大? Great Ming Empire ← 1368 – 1644 → Location of Ming Dynasty Ming China under the Yongle Emperor Capital Nanjing (1368-1421) Beijing (1421-1644) Language(s) Chinese Government Monarchy Ming Dynasty, 1368]]|Empire }} Emperor  - 1368-1398 Hongwu Emperor  - 1627-1644 Chongzhen Emperor History  - Established in Nanjing January 23, 1368  - Fall of Beijing 1644  - End of the Southern Ming April, 1662 Population  - 1393 est. 72,700,000   - 1644 est. 100,000,000  Ming Dynasty still kept the rule on Southern China until 1662 which is seen as the Southern Ming.

Sui Dynasty581–619 CE

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The Ming Dynasty (Chinese: ; Pinyin: Míng Cháo) was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644. It was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Hans, before falling to the rebellion led by Li Zicheng, and later replaced by Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty, founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, ruled over the Empire of the Great Ming (Traditional Chinese: 大明國; Simplified Chinese: 大明国; Pinyin: Dà Míng Guó), as China was then known. Although the later Ming capital, Beijing, fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662. During the subsequent Qing Dynasty, some Han Chinese harbored strong feelings against the rule by a non-Han ethnic group (the Manchus); consequently, the restoration of the Ming Dynasty was used as a rallying cry up until the modern era.

Ming rule saw the construction of a vast navy, including four-masted ships of 1,500 tons displacement, and a standing army of 1,000,000 troops. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced in North China (roughly 1 kg per inhabitant), and many books were printed using movable type. At its height, the Ming Dynasty had a population of 160 million people.

Founding

The Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Some historians believe the Mongols' discrimination against Han Chinese during the Yuan dynasty was the primary cause for the end of that dynasty. The discrimination led to a peasant revolt that successfully forced the Mongols to retreat into the Mongolian steppes. But historians such as Joseph Walker dispute this theory. Other causes include paper currency over-circulation, which caused inflation to go up tenfold during the reign of Yuan Emperor Shundi, along with the flooding of the Yellow River as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects. In late Yuan era, agriculture was in a shambles. When hundreds of thousands of civilians were called upon to work on the Yellow River, war broke out. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, and eventually the group led by Zhu Yuanzhang, assisted by an ancient and secret intellectual fraternity called the Summer Palace people, established dominance. The rebellion succeeded, and the Ming Dynasty was established in Nanjing in 1368. Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu as his reign title. The Ming dynasty emperors were members of the Zhu family.

He also organized a military system known as the weisuo , which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang Dynasty. According to Ming Shigao, the political intention in establishing the weisuo system was to maintain a strong army while avoiding bonds between commanding officers and soldiers.

Hong Wu supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song times were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Great land estates were confiscated by the government, divided, and rented out; private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of the Yongle Emperor, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture.

It is notable that, although he embraced Confucianism himself, Hongwu did not trust Confucians. However, under the next few emperors, the Confucian scholar gentry, who had been marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century, once again assumed a predominant role in running the empire.

Government

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 too followed this pattern: the Grand Secretariat (內閣 Neige; earlier: 中書省 Zhongshusheng) assisted the emperor. Alongside this office were the Six Ministries (六部 Liubu) for Personnel (吏部 Libu), Revenue (戶部 Hubu), Rites (禮部 Libu), War (兵部 Bingbu), Justice (刑部 Xingbu), and Public Works (工部 Gongbu), under the Department of State Affairs (尚書省 Shangshu Sheng). The Censorate (都察院 Duchayuan; earlier: 御史台 Yushitai) surveiling the work of imperial officials was also an old institution with a new name comprising The Three Dukes (三公 Sangong: the Grand Mentor 太傅 Taifu, the Grand Preceptor 太師 Taishi and the Grand Guardian 太保 Taibao) and the Three Minor Solitaries (三孤 Sangu).

The first Ming emperor, in his persecution mania, abolished the Secretariat, the Censorate, and the Chief Military Commission (都督府 Dudufu) and personally took charge of these offices, the Six Ministries, and the Five Military Commissions (五軍府 Wu Junfu). Thus a whole level of administration was cut out and was only partially rebuilt by the following emperors. The Grand Secretariat was reinstalled, but without employing grand counselors ("chancellors"). The ministries, headed by a minister (尚書 shangshu) and run by directors (郎中 langzhong) remained under direct control of the emperor until the end of Ming. The Censorate was reinstalled and first staffed with investigating censors (監察御史 jiancha yushi), later with censors-in-chief (都御史 du yushi).

