights, pins, and a steel wheellock to ignite the train of fuses,<ref name="needham volume 5 part 7 203 205">Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 203–205.</ref> naval mines,<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 205.</ref> fin-mounted winged rockets for [[aerodynamic]] control,<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 498–502.</ref> [[multistage rocket]]s propelled by [[booster rocket]]s before igniting a swarm of smaller rockets issuing forth from the end of the missile (shaped like a dragon's head),<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 508.</ref> and [[hand cannon]]s that had up to [[gun barrel|ten barrels]].<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 229.</ref>
[[Li Shizhen]] (1518–1593)—one of the most renowned [[pharmacology|pharmacologists]] and physicians [[Traditional Chinese medicine|in Chinese history]]—belonged to the late Ming period. In 1587, he completed the first draft of his ''[[Bencao Gangmu]]'', which detailed the usage of over 1,800 medicinal drugs. Although it purportedly was invented by a [[Daoist]] hermit from [[Mount Emei]] in the late 10th century, the process of [[inoculation]] for [[smallpox]] patients was in widespread use in China by the reign of the [[Longqing Emperor]] (r. 1567–1572), long before it was applied anywhere else.<ref>Temple (1986), 137.</ref> In regards to [[oral hygiene]], the [[ancient Egypt]]ians had a primitive toothbrush of a twig frayed at the end, but the Chinese were the first to invent the modern [[toothbrush|bristle toothbrush]] in 1498, although it used stiff pig hair.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=The Library of Congress|date=2007-04-04|url= http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/tooth.html|title=Who invented the toothbrush and when was it invented?|accessdate=2008-08-18}}</ref>
==Population==
[[Image:Chen Hongshou, Appreciating Plums, detail.jpg|thumb|left|160px|''Appreciating Plums'', by [[Chen Hongshou]] (1598–1652) showing a lady holding an oval fan while enjoying the beauty of the plum.]]
[[Sinology|Sinologist historians]] still debate the actual population figures for each era in the Ming Dynasty. The historian Timothy Brook notes that the Ming government census figures are dubious since fiscal obligations prompted many families to underreport the number of people in their households and many county officials to underreport the number of households in their jurisdiction.<ref name="brook 1998 27">Brook (1998), 27.</ref> Children were often underreported, especially female children, as shown by skewed population statistics throughout the Ming.<ref name= "brook 1998 267"/> Even adult women were underreported;<ref name="brook 1998 97 99">Brook (1998), 97–99.</ref> for example, the Daming Prefecture in [[North Zhili]] reported a population of 378,167 males and 226,982 females in 1502.<ref name="brook 1998 97">Brook (1998), 97.</ref> The government attempted to revise the census figures using estimates of the expected average number of people in each household, but this did not solve the widespread problem of tax registration.<ref name="brook 1998 28 267">Brook (1998), 28, 267.</ref>
[[File:Xuanzong of Ming.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Xuande Emperor]], (r. 1425–1435); he stated in 1428 that his populace was dwindling due to palace construction and military adventures, but in fact the population was rising under him, a fact noted by Zhou Chen—Governor of [[Hebei|South Zhili]]—in his 1432 report to the throne about widespread itinerant commerce.<ref name= "brook 1998 28"/>]]
The number of people counted in the census of 1381 was 59,873,305; however, this number dropped significantly when the government found that some 3 million people were missing from the tax census of 1391.<ref name="brook 1998 27 28">Brook (1998), 27–28.</ref> Even though underreporting figures was made a capital crime in 1381, the need for survival pushed many to abandon the tax registration and wander from their region, where Hongwu had attempted to impose rigid immobility on the populace. The government tried to mitigate this by creating their own conservative estimate of 60,545,812 people in 1393.<ref name= "brook 1998 28">Brook (1998), 28.</ref> In his ''Studies on the Population of China'', Ho Ping-ti suggests revising the 1393 census to 65 million people, noting that large areas of North China and frontier areas were not counted in that census.<ref>Ho (1959), 8–9, 22, 259.</ref> Brook states that the population figures gathered in the official censuses after 1393 ranged between 51 and 62 million, while the population was in fact increasing.<ref name="brook 1998 28"/> Even the [[Hongzhi Emperor]] (r. 1487-1505) remarked that the daily increase in subjects coincided with the daily dwindling amount of registered civilians and soldiers.<ref name="brook 1998 95"/> William Atwell states that around 1400 the population of China was perhaps 90 million people, citing Heijdra and Mote.<ref name="atwell 2002 86">Atwell (2002), 86.</ref>
