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Explore China's transition from a maritime powerhouse to focusing on continental matters after the Ming dynasty, leading to the decline of treasure ships. Discover how timber shortages, market shifts, and the rise of Christopher Columbus influenced global exploration and trade dynamics.
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Why China didn’t Rule the Waves? China’s stint as a sea power all ended when the Ming dynasty support for treasure trip journeys after 1433. The government’s policy shift began when a new faction gained in the China’s Ming court. It members advocated a greater focus on continental matters, emphasizing agricultural production. The government also focusing on refurbished the Great Wall, and to repel the invader, also buildup and colonize the edges of the border.
Timber, Wood Shortage Timber for big boats was expensive, especially in busy trade centers, since large populations meant heavy use of firewood and building wood. China wasn’t alone in the wood shortage. Until coal became widely available as a suitable cooking and heating fuel, Europeans struggled with shortages too.
Treasure ships Smaller Vessels China wasn’t closed, and the market didn’t halt because of artificial factors. There just wasn’t a market for the oversized “treasure ships” anymore. Instead of financing big ships for long haul to India and the Middle East, Chinese traders commissioned smeller vessels, capable of carrying porcelain and silk to midway points, where traders would buy Indian cotton and indigo for the return trip.
Christopher Columbus Since early in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had developed the quick, maneuverable lateen-rigged caravel ships charted the seas and skies, and created navigational instruments such as the quadrant to determine latitude. The Portuguese had desired to enrich themselves in the fabulous markets of Africa and the Orient. By the time Columbus was carried by chance to Portugal, the Portuguese had discovered the Atlantic islands of Madeira, the Azores, and the Canaries.
Christopher Columbus “As Columbus would later write to the queen, he based his plans not on maps and astronomy, but on the Bible. Columbus was less a modern man than the advisers who denied his plan. He was a deeply religious medieval thinker who based his unshakable conviction of the path west on biblical prophecy.
Seats of Government and Their Stomachs: An Eighteenth-Century Tour The size of most cities was limited by the need for food and timber. So, if a city got too big, food prices soared, wages followed, its products became uncompetitive, and growth stopped. Capitals were different. There was no real competitor for the services they provided, and they included residents who could raise their income by edict to keep up with higher prices. As European empires, armies, and bureaucracies grew between 1500 and 1800, so did capitals.
People Patterns: Was the Real America Sichuan? After Columbus came other Europeans. Since so many Europeans were, like people everywhere, short on land, resources and opportunities, the opening of two empty continents was an enormous draw.
People Patterns: Was the Real America Sichuan? So why did so many more Chinese than Europeans pull up stakes? In part, no doubt, because migration offered them farms of their own almost immediately. And because until the French Revolution, people in many parts or Europe could not leave the land without permission, or without compensating its owner. By contrast, the overwhelming majority of Chinese peasants were independent smallholders, or tenants whose relations with their landlords were based on contracts, not legal subordination. In the economic sphere, they are freer than European, freer to move.
