China ’ s Ming dynasty 1368-1644

1. China’s Ming dynasty1368-1644 • November 26, 2013

2. Review • Who were the major politics actors in Japan in the 14th through the 16th centuries? • Who were the trading partners of Japan in the 15th century? • Where was the Ryūkyūs? • What sort of art form was Noh?

3. Chinese again rule China • The Ming represents an interlude of Chinese control between two non-Chinese dynasties (Mongol and Manchu). • The Ming had its roots in protests with roots more economic than ethnic/nationalistic, and with religious overtones (The Red Turbans and the White Lotus Society) (Ebrey, 228) • Why were peasant rebellions more frequent in China than elsewhere in Asia?

4. Ming China • Taiwan and Tibet were not part of Ming China • See http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/1xarming.htm • See Ebrey, 231-234

5. Ming government • Authoritarian--the emperor dominated his bureaucracy • Staffed by men selected from the literati by the Confucian civil service exam system (Ebrey, 234-37) • Central government reached down to the district level. • Below that, local gentry maintained law and order, with the help of the 10-family mutual responsibility system (Ebrey, 234-37) • There was a small hereditary component to society: there were hereditary soldier families, and hereditary artisan families. (Ebrey, 228-29)

6. The Ming and its Neighbours • Preferred to deal with other countries via the hierarchical tributary system(Ebrey, 232): • early 15th century voyages of Zheng He were intended to attract more countries to the tributary system. (Ebrey, 232-33, Sen, 76-78, 89-92 ) • Faithful tribute partners: Korea, the Ryūkyūs, and Vietnam (after it defeated a Ming attempt to conquer it). • Fought against Japan in Korea in 1590s.

7. Map of the Ming Neighbourhood • See Ebrey, p. 235.

8. Zheng He’s voyages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zheng_He.png

9. relations with neighbours • Japan: shogun offered tribute early in the 15th century but soon stopped. Wakō (“Japanese” pirates) were a serious problem. (Ebrey, 216) • Tibet, Manchuria, and Mongolia were not regular parts of the tribute system. • Southeast Asian countries and even Bengal sometimes offered tribute. • overseas Chinese were sometimes involved in those tribute missions.

10. The Ming economy • Agricultural, with a lot of commercial activity, including new commercial crops (maize, sweet potatoes, peanuts, tobacco) from the Americas after 1500. (Ebrey, 234) • Led to more intensive agriculture--more labour on smaller plots of land. • also led to monetization, including the growing use of silver coins. But no capitalism.

11. No capitalism in the Ming • What is capitalism? • True capitalism requires a separation between ownership of the tools of production and the actual use of those tools to produce goods, as well as a separation between  production of goods and the ownership of the goods which are produced. • We see a lot of commercial activity in the Ming but very little separation between ownership of the tools of production and the actual use of those tools. We also see very little separation between production of goods and ownership of the goods that are produced.

12. No Industrial revolution • What was the industrial revolution? • the transformation of how non-food items are produced: through an increasing reliance on inanimate forms of energy; with the use of machinery rather than artisans to produce goods faster, cheaper, and in much greater quantity and in standardized form, and through the increasing use of inanimate (such as plastic) rather than animate material (such as leather) to make those goods. • The industrial revolution is based on a radical new assumption: that it is possible to dramatically increase production at a rate much faster than an accompanying increase in human labour input.

13. Summing Up The Ming economy • No true capitalism: most manufacturing was done by people who owned the tools they used to manufacture those goods. • No industrial revolution: reliance on machinery was minimal, and was not based on an assumption that rapid increases in productivity were possible • No capitalists: only rich merchants.

14. Popular culture • A stronger economy means more money for entertainment. Two forms of entertainment in Ming China are worth our attention: • drama, particularly opera, in its various regional forms The Peony Pavilion is one example given in the textbook (p. 242-43) • vernacular fiction, particularly novels, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Plum in the Golden Vase. (P. 2434) • Vernacular does not necessarily mean an alphabet. It means a written language that is close to the language actually spoken.

15. Ming Art • For several examples of Ming art, go to • http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ming/hd_ming.htm

16. Wang Yangming (pp. 237-40) • Wang Yangming was a Neo-Confucian scholar/official who nonetheless challenged the fundamental approach of Zhu Xi even though he assumed li and Qi were the fundamental forces constituting the universe. • He insisted that we didn’t need to “investigate things” since we had innate knowledge of the good. • And he insisted that if we truly knew the right way to behave, we would automatically behave properly (the unity of knowledge and action). • Portrayed as more individualistic than Zhu Xi.

17. Why did the Ming fall?(Ebrey, pp. 244-46) • Ebrey partially blames a little ice age which hurt agricultural productivity. • She also mentions the cost of the Ming war with the Japanese over control of Korea. • In addition, she mentions a sharp decline in the supply of silver. • On top of that, rebels opened the dikes on the Yellow River.