Historians are now turning to local [[gazetteer]]s of Ming China for clues that would show consistent growth in population.<ref name="brook 1998 267">Brook (1998), 267.</ref> Using the gazetteers, Brook estimates that the overall population under the [[Chenghua Emperor]] (r. 1464–1487) was roughly 75 million,<ref name="brook 1998 28 267"/> despite mid-Ming census figures hovering around 62 million.<ref name="brook 1998 95"/> While prefectures across the empire in the mid-Ming period were reporting either a drop in or stagnant population size, local gazetteers reported massive amounts of incoming vagrant workers with not enough good cultivated land for them to till, so that many would become drifters, conmen, or wood-cutters that contributed to deforestation.<ref>Brook (1998), 94–96.</ref> The [[Hongzhi Emperor|Hongzhi]] and [[Zhengde Emperor|Zhengde]] emperors lessened the penalties against those who had fled their home region, while the [[Jiajing Emperor]] (r. 1521–1567) finally had officials register migrants wherever they had moved or fled in order to bring in more revenues.<ref name="brook 1998 97"/>
Even with Jiajing's reforms to document migrant workers and merchants, by the late Ming era the government census still did not accurately reflect the enormous growth in population. Gazetteers across the empire noted this and made their own estimations of the overall population in the Ming, some guessing that the population had doubled, tripled, or even grown fivefold since 1368.<ref name="brook 1998 162">Brook (1998), 162.</ref> Fairbank estimates that the population was perhaps 160 million in the late Ming Dynasty,<ref name="fairbank goldman 2006 128">Fairbank & Goldman (2006), 128.</ref> while Brook estimates 175 million,<ref name="brook 1998 162"/> and Ebrey states perhaps as large as 200 million.<ref name="ebrey cambridge 195">Ebrey (1999), 195.</ref> However, a great epidemic that entered China through the northwest in 1641 ravaged the densely populated areas along the Grand Canal; a gazetteer in northern [[Zhejiang]] noted more than half the population fell ill that year and that 90% of the local populace in one area was dead by 1642.<ref name="brook 1998 163">Brook (1998), 163.</ref>
==See also==
* [[1421 Hypothesis]]
* [[Economy of the Ming Dynasty]]
* [[Kaifeng flood of 1642]]
* [[Kingdom of Tungning]]
* [[List of tributaries of Imperial China]]
* [[Luchuan-Pingmian Campaigns]]
* [[Ming Dynasty family tree]]
* [[Ming Dynasty military conquests]]
* [[Ming official headwear]]
* [[Taxation in premodern China]]
* [[Ye Chunji]] (for further information on rural economics in the Ming)
* [[Zheng Zhilong]]
== Notes ==
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== References ==
<div class="references-small">
*The Ming Biographical History Project of the Association for Asian Studies. (1976). ''Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644: 明代名人傳: Volume 1, A-L''. Edited by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang. New York: [[Columbia University Press]]. ISBN 0-231-03801-1.
*Andrew, Anita N. and John A. Rapp. (2000). ''Autocracy and China's Rebel Founding Emperors: Comparing Chairman Mao and Ming Taizu''. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc. ISBN 0-8476-9580-8.
*Atwell, William S. "Time, Money, and the Weather: Ming China and the "Great Depression" of the Mid-Fifteenth Century," ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' (Volume 61, Number 1, 2002): 83–113.
*Brook, Timothy. (1998). ''[[The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China]]''. Berkeley: [[University of California Press]]. ISBN 0-520-22154-0 (Paperback).
*Chan, Hok-Lam. (1988). "The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-shi, and Hsuan-te reigns," in ''The Cambridge History of China: Volume 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1'', 182–384, edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. ISBN 0-521-24332-7.
*Chang, Michael G. (2007). ''A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring & the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785''. Cambridge: Published by Harvard University Asia Center; distributed by [[Harvard University Press]]. ISBN 0-674-02454-0.
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</div>
== Further reading ==
* {{cite book |title= [[1587: A Year of No Significance|1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline]]|last= Huang|first=Ray |authorlink=Ray Huang|year= 1981|publisher= Yale University Press|location= New Haven|isbn=0-300-02518-1}}
==External links==
{{Commons category|Ming Dynasty}}
*[http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/later_imperial_china/ming.html The Ming Dynasty at Minnesota State University]
*[http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-masters.php Notable Ming Dynasty Painters and Galleries] at China Online Museum
*[http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ming/hd_ming.htm Ming Dynasty art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art]
*[http://china.chinaa2z.com/china/html/history%20and%20culture/2008/20081210/20081210154315150987/20081210161829952794.html Ming Dynasty] With a total of 16 emperors, the Ming Dynasty lasted 276 years, from 1368 to 1644.
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{{Succession box|title=[[Dynasties in Chinese history]]|before=[[Yuan Dynasty]]|after=[[Shun Dynasty]]|years=1368–1644}}
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{{Empires}}
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