The dynasty had a vast imperial household, staffed with thousands of eunuchs, who were headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants (內史監 Neishijian). The eunuchs were divided into different directorates (監 jian) and services (局 ju) that had to administer the staff, the rites, food, documents, stables, seals, gardens, state-owned factories, and so on. The so-called Western Depot (西廠 Xichang) acted as the eunuchs' secret service and was famous for its intrigues. Princes and descendants of the first Ming emperor were given nominal military commands and large land estates without title. By contrast, princes in the Han and Jin Dynasties had been installed as local kings.

The Ming emperors adopted the provincial administration system of the Mongols, and the 13 Ming provinces (省 sheng) are the precursors of the modern provinces. Thus, at the provincial level, the Yuan central government structure was copied; the bureaucracy contained three provincial commissions: one civil, one military, and one for surveillance. Below the province level were prefectures (府 fu) operating under a prefect (知府 zhifu), followed by subprefectures (州 zhou) under a subprefect (知州 zhizhou). Finally, the lowest unit was the county (縣 xian) overseen by a magistrate ( 知縣 zhixian). As in prior dynasties, the provincial administrations were controlled by a travelling inspector or grand coordinator (巡撫 xunfu) from the Censorate.

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 (總督 zongdu).

The scholar officials who populated these many ranks of bureaucracy were recruited through a rigorous examination system. Theoretically the system of exams allowed anyone to join the ranks of imperial officials; 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 moneyed classes. The focus of the examination was classical Confucian texts, and prospective scholars were expected to successfully complete the so-called "eight-legged essay" (八股文 baguwen). The exams increased in difficulty as the student progressed from the local level, and appropriate titles were accordingly awarded successful applicants. Passing the provincial examinations, scholars were titled "cultivated talents" (秀才 xiucai). Passing the metropolitan examination, they obtained the title jinshi 進士, or "graduate".

Exploration to isolation

During the aggressive rule of the Yongle Emperor (reigned 1403–1424), the Chinese regained influence over Turkestan, the so-called Western Regions. Maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tributes for the Chinese emperor. Internally, the Grand Canal was almost entirely renovated from 1411 to 1415. Stretching from Hangzhou in the south to Tongzhou just outside Beijing, the Canal linked major urban centers and stimulated domestic trade.

The most extraordinary venture during this stage was the dispatch of Zheng He's series of naval expeditions, which traversed the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian archipelago. An ambitious eunuch of Hui descent, and quintessential outsider to the establishment of Confucian scholar elites, Zheng He led seven expeditions between 1405 and 1433, six of them also under the auspices of Emperor Yongle. He traversed perhaps as far as the Cape of Good Hope and, according to the controversial 1421 theory, the Americas.

The first expedition in 1405 consisted of 317 ships and 28,000 men--then the largest naval expedition in history. Zheng He's multi-decked ships carried up to 500 troops but also cargoes of export goods, mainly silks and porcelains, and brought back foreign luxuries such as spices and tropical wood.

Zheng He's initial appointment (made in 1403) to lead a sea-faring task force was a triumph for the commercial lobbies seeking to stimulate conventional trade, as opposed to mercantilism. The interests of the commercial lobbies and of the religious lobbies were also linked. Both were offensive to the neo-Confucian sensibilities of the scholarly elite: religious lobbies encouraged commercialism and exploration, which benefited commercial interests, in order to divert state funds from the anti-clerical efforts of the Confucian scholar gentry.

The economic motive for these maritime ventures may have been important, and many of the ships had large private cabins for merchants. But the chief aim was probably political; to enroll further states as tributaries and mark the dominance of the Chinese Empire. The political character of Zheng He's voyages indicates the primacy of the political elites. Despite their formidable and unprecedented strength, Zheng He's voyages, unlike European voyages of exploration later in the 15th century, were not intended to extend Chinese sovereignty overseas. Indicative of the competition among elites, these excursions had also become politically controversial. Zheng He's voyages had been supported by his fellow low eunuchs at court and strongly opposed by the Confucian scholar officials. Their antagonism was in fact so great that they tried to suppress any mention of the naval expeditions in the official imperial record. A compromise interpretation realizes that the Mongol raids tilted the balance in the favor of the Confucian elites.

