Twilight of Asian Empires

1. Twilight of Asian Empires Professor Pacas

2. Europeans establish footholds in Asia • Europeans’ overseas expansion had originally looked toward Asia, and now the products from the New World colonies enabled them to realize some of those dreams. • The Portuguese led the way, being the first Europeans to Join the overseas trading networks bridging East Africa and China. • Before long, they became either important commercials intermediaries or collectors of customs duties from Asian traders.

3. In 1557 CE/AD, the Portuguese arrival at Macao, a port along the southern coast of China, enabled them to penetrate China’s expanding import-export trade. Within five years the number of Portuguese in Macao neared 1,000. • Although initially the European presence in Macao was small compared to Melakans, Indians, and Africans with Ming court refused to establish official relationship with European traders confining the Europeans to coastal enclaves.

4. 1565-1574 CE/AD • The Portuguese became important shippers of China’s prized porcelains and silks throughout Asia and beyond to Europe. • They also dominated the silver trade from Japan. • Seeing how much the Portuguese were earning on Asian trade, the Spanish, English, and Dutch also ventured into Asian waters. • In 1565, the first Spanish trading galleon reached the Philippines; in 1571, after capturing Manila and making it a colonial capital, the Spanish establish a brisk trade with China.

5. Global Trade birth of new super powers • Each year, ships from Spain’s colonies in the Americas crossed the Pacific to Manila, bearding cargoes of silver, They returned carrying porcelain and silks for well-to-do European consumers. • In 1571 CE/AD Spain inaugurated a trade circuit that made good on Magellan’s earlier achievement. Spanish ships circled the globe from the New World to China and from China back to Europe…the world became commercially interconnected.

6. Cont’d • In 1574 the Chinese built a wall at the isthmus connecting Macao with the mainland, this barrier was heavily garrisoned and restricted access to the inland trade. • Silver solidified the linkage, being the only foreign commodity for which the Chinese had an insatiable demand. • American silver allowed Iberians to tap into the vast wealth of Asia and establish trade.

7. English in Asia • The English and Dutch arrived late in the 16th century, Captain James Lancaster made the first English voyage to the East Indies between 1591-1594 CE/AD. • Five years later 1599 CE/AD, 101 English subscribers pooled their funds and formed a joint-stock company (each member owned shares of capital)…The English East India Co. • The English East India Company soon won a royal charter granting it exclusive rights to import East Indian goods.

8. Cont’d • Soon the English East India Co. displaced the Portuguese in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. • It quickly exploited a brisk trade in indigo, saltpeter, pepper, and cotton textiles. • Soon it had established footholds in the Indian coast: Madras (1639), Bombay (1661), and Calcutta (1690).

9. Aurangzeb r. 1658-1707 CE/AD • Aurangzeb’s reign from 1658-1680 showed promise he was a capable Muslim monarch of a mixed Hindu-Muslim empire and as such was generally disliked by peasants, Hindus, other Indian groups for his ruthlessness • He was a very capable military tactician. • During this period he was much occupied with safeguarding the northwest from Persians and Central Asian Turks and less so with the Maratha (An linguistic and caste based group from North West India) chiefShivaji, who twice plundered the great port of Surat (1664, 1670).

10. Cont’d • Aurangzeb applied the traditional Mughal concept of conquer, reconcile, and make them your ‘loyal’ subjects (similar to satraps of ancient Persia or Alexander the Great). • Thus Shivaji once defeated was called to Agra for reconciliation (1666), and given an imperial rank. • The plan broke down, however; Shivaji fled to the Deccan and died, in 1680, as the ruler of an independent Maratha kingdom.

11. Cont’d • After about 1680, Aurangzeb’s reign underwent a change of both attitude and administrative policies. • Aurangzeb became much more ruthless and intolerant of other religious communities in India. • He began to implement policies that made Hindus subordinates, not colleagues, and the Marathas, like the southern Muslim kingdoms, were marked for annexation rather than containment. • He re-imposed the jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims which his great grandfather Akbar had abolished).

12. Aurangzeb Cont’d • This in turn was followed by a Rajput revolt in 1680–81, supported by Aurangzeb’s third son, also named Akbar. • Hindus still served the empire, but no longer with enthusiasm. • The Deccan kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda were conquered in 1686–87, but the insecurity that followed precipitated a long-incipient economic crisis, which in turn was deepened by warfare with the Marathas.

13. Shivaji’s son Sambhaji was captured and executed in 1689 and his kingdom broken up. • The remnants of Marathas, however, adopted guerrilla tactics, spreading all over southern India amid a sympathetic population. • The rest of Aurangzeb’s life was spent in laborious and fruitless sieges of forts in the Maratha hill country. • These campaigns further drained the imperial coffers and Aurangzeb attempted to fill them up again by imposing severe taxes on the population. • This only served to further alienate the people from the Mughals.

