8 The Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty 明朝 (1368-1644 CE) was founded by a poor peasant who saw his relatives starve: Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (1328-1398), who chose Hongwu 洪武 as his Emperor name (r. 1368-1398). His imperial temple name was Taizu 太祖. In some ways, he has single-handedly changed the course of Chinese history because of his own personal experience of poverty and his strong personality.
After gaining control of the south with his rebel group affiliated to the Red Turbans around 1355 CE, he moved north to fight the Mongols in their capital, Beijing. after years of war, the Mongol ruler fled north-west, in what is now Mongolia. Once Zhu Yuanzhang entered Beijing, he razed every palace and declared the establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 CE.
The Ming dynasty’s capital was back in the south, in Nanjing 南京. Many of Hong’s reforms were meant to alleviate the condition of the poor, having himself first-hand experience of poverty and starvation. To control and support the population, he ordered a full-scale registration of individuals and land ownership. He cut government expenses whenever possible, to improve the dynasty’s budget. He fought corruption by creating a system where local families would take on governmental duties (policing, tax collection, etc.) without pay.[1] The idea was that locals would be more invested in taking care of their neighbors than officials with no connection to small villages would.
One of the big achievements of the Zhu Yuanzhang was the creation of a navy, which the Mongols (being land people) never possessed. Not coincidentally, it is with the Ming dynasty that we being to see the rise of piracy. Zhu started massive works of de-forestation and reforestation to produce wood and supply the production of ships. Zheng He 鄭和 (1371-1433 CE), the most famous traveller in Chinese history, was a muslim eunuch who traveled with an incredible navy serving Zhu’s successor Yongle 永樂 (r. 1402-1424).
All these projects were conducted with strong centralized control by Zhu Yuanzhang.[2] Because of this background, he lacked any education, and was particularly suspicious of the elite class and their invocation of Confucian values to criticize him. Zhu created a state police, the Brocade Guard 錦衣衛, whose job was to spy and report about potentially anyone. This created tensions and a climate of continuous suspicion.
One of the changes inherited by the Yuan dynasty in the governing structure is the role played by the emperor. Before the Yuan, the main operational component of the empire was the bureaucratic apparatus. Even with incompetent emperors, the empire could function quite well. Starting with the Yuan and the schism between the Mongol emperors and the Chinese officials, the emperor played a more and more important role. This was true of the Ming dynasty as well. While Yongle was still a capable emperor, his successor Zhu Gaochi 朱高熾, emperor name Hongxi 洪熙 reigned only two years before dying unexpectedly (r. 1424-1425 CE). His son and successors, Zhu Zhanji 朱瞻基 (r. 1425 to 1435 CE) had to face several internal rebellions.
Meanwhile, the Mongols had continued to rule and occupy the area corresponding to today’s Mongolia after Zhu Yuanzhang made them fled from Beijing in 1368 CE. Their ruling is known as the Northern Yuan Dynast 北元朝 (1368-1635 CE; See map here). In the first decades of the 15th century, it was strengthened by Esen Khan 也先 (d. 1455), a very capable leader who began to threaten the borders with the Ming dynasty. The Ming emperor at the time, Emperor Yingzong 英宗 decided to face him, but ended up being captured by the Mongols. This is known as the Tumu Incident 土木之變 (1449 CE), which at once showed the problems within both the Ming dynasty and the Northern Yuan dynasty. Since Yingzong was not a particularly capable emperor, he was abandoned with the Mongols, and the royal family simply appointed a new emperor. This also caused the end of Esen Khan’s rule, who had promised rewards to his followers thinking that the Ming government would pay to have Yinzgong back.
Overtime, the Ming dynasty became weaker and weaker. The last fifty years of the Ming dynasty are characterized by inapt emperors, who distanced themselves from ministers and officials, or were not interested in government at all.[3] Local elite families became more and more powerful, taking care locally of duties that should have been handled by the government. Corruption became very rampant, and internal rebellions became more numerous. In 1644 one of these groups, lead by Li Zicheng (circa 1605-1645 CE) seized Beijing, which had been capital since Yongle’s reign, and ended the Ming dynasty.