By the end of the 15th century, Imperial subjects were forbidden to build oceangoing ships or leave the country. Some historians speculate that this measure was taken in response to piracy. But during the mid-1500s, trade started again when silver replaced paper money. The Spanish Empire in the Americas (specifically, from Peru) provided China with a massive amount of silver, as silver Spanish currency became a commonplace item in mainland China. Although trading and shipbuilding were severely restricted after Zheng He, the Chinese still sent trade ships annually to the Philippines to trade items such as silk and porcelain with the Spanish in exchange for silver. The value of silver skyrocketed relative to the rest of the world, and both trade and inflation increased as China had already imported an enormous amount. Silver was the cause of the decline in use of Chinese paper-printed money (an innovation of the earlier Song Dynasty, see Banknote), and the late Ming rulers made desperate attempts in the end to revert back to copper coinage. However, the damage was already done, and after the somewhat prosperous reign of the Wanli Emperor (1573–1620), the Ming Empire steeply declined. The empire was struck with the famine, widespread plague, rebellion, and chaos that the later Manchus from the north were ultimately able to take advantage of in their bid to overthrow the Ming.

Historians of the 1960s, such as John Fairbank and Joseph Levinson, have argued that this renovation turned into stagnation and that science and philosophy were caught in a tight net of traditions that smothered any attempts at innovation. Historians who held to this view argue that in the 15th century, by imperial decree, the great navy was decommissioned. Construction of seagoing ships was forbidden, and, as a result, the iron industry gradually declined.

Military conquests

The beginning of the Ming Dynasty was marked by Ming Dynasty military conquests as they sought to cement their hold on power. Early in his reign, the first Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang provided instructions as injunctions to later generations. These included the advice that those countries to the north were dangerous and posed a threat to the Ming polity, while those to the south did not and were not to be attacked. Yet, either because of or despite this, it was the polities to the south which suffered the greatest effects of Ming expansion over the following century. This prolonged entanglement in the south with no long-lasting tangible benefits ultimately weakened the empire.

Agricultural revolution

Historians consider the Hongwu emperor to be a cruel but able ruler. From the start of his rule, he took great care to distribute land to small farmers. It seems to have been his policy to favour the poor, whom he tried to help to support themselves and their families. For instance, in 1370 an order was given that some land in Hunan and Anhui should be distributed to young farmers who had reached manhood. To preclude the confiscation or purchase of this land by unscrupulous landlords, it was announced that the title to the land was not transferable. At approximately the middle of Hongwu's reign, an edict was published declaring that those who cultivated wasteland could keep it as their property and would never be taxed. The response of the people was enthusiastic. In 1393, the cultivated land rose to 8,804,623 jing and 68 mou, a record which no other dynasty has reached.

One of the most important aspects of the development of farming was water conservancy. The Hong Wu emperor paid special attention to the irrigation of farms all over the empire, and in 1394 a number of students from Kuo-tzu-chien were sent to all of the provinces to help develop irrigation systems. 40,987 ponds and dikes were dug. Having himself come from a peasant family, Hong Wu emperor knew very well how much farmers suffered under the gentry and the wealthy. Many of the latter, using influence with magistrates, not only encroached on the land of farmers, but also by bribed sub-officials to transfer the burden of taxation to the small farmers they had wronged. To prevent such abuses the Hongwu Emperor instituted two very important systems: "Yellow Records" and "Fish Scale Records", which served to guarantee both the government's income from land taxes and the people's enjoyment of their property.

Hongwu kept a powerful army organized on a military system known as the weisuo system. The weisuo system in the early Ming period was a great success. At one time the soldiers numbered over a million and Hong Wu emperor, well aware of the difficulties of supplying such a number of men, adopted this method of military settlements. In time of peace each soldier was given forty to fifty mou of land. Those who could afford it supplied their own equipment; otherwise it was supplied by the government. Thus the empire was assured strong forces without burdening the people for its support. The Ming Shih states that 70% of the soldiers stationed along the borders took up farming, while the rest were employed as guards. In the interior of the country, only 20% were needed to guard the cities and the remaining occupied themselves with farming. Therefore one million soldiers of the Ming army were able to produce five million piculs (Approximately 250,000,000 kilograms or 275,330 short tons) of grain, which not only supported great numbers of troops but also paid the salaries of the officers.

Commerce revolution

Hong Wu's prejudice against the merchant class did not diminish the numbers of traders. On the contrary, commerce was on much greater scale than in previous centuries and continued to increase, as the growing industries needed the cooperation of the merchants. Poor soil in some provinces and over-population were key forces that led many to enter the trade markets. A book called "Tu pien hsin shu" gives a detailed description about the activities of merchants at that time. In the end, the Hong Wu policy of banning trade only acted to hinder the government from taxing private traders. Hong Wu did continue to conduct limited trade with merchants for necessities such as salts. For example, the government entered into contracts with the merchants for the transport of grain to the borders. In payments, the government issued salt tickets to the merchants, who could then sell them to the people. These deals were highly profitable for the merchants.

Private trade continued in secret because the coast was impossible to patrol and police adequately, and because local officials and scholar-gentry families in the coastal provinces actually colluded with merchants to build ships and trade. The smuggling was mainly with Japan and Southeast Asia, and it picked up after silver lodes were discovered in Japan in the early 1500s. The hai jin sea ban had a predominant effect on coastal communities. Since silver was the essential form of money in China, lots of people were willing to take the risk of sailing to Japan or Southeast Asia to sell products for Japanese silver, or to invite Japanese traders to come to the Chinese coast and trade in secret ports. The Ming court's attempt to stop this 'piracy' was the source of the wokou wars of the 1550s and 1560s. After private trade with Southeast Asia was legalized again in 1567, there was no more black market. Trade with Japan was still banned, but merchants could simply get Japanese silver in Southeast Asia. Also, Spanish Peruvian silver was entering the market in titanic quantities, and there was no restriction on trading for it in Manila. The widespread introduction of silver into China helped monetize the economy (replacing barter with currency), further facilitating trade.

Legal code

The legal code drawn up in the time of the Hong Wu emperor was considered one of the great achievements of the era. The Ming shih mentions that as early as 1364, the monarch had started to draft a code known as Ta-Ming Lu. Hong Wu took great care over the project and told the ministers that the laws should be comprehensive and intelligible, so as not to leave any loophole for sub-officials to misinterpret the law by playing on the words.

The code of Ming Dynasty was a great improvement on that of Tang Dynasty as regards to treatment of slaves. Under the Tang code slaves were treated almost like domestic animals. If they were killed by a free citizen, the law imposed no sanction on the killer. The Ming law assumed the protection of slaves as well as free citizens, an ideal that harkens back to the reign of Han Dynasty emperor Guangwu in the first century. The code also laid great emphasis on family relations. Ta-Ming Lu was based on Confucian ideas and remained one of the factors dominating the law of China until the end of the 19th century, until the communists took over mainland China.

Abolishing the Prime Minister post

Many argue that the Hongwu emperor, wishing to concentrate absolute authority in his own hands, abolished the office of prime minister and so removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors. However, the statement is misleading as a new post, "Senior Grand secretary", replaced the abolished prime minister post. Ray Huang, Professor from Sate University of college argues that Grand-secretaries, outwardly powerless, could exercise considerable positive influence from behind the throne. Because of their prestige and the public trust which they enjoyed, they could act as intermediaries between emperor and the ministerial officials, thus provide stabilizing force in the court.

Decline

The Ming Dynasty lasted from 1367 till 1644. During a period of great economic and technological change in the world. Its decline, though clear in retrospect, was not obvious at the time. Even when it fell, Ming China was arguably the richest and most populous nation in the world. Its decline can be traced to many problems which all came to a head in the 1640s. Militarily, the Ming armies were unable to defeat the skilled and fast moving armies of the Manchu. Economically, the conversion of the economy to one based on silver left it vulnerable to fluctuations in silver supply coming in from outside of China. The sudden closing of Japan to nearly all outside trade in 1639 and the sudden reduction in trade with the Spanish at roughly the same time caused a dramatic spike in the value of silver and made taxes (previously payable in silver) now, impossible for most provinces. Politically, the brilliant government which was set up by the Ming founder, was gradually destroyed from the inside by the rise in power of imperial eunuchs and internal factional strife amongst the Confucian scholars themselves.

Military Problems

The first and third Ming emperors were skilled generals and they ordered many military actions both in the north against the Mongol tribes, and in the south (such as the conquest of Vietnam in 1406). However, later Ming emperors attached little importance to foreign affairs and this led to deterioration of the army. Vietnam regained its independence in 1427 and in the north the Mongols were never pacified. Mongol tribes began to raid across the border into China starting around 1440.

The Oirat Horde became a serious military threat under their new leader Esen Taiji in 1443. The Zhengtong Emperor personally led a punitive campaign against the Horde but the punitive expedition turned into a disaster as the huge Chinese army was annihilated at the battle of Tu Mu (September 1, 1449) and the Emperor was captured. The Oirat Horde under Esen marched on to the capital but the Ming government, under the direction of Minister of War Yu Qian, rapidly re-built the capital's garrison and fought off the short siege.

The Mongols remained a significant problem for the next hundred years in the north, while along the coast Japanese pirates began staging raids on Chinese ships and coastal communities. The inability of the powerless Japanese emperors and nearly powerless Shoguns to stop these pirate raids led to a serious breakdown in relations between China and Japan.

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. A vast army of some 300,000 Japanese were mobilized (only about half actually left Japan). In two campaigns (now known collectively as the Imjin War) the Japanese fought with the Korean and Ming armies. Both sides won victories in the war but with Hideyoshi's death in 1598, the Japanese gave up their last Korean bases and returned to Japan. The Ming generals took credit for the victory but the cost to the government was enormous. While this war took place, a new power was growing in the north east of what is now known as Manchuria. The remarkable tribal leader Nurhaci, starting with just a small tribe, rapidly gained control over all the Manchu tribes. During the Imjin war he offered to lead his tribes in support of the Ming army (this offer was refused). Recognizing the weakness in the Ming authority north of their border, he took control over all of the other unrelated tribes surrounding his homeland. 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, in a very real sense, a declaration of war as the Ming were not about to pay money to the Manchu.

The Ming court ordered a major military campaign against Nurhaci, some 100,000 soldiers were organized along with large military forces from the Koreans. The campaign was a disaster, two of the four Chinese armies were annihilated by Nurhaci's fast moving and highly trained army (at most, about 50,000 strong). The Chinese never again attempted to destroy the Manchu and instead relied on building defensive strong-points. The Manchu raided into northern China almost constantly from 1620 onward (interrupted for a three year period by Nurhaci's death in 1626). The Ming army could do little other than chase after the fast moving Manchu, all the while, unrest in the provinces of China grew.

Finally 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, unfed, the army was defeated by the strongest of the peasant warlords (the self-styled Prince of Shun) and deserted the capital without much of a fight. The last Ming emperor hanged himself in garden of the Forbidden city in April of 1644. The Manchu army under Dorgon scared the Prince of Shun's army out of the capital just a few weeks later and immediately proclaimed the Q'ing were now ruling China.

Economic Problems

Historians debate the relatively slower "progression" of European-style mercantilism and industrialization in China since the Ming. This question is particularly poignant, considering the parallels between the commercialization of the Ming economy, the so-called age of "incipient capitalism" in China, and the rise of commercial capitalism in the West. Historians have thus been trying to understand why China did not "progress" in the manner of Europe during the last century of the Ming Dynasty. In the early 21st century, however, some of the premises of the debate have come under attack. Economic historians such as Kenneth Pomeranz have argue that China was technologically and economically equal to Europe until the 1750's and that the divergence was due to global conditions, such as access to natural resources from the new world.