14. Aurangzeb’s absence in the south prevented him from maintaining his former firm hold on the north. • The administration weakened, and the process was hastened by pressure on the land by Mughal grantees who were paid by assignments on the land revenue. • Agrarian discontent often took the form of religious movements, as in the case of the Satnamis and the Sikhs in the Punjab. • In 1675 Aurangzeb arrested and executed the Sikh Guru (spiritual leader) TeghBahadur, who had refused to embrace Islam; the succeeding Guru was in open rebellion for the rest of Aurangzeb’s reign. • Other agrarian revolts, such as those of the Jats, were largely secular.

15. The later Mughals • His successors had to deal with a large rebellion of Jat peasant caste in the region between Agra and Delhi. • An estimated 10,000 Jat peasants were killed to put down the insurrection. • Sikhs in 1709 and the Marathas shortly thereafterengaged in open rebellion as well. • This alienation of the people from the Mughals was exploited by the Indian merchant class, disloyal zamindars, and Indian bourgeoisie who began to collaborate with Europeans to undermine Mughal authority. • This would have huge repercussions for the history of India in the mid 18th- 20th century.

16. Analyzing the fall of the Mughals • The fighting strength of the rebellions was provided by the peasant bitterness. • The leadership usually came from zamindar or other local exploiting classes who resented the lion’s share of the surplus going to the Mughals ruling class. • “risings of the oppressed’ merged with “the war between two oppressing classes.”

17. Rebellions not Revolutions • The merchants and artisans did not play a central role in the revolts. • They relied on the luxury markets of the Mughals rulers and lacked the network of local markets which allowed the urban classes in parts of Europe to influence the peasantry. • The old society was in crisis, but the ‘bourgeoisie’ was not ready to play an independent role in fighting to transform it. • This left zamindar leaders with a free hand to exploit the revolt for their own ends-ones which could not carry society forward. • When Europeans saw the writing on the wall and proceeded to attempt to exploit Mughal empire’s weakness they received backing from Indian merchant bourgeoisie.

18. China Later Ming and Early Qing Dynasties Professor Pacas

19. Ming Society 1570-1600 CE • The unprecedented wealth of China brought about by the global trade networks and interregional contact with India and emerging European colonies of the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese in South East Asia began to transform Ming society. • Although Chinese civilization still was extremely traditional and influenced by Confucian ideals, technological developments such as the printing press tempted Chinese scholars, artists, authors, philosophers to contemplate alternatives to Confucian traditionalism. • Often critical of Chinese Confucian traditionalism as well as Ming emperors this period of Chinese ‘enlightenment’ was heavily persecuted by the Ming administration.

20. Ming Dynasty in Crisis 1620-1644 CE • Eunuchs and courtesans began to play a larger role in government, often attacking Chinese literati for their critical stance against them during the later Ming Dynasty. • One eunuch, Wei Zhongxian, the most notorious of all eunuchs gained control of the court 1625 and lashed out against the Donglin Academy (were moralistic scholars studied) and had thousands of scholars jailed, tortured, and executed. • When a new emperor ascended the throne in 1627 CE the population put pressure on the new emperor to have Wei Zhongxian removed…Wei committed suicide while in prison.

21. Ming Dynasty in Crisis cont’d • This attempt to regain control came a little too late for the Ming. • The state had suffered from economic hardships due to costly wars that assisted Korea against Japanese aggression as early as 1590CE. • Famines in northwest China provoked peasant uprisings beginning in 1628. • By 1634 large areas were under the control of rebels (peasant soldiers) and bandits

22. Ming Dynasty in Crisis Cont’d • In 1639 Japanese and Spanish merchants both stopped shipping silver to China, which quickly drove up the price of silver and led to many peasant riots against high rents and high taxes. • In 1642 anti-Ming rebels destroyed the dikes of the Yellow River, leading to extensive floods, famine, and smallpox epidemics. • All came crashing down when one of the rebels, Li Zicheng’s forces captured Beijing and the last Ming emperor hung himself on the hill overlooking the Forbidden City. • Li’s forces proceeded to terrify the population.

23. The Qing (Manchus) • The strongest military commander under the Ming, Wu Sangui, who guarded the Great Wall north of Beijing invited a group of Manchu warriors as foederati troops (mercenaries) to attempt to retake Beijing with the promise of letting them sack and loot at their leisure if successful as a reward for their help. • Although initially only intending to reestablish Ming authority, Wu Sangui unintentionally invited the powerful Manchus (steppe warriors of Jurchen Jin origins highly sinicized) to become players in the history of China from 1644-1911CE.