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China The Chinese Regain Power
Rivalry among the Mongol imperial heirs, natural disasters, and
numerous peasant uprisings led to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty.
The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was founded by a Han Chinese peasant
and former Buddhist monk turned rebel army leader. Having its
capital first at Nanjing (which means Southern Capital) and later
at Beijing (Northern Capital), the Ming reached the zenith of power
during the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The Chinese
armies reconquered Annam, as northern Vietnam was then known, in
Southeast Asia and kept back the Mongols, while the Chinese fleet
sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the
east coast of Africa. The maritime Asian nations sent envoys with
tribute for the Chinese emperor. Internally, the Grand Canal was
expanded to its farthest limits and proved to be a stimulus to
domestic trade.
The Ming maritime expeditions stopped rather suddenly after
1433, the date of the last voyage. Historians have given as one of
the reasons the great expense of large-scale expeditions at a time
of preoccupation with northern defenses against the Mongols.
Opposition at court also may have been a contributing factor, as
conservative officials found the concept of expansion and
commercial ventures alien to Chinese ideas of government. Pressure
from the powerful Neo-Confucian bureaucracy led to a revival of
strict agrarian-centered society. The stability of the Ming
dynasty, which was without major disruptions of the population
(then around 100 million), economy, arts, society, or politics,
promoted a belief among the Chinese that they had achieved the most
satisfactory civilization on earth and that nothing foreign was
needed or welcome.
Long wars with the Mongols, incursions by the Japanese into
Korea, and harassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Japanese in
the sixteenth century weakened Ming rule, which became, as earlier
Chinese dynasties had, ripe for an alien takeover. In 1644 the
Manchus took Beijing from the north and became masters of north
China, establishing the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644-
1911).
Data as of July 1987
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