Much of the debate nonetheless centers on contrast in political and economic systems between East and West. Given the causal premise that economic transformations induce social changes, which in turn have political consequences, one can understand why the rise of mercantilism, an economic system in which wealth was considered finite and nations were set to compete for this wealth with the assistance of imperial governments, was a driving force behind the rise of modern Europe in the 16-1700s. Capitalism, after all, can be traced to several distinct stages in Western history. Commercial capitalism was the first stage, and was associated with historical trends evident in Ming China, such as geographical discoveries, colonization, scientific innovation, and the increase in overseas trade. But in Europe, governments often protected and encouraged the burgeoning capitalist class, predominantly consisting of merchants, through governmental controls, subsidies, and monopolies, such as British East India Company. The absolutist states of the era often saw the growing potential to excise bourgeois profits to support their expanding, centralizing nation-states. It is curious that during the last century of the Ming Dynasty a genuine money economy emerged in China along with relatively large-scale mercantile and industrial enterprises under private as well as state ownership, such as the great textile centers of the southeast. In some respects, the question of economic development is at the center of debates pertaining to the relative decline of China in comparison with the modern West. Chinese Marxist historians, especially during the 1970s identified the Ming age one of "incipient capitalism", a description that seems quite reasonable, but one that does not quite explain the official downgrading of trade and increased state regulation of commerce during the Ming era. Marxian historians thus postulate that European-style mercantilism and industrialization might have evolved had it not been for the Manchu conquest and expanding European imperialism, especially after the Opium Wars. Post-modernist scholarship on China, however argues that this view is simplistic and at worst, flat out wrong. The ban on ocean going ships, it is pointed out, was intended to curb piracy and was lifted in 1557 at the strong urging of the bureaucracy who pointed out the harmful effects the ban on trade caused for the coastal economies. These historians, who include Kenneth Pomeranz, and Joanna Waley-Cohen deny that China "turned inward" at all and point out that this view of the Ming Dynasty is inconsistent with the growing volume of trade and commerce that was occurring between China and southeast Asia from 1557 onward. For example, when the Portuguese reached India, they found a growing trade network which they then followed all the way to China. In the 16th century, Europeans started to appear on the eastern shores and founded Macau, the first European settlement in China.

Failure of Government

The founder of the Ming Dynasty created a profoundly important document called the Ancestral Injunctions. This document (in a sense a constitution for the Ming) defined how the government was to be set up and defined what the Emperor could and could not do. Perhaps the key flaw in this document was the lack of provision for creating new laws. In a real sense, China, during the Ming, had no legislative body. There was no legal way to change the structure of the Ming government. This is seen most clearly in the way the grand secretary Chang Chu-cheng (ruled from 1572 to 1582) ran the Ming government. He was unable to make lasting changes in the civil service, instead everything he accomplished was through personal contacts and alliances he built up with other senior officials (see the Cambridge History of China, Volume 7, pages 522-528 for details).

Later grand secretaries were not as skilled as Chang at creating alliances and getting the various ministries to work with each other and for much of the period 1605 till the end, the civil service was split into factions who hated and distrusted each other (the notable new faction was the so-called Tung-lin faction).

The Role of Eunuchs

The Ming founder, Emperor Hongwu, did not want the court eunuchs to encroach on the official government of the Confucian scholars. Later, spurious histories claimed that he forbade enuches from learning how to write or to handle state documents, however this is not true (Cambridge History of China, Vol 7, pg. 287). It is the case that the court eunuchs were not allowed to communicate with members of the government outside of their official duties and this policy was followed till the Xuande Emperor officially set up schools for the imperial eunuchs and expanded their official duties to handle the processing of all the Emperor's personal documents. The reasons for this are clear, many decisions of the government had to personally be approved by the Emperor and the Ancestral Injunctions forbade the Emperor from creating a "chief executive" to handle any of the Emperor's tasks. The problem posed by the Eunuchs was equally clear, by issuing orders with the Imperial seal of authority, by preventing the Emperor from ever seeing some documents, the eunuchs could amass great power and wealth without anyone able to stop them.

The worst of the evil eunuchs was likely Wei Chung-hsien (ruled, roughly from 1620 to 1627). As the Cambridge History says "It is difficult to find anything positive to say about Wei Chung-hsie" (pg. 596). He had his political rivals tortured to death, he ordered temples built to himself throughout the Empire, he built personal palaces created with funds allocated for building the previous emperor's tombs, his friends and family gained important positions without qualifications. While Wei Chung-hsien was something of an extreme example, in general the problem of eunuchs running the country instead of the senior Confucian scholars was a hallmark of the later Ming dynasty.

Rebuilding the Great Wall

After the Ming army was defeated at the Battle of Tumu, the Ming court was unable to come up with a plan for dealing with the Mongol threat. They refused to trade with the Mongols (based on the idea that trade would just strengthen the Mongols), but equally they could not send armies north of the border with any chance of success against the Mongol horsemen. The Chinese were too weak in cavalry to chase the Mongols, and the Chinese infantry were too slow to bring them to battle. The only option that seemed open to the Ming generals was the creation of strong defensive fortifications. The Mongols army, based on horses and temporary in nature, could not lay siege to the giant forts. The forts also played to the strengths of Chinese in the fields of engineering and construction. Large forts were created (and some were abandoned) throughout the early Ming period at places like Tung-sheng, Yu-lin, Ta-t'ung, and Hsuan-fu. These forts were not connected to each other.

When some tribes of the Mongols moved into the desolate Ordos plain, the Ming court ordered the creation of a large wall along the hilltops above the Ordos. Constructed under the direction of Wang Yueh in the year 1475, it was some 600 miles of solid walls. The walls proved to be successful in defending against a raid conducted in 1482. A Chinese historian later wrote "...the raiders were trapped by walls and trenches and could not escape. Consequently, the raiders were decimated. At that, the people of the border region were made aware of Yueh's great achievement." (Cambridge History of China, Vol 7, pg 402). From that point on, the Ming created more walls connecting to the wall of 1475. From 1540 to 1550, walls were built all along the border north of the capital. In the 1570s, the walls were extended all the way east to the sea. This continuous wall is what the Europeans called the Great Wall of China. Work on the wall largely superseded military expeditions against the Mongols for the last 80 years of the Ming Dynasty and continued up until 1644, when the dynasty collapsed.

Network of secret agents

In the Ming Dynasty, networks of secret agents flourished throughout the military. Due to the humble background of Zhu Yuanzhang before he became emperor, he harbored a special hatred against corrupt officials and had great awareness of revolts. He created the Jinyi Wei, to offer himself further protection and act as secret police throughout the empire. Although there are a few successes in their history, they were more known for their brutality in handling crime than as an actually successful police force. In fact, many of the people they caught were actually innocent. The Jinyi Wei had spread a terror throughout their empire, but their powers were decimated as the eunuchs' influence at the court increased. The eunuchs created three groups of secret agents in their favour; the East Factory, the West Factory and the Inner Factory. All were no less brutal than the Jinyi Wei and probably worse, since they were more of a tool for the eunuchs to eradicate their political opponents than anything else.

Fall of the dynasty

The fall of the Ming Dynasty was a protracted affair, its roots beginning as early as 1600 with the emergence of the Manchu under Nurhaci. Under the brilliant commander, Yuan Chonghuan, the Ming was able to repeatedly fight off the Manchus, notably in 1626 at Ning-yuan and in 1628. Succeeding generals, however, proved unable to eliminate the Manchu threat. Earlier, however, in Yuan's command he had securely fortified the Shanhai pass, thus blocking the Manchus from crossing the pass to attack Liaodong Peninsula.

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 1633, they completed a conquest of Inner Mongolia, resulting in a large scale recruitment of Mongol troops under the Manchu banner and the securing of an additional route into the Ming heartland.

By 1636, the Manchu ruler Huang Taiji was confident enough to proclaim the Imperial Qing Dynasty at Shenyang, which had fallen to the Manchu in 1621, taking the Imperial title Chongde. The end of 1637 saw the defeat and conquest of Ming's traditional ally Korea by a 100,000 strong Manchu army, and the Korean renunciation of the Ming Dynasty.

On May 26, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng. Seizing their chance, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after Ming border general Wu Sangui opened the gates at Shanhai Pass, and quickly overthrew Li's short-lived Shun Dynasty. Despite the loss of Beijing (whose weakness as an Imperial capital Zhu Yuanzhang had foreseen) and the death of the emperor, Ming power was by no means 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, Zhu Youlang. Despite the Ming defeat, smaller loyalist movements continued until the proclamation of the Republic of China.

Preceded by Yuan Dynasty	Ming Dynasty 1368–1644	Succeeded by Qing Dynasty

See also

• 1421 hypothesis
• Dynasties in Chinese history
• Chancellor of China
• Chinese law
• Chinese sovereign
• Table of Chinese monarchs
• List of Emperors of the Ming Dynasty
• List of tributaries of Imperial China
• Timur
• Ming Dynasty military conquests
• Ming Dynasty painting
• Ming Dynasty Tombs
• Ming official headwear
• Koxinga
• Maritime Ban (Hai Jin, Chinese: 海禁)
• Xu Xiake
• Song Yingxing

Recommended Reading

Huang, Ray. 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure: commerce and culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998

Source for "Fall of the Ming Dynasty":- Dupuy and Dupuy's "Collins Encyclopedia of